Yes, Cameron is something of a force of Hollywood. The famously extravagant blockbuster-makin' special effects pioneer has made his name on innovation and bold choices and from the piece it's clear he approaches his work with total dedication, is powered by real intellectual curiosity, and has a childlike enthusiasm for what he does. He's also, apparently, a bombastic narcissist with a predictable love of rich-boy toys, a penchant for nautical terminology, a store of boastful stories about facing down forest fires while his neighbors flee, and a tendency to, on occasion, deliver Tinseltown charmers like, "Tell your friend he's getting fucked in the ass, and if he would stop squirming it wouldn't hurt so much." He also says stuff like this:

I try to live with honor, even if it costs me millions of dollars and takes a long time...It's very unusual in Hollywood. Few people are trustworthy-a handshake means nothing to them. They feel they're required to keep an agreement with you only if you're successful, or they need you. I've tried not to get sucked into the Hollywood hierarchy system. Personally, I don't like it when people are deferential to me because I'm an established filmmaker. It's a blue-collar sensibility.

Lately, this integrity has led him to spend four years and upwards of two hundred and thirty million dollars on Avatar, his long-awaited next fantasia. It's an elaborate sci-fi effects-fest, because, you see, Cameron's over doing the kind of sensitive work we've allegedly come to expect from him.

With Avatar, I thought, Forget all these chick flicks and do a classic guys' adventure movie...Of course, the whole movie ends up being about women, how guys relate to their lovers, mothers-there's a large female presence. I try to do my testosterone movie and it's a chick flick. That's how it is for me.

Cameron, you see, is a champion of women in film. Building on the example of Alien, he decided to give Terminator a female lead (Linda Hamilton, who'd go on to become Cameron's fourth wife.)

Hollywood metonymy for female characters is "handbags," also known as "girlfriend parts"-in other words, incidental sidekicks. Gale Anne Hurd, Cameron's second wife, and the producer of his first three films, says that Cameron always found women more interesting than men as protagonists. "He felt that they were underutilized in sci-fi, action, and fantasy," she said. "And that just about everything you could explore in a male action hero could be explored better with a woman."

One of his old friends says, of "strong women," "He likes to write about 'em and he likes to marry 'em. If there's one or two themes that run through his life and work, that's at the top of the list." And how does he get in touch with the female psyche? Easy: "You write dialogue for a guy and then change the name." And this transference goes both ways: at Comic-Con, "when someone in the audience asked about his next movie, he replied, 'You know, it's not a great time to ask a woman if she wants to have other kids when she's crowning.'" In his new film, feminine power is represented by back-in-space Zoë Saldana, who plays an ass-kicking princess named Neytiri, and whose sketches the author describes as "hipless, lean, with proportions to make Barbie look like a Cabbage Patch Kid."

It would be absurd to accuse Cameron of writing one-note women, because it would imply that his men are fully-realized. And say what one will, Sarah Connor is a heroine for the ages and an arm-fitness trendsetter. We can argue the value of the Terminator franchise all day, but at least it's equal-opp! It is depressing though that this is what passes both for a great, landmark part and for a pro-woman director. All Cameron's talk of strong women is kind of like his talk of the "authenticity" of Titanic - who cares if the light fixture's an exact copy when you have your characters talking and acting like late-20th-century Californians? But it's obvious that he really believes everything he says - and who am I to argue with the King of the World?

Man Of Extremes [New Yorker]

Born in 1912, Dean was just two months old when the ship sank. She was traveling with her family to Kansas, where her father hoped to open a tobacconist's shop. But her father did not survive the disaster, and her family's emigration was aborted when they were returned to England. Dean didn't know about any of this until she was eight, when her mother decided to remarry. The last survivor with actual memories of the ship, Lillian Asplund, died in 2006.

Dean avoided discussing the Titanic for much of her life — after seeing the 1958 movie A Night To Remember, she refused to watch any other Titanic-themed films, including 1997's Titanic. But after the wreck of the Titanic was discovered in 1985, she began attending Titanic-themed conventions. When she could no longer pay her nursing home fees, she even sold her mementos of the disaster, including clothes she was given after her rescue, and a letter from the Titanic relief fund. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet also promised to donate to pay for her care.

The strange thing about Dean's life and death is that her fame came from a tragedy that she often seemed to want to forget. Though late in life she cheerfully signed autographs for children, she also said she was glad sh had no memories of the disaster, and that she hoped the wreck was never raised from the ocean. "I don't want them to raise it, I think the other survivors would say exactly the same," she said. "That would be horrible." Though she seemed ultimately to embrace it, and it brought her monetary help at the end of her life, her celebrity was still based on a horrible event that claimed her father. That people the world over were eager to get her autograph and buy her old clothes speaks to humans' fundamental curiosity, but also to an enthusiasm for other people's suffering that's a little unsettling. Hopefully all the interest in her tragic infancy helped her more than it hurt her.

Last Survivor Of "Unsinkable" Titanic Dies At 97 [AP]
'Titanic' Stars Help Ship's Last Survivor [USA Today]

In order to quench readers' insatiable thirst for gossip, we've decided to try an evening edition of the much-beloved Dirt Bag. Now you won't have to wait for morning to find out the latest celebrity news. Welcome to the swirling, sleazy disco ball of "Dirt Bag After Dark". 18 to enter and 21 to drink, ladies!

• Debra Messing was sad when tabloids were talking smack about her post-baby body. "On one page it showed all the actresses who got skinny in six weeks or less, and on the other page was me! I was so depressed and frustrated," she says. But now Debs is happy because she's skinny again! "I've finally taken ownership of my body." [People]
• Former sexiest man alive George Clooney is fake-sad about passing the sexy mantle Hugh Jackman. Hugh says George called him up at 2 am and "He goes, 'Shut up, Jackman!'…I know what you did! You started this big campaign that's been going on and [you] took the title away from me.'" Clooney vs. Jackman? That is one cat fight we would pay money to see. [People]
• Kim Ledger accepted GQ's actor of the year award in honor of Heath. He called Heath a "beautiful boy" and took the award on behalf "his little one Matilda and our family." [Daily Telegraph]

• Shock of all shocks, Perez Hilton is claiming the Speidi marriage was staged by Us and is probably not legal. You don't say! [Perez]
• Beyonce says that watching her sister Solange give birth made her reconsider having babies: "I was there in the delivery room and it kind of traumatized me. I said please don't have me in the room. And she said, 'You have to. I'm your sister. Stop being so silly.' Well, I was right!" [People]
• The always-humble Kanye West says his new album is "great art." He also said that his most recent trip to the bathroom resulted in "great fart." He's so grandiose! [AP via Yahoo]
• Those of you who wanted to download all your fave Beatles hits on iTunes may have to wait a little longer. According to the BBC negotiations between Apple and the surviving Beatles are stalled. "We are very for it, we've been pushing it. But there are a couple of sticking points, I understand," Paul McCartney says. [BBC]
• Despite their public feuding, Rosie O'Donnell says that Barbara Walters is welcome on her new variety show. Who wouldn't want to share a stage with Rosie and Liza Minnelli? [ETOnline]
• Do you love Amy Sedaris enough to sit through a 6 hour PBS documentary just 'cause she's in it? You'll find out after Christmas, when she and Billy Crystal helm the docu-series Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America. [Fishbowl LA]
• Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes will be on the cover of the next issue of T, the New York Times style magazine. [NYM]
• Kate Winslet is in Parade mag this weekend and she talks about watching herself in Titanic years later. "I just love seeing those things. I am enjoying my face changing, as well as realizing that at the same time, as you get older, the machine isn’t as well-oiled as it was," she says. [Just Jared]
• Pete Wentz dishes on the origin of "Bronx Mowgli Simpson Wentz." According to E!, "We came up with the idea Bronx, we'd been throwing it back and forth a while ago… [as for the middle name] The Jungle Book is something me and Ashlee bonded over. It's really cool." [E! Online via Yahoo]
• Bad news for the Gyllenhaal parents: their divorce proceedings have revealed that Naomi Foner and Stephen Gyllenhaal are pretty much broke. Naomi, a screenwriter, was so financially embattled during the WGA strike that she had to take out a loan. Can't Jakey spare a dime?