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3.0 out of 5 stars
A good resource but woefully incomplete., March 21, 2002
The Celebrity Directory may be an indispensible resource for those dealing with celebrities on a regular basis, but in many basic respects it is disappointingly incomplete. While the inclusion of celebrities from previous years is welcome, new celebrities seem only to be added four or five years after they become "stars" - when they are added at all. The introduction claims that "if a person is famous and worth locating, it's almost certain that his or her name and address is listed" in the Directory. People like Kevin Smith, Russell Crowe, Jeff Probst, Jason Mewes, Owen Wilson, Peter Jackson, and Jackie Chan are going to very disappointed to learn that they are neither famous nor worth locating. Fortunately, the mailing addresses of Gabe Kaplan, Men at Work, Wendy Jo Sperber, and His Royal Majesty King Tupou IV of Tonga are all readily available. That last paragraph may seem a bit unfair, but come on! Owen Wilson has been making films since 1994 and Jackie Chan is quite possibly the most famous movie actor on the planet, if you count Asian box office - and these days, you should. A lag time of two or three years might be acceptable but eight or nine or even twenty or thirty, as in Chan's case? Inexcusable. I will grant the editors that they have an impressive backlog and that they have accounted for a reasonable number of modern actors, but this book is not a comprehensive celebrity resource or even a comprehensive actor's resource. There's still a bit of legwork to be done if you're looking for someone who became active in the last five years and isn't yet a mega-super-star...
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