Speed Dial

Dial M for makeup. You'll probably gel a busy signal if you're trying to reach Kevyn Aucoin—the most in-demand makeup artist working today. Either that or his cell phone 'K will ring unanswered, in which case it probably means he's lost it again. "Like umbrellas, sunglasses, and my mind, I lose my phone," he says, "usually on a table in a restaurant or in the back of a taxi." But it's never long before he gets a new one. How else would he reach Cher (04) with an emergency "Deep Thought" by Jack Handey? "We just sit on the phone and read them to each other and cry laughing," he explains. Because Aucoin spends so much time with his clients, he says, he uses his cell phone mostly to keep in touch with friends and family: "It's not about work. It's about who brings joy and laughter into my life." But he also needs to talk politics, whigh is where Courtney Love (05) comes in. Other hot lines are assigned to venerable skin-care institution Kiehl's (10), long-lost "birth sisters" Gwyneth Paltrow (06) and Winona Ryder (07), friend and chanteuse Tori Amos (03), mother Thelma Aucoin (02), and best friend and spiritual guru Todd Littleton (09). Whom does he call the most? His boyfriend, Eric Sakas (01). One more question: What ever happened to Indian Earth? Kevyn?

DAVID SAVAGE