Andrew Gumbel: News from Hollywood

Marilyn's bra, Charlize's corset, Natalie's pink number ... No wonder I got my knickers in a twist

I have to admit, I've never been much of a lingerie man. Can't really say why. All those bits of whalebone and lace and strange clip thingies have always struck me as being more trouble than they're worth - but then the same could be said about intricate French after-dinner pastries (all that work, gone in a single snap of the teeth) and I certainly see the point of them.

My indifference hasn't helped when it comes to covering lingerie in my capacity as a professional journalist. I was once asked to cover an underwear fashion parade in Paris but failed utterly to get myself accredited because the organisers appeared to think I was in it strictly for my own titillation. (If only - not only am I uninterested in lingerie, but when it comes to supermodels I'm with Edna Mold, the priceless fashion designer character from The Incredibles, who calls them "stupid little stick figures with poofy lips who think only about themselves".)

A few days ago my lingerie curse struck again, this time in my effort to be admitted to an auction of celebrity corsets at the legendarily tacky (but now, in its relatively new reincarnation, soaringly upmarket) Frederick's of Hollywood. This was the store where starlets once came in search of the requisite dose of ooh-la-la and male fantasy fulfilment with which to impress producers, agents and casting directors. An in-store lingerie museum boasts several wardrobe items from well-known movies - Marilyn Monroe's strapless bra from Let's Make Love, Natalie Wood's pink number from Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Tony Curtis's intimate apparel from the drag scenes in Some Like It Hot.

Fredericks' was also famous, in the not-so-distant days when Hollywood was itself a disreputable neighbourhood full of pimps and drug dealers, for its line in the sort of risqué fare now more commonly associated with the Hustler Store a couple of miles away on Sunset Boulevard: red sheer crotchless panties, black bustiers that don't shape a girl's breasts so much as hand them out on a plate like a pair of canapés, that sort of thing.

Images of the store's founder, one Frederick Mellinger (always known as Mr Frederick in advertising copy), have always struck me as distinctly louche. With his moustache and his lotioned hair, he bears a striking resemblance to the high-class pimp Piers Patchett from the movie LA Confidential.

Anyway, as I was thinking of gathering material for this column, I thought it would be entertaining to see Frederick's new flagship store, which is a few doors down from the old pink-and-grey building on Hollywood Boulevard and now features bright red awnings in an effort to sell itself as a genuinely classy joint on a par with Barney's.

The company recently emerged from bankruptcy protection, closed a few dozen outlets - it has about 150 remaining across the United States - and underwent a major image overhaul to compete with the voracious marketing departments at competitors like Victoria's Secret.

The celebrity auction struck me as a characteristic piece of Hollywood nonsense - a series of corsets personally designed by the likes of Charlize Theron, Melanie Griffith, Tori Amos and Julianne Moore, the hostess for the evening, that were being auctioned off to benefit a charity for a rare genetic disease almost nobody has heard of. (The disease is called tubular sclerosis, and while it sounds horrible for the unlucky few who suffer from it - it causes tumours to form on various vital organs, and has no cure - it's hardly a pandemic on the scale of Aids or, God forbid, avian flu.)

Then my usual bad luck set in. The publicist for Frederick's said she'd have to refer my accreditation request to her boss. What was it I wanted to write about anyway, she wondered suspiciously. Why was an English journalist suddenly so interested in Frederick's, and at the last minute to boot?

I never did hear back from the publicist, but by way of another contact I managed to get through to the store's top management, who came back with an utterly bewildering proposal. I could come to the event, they said, as long as I agreed not to mention the name Frederick's in anything I wrote. They appeared to be afraid that a harmless little column in a British newspaper might get them in trouble with their own publicity department, for crying out loud.

After picking my jaw up from the floor, I realised I could only counter this conundrum with one of my own. Rather than attend an event and thereby be barred from covering it, I concluded I had no choice but to steer clear of the event but write about it anyway. Which is what I've done. And I'll forever think of Frederick's as the underwear store where, as usual, I got my journalistic knickers in a twist.

Downey on the up

There's been cheering this week among the friends and fans of Robert Downey Jr, an actor as indisputably talented as he is worryingly prone to screwing up on drugs. Having staged a rehabilitation, of sorts, with the 2003 film Gothika (including a meeting with his now wife, producer Susan Levin), he is now earning rave reviews for his leading role in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a tongue-in-cheek postmodern romp of a movie about actors imitating private eyes, and vice versa. The film comes out in the UK on 11 November.

Friends and colleagues insist Downey is now clean, and as engaging and brilliant as ever. Having been considered uninsurable on set following multiple arrests and one stint in a gruesome state prison, he now has a staggering seven films in the pipeline, with two more announced after that. Long may it last.