When The Camera Dims, Then The Real Trial Begins

Life behind the scenes at the O.J. Simpson trial:

O.J. attorney Johnny Cochran, seen sniggering at the book he was reading, passed said book onto his client. But when O.J. flipped through “O.J.’s Legal Pad: A Spoof” by Henry Heard and John Boswell, he was not amused.

And who can blame him? Snippets include: “Johnnie: Where the hell is Dershowitz? Pass it on - no show, no dough” and “Johnnie: Can I have a swig of some of the ‘coffee’ in F. Lee B’s Thermos”

Covering the trial, Dominick Dunne periodically squirts himself with water from a bottle to stay awake. On Wednesday, O’J.’s sister Carmelita Durio tried to do the same but dropped the bottle. An alternate juror, obviously desperate for entertainment, laughed.

Loose talk

Sandra Bullock on what she’s like to get along with: “I’m like a sleeper sofa, a good couch your grandmother has.”

His new novel, involving Skoal, is titled ‘Chaws’

Peter Benchley turns 55 today.

Next up, Tony Danza stars in the ‘Will Rogers Follies’

Seems like Broadway’s turning into the elephant burial grounds of old television stars. Joan Van Ark (“Knots Landing”) is temporarily taking the place of one of the original stars in “Three Tall Women,” Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Marian Seldes is on a one-month hiatus, beginning May 19, to star in a movie.

The road to resolution isn’t so much rocky as it is Woody

It’s been awhile, but Woody Allen is back in the news. His request to resume visits with adopted daughter, Dylan, was turned down by a state appeals court. The court listened to a pair of psychotherapists say that such visits “would not be in the child’s bests interests.” Allen’s ex-lover, Mia Farrow, with whom Dylan lives, still maintains that the filmmaker sexually abused the 9-year-old girl.

Funny, we thought she might let her hair down

Jackie Collins on creating the right mood for trashy prose: “I put my hair up when I’m writing. I wear gym shoes, jeans, a sweatshirt or a denim shirt with a leopard pin and very light makeup. I don’t believe in sitting around looking like a hag.”

It does, however, give you something else to worry about

Here’s some diet advice from Elton John, a former celebrity substance-abuser, courtesy of New Musical Express magazine: “You’d think that taking so much coke you’d be very thin, but that never applied to me, because if you drink four bottles of Scotch a night, it doesn’t exactly take off calories.”

Inside a taxi that was parked on the waterfront

Faye Dunaway, lusting after a role in “Don Juan De Marco,” told Out magazine that “I wrote (Marlon) Brando and fought for the part. At one point, I felt I was in the backseat of a taxicab like Rod Steiger.”

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Dan Webster