Profile of Xiaolan Zhao, a very successful Chinese medicine practioner in Toronto, who treats many celebrities:

"After a brief consultation with Xiaolan (during which she felt my pulse and rightly diagnosed a number of maladies -- insomnia, stomach upset and a mad desire to go back to smoking), she had a close look at my puffy kneecap. "Have you ever had acupuncture?" she asked. "No, but one of my horses did," I said. "Ahh, you take better care of your animals than you do yourself." Bingo. In one treatment, my knee was better. "One-hundred per cent!" I enthused. "No," Xiaolan said patiently, "80 per cent."

It's this air of kindness and authority that so many rarefied folk find appealing (Budman says Angelica Huston plans to go the next time she's in town). For Minghella, a big part of the draw is the fact that she's "at once kind, holistic and wise. She heals with a hug."