And Brigitte Created Quite A Controversy

Tue., Dec. 10, 1996

Compiled By Staff Writer Rick Bo

Brigitte Bardot’s bust has fallen again. Amid a growing uproar over the 62-year-old former screen star’s support for France’s far-right National Front, the Parisian suburb of Marly-le- Roi has become the country’s second city to remove a bust of Marianne - the symbol of the French republic - because it was modeled after Bardot.

“Brigitte Bardot was chosen as the model of Marianne because she had generous curves,” Mayor Francois-Henri de Virieu said after a unanimous city council vote. “Today, she has ideas that we don’t find generous.”

In her best-selling memoirs, which were published this fall, Bardot referred to National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen as a “very fine man.”

Loose talk

Comedian Margaret Cho, on her fitness regime (on Prodigy): “I love the Ab Roller. I actually have it at home … My philosophy on exercise equipment is if I own it, it’s enough.”

As actors go, he’s quite the Hamlet

Kenneth Branagh turns 36 today.

In other words, she was thoroughly Czeched out

Looking for a fresh face for the female lead in “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” People magazine reports, director Milos Forman sent tapes of screen tests by Hole singer Courtney Love and two other young actresses to Vaclav Havel, former playwright and president of the Czech Republic, for his opinion. Havel concurred with the Widow Cobain.

The palace guards better prepare for a purge

Prince Charles and Princess Diana appeared in public together for the first time since their divorce Sunday at a Christmas carol service at Eton, the school attended by their eldest son, Prince William. Meanwhile, The Mail on Sunday newspaper reported that Charles has asked his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, to invite Diana to lunch at Buckingham Palace later this month.

Sounds like a little skulduggery, if you ask us

Having earned high rating for her televised interrogation of the Duchess of York, Diane Sawyer flew off for an interview with Princess Caroline of Monaco, who has lost her hair because of what’s reportedly a skin problem. Sawyer arrived accompanied by her personal hairdresser, Vincent Roppatte, whom New York magazine called “the perfect expert to probe the psyche of the suddenly bald princess.”

Hey, who’s that devil with the blue dress on?

Jerry Lewis, who plays the devil in a touring production of “Damn Yankees” that stopped in Spokane in October, went to his dressing room to prepare Saturday at a Buffalo performing arts center to find his entire costume had been stolen - including a white suit with red pinstripes and the number 666 on the back, a hat, a scarf, assorted bow ties and a pair of devil horns. Lewis was forced to perform in a different outfit, but theater officials said no one seemed to notice.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos

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

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