Joanne Douglas
Home: Glendale
Age: 37
Height: 5’ 7"
Weight: 125
Stats: 36-26-34

This vegetarian who originally hails from Jamaica got her first taste of modeling in high school when she nervously raised her hand to volunteer to be an art class model. “And I was just hooked from then,” she said.

“I think I was born an actor and model,” Joanne noted. “From the minute I popped out my parents started taking pictures of me. Everything I did was photographed, so from an early age I developed a love for posing.”

After high school Joanne quickly found work as a department store model and later a lingerie model at a retail outlet on Fifth Avenue. From there she progressed into working as an extra in films and TV.

A lot of her work has focused on non-profits, doing photo shoots for such events as the Great American Meatout, the Manhattan East Breast Imaging Center and the 92nd Street Y Breast Cancer Prevention Seminar.

“You may not know my face, but you may have seen my breasts,” she said.

Living a mostly vegetarian lifestyle, staying away from fat along with rigorous exercise has kept Joanne in shape. But she admits that her looks are not all about good living.

“I eat right, get good medical care and have a fabulous plastic surgeon - Dr. Stanley Taub on Central Park South in Manhattan. He has helped me become the best model I can possibly be.”

She also thanked her husband, who has “a lucrative job on Wall Street,” for giving her the opportunity to fulfill her artistic desires. “I’m very grateful to my husband for that,” she said.

MOMA Out Of Queens

Apparently the art critic world dreaded coming to Queens to visit the temporary location of the Museum of Modern Art, especially the snooty Brits.

The Economist called the Long Island City space that housed the museum a “bunker” in its recent review, while praising the Yoshio Taniguchi-redesigned Manhattan space which reopened last week. U.K.’s New Statesman called the space “an old warehouse,” while the Independent called it a “repository” in a “less than trendy neighborhood.” Back home, Stevenson Swanson, writing for the Chicago Tribune and subsequently being picked up by a dozen national papers, described MoMA’s time in the world’s most ethnically diverse borough as “two years of self-imposed exile.”
Good riddance!

Marines Storm ‘Queens,’ Jihadist Stronghold

The violent confrontation in Queens, pitting a coalition of U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces against insurgents and jihadists, dominated the front pages of publications around the world for the past several weeks.

In Slate, an online magazine, one journalist on the scene describes the situation: “Long the lair of criminal gangs, terrorists, kidnappers, and jihadists, Queens was a jumble of a few thousand drab cement two-story houses and dirt roads, with scant vegetation.”

Huh? Since when did the finest borough in the Big Apple become an Iraqi battleground?

Though only a few correspondents have appropriated the lingo, Marines fighting inside Fallujah have divided the war-torn town into the five boroughs of New York City, a common military practice that uses nicknames for geographically confusing or hard to pronounce foreign locations. Queens, it seems, is the designation for the southernmost district in Fallujah, an area of about four square kilometers.

The fighting in Fallujah, according to media reports, has seen the Marine force push into the city from the east, sweeping north and west and capturing the sections named for the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island—almost 70 percent of the rebellious city. With all exits blocked by a military cordon, Queens is the last section held by the insurgents, where they remain trapped in the face of the onslaught.

Who would have thought that the biggest battle since the fall of Baghdad would end up with a brutal standoff in Queens?

Write On!

Mitch Albom

Once again, Mitch Albom is preparing to take on Hollywood.

The award-winning sportswriter for the Detroit Free-Press has turned himself into a veritable triple threat as ABC has announced it will air on Dec 5, “The Five People You’ll Meet In Heaven,” the film based on the former Forest Hills resident’s second blockbuster novel of the same name.

The film, which stars Jon Voigt and Ellen Burstyn, will be the second TV movie based on one of Albom’s books: “Tuesdays With Morrie,” starring Jack Lemmon, won an Emmy Award in 2000.

Albom got his start as a writer and went on to become Managing Editor right here at the Queens Tribune.

Drug Money!

JaRule

Oops. Hollis native Ja Rule, a beacon of lawfulness in the hip hop community, broke the law. Well, his personal manager, Ron Robinson, did. He was arraigned last week for laundering more than $1 million. Surely Ja Rule is entirely innocent.

According to sources, the charges stem from an investigation of record label The Inc. (formerly Murder Inc.). That investigation reportedly involves ties to drug trafficking, money laundering and gang activities. Oops.

Homecoming?

Lucy Liu

Welcome back!
That’s what Jackson Heights residents can say to Lucy Liu when she and the cast of her latest film, “Lucky Number Slevin,” start shooting in this December. She and co-stars Josh Hartnet, Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman will film in New York and Montreal. Exact film locations have not been released.

The last time most of Liu’s old neighborhood saw her was most likely on a billboard when her movie, “Charlies Angles: Full Throttle,” hit theaters last year.

Junior Tennis Anyone?

Alan Jennings

Beleaguered Councilman Alan Jennings showed up at the Junior Tennis League luncheon last Thursday still embroiled in an ethics committee review that started with sexual harrassment charges.

Former City Councliman Bob Dreyfoos, the group's lobbyist, had two tables at the affair. Councilmen David Weprin and Brooklyn's Lew Fidler were at one, and Dryfus was starting to ask one of his staffers to switch seats with Jennings so that he could sit with his colleagues. Jennings, very politely, said it wasn't necessary.

Dreyfoos replied, “Oh, Alan has a seat with the ladies, this is fine.” Weprin and Fidler looked at each other and Weprin blurted out, "Did Bob just say what I thought he did?”
Maybe, you had to be there.

Money For A Dead Man

At a Cambria Heights Civic Association meeting attended by Mayor Michael Bloomberg this week a voice from the past spoke up in the form of a check for $400.

It seems that when Cambria Heights resident Bob Wilkinson took the $400 tax rebate check out of his mailbox a few weeks ago he was disappointed to find out that the check was made out to Victor Salvo, the man from whom he purchased the house in 1968 (and who died two years later).

It turns out that about 2,800 of the 581,000 checks made out to taxpayers so far were sent to the wrong people. The City Finance Department is working hard to correct the problems, the mayor said, and Wilkinson was promised a phone call from Finance Commissioner Martha Stark Monday. Watch out Martha, he may have a few other ideas up his sleeve.

Confidentially, New York . . .