The ‘Touchy-Feely’ Part Involved Only The Food
According to Liz Smith, ABC news anchor Peter Jennings and pop diva Barbra Streisand enjoyed a private, intimate dinner recently.
“Touchy-feely” was Smith’s operative phrase.
Some celebs might like being portrayed as a Streisand confidant, but not Jennings, who says Smith, and her spy, don’t know what they’re talking about. He called Smith’s column “inaccurate and inappropriate” and her source “either blind or malicious.”
According to Jennings, he and Streisand merely “sat in the garden of the restaurant, not in any B room, immediately adjacent to a well-attended surprise party for another person. We spent the entire dinner discussing a speech Barbra was soon to give. The only thing that was exchanged across the table was a draft of her forthcoming remarks.”
Loose talk
Television producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason on Washington news media: “It’s frightening that you go to Washington, and you can’t find anything that is quoted correctly.”
Let him tell you ‘bout Ahab the Arab…
Ray Stevens turns 54 today.
If the role fits, play it
Remaking the 1963 Jerry Lewis film “The Nutty Professor” is a perfect project for Eddie Murphy. The film involves an inhibited college science instructor who devises a formula that turns him into a strutting, arrogant womanizer. Universal Studios wants to shoot the $45 million project at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, beginning March 1.
His exes may want to varnish him after this
Eddie Fisher’s new memoir, his second, is titled “Been There Done That” and will, he says, be a “no holds barred” book. Fisher was married to Debbie Fisher, Elizabeth Taylor and Connie Stevens, and he knew intimately such celebs as Jackie Onassis and Meyer Lansky. “This is me unvarnished,” Fisher says. It’s due from St. Martin’s Press in the spring.
Can’t get enough of that Yoko Ono rock ‘n’ roll
Quick, what British rock stars make the most money? Answer, Phil Collins and Elton John. According to Cliff Dane, author of “Rock Accounts 1994,” Collins has averaged $22.5 million over the past three years. John was a distant second with a $15.8 million average. Yoko Ono led the women with $4.2 million.
But, of course, he respects them as individuals
The announcement: Brad Pitt has been named “Sexiest Man Alive” by People magazine. The reaction from his ex-manager, Phil Lobel: “Brad has intense passion for women.”
Next up: Black and white in living color
Ellen Barkin is proud of the love scenes she does with Laurence Fishburne in the forthcoming film “Bad Company.” “I think because it’s like a steamy story, you know we weren’t going to say, ‘Gee we better make that love scene less explicit because, you know, somewhere in Mississippi they’re gonna freak out,”’ she said.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Dan Webster