Pimp of the Week: Leonardo DiCaprio

I know I talk about him a lot, but Leonardo DiCaprio is something special. His charms are part-boy, part-man, which lend him the appeal of being both prince and pimp. As the apple of Martin Scorsese's eye, Leo stars in the new epic thriller, Shutter Island. The film takes place at a hospital for the criminally insane in the 1950s. As my father says, "It seems pretty heavy duty." But even with the strangely feminized French dubbing of Leo's voice, I was riveted.

Leo is not only a ravishing screen specimen, but he is also into solar roof panels and boats made from recycled plastic bottles. He promotes clean energy, attracts lovely women, gives away millions to worthy causes, has his own production company, and is on the cover of Esquire magazine smoking a cigar and splashing a low ball of scotch. If he's not a Pimp of the Week, then there's no hope for the rest of us.

Pimp of the Week: Owen Wilson

Owen Wilson dazzled me as a pot-smoking male model (mimbo to the max) in Zoolander. And then he stole my heart when he co-wrote and co-starred in the eternally iconic film, The Royal Tenenbaums. And now Owen Wilson is rumored to be starring in Woody Allen's next movie with French first lady and anti-monogamist, Carla Bruni.

Wilson calls himself a bad boy, and, like any proper pimp, he knows how to turn nothing into something. At age 16 he was expelled from his straight-laced Dallas prep school. But then he found a way to make a career out of dicking around with his best friend, Wes Anderson, and his brother, Luke. They turned 5 million dollars of Texan petty cash into the well-reviewed, poorly received film, Bottle Rocket.

By some ignorant film-goers, Owen Wilson is known for his distinctive nose, which was been broken many times, but I think it's just another sign of a life lived to the max.

Pimp of the Week: J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger is the literary pimp who brought us such universally appealing expressions as "crummy," "phony," and "mean bastards." If he had not created Holden Caulfield, adolescents the world over would feel far less justified in escaping high school to wander the streets of Manhattan, to pay for prostitutes (strictly for talking purposes), and to seek alcohol-soaked wisdom from their English teachers.

But after Salinger became the star of literary irony, he receded into the anti-social depths of rural New Hampshire. But one can only remain in total isolation for so long. At age 53 Salinger ended up writing a series of letters to a Yale freshman girl, Joyce Maynard, because her article in The New York Times Magazine.

Maynard gave up the Ivy League to live with Salinger in New Hampshire. The affair ended when she wanted children and he wanted his peace and quiet. At least she got 10 months of boundless literary advice and a lifetime of unmatched dinner table conversation.

Pimp of the Week: Graydon Carter

Over the sea of Botoxed brows and candy-coiffed diners at a posh restaurant, I spotted the billowing plumage of none other than Graydon Carter. The Vanity Fair editor-in-chief exudes laid-back New England suavity, even though he is a political, literary, and cultural king of Manhattan. He also dabbles in restaurateurism and co-owns New York's cozy-clubby celebrity dining spot, the Waverly Inn, along with Midtown's old school Monkey Bar.

As Carter was exiting the restaurant, I dashed up to him like the desperate young pseudo-writer that I am and handed him my email address on a scrap of paper. All I could muster up to say was, "I'm a huge fan -- I'm a starving writer," but then I corrected myself, "Well, clearly I'm not quite starving, but you know..." I told him about the unpublished novel I wrote and let him go on his way. You never know when a humiliating experience will spin into gold. Perhaps Graydon Carter will be my Rumpelstiltskin.

Pimp of the Week: Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton is a total pimp. He was a seminal fashion photographer in the 1970s. I visited the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin and was spellbound by Newton's pictures -- always erotically charged, slightly deranged, subversive, and sinister in a way that exposed the fallacy of the luxe lifestyle.

His handwritten letters to various fashion editors are particularly amusing. He once wrote to Anna Wintour, "I love high riders like Gary Cooper used to wear." And he tended to sign his letters with: "From the old naughty boy!"

Newton once said about his preference of models, "Please make sure you get a gal with some muscle and meat on her -- none of those starved females!! Horrible matchstick women." He knew that the whole heroin/anorexic-chic look was useless in artistic photography, and useless in general.

Pimp of the Week: Hugh Grant

Hugh Grant is apparently quite the "Renaissance man," as he is proficient at both golf and tennis, buys paintings, is reasonably literate, and even dabbled with novel writing. Since Did You Hear About the Morgans?, a new romantic comedy premiered last week, USA Today did a little interview about the wonders that make up Hugh Grant. His "rakish" persona has charmed me ever since I saw him acting like a complete wanker in Bridget Jones's Diary. He cozies into, and perhaps even invented, the 'emotionally unavailable men' roles.

In the USA Today interview, Grant, admitted to the dangers of vanity: "I stopped Googling myself. Life improves exponentially. I think the same thing applies to reviews." He also confessed to his penchant for showering girls with expensive accessories and shopping at Chanel. But I think it is mostly because he loves the way the salesgirls make him feel about himself.