Paper Monitor
11:38 UK time, Friday, 22 February 2013
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
The Daily Mail looks at . "A recluse who guards his privacy obsessively, Sacha Baron Cohen has made a fortune out of exposing others to very public ridicule."
He's the highest paid Brit in Hollywood but remains "tortured and perturbed" by fame, the paper says. As an example it recounts how at the end of a night "carousing" in London's Embassy club, he went to the toilets, changed into "mangy-looking" clothes and got through the cordon of photographers unnoticed.
To this observer, it smacks of cunning rather than angst. But one keeps reading, hoping for signs of a tortured soul. Instead there is a description of his booming business. He is to play Freddie Mercury next year. He's also working on a comedy called The Lesbian about the Hong Kong dad offering £40 million to any man who marries his gay daughter.
The rest of the piece could appear in the property section. There's the £12.6m home he owns in the Hollywood Hills.
"The secluded English-country-style manor, with a driveway planted with bougainvillea and geraniums, has seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a guest house, detached movie theatre, swimming pool and spa. Its walls are hung with modern art, and Baron Cohen has quietly become a noted collector, lavishing millions on his passion."
He's put another home in the Hollywood Hills on the market for £1.7m. Then there's the £24,000 a-month, five storey townhouse he and wife Isla Fisher rent in New York's SoHo.
The couple also paid £6,500 a week for a six-bedroom home overlooking Sydney Harbour while Isla was filming the Great Gatsby. Hope you're taking notes at the back.
What else? Well, there's the £75,000 Jaguar XJ...
In an only tenuously connected news story, it emerges that the number of people with the surname Cohen has dropped by 42% since 1901. "It's Goodbye Mr Chips" . Chips, Hatman, Temples are three that have gone "extinct". Pober, Mirren and Febland are deemed "extremely rare".
One in 50 Britons now has a double-barrelled name. No mention of the proudly hyphen-less Paper Monitor though.
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