Celebrity killed their mum.. so why can't Paula's girls stay out of the spotlight? GELDOF'S BROOD GROW UP.

Byline: BARBARA DAVIES

WHAT made the photograph remarkable was not merely that the four girls were together, but that they posed for the cameras at all.

Three of them are Bob Geldof's, the fourth, and youngest, is a Hutchence. Snapped side by side at the Live Aid charity DVD premiere last Sunday, the world was given a rare glimpse of Paula Yates' living legacy.

Fame was both the life and death of their tragic mother, who died at 41 after overdosing on heroin.

Her bereaved daughters, then, might have been expected to shun the limelight for ever.

And behind the doors of Geldof's Victorian south London home, the girls - Fifi Trixibelle, 21, Peaches Honeyblossom, 15, Pixie, 14, and eight-year-old Tiger Lily - the daughter of late INXS singer Michael Hutchence - were shielded from the public eye.

For four years they were given the chance to experience a loving, stable childhood. But despite Geldof's bid to shelter the girls, the three eldest seem insatiably drawn to celebrity.

It began last year when the then 14-year-old Peaches plunged herself into the spotlight with a blistering newspaper attack on the dress sense of outspoken stylists Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine.

Peaches who, with her peroxide hair, flamboyant dress sense and sulky beauty, looks astonishingly like her mother at the same age, was credited with having also inherited Paula's acerbic wit and anarchic spirit.

There followed a shoot for Tatler - which Paula also did - and walks up the red carpet with younger sister Pixie at film premieres and starry parties.

She penned a column in Elle Girl magazine in which she wrote about teen sex and how most of her friends lost their virginity at 13. Her frank scribblings were likened to Paula's own style in books such as Sex With Paula.

And Pixie has followed hard on her heels. A couple of weeks ago the 14-year-old launched her media career by interviewing Tara Palmer-Tomkinson on a one-off live programme It's A Girl Thing! for satellite TV.

By March this year the two girls were being described as the "coolest teenagers around" - no doubt very flattering when you are 14 or 15 - but just why Geldof is letting his daughters pursue such a path, following their doomed mother's career pattern, is baffling.

Even quiet Fifi has set her sights on a showbiz career. She works as an intern on music channel MTV and plans to be a presenter or producer - like mum.

Taking all of this into account, the old adage "be careful what you wish for" springs to mind.

Peaches and Pixie, in particular, appear to display their mothers sassy, confident, "don't-give-a-s**t" attitude.

In her column, Peaches rails against the way society treats young girls and curses the influence of glossy magazines, but fails to see that she is fast falling into the same trap. There was a time when children of celebrities were deemed uninteresting beyond the first snap of mother, father and child.

Today, they are courted as an appendage of their parents. In the case of the Geldof girls, the fascination is with Paula. Some may argue that such scrutiny is unfair.

But if these girls are to be allowed to develop away from Paula's shadow, the limelight is hardly the place for them to do it. Once you start living your life there, it becomes transparent.

Paula knew that better than anyone and came to curse the media fire she once merrily stoked. There was virtually no episode of her life that didn't become food for the gossip columnists.

The result of her mother Helene Thornton-Bosment's affair with TV presenter Hughie Green, Paula's broken childhood in North Wales was unhappy.

S HE sought solace in London and was only 18 when she met Geldof. By 19, she had posed naked for Playboy. They married in Las Vegas in 1986.

A career in TV followed, first as a presenter on music show The Tube and later on The Big Breakfast where she interviewed her guests on a double bed.

It was after interviewing Hutchence that she embarked on a reckless affair leading to divorce, custody battles, the birth of Tiger Lily, Hutchence's mysterious death in a hotel room and finally Paula's accidental drugs overdose.

After Paula died, several obituaries spoke of the inevitability of her demise. "From childhood, her tragic destiny seemed inevitable," read one.

More recently, in her own newspaper column, Peaches wrote: "We emulate those closest to us - so Mummy dearest drinks, smokes and reads stacks of fashion and celebrity magazines, then aren't we likely to turn out this way?"

After everything they've been through, it's hard not to feel the Geldof girls deserve better.

CAPTION(S):

SHIELD: Dad and guardian Geldof; Pixie; Was branded 'coolest teen'; Tiger Lily; Eight-year-old is rarely seen at celebrity bashes; Fifi Trixibelle; Hopes to become MTV presenter; Peaches; Courts controversy with frank column; FAME: Are Paula's girls as starstruck as their mum Paula, right, who died in 2000