No Box Of Chocolates For The ‘Hideous Man’ Sinise

When actor/director Gary Sinise left Chicago for the green movie pastures of Los Angeles, he initially had a hard time finding work.

So he spent a lot of time hiding out.

“I was so miserable I shut myself up in my room with my guitar and pretended I was this 400-pound man with three dogs who was too fat to get out the door,” Sinise told Biography magazine. “I created this character, Hideous Man.”

He even made a tape of “Hideous Man” songs. “The other songs had titles like ‘Nobody Tol’ Me It Would Be Like Dis’ and ‘Dog Food’ because that’s what Hideous Man felt like,” Sinise said.

“(John) Malkovich put the tape on while he was driving,” Sinise said. “He had to pull over to the side of the road to avoid having an accident. He sat there howling with laughter at how pathetic I’d become.”

Loose talk

Gwyneth Paltrow on her mother, Blythe Danner (in InStyle magazine): “When you’re growing up around someone who chooses their work very carefully, and works with great people, and is believably brilliant as an actress, you grow up seeing only the good side of show business - complete with morals, values and concerns for decency.”

Quincy turning 75? Isn’t that odd

Jack Klugman turns 75 today.

Heckfire, they even have a set of golden arches

Stories portraying Atlanta, Texas, the small town where Ellen Degeneres attended high school, as a sort of Mayberry have upset some of the town’s residents. “TV Guide wrote that we only had one gas station. One!” said Annette Callaway, editor of the twice-weekly Atlanta Citizens Journal. “Actually, we have quite a few.”

Not to mention whether they like to wear pants

So why isn’t America ready to elect a woman president? “Women who run for office really have to work hard to overcome certain presumptions about them,” said First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, “and they have to answer lots of questions about their clothes and their hair.”

That’s what he likes to do in his little red Corvette

When he agreed to do a major concert in Phoenix on less than a week’s notice, the Associated Press came up with this apt line: “Here’s something you can call the artist formerly known as Prince: Speedy.”

Say, Mr. Turner, some of us would love to have a grant

Ted Turner put out a challenge to his rich peers: Give more to charity. “What good is wealth sitting in the bank?” Turner said Thursday at the annual meeting of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. “It’s a pretty pathetic thing to do with your money.”

As for the fat man, he’s gonna keep on singing

He was planning to retire in five years, when he will be 66. But Luciano Pavarotti still wants to singa the opera. “In 2001 it will be 40 years I am singing,” the Italian tenor said. “But the voice - it’s still here. My father is 86 and still in perfect voice. I don’t know when I am going to retire.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos

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