STARS' LUMPS OF YULETIDE COAL
TIRED of heartwarming tales of Christmas cheer? Read on: from Webster Hall curator Baird Jones come stories of holiday horror and gift-giving gone awry that prove, as Jim Carrey told World Entertainment News Network, "If you dig deep enough, everyone has a reason to be miserable at Christmas."
Among the warm and fuzzy yuletide memories Jones collected:
* Filmmaker John Waters' favorite Christmas memory is of the tree falling on his grandmother.
* Peter O'Toole's father, Capt. "Spats" O'Toole, came home tipsy one Christmas Eve. O'Toole told in his memoir, "Loitering With Intent," how he once asked his dad if Father Christmas was coming. Spats went outside, burst a paper bag, and told his young son that Father Christmas had just shot himself. O'Toole "wept for hours."
* Jeffrey Katzenberg, as Paramount studio chief, required his underlings to work Christmas Day. According to Kim Masters' book "The Keys to the Kingdom," Katzenberg rewarded them with turkey sandwiches.
* Mary Higgins Clark didn't have a Christmas tree when she was 10 because, "My mother waited too long to buy one . . . and none was left. So she decorated a lamp."
* Sylvester Stallone supposedly bought his wife Jennifer Flavin, her sister Trish and two best friends, yuletide boob jobs one year. Metasleaze.com quotes a friend as saying: "He loves Jennifer and thought this was the best way to show that."
* Richard Dreyfuss once sent Steven Spielberg "a poison scorpion set in amber. It was the only thing I could think of that he didn't have. The gift was not - I repeat not - any reflection on him."
* Larry Flynt's daughter Tonya recalls her flesh-peddling father's gift gaffe: "The Christmas card he sent me when I was 12 had a picture of Santa on a bed making love with a nude model and a gift of hundreds of dollars inside. I cried so much."
* Princess Diana's last Christmas present from Queen Elizabeth II, according to "The Day Diana Died" by Christopher Anderson, was a bar of soap.
* But the all-time worst gift-giver in history was Vincent van Gogh, who famously sliced off one of his ears on Dec. 23, 1888 after his girlfriend, a prostitute named Rachel, made fun of their large size. He delivered the trophy to Rachel on Christmas Day.