BITS AND PIECES 05/30 Part 1
PUSSSYKATT
--TV actress Nandria Lin Courts was speeding and not wearing her seat belt in a
fatal Memorial Day crash in the Hamptons, authorities said yesterday. Courts,
39, the mother of two, "was traveling in excess of 75 mph," said Chief Todd
Sarris of the Town of East Hampton Police. Not wearing her seat belt when she
lost control of her 2001 Volvo in the rain, hit a fire hydrant and rolled over
"was certainly a contributing factor" to her death, said Sarris. Her tearful
estranged husband, Randy Courts, said she was an amazing human being and a
sparkling light in the world," he said. He asked that, in lieu of flowers,
donations be sent to The Retreat in East Hampton. A wake will be held at 7 p.m.
tomorrow in the Yardly Pino Funeral Home at 91 Hampton St. in Sag Harbor. The
funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Christ Episcopal Church on Hampton
St.
NY POST....
--It isn't over until the fat man sings. He was hoarse, but Luciano Pavarotti
didn't skip one singing engagement that is close to his heart - his annual
star-studded charity concert in his hometown of Modena, Italy, Tuesday night.
Pavarotti sang "Miserere" in a duet with Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, then
thanked the crowd for their enthusiasm. Other stars on the bill were Sting, Lou
Reed, soul king James Brown and Italian singer/songwriter Gino Paoli. Earlier
this month, Pavarotti disappointed New York fans when he canceled a performance
at the Met, saying he had the flu.
NY POST/MICHAEL STARR....
--Ren & Stimpy are staging a comeback. The animated dog-and-cat combo, who
created a stir on Nickelodeon in the early '90s with their graphically gross
antics, will romp in a series of new adventures airing on Nick sister network
TNN, TV Guide reports in its June 8 issue (on newsstands June 3). TNN will
produce new episodes of the series and will bring back series creator John
Kricfalusi, who left Nickelodeon in 1992 in a nasty clash with management.
Kricfalusi voiced Ren, the Chihuahua - a part that was subsequently taken over
by the voice of Stimpy, Billy West (the only guy I've ever heard do a dead-on
impersonation of Larry from the Three Stooges). TNN will air the new "Ren &
Stimpy" episodes, as well as 52 previously aired episodes, in early 2003 as
part of a prime-time animation block, according to TV Guide's Max Robins.
NY POST/PAGE SIX...
--STILL smarting from the lashing British critics gave her performance in the
London production of "Up for Grabs," Madonna barred the press from her opening
night bash at St. Martin's Lane Hotel Saturday night. "Journalists were not
allowed," said our source. Madonna was derided as "mechanical" by critics and
advised to stick to singing, but she seemed to have a good time, dancing with
husband Guy Ritchie, Sting, Stella McCartney and Tom Ford. But after two hours
the party was aborted by noise complaints.
--Michael Jordan has put down a huge deposit for dozens of rooms at the
Horseshoe Casino in Tunica, Miss., which is 20 minutes away from Memphis,
Tenn., where Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis will duke it out June 8 . . .
--IT'S good Christian Slater settled down and married Ryan Haddon, because he
was so miserable in his 20s, he tried suicide several times. "My entire 20s
were a near-miss. It's a miracle I survived," Slater told Gear magazine. In
1997, he tried jumping off a balcony while drunk and high on cocaine. Regarding
his brief prison stint 10 years ago, Slater said: "As much as I would like to
say it was a healing and wonderful journey, it was a hideous experience . . .
humiliating . . . It was absolutely the worst [bleeping] experience of my
life."
--THE folks at NBC who have been broadcasting NBA games for the past 12 years
are upset that NBC Sports honcho Dick Ebersol has allowed Bob Costas to
"bigfoot" his way into the finals, pushing out Ahmad Rashad as host. Costas,
who hasn't worked NBA games in years, is said to have pushed to get the job.
"Costas has to get his face on TV so he worms his way back," said one insider.
"Ebersol shows no loyalty to the people who've been here." Rashad was asked by
NBC to participate in some smaller capacity, but declined. Rashad, under
contract to NBA Entertainment, will appear next year on ABC, which now has the
NBA contract.
--BILLY Bob Thornton indulged in some offensive hillbilly humor at his Joe's
Pub concert Tuesday night. The actor/director, who cut a country album last
year, did an impression of a black character getting arrested on the TV show
"Cops" that made some people in the audience squirm. "His impersonation . . .
seemed kind of racist," says one attendee. "The whole place got kind of
uncomfortable and quiet."
NY POST/NEAL TRAVIS...
--THINGS sure have changed in Russia. The old regime condemned the late French
director Roger Vadim as a pornographer and banned his films, thus robbing their
youths of the chance to see Brigitte Bardot during their formative years. (No
wonder Communism was overthrown.) But now we learn that Vadim is about to be
feted at the Moscow Film Festival. On June 21, they'll show some of those
movies that would have got you sent to a gulag just a few years ago. One of the
most interesting sides to the Vadim tribute is that, so far, three of his wives
and several of his famous lovers have happily accepted invitations to attend.
There's no word about whether Jane Fonda will make the trip. One rather hopes
she does, because she still has fond memories of the woman-worshipping
filmmaker to whom she was married. (He'd have to have been more fun than her
other husbands - the nerdy rad-lib politician Tom Hayden and the loopy Ted
Turner.) At least three of Vadim's wives - Bardot, Marie-Christine Barault and
Annette Stroyberg - will lift a vodka or two to his memory, as will his son,
Christian, by Catherine Deneuve (they never married.)
--THE Tyler name is going to live on in rock 'n' roll, if Steve's daughter,
Mia, has anything to do with it. Mia, who has had success as a plus-size model,
was at the launch party for Grace magazine (which celebrates ample-bodied
women) the other night and told Webster Hall art curator Baird Jones of her
plans. "I've decided to put together a rock group and get into the studio and
see how it goes," she said. "I've been keeping a diary for years, and some of
the entries read like song lyrics." Mia's not bothering to learn an instrument
though. "I'll be the lead singer, and just use my lips," she said. And has her
wild dad, Steve, been encouraging? "Sure, but he always says he appreciates my
suggestions and then never acts on them," she said.
--SOME of the investors in Liza Minnelli's last American tour, aborted when she
fell ill, can now afford to attend the diva's big comeback tomorrow night at
the Beacon Theatre. The other night, a happy table was celebrating at Nirvana
because the insurance company involved in the tour has finally agreed to settle
with the backers for 80 cents on every dollar they put into the production.
--IT sounds like Nicole Kidman hasn't yet got any of the money coming to her
from 10 years of being married to Tom Cruise and domiciled in share-the-wealth
California. Australia's Business Review just came out with its annual ranking
of Down Under's richest 200, and Nik makes the cut - but with a relatively
paltry $60 million. Expect that figure to at least double by next year, when
she and Cruise sign off on their settlement.
--AT first glance, the idea of Joan Collins, everyone's favorite screen vamp,
as a keynote speaker at a high-level investor's conference seems a bit odd. But
Joan - after a procession of crooked boyfriends, husbands and managers left her
broke - has learned about finances the hard way, so she should have a rapt
audience in San Francisco next week. The two-day confab has been put together
by Joan's great friend, Worth magazine CEO and editor Randy Jones. The rest of
the speakers are traditional money guys like fund guru Jim Rogers, but I'd
rather watch the newly married Ms. Collins any day.
--RUSSELL Crowe seems to be reining himself in. He's given up the flying
lessons, and has instead taken to the water, charting a 52-foot yacht, in which
he plans to sail around Australia to celebrate the birthday of Danielle Spencer
(who's now being referred to as his "fiancée"). But Russell may still have a
touch of the wild colonial boy in him - I also hear he just installed a $50,000
bathtub, big enough for six people, in his magnificent haborside villa in
Sydney.
--NOW that the Michael Skakel trial is coming to an end, former LAPD detective
Mark Fuhrman (who blew the O.J. Simpson case) is looking for something new. The
other day he was telling Court TV boss Henry Schleiff, for whom he's been
covering the trial, that he wants to do a book about the "outrageous" rise in
death sentences in Oklahoma, where they're now executing more people than even
Texas does.
NY POST/CINDY ADAMS...
--DANNY Huston, son of director John Huston, grandson of actor Walter Huston,
brother of actress Anjelica Huston, stars in "ivans xtc," the controversial
film Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency hopes might disappear. The movie,
about a young talent agent who pops pills and actors, eerily resembles CAA's
late hotshot Jay Maloney. "I knew Jay. I'd met him professionally and socially.
This is based on Tolstoy's 'The Death of Ivan Ilich,' but it's the palette of
Hollywood and how one can get lost in the murkiness of the corporate world. I
understand getting lost. I feel lost all the time. Then, slowly, I emerge from
that darkness and find the stars again." Conceived during his dad's production
of "Freud," born during "Night of the Iguana," Danny's a director, writer and
actor. He says: "Moviemaking is the only thing I know to do. With my background
I feel doomed to work in films forever." Raised in Ireland and Italy, how's he
feel about living in wild, woolly Hollywood? "I don't. I live in Venice, near
Anjelica. My second wife appeared in my life like an angel. We met in film
school in London, married in Mexico, and our first child's due in November. We
don't know the sex. I don't want to call him 'Fellow,' so we're thinking maybe
her maiden name, Evans. It'll fit a boy or girl." Might he raise "Fellow Evans"
away from L.A. in, maybe, the ancestral home in Ireland? "Can't. That went with
one of my father's divorces. The thing we Irish always have is a good sense of
irony." And sister Anjelica on his performance in "ivans xtc" (xtc stands for
"ecstasy")? "She was very complimentary, and she does not mince words. Anjelica
wouldn't hesitate to tell me I was lousy." The picture opens June 7.
--Village Voice's Michael Musto, who also gossips for Oxygen: "Courtney Love
once had a boyfriend in my building. She'd ring my buzzer at all hours just to
harass me because I'm press. Now that she's famous I stalk her." . . .
--ROBERT Redford's Sundance mail-order catalog isn't endearing to touristically
challenged New York this summer. RR's message reads: "Certainly the West offers
the most of what is left in terms of Blue Highways - those roads less traveled
but rich in discovery. We invite you to ride with us - in the back country of
America - and see what we have seen with a little wind in your hair and dirt on
your boots." And he writes: "Hitting the road has a nice ring to it. Suggesting
freedom from the city toil and ticking meters, instead a time to explore and
wander. Seek a certain independence from the double harness of pressure and
walled-in confines." Better he should stick to whispering to horses.
--SANDRA Bullock and Hugh Grant, while shooting the romantic comedy "Two Weeks
Notice" at the River Cafe, discovered the Brookyn Ice Cream Factory plus
Brooklyn's Grimaldi's Pizza. They now must do retakes. After what's been
inhaled, it's hoped they'll match the previous frames . . .
--In "The Importance of Being Earnest," Judi Dench's kid, Tara Williams
(otherwise called "Flinty," for some reason), does a quickie unknown cameo as a
young version of her mom's Lady Bracknell character. Their first film together
. . .
--Jenette Kahn, Batman and Superman's DC Comics chief for 27 years, now
publishing "In Your Space." The book features her Harlem brownstone.
--MAKING media rounds, like Court TV's "Hollywood at Large," is slain con
artist Bonny Lee Bakley's sister, Margery. This lady calls Robert Blake's
respected lawyer Harland Braun a con artist. Says he "cons" the media . . .
--After years on "ER," people think Noah Wylie's a real M.D. A fellow plane
passenger recently went into cardiac arrest and they summoned him from his
seat.
NY POST/LIZ SMITH...
--THE THRONE of Monaco looked to be in a perilous state for a while because
Prince Rainier despairs that his son, Albert, will wed and produce a direct
heir. Failing that, Monaco would eventually become a part of France in accord
with a treaty signed back in 1918. But now there has been a constitutional
change and Rainier is able to leave the throne to Albert's sisters, either
Princess Caroline or Princess Stephanie, or any of their seven children. As the
Daily Telegraph notes, "After years of bad marriages, kiss-and-tell lovers, and
cursed luck - like the Windsors - the Grimaldis seem stronger than ever."
--MADONNA may not exactly be going to win the Olivier Award for her acting on
the British stage in the new play "Up for Grabs," but she got some good reviews
mixed in with the inevitable bad ones. Several critics noted how great she
looks on stage. "Funny, sexy, but hardly sensational" went one headline. Some
critics felt the audience was often reacting to what it personally knows about
Madonna, rather than melding into her character as a pushy art dealer who has
lesbian sex to please an impotent millionaire and is required to service
another client with a big black sex object. The opening night audience included
the star's hubby, Guy Ritchie, Elton John, Donatella Versace, Sting and wife
Trudie Styler, etc. The limited run is sold out.
--WOMEN ARE still fighting over Mick Jagger. His Venezuelan heiress girlfriend,
Vanessa Neumann, age 29, is saying it's nonsense that he became involved with
his stylist L'Wren Scott. Vanessa says, "Mick only has one girl and that is me;
there are no others." Miss Neumann added that Mick is generous and also
"amazing in bed." This is too much information.
--SO YOU probably know that Robin Williams' movie "Insomnia," where he plays a
bad guy to Al Pacino's good guy, managed to make $26.2 million over the
Memorial Day weekend in spite of clones and insects. This incredible man gave
me a memorable lunch performance just before he launched his sell-out comedy
tour, which includes Canada and plays to SRO houses everywhere. Robin is now
focused on his Broadway Theatre run, happening only three nights (July 11, 13,
14). His Bastille Day performance will air on HBO as "Live on Broadway" and
will be presented by Radio City Entertainment. Will this unique and authentic
genius ever run out of gas? He hopes not: "It took me 25 years to get back to
stand-up comedy, and I am having a grand time."
--WE WROTE a lot about Sharon Stone's "performance" at Cannes for AmFAR and
AIDS research. Now some people are wickedly saying it was also "The biggest job
audition in the history of show business!" Well, if Sharon's basic instinct was
to put La La Land on notice that she's ready to work again, she couldn't have
done better than appear at the Cannes Film Festival. I'd love it if somebody
sealed the rumored deal to have Sharon play the movie idol Lana Turner in a
big-screen telling of the blonde star, her daughter Cheryl Crane and the
gangster Johnny Stompanato, who was stabbed to death in Lana's boudoir on Good
Friday, 1958. Let's make it easy. Kirsten Dunst as Cheryl, who killed
Stompanato in defense of her mother. And how about Russell Crowe as Johnny?
It's easy for him to suppress his Australian accent and with a dye job, he'd be
perfect as the Latin lover who mistreated Lana. Hmmm, let's see, who might play
Lana's brilliant attorney Jerry Giesler? He put her on the witness stand in
tears to great effect. What an acting role for some maturely brilliant male
star.
NY DAILY NEWS/RUSH AND MOLLOY....
--Macaulay Culkin is taking pains to make sure he's convincing as a drug-taking
murderer. The "Home Alone" pixie recently paid a visit to the upstate prison
that holds Michael Alig, the New York nightclub promoter convicted in 1996 of
helping to kill fellow disco urchin Angel Melendez and chopping up his body.
Alig's mom, Elke Blair, tells us that her son was struck by Culkin's
resemblance. "Michael said, 'Oh, my God, Mom! We have the same mannerisms!'"
says Blair, who also spoke with Culkin. "[Macaulay] was like he was my own,"
she says. She isn't thrilled with the title, "Party Monster," but she believes
"they will show Michael in a sympathetic light." Blair reports that Alig is
writing his own memoir and planning to set up shelters for young gay runaways
with the royalties. Says his mom: "He said, 'I killed someone and I am so
sorry, but I deserve to be here.'"
--Julian Schnabel is putting the brakes on a BBC documentary about his life and
work. The artist-filmmaker doesn't think Vikram Jayanti's "Julian Schnabel
Looks at Hell" is up to his standards. "I think it could be really good, I just
don't think it's ready," he tells us, stressing that he never signed a release
approving the final cut. "They have received a letter saying that without my
release they can't air it. That's my freedom. We all have that freedom." But
Schnabel's detractors think his motives have more to do with his ego. "He can't
tolerate anyone else being a filmmaker or artist in his environment," Jayanti
tells Reel.com. Former friend and employee Lazaro Gomes Carriles claims
Schnabel thwarted his artistic aspirations and fired him from his studio
because he felt threatened by his talent. "I'm not bothered by criticisms of
me," says Schnabel, insisting that he was "very cooperative" with Jayanti. "I
thought it was a collaboration," he says. "I gave him access to archival
footage and people in my life. We were working on this thing together. Now all
of a sudden he feels it's done."
--Bruce Springsteen and wife Patti Scialfa stocked up at Jack's Music Shop in
Red Bank, N.J., over the holiday weekend. "We're going to be rocking,"
Springsteen told the sales staff. Pointing to the 20 or so CDs his beloved had
selected, the Boss said, "I guess that's the 'hers' pile there." Then, pointing
to a display of his own albums, he joked, "I guess this is the 'his' pile." The
couple sped off on a blue-and-white Harley emblazoned with an American flag …
--MSNBC anchor Ashleigh Banfield huddled with Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard
Lutnick at the fifth anniversary party at NV in East Hampton. Also there for
the launch of Russell Simmons' Baby Phat jewelry line were David Copperfield,
Samantha Cole and Lulu Johnson. (Simmons' wife, Kimora Lee, did not attend
because of a bout of morning sickness. She is expecting her second child with
the rap mogul.)
SEND EMAIL TO PUSSS...@aol.com
AGC FAQ and FUN STUFF
http://www.dreamwater.net/agc/mainpages/agcfaq.html
BLIND ITEM REHASH:
http://www.dreamwater.net/agc/blinditems/mainpage.html
Richard Staunton
prosecute Chandra Levy's murderers?
agcgoss...@aol.com (PUSSSYKATT) wrote in message news:<20020530095730...@mb-fd.aol.com>...