As Dick Nixon Would Say, ‘I Beg Your Pardon?’
During last month’s 50th anniversary celebration for the United Nations, reports the New York Observer, former president Gerald Ford “demonstrated once again why he is the veritable Red Skelton of the Republican school of physical comedy.”
Sources said Ford showed up at New York Hospital one evening complaining of an apparently indigestion-related problem.
As the Observer describes it: “His doctors instructed him to walk it off, leaving the former chief executive to roam the hospital halls dressed only in a backless hospital gown, his hair teased into a Professor Irwin Corey-esque do from the E.R. doctors’ ministrations. Shadowing Mr. Ford and getting an ample view of his presidential posterior were an entourage of Secret Service agents and the valet, who was clutching Mr. Ford’s evening clothes.”
Loose talk Playwright Paul Rudnick, on his political hopes: “Here’s the ticket, the White House in ‘96 - (Barbra) Streisand and (Donna) Karan. The first administration to have a signature fragrance.”
A whole quarter-century? Welcome to the club
Tonya Harding turns 25 today.
Featuring the hit ‘Don’t Cry For Me, Aristotle’
Forget “Evita.” Newsweek reports that the forthcoming “Jackie O,” commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera for staging next spring, will take a “mythical rather than historical” view of the life of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Good politicians know how to press the flesh
Dimitra Papandreou, wife of Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou, insists she won’t be deterred from running for parliament by the recent publication of decades-old nude photos of her. “I am not ashamed for having been in love or for flirting or for swimming nude,” she said. “I didn’t harm anyone.”
Actually, we hear he’s holding out for Divine
Newt Gingrich stood up Liz Hurley at a planned photo session for the cover of Newsweek’s upcoming “Newsmakers 100” issue. While the New York Daily News reported the House speaker felt posing with Hugh Grant’s girlfriend might create the “wrong impression,” a spokesman said it simply didn’t fit into his schedule.
At times, he has been the man of the hour
Former White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater stormed out of a taping of Comedy Central’s “Politically Incorrect” after Mike Wallace confronted him with a string of obscenities, apparently angry about Fitzwater’s new book, “Call The Briefing!,” which says of Wallace: “It amazed me … to find that he was actually respected by his colleagues.”
Guess he just has journalism in his veins
Veteran CBS newsman Charles Kuralt admits the demands of his career contributed to his recent coronary bypass surgery, but told TV Guide: “I wouldn’t trade all those years of wandering and exhaustion for a healthy heart. That would be a bad trade.”
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino