Film studio and TV programme makers have admitted using make up to change the appearance of actors and actresses.
Some details will be particularly shocking to film aficionados, especially the discovery that thousands of pounds worth of make up was used on John Hurt as John Merrick in David Lynch's "Elephant Man". The actor spent 7 hours in make up every day being applied with casts of Merrick's body which had been preserved in the Royal London Hospital. The film critic Mark Kermode , on hearing the news, claimed that he "had always assumed that the horrific facial deformity portrayed in the film had been achieved through Hurt's mastery of the old English tradition of gurning".
Movie goer Al Albertson, interviewed outside Sid Grauman's Chinese Theatre on LA's Hollywood Boulevard ,visibly slumped at the revelation that the lead character in Peter Bogdanovich's "Mask" was in fact a heavily made up Eric Stolz rather than just a "facially challenged ginger dude" as he'd always been led to believe.
A global petition drawn up by a group called "Defenders of True Values in Film and TV " is being distributed on the world wide web. The group intend to use the petition as the basis of a civil suit against media companies alleging "wilful deception and breach of public trust".
