Star Power

If you feel like you can't hear about a celebrity without also hearing about his or her favorite cause, well, you're not the only one.

Pamela Fiori, editor-in-chief of Town and Country Magazine, has noticed so much celebrity giving she's started devoting an annual issue to philanthropy.

"People look at celebrities as people who have superficial lives and in order to counter that, one really good way is to show that, 'I, as a celebrity, really have an interest in the betterment of humanity and that I'm not as silly and superficial as you might think,'" Fiori tells CBS Sunday Morning contributor Rita Braver.

But Fiori says she has no doubts about the motives of celebrities she's featured: entertainers like singer-song writer Sting and his work for the Rainforest Foundation; actress Tea Leoni, her family long involved in Unicef and Michael J. Fox, who himself suffers from Parkinson's disease.

It seems like this idea of celebrities has been around along time.

"You just have to think about people like Bob Hope and his USO tours," Fiori says.

Then there's actor Paul Newman and his buddy, writer A.E. Hotchner.

The Newman's Own brand, composed of almost 100 products now, all started with salad dressing in 1982.

"We mixed it up in Newman's basement and gave it out to neighbors at Christmas time," Hotchner says. "The idea of Newman's was we wanted accolades for his salad dressing. So he said, 'Let's try it in the local deli or whatever.' He was never in it to make money. He just wanted people to say 'Newman, that's a great salad dressing.'"

All of the profits are given away to charities like the Hole In The Wall Camps that Newman started for children with cancer. He takes a low-key approach to the whole thing, preferring that Hotchner be the spokesman.

Newman and Hotchner have written a book called "Shameless Exploitation," detailing how they use Newman's fame for good causes, like the time they tried to order a bus to help some needy children in Florida.

After being told there was a year's wait for the bus, Hotchner urged Newman to use his star power.

"I said, 'OK Newman. Get on the phone and bat your blue eyes at whoever answers the phone.' And guess what: three days later they got a bus in Indian Town, Florida," Hotchner recalls.

Newman wins nothing but praise for his philanthropic efforts.

But sometimes celebrities' causes are controversial — Bogey and Bacall back in the 1950s protesting on behalf of Hollywood writers accused of being communists.

And remember Jane Fonda visiting Hanoi to protest American involvement in Vietnam?

Or more recently actor Sean Penn making a trip to Iraq before the war started, warning the U.S. government about shedding blood there.

In fact, Penn's trip was used as propaganda by the Iraqi government. And incidents like that inspired a tongue-in-cheek memo about "Planet Hollywood," in the usually sober journal Foreign Policy.

"Well, you know, Sean Penn. Wonderful actor, but he accomplished nothing in Iraq except he made himself kind of a punch line," says comedy writer Rob Long.

Long facetiously advises celebrities on how to use their star power: with helpful hints like: try a modified, limited Bono.

"His big view is this kinda dry, unsexy, uninteresting topic of third world debt forgiveness," Long says. "I mean, its third world debt. It's hard even to say, but somehow Bono managed to sit in the office with Paul O'Neil, who was at one point the secretary of treasury, and convinced this kind of awkward, weird-looking white guy that what he really needed was to travel to Africa with him."

In fact, the Bono-O'Neil partnership exemplifies one of Long's other hints: choose your co-stars carefully.

"You gotta pick somebody who's appealing, but not as good looking as you are. And smart, but who's not gonna make you look dumb," Long advises.

Another rule: don't forget your training. In other words actors should use their skills.

"They're able to look like they care about what you're saying, even if they don't really understand what you're saying," Long says.

Long adds that it's only natural that we like to make fun of celebrity do-gooders like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

"That's how we manage not to wanna kill them for their good looks and success and talent. I mean, you know, that's the price they pay," Long believes.

And let's face it, sometimes causes do help celebrities improve their images. Today, instead of focusing on the fact that Brad left his wife for Angelina, we tend to think of them as a couple sincerely devoted to humanitarian efforts.

As Pamela Fiori sees it, philanthropy is not a flash-in-the-pan occurrence.

"I think that humanitarians are humanitarians for life and not for the moment," Fiori says. "And so in the case of Angelina Jolie, we'll have to see what happens next year, and the year after and the year after that."