He Knew Everything Would Turn Out Fiennes

Ralph Fiennes’ tortured, brooding characters in such films as “Schindler’s List,” “Quiz Show” and the new “Strange Days” aren’t just a coincidence, says his sister.

Having a mother diagnosed, as a young woman, as an “incurable hysteric” has a lot to do with it, Martha Fiennes told Vanity Fair.

“She was close to the edge at times, and as children we all witnessed it,” Martha said. “She would scream, break crockery, threaten to kill us all … I’m sure Ralph absorbed it.”

Ralph Fiennes, who’s the eldest of six children at age 32, scoffs at the suggestion that he has a dark side.

“People are always trying to think that in order to play a sadist you have to be one,” he says. “I’m drawn to … not what is dark - I’m interested in the flip side, the B-side of people.”

Loose talk

Rene Russo, on playing a drop-dead-dressing B-movie star in “Get Shorty” (in People magazine): “Not one of the guys on the set even noticed because everyone was so tired. It was, ‘Yawn, there’s Rene. Tight outfit. Are you in pain?”’

Bake a cake? Nah, he’s probably fasting again

Dick Gregory turns 63 today.

It made those nothing days seem worthwhile

In her new autobiography, Mary Tyler Moore says she “numbed with a vodka martini on the rocks” the pain of not having love and support as a kid. “During ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ I was drinking at night,” she says. “I would gear the amount I drank to how much somebody else was drinking and would make sure never to get really loose or sloppy with my speech unless they were, too.”

It wasn’t the kind of footage they had in mind

Today’s paparazzi-punching update: Because of conflicting evidence, no charges will be filed against Tony Danza, who had a confrontation two months ago with a pair of men who videotaped him with his children on a Malibu beach. Danza, a former kick boxer, reportedly kicked out the tapers’ car window before confiscating their camera.

In Bill’s case, it’s not exactly skinny dipping

Wednesday was Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 20th wedding anniversary, and the romance remains alive. In her newspaper column, the first lady recalled one sultry night last summer: “It was very late. Chelsea was away at camp. So we grabbed our towels, left the mansion, tiptoed through the Oval Office and snuck through some bushes in the pitch black. Without anybody around, we went for a swim.” Sans suits? “I’m not going to ask her,” said spokesman Neel Lattimore.

What part of ‘ouch’ doesn’t he understand?

John Wayne Bobbitt is not one to give up anything easily. According to the Washington Post, Bobbitt on Tuesday twice tried to reconcile with estranged wife Lorena at the hair salon where she works, with flowers and candy in hand. “He came over here, and then he came back,” a fellow stylist said. “Can you imagine the nerve?”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color photos

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