He Got To Know Bruno Before He Became Bruce

Fri., May 19, 1995

Compiled By Staff Writer Rick Bo

Novelist Jonathan Levi remembers Bruce Willis before he was Bruce Willis, at least in the Hollywood sense.

“I was in a band, the Savannah Sheiks,” Levi told the New York Times Magazine.

“One day the singer called me up and said: ‘Remember that funny, kinda jerky guy who used to come to our gigs and pull out his harmonica and play all the wrong notes? Now he’s Bruce Willis.”’

Willis, currently working on the upcoming film “Twelve Monkeys,” is happy to see the spotlight focused on hunky co-star Brad Pitt these days.

“Fame will make your head spin,” Willis says. “It’s an interesting thing to watch what I went through happen to someone else - see him become the thing, become it for a while. I’m very glad it’s not me.”

Loose talk

Brad Pitt’s girlfriend, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, on her hidden desires (in Entertainment Weekly): “Everyone is making all this fuss over Brad, but I’m telling you, Morgan Freeman is the sexiest man alive. You heard it here.”

Pretty soon, people will be asking: ‘Who?’

Pete Townshend turns 50 today.

So they ended up calling Dr. Quinn instead

Attention, confused fans: Julianna Margulies, aka Carol Hathaway on “ER,” is an actress, not a nurse. “I was on the Stairmaster and a girl fainted a couple of machines over and everyone looked at me,” Margulies said in an “Entertainment Tonight” interview. “I was like, ‘What do you want me to do about it? I can’t do anything. I just play one on TV.”’

At least it got the little guy’s heart rate up

Supermodel Cindy Crawford was “freaked out” by an ABC report on sexual images in the media that showed prepubescent boys going gaga over her workout tape. As she told USA Today: “I can’t believe that a 10-year-old boy was shaking my exercise video and singing, ‘Take off that swimsuit.”’

The moon never seemed quite so full before

Rosie O’Donnell mooned the audience at an AIDS benefit last week in New York City following a performance by a scantily clad troupe. Declared O’Donnell: “I’ve seen yours, so here’s mine.”

Anybody who’d do that has to be a real heel

Faxed photos of a nude Marla Maples mysteriously turned up in the Manhattan headquarters of several fashion designers, including Donna Karan and Calvin Klein. Sources say police traced a telephone credit card to Chuck Jones, Maples’ ex-publicist, who was convicted of stealing her shoes in 1992.

A couple of words of advice: cravat emptor

The newest fashion craze could be ties designed by the “Chairman of the Board” himself, Frank Sinatra. Neckwear based on the legendary crooner’s abstract artwork is being marketed by the company that did the same thing with Jerry Garcia.

ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino

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