On reading one of the thousand or so weekly headlines trumpeting Angelina Jolie’s fame and fortune, I feel disposed to comment. Everyone seems to be accusing someone else of something. For instance, the magazine In Touch was accused of retouching unsightly veins in Angelina’s arms. I immediately thought of Glenda Jackson and the unsightly veins in her legs. When these were removed before she appeared nude in Women in Love, there was not a whisper of publicity to be found in the press — not even the British Medical Journal .

Other parallels spring to mind. When Angelina collected her Oscar, she caused headlines by giving her dishy brother a passionate kiss full on the lips. Whereas when Glenda won an Oscar, she didn’t even bother to turn up for the star-studded ceremony in Hollywood.

Yes, the face of celebrity has had surgery. When Glenda had baby Daniel (soon after Women in Love — hence the veins, no doubt), it certainly made headlines in the Greenwich Gazette, but I doubt that she received as much as a penny in payment, whereas “Brangelina” (Angelina + Brad) is/are reported to have received a christening gift from People magazine of something like $5 million.

What else do the talented actresses have in common? Well, most people know that Glenda is an MP and thus the people’s servant for all of Hampstead, while Angelina, a UN goodwill ambassador, seems bent on saving starving children in the Third World.

As for divorce, now, that’s getting personal — too personal, as we are now acutely aware. Last week, journalists were put on alert before the premiere of Jolie’s new film, A Mighty Heart, and forced to sign an agreement to leave out all reference to her personal life in any coverage and to focus only on the film. Otherwise, Jolie reserved the right “to immediately terminate the interview and leave”. The statement further demanded a signed undertaking that any interview “will not be used in a manner that is disparaging, demeaning or derogatory to Ms Jolie”. Fox News and its affiliates claimed that they were banned from the premiere for refusing to sign, after which Jolie and her minders back-pedalled, calling the Fox-Network prohibition “an honest mistake”. The rider, Jolie’s representatives said, was “overstated” by her lawyers out of a desire to protect her.

Ironically, the premiere at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York of A Mighty Heart, about the murder of the journalist Daniel Pearl in Afghanistan, was a benefit for Reporters Without Borders, an organisation promoting freedom of the press.

We’re au fait with confidentiality agreements for personal assistants, MPs’ chauffeurs and chefs — often broken later for a hefty book advance and a taste of revenge. No one wants their private matters sent up the flagpole and saluted with jeers and ridicule.

So, why are we so desperate to know that Britney has shaved her head, or Ms Lohan has battled addictions, or Paris is in jail, or Naomi wears designer stiletto boots to her community-service gig, or George Michael is caught napping at the wheel?

Isn’t it the talent of the artist that matters? Isn’t it better to concentrate on Jolie’s acting than her designer family, marriages, lesbian experiments, the compound in Namibia, the tiff with her dad, the vials of blood around the neck, the foot-long tiger tattoo on the back, the piloting of her own jet? Is it voyeurism? Or simply a desire to break out of our humdrum daily routines and start to live?

Psychologists have recently identified a new syndrome that would have been unnamed at the height of Glenda’s decades at the top of the popularity charts: Celebrity Worship Syndrome. Once upon a time people harboured their secret fantasies for Glenda in private, with a mixture of abject awe and respect — collecting an autograph or photo or poster, or seeking out her more obscure work to study her artistry.

Today, celebrities are rather like calendar saints, according to Leo Braudy, the author of The Frenzy of Renown . The stars’ unreal level of glamorous privilege gives them the allure of a lucky talisman. So now we have Angelina Jolie, Our Lady of the Rainbow Family and of Teenage Fantasies. The religious fervour has broken its borders of restraint and found courage in numbers, with the advent of technology and blogs and web forums. We feel we know our stars, but we want more. We are insatiable.

I do understand the terror of the public’s hunger to know, and how frighteningly beyond control a sea of paparazzi can seem. A few weeks ago, I found myself on a deserted London street with my wife at midnight, trotting home after a concert by The Who. The sound of surreptitious footsteps, as though timing themselves to avoid detection — perhaps creeping from shrubbery to shrubbery — became obvious as the minutes passed.

Eventually I hurled myself around, adopted a ninja pose learnt from Bruce Lee movies and reached into my pocket for a small blunt instrument — a miniature hairbrush, as it happened. “Stand back or I’ll use it!” I threatened.

“Excuse me, Mr Russell,” said the polite and shy young stranger, camera in hand, stepping into the circle of street light, “I would never have accosted you for a photograph had I known you were armed.”

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