First He Got Yellow, Then He Turned Green
Secretary of Education Richard Riley is used to being in the stoplight. Er, spotlight.
Riley told the children’s magazine Nickelodeon that he played a red light in a play about traffic safety at the end of first grade.
“My mother made me a little black suit with a little red dot in the middle,” he recalled. “My line was this: ‘I’m a red light/ As you can see/ And you better stop/ When you see me.’
“I was so nervous, I walked off the stage and threw up. It’s true. I was terribly embarrassed. That was my introduction to public life.”
Riley also discusses his doodles during cabinet meetings: “I’m good at stars. And I draw people, smiling people usually. Sometimes I draw muscle-bound people. And I can really draw a good airplane, wings and all … I also draw boxes and then make them into three dimensions. I enjoy that.”
Loose Talk
Actress Blair Brown, on her aspirations: “I have a plan for myself in my 50s … I’ll get to play all the big-hair women - Ann Richards, Margaret Thatcher. It’s going to be my territory. I want the bio-pic of Margaret Thatcher.”
You gotta admit, she was great in ‘Gunsmoke’
Kitty Carlisle turns 80 today.
Even her hair is sometimes permanent
First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton discusses her ever-evolving hairstyle in Elle magazine: “Hair to me has always been the one part of my body that I had control over. I could not grow any taller, I could not lengthen my legs, I could not make my eyes have perfect vision - there was nothing else I could really do.”
An ill wind actually blew him some good
According to Esquire magazine, the donations to Bill Clinton’s Whitewater defense fund include $1,000 each from Garrison Keillor and Sean Penn, and a $1,421 residual check the president signed over from his 1992 saxophone gig on “The Arsenio Hall Show.”
Down there, odds are he’ll hit a hawk
Texas Gov. George W. Bush is taking another shot at dove hunting. Last year, the former president’s son brought down an protected bird called a killdeer, costing him a $130 fine and embarrassing him in his campaign against former Gov. Ann Richards. “I’m putting lead in the air,” Bush said. “I hope it’s a dove.”
The women will be fawning all over him
Former Reagan aide Oliver North was such a big hit on TV during the Iran-Contra hearings that he’s giving it another try. The ex-Marine will play a retired military intelligence operative during a cameo appearance on the new NBC drama “JAG.”
But enough, Misha, about Tip O’Neill
Whatever you think of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, he certainly knew how to make small talk. Former presidential press secretary Marlin Fitzwater recalls Reagan once passing the time by telling Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, “without embarrassment or hesitation,” about a story he had seen in People magazine on a 1,200-pound man who got stuck in a bathroom doorway.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino