Live Large and Prosper

By Rebecca Winters

Kirstie Alley isn't the only TV veteran pushing a pet project about plumpness. In Maximum Beauty, an exhibit of his black-and-white photography scheduled to open in a New York City art gallery this summer, LEONARD NIMOY shows women from San Francisco's FAT- BOTTOM REVUE burlesque team dressed and undressed. The Star Trek star's 2003 book of photography, Shekhina, featured all slim models, something he says a "large-bodied" woman pointed out to him at a seminar. "This is a different representation of beauty--not the one our culture programs us to appreciate," Nimoy says. As for Alley's autobiographical show, Fat Actress, "it's deplorable, dishonest and contrived," he says. "My models are proud people. [Alley is] lying on the floor crying." And that's before she gets the Vulcan death grip.