It Ain’t A Cure For Cancer, But You’ll Read Anyway

It’s time to quit all this inconsequential stuff and get down to some serious reporting - as in who’s seeing, or not seeing, whom.

First off, it seems the witty co-star of that highly rated sitcom has been friendly with one of Hollywood’s A-level leading ladies. He’s a newcomer, adept with wisecracks, while she - though still in her 20s - is a movie veteran and a confirmed heartbreaker.

Give up? “Friends” star Matthew Perry got close to Julia Roberts when the movie star filmed a guest spot for the show.

And there’s trouble reported in the marriage between that Oscar-winning director, star and long-time lothario and his much-younger wife, the mother of his two children and the co-star of one of the Christmas season’s biggest hits.

Yes, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening might be on the outs.

Loose talk

Jennifer Jason Leigh on making love in the movies (in Interview magazine): “I like love scenes. If they are done right, they can say a lot about the characters that you can’t say in other scenes. When you are naked, you don’t have a lot to hide behind.”

He’s still doing things his dad’s way

Frank Sinatra Jr. turns 52 today.

How long has that doggy been on the highway?

Wanted: a lost dog. His name: Buster. The anguished owner: cowpie crooner George Strait. The animal’s likely whereabouts: Some highway near Strait’s San Antonio, Texas, ranch. Time frame: Buster disappeared just before Christmas.

Who’s the director of the moment? Olliver Ston

It was an item of middling interest, but it did involve film director Oliver Stone. So Esquire magazine reported that Stone had visited journalist Robert Scheer in the hospital where he was supposedly awaiting cancer surgery. Not true, says Scheer, adding that Stone, “a hell of a nice guy” never showed. As Leah Garchik of the San Francisco Chronicle reported, at least “Their names were spelled correctly.”

It could be, too, that his bark is as bad as his bite

Zsa Zsa Gabor has a thing for Jean-Claude Van Damme. “He’s the most sexy to me,” she told Details magazine. “It could be his European accent. Then again, it could be his handsome face and powerful body.” Whatever, his strengths make up for his, uh, deficits. “He’s also a little short, but so are my dogs, and I love my little Shih Tzus.”

Only if Roseanne had played the part of Jo

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein, while discussing American author Louisa May Alcott during a recent Random House panel discussion, pondered an intriguing question. “I always wondered,” she mused, “if ‘Little Women’ would have done as well if Alcott had called it ‘Big Women.”’

Now, what about that New York rag called Arnold?

Responding to complaints from French actress Catherine Deneuve, the San Francisco-based magazine for lesbians, Deneuve, changed its name to Curve. It claims a circulation of 200,000.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color photos

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