Oh, Melanie, You Truly Got Some ‘Splainin’ To Do

And now for a little comic relief as the start of another work week comes at us, we return to the saga of Melanie Griffith.

To make sure that people don’t get the wrong idea about her pregnancy, she wants people to know the truth about her relationship with Spanish heartbreaker Antonio Banderas: “This baby was definitely planned,” she says.

Well, OK. That’s probably why she was photographed smoking a cigarette during her first trimester.

Of course, that’s better than what she could be doing. Griffith, thankfully, says she doesn’t “feel any desire to drink or do coke. Especially coke. I see people drinking wine when I’m out to dinner, and I think, ‘Oh, one glass.’ But it’s better that I don’t.”

Loose talk

Helen Hunt on personal habits: “I have to have quiet in my life. If I get too much noise - whether I’m seeing too many people or talking too much - I can’t hear my instincts.”

Dressed in black, he’ll celebrate by walking the line

Johnny Cash turns 64 today.

So, that staffer, was she Thelma or Louise?

Remember Bob Packwood? Seems he wasn’t alone in his drive to enjoy the company of sweet young congressional staffers. “You give a man a Member of Congress pin,” one such staffer told Elle magazine, “and he thinks he’s Brad Pitt.”

So now she admits what her secret to success was

After lauding Tina Brown for the work she has done with Vanity Fair magazine, ABC broadcaster Barbara Walters realized her mistake. Brown, who left VF in 1992, now edits The New Yorker. “I got this far not by being smart and remembering names,” Walters said, “just by being incredibly sexy!”

And that makes it Abdul-Jabbar 2, Farrakhan 0

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the ex-basketball player, is proud to call himself an Orthodox Muslim. Nevertheless, he’s no big fan of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.”I am not a part of Minister Farrakhan’s little group,” Abdul-Jabbar told a college audience in Muncie, Ind. “He is part of the problem, not part of the solution. He is a demagogue taking advantage of misery in the black community. He’s not doing a lot to change things.”

Especially, you understand, if the lady was a tramp

“You don’t,” said Frank Sinatra, explaining to Esquire magazine how one mends a broken heart. “I think being jilted is one of life’s most painful experiences. It takes a long time to heal a broken heart. It’s happened to all of us and never gets any easier. I understand, however, that playing one of my albums can help.”

In the shower, anyone can be a hunka, hunka burnin’ love

So where does pop star Tori Amos most like to compose? “I like writing in bathrooms,” she says. “The acoustics can be great. You can turn on the water, sing and nobody can hear you.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color photos

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Dan Webster