The Most Intriguing Celebrity Body Parts - By Kati Johnston

The great thing about TV is that it lets you linger on all the details of your favorite stars. See something weird in a movie and it's gone in a flash, but thanks to TiVo and endless syndication, we can obsess about TV celebrities and their most fascinating body parts over and over -- and even anticipate their reappearance, like clues on "Lost." And as you become fixated on the feature, it begins to color how you watch the show. (Remember that classic Zippy the Pinhead strip where Zippy becomes obsessed with "WKRP in Cincinnati" star
Loni Anderson, only not her famous breasts, but rather ... her white-blonde hair, sprayed
into an alien helmet? Zippy believed it seemed to float around the TV screen as if on its
own power. That kind of fixation.) Here, for your dissecting pleasure, are some of our
favorite celebrity body parts:

Marcia Cross/Retna

Forehead
Marcia Cross, "Desperate Housewives"

Yes, Bree is supposed to be tightly wound. But is she really supposed to look as though she's about to burst out of her own skull? That forehead is pulled about as tight as a bongo top, and with her hair stretched back as if by a medieval torture device, Bree's forehead now enters a room a second before the rest of her face does. Cross can look lovely, as her appearance at the Emmys showed, when her hair softens that egghead, but when it's in the limelight, that's the real star.

Video: Marcia Cross interview

Chris Noth/Retna Hair
Chris Noth, "Law & Order: Criminal Intent"

OK, what exactly has happened here? We just saw Noth as dreamy Mr. Big on "Sex and the City," and drooled over him on the original "L&O." Now he's back as a clumsy add-on to "C.I.," but worse than the scripts is whatever it is Noth has on his head. Toupe? Hairplugs? He and his stylist seem to be channeling the blown-forward tufty mohawk of little Maddox Jolie-Pitt, and it's got auburn tiger stripes to boot.

Runners-up: Both Nick (with the Alfalfa sprout on top) and Santino (Has he ever washed those long stringy things? Bring back the knit cap!) on "Project Runway"; Alyssa Milano through the years on "Charmed" (especially when she does six or seven little buns around her head, like a trippy Swiss milkmaid); the perennially captivating Donald Trump; Paris Hilton and her clip-on yarn extensions; and Jennifer Aniston, but only the season of "Friends" when she wore those waist-length horse-hair ropes to mask that most of her hair had fallen out.

Video: Chris Noth interview
Pamela Anderson/Retna Eyebrows
Tie: Jesse Metcalfe, "Desperate Housewives," and Pamela Anderson, "Stacked"

Yes, Metcalfe recently left "Housewives" for a fabulous career in movies, but his eyebrows are still packing in their trailer. Kathy Griffin riffed on them on the red carpet at the Emmys, but we noticed them first. Overly groomed and so dark they appear if they were applied with a blunt-tip Sharpie, they seem to follow you around the room, like the eyes of the Mona Lisa. And you might think Anderson would be noticed for her more well-known attributes, but we remain fascinated by the tiny Marlene Dietrich half moons lasered into her forehead. Runners-up:Jack Nicholson (whose eyebrows are actually very cool, and possibly his best remaining feature), Peter Gallagher and the plucked-within-an-inch-of-her-life Mariah Carey.

Video: Pamela Anderson interview
Alyssa Milano/Retna Tattoos
This one's tough -- they are all bad, or at least so conspicuous you find yourself missing whole chunks of dialogue. The winners by an eye of newt: the "Charmed" girls, especially Alyssa Milano, who, thanks to her revealing clothes and the aforementioned wacky hairdos, may or may not actually be showing the tats she has on the back of her neck (ick) and shoulder blade (and I think there's something lurking just under her belt line in front too). Sometimes you see them -- and because she's got delicate features, they seem even harsher -- and then sometimes for no good reason, they disappear, like when she's dressed up for charity balls and stuff. It's a good call to cover them for dressy moments, but it just makes you more fixated on those patches of her skin. Holly Marie Combs and Rose McGowan got their tattoos after a few seasons on the show, so watching reruns of them becomes a fun game of hide and seek. Runners-up: Eve (kitty paws: there, then not; then there again), Angelina Jolie (hoo-boy, she's going to regret that Latin fortune-cookie thing across her belly ... when those words stretch out as her bump grows, it's going to be like newsprint on Silly Putty).

Video: Angelina Jolie discusses her tattoos
Page 1 of 2          Next next