Some people like to air their private, dirty (or cleaned) laundry publicly -- Whitney Houston and Johnny Depp are two celebrities who have put undergarments up for auction (granted, for very different reasons). Some laundry, of the less-literal variety, stays hidden, or gets revealed by those hot, unauthorized biographies. And, just sometimes, the stories come out years after the star passes on. According to The Guardian, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, a place I've been dying to visit, has gotten one heck of a collection of loot -- Katharine Hepburn's writings and theater memorabilia.

There's personal notes, fan mail from the likes of Judy Garland, Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier, and Henry Fonda, receipts, stage dimensions, and records of some pretty funny stories. You see, people don't get in trouble with the law like they used to. These days, there's scary mugshots, racial slurs, and drunken craziness, but Kate, she knew how to handle a cop. Among the notes is her account of facing an Oklahoma state police officer: "She lambasted him for being a 'moron,' called him 'handsome in a dull sort of way,' and snapped that she was sorry she did not have a week to take off to deal with his complaint. Then she threatened that if she ever found an Oklahoma car in Connecticut 'I would flatten all the tyres.'" That lady had spunk. If you want to see the goodies for yourself, they'll go on display in February.

I think we can all agree that we're a little more preoccupied with celebrities than we should be. It's scary when I know way more about about people I've never met than my neighbors -- without batting an eye I could name Brad Pitt's girlfriends in chronological order, it's sick. Don't worry; I'm not about to hop on a soapbox about the evils of celebrity culture. Most "stargazing" is relatively harmless, although if you were Steven Spielberg or Jodie Foster, you probably wouldn't agree.

One of the most benign past-times of Hollywood lovers is collecting memorabilia. So while you and I might indulge in the occasional In Touch magazine or collector's edition DVD, for others collecting is a serious and expensive business. 20th Century Fox's charity auction in New York consisted of letters and contracts from some of the biggest names in Hollywood history. Included in the auction were a signed letter by Marilyn Monroe (sold for $7,000) and contracts from Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and John Steinbeck. Steinbeck's contract for handing over the rights to The Grapes of Wrath was the big-ticket item of the day, netting $24,000. Proceeds from the auction; totaling $267,280, went to the Motion Picture & Television Fund, providing financial assistance to struggling actors and directors. The charity might be a worthy cause, but I can't imagine forking over almost $25,000 for paperwork. What memorabilia, if any, would you be willing to take out a small loan for?

Okay, lovely Cinematical readers. Perhaps you missed it the first time around, but we're having a little contest here to celebrate Cinematical's first birthday. With prizes and everything! To refresh your memory, here's the dealio: all you have to do is enter is take a pic of whatever cheesy or super-cool movie memorabilia you have in your apartment, house or whereever you live. We know you've got some. Maybe you own every Star Wars action figure ever made, and you display them on your mantel. Maybe you have a collection of E.T. toys. Maybe you have a life-sized Spider-Man cutout hanging out in your living room. Maybe you're still hanging on to that Farrah Fawcett t-shirt you stole from your dad's dresser drawer.

Whatever it is, take a picture of it, and email it to james(dot)rocchi(at)cinematical(dot)com. We've extended the deadline to 11:59PM EST, Friday, March 31. So get that digital camera out, take a pic, and send it in already! First prize will be a $200 Amazon gift certificate. Two runners-up will get one of our snazzy Cinematical t-shirts.

Rules - boring, but necessary - are below the fold.

Ray Pride at Movie City Indie has unearthed this gem from the bowels (no pun intended) of eBay: someone is selling a Medicare ID card once belonging to silent screen legend Louise Brooks.

Brooks started out as a Zeigfeld girl. Exquisitely beautiful, with big, sexy brown eyes and a delicate dancer's frame, she made a small splash in Hollywood in the late Teens, working with hired hands/future auteurs such as Howard Hawks and making 21 now-forgotten silent features. When her five year contract with Paramount expired in 1929, the studio tried to lowball her on the extension, expressing doubts over her ability to transfer into sound. Brooks took one look at the offer on the table and walked out. Soon she was contacted by the great German director G.W. Pabst, with whom Brooks went on to make her two most memorable films: Pandora's Box (in which she plays a "free spirt"/sex kitten who meets her untimely death at the hand of Jack the Ripper) and the abstract Diary of a Lost Girl. though now considered classics, both films flopped, and Lulu (as history remembers her, after the character she played in Pandora) returned to Hollywood, made a few crap b-movies and retired in 1938. She eventually moved to upstate New York, where in her older days she cranked out a stunning volume of memoirs called Lulu in Hollywood before dying alone in the mid-80s. She also is credited with popularizing the black bob, thereby practically inventing hipster couture.

Anyway – the Medicaid and Blue Cross/Blue shield cards on eBay date back to the early 70s. They include Brooks' signature, as well as evidence of her wicked sense of humor – under "next of kin" on the back of one of the cards, Brooks entered, "emphysema". Bid now - the auction ends tomorrow, and the lot is currently going for about $370.