Howard’s Way Is Stern When Throwing A Stone

Sharon Stone has earned Howard Stern’s wrath, and the world waits to see who will win this battle of the celebrities.

Seems the problem started at the recent MTV Awards when Stern acolyte Stuttering John Melendez, who specializes in posing impertinent questions, asked Stone if she’d be flashing her private parts on screen again.

Stern labeled the question vulgar and, Melendez claims, one of Stone’s bodyguards then punched him in the face. Melendez spent the night in the hospital.

On Monday, Stern called Stone a “dumb-ass bimbo,” urged Melendez to sue and termed it “ironic” that Stone resents references to “Basic Instinct.” “If it weren’t for that scene,” he said, “no one would have ever heard of her.”

Loose talk

Jeff Foxworthy on his canceled ABC show (in Entertainment Weekly): “At one point my 4-year-old son said, ‘Dad, I don’t want to watch “The Jeff Foxworthy Show” tonight.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you and 220 million other people.”’ She once was the Bain of Martin Landau’s existence

Barbara Bain turns 62 today.

We have just two words for you, Andre: David Caruso

So why is Andre Braugher, Det. Pembleton on “Homicide: Life on the Streets,” so ready to quit the show that brought him stardom? “This is a wonderful job,” the Emmy-nominated actor says. “But it’s time to go.”

To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, a wildebeest is a wildebeest

After being trampled by an elephant in a Kenya game reserve, wildlife photographer/playboy Peter Beard was philosophical. “It was just a freak occurrence,” said the 58-year-old ex-husband of Cheryl Tiegs. He was less forgiving after a run-in with bouncers in a Manhattan nightclub last December. “That was in the middle of a real jungle, New York City,” he said. “A really tight squeeze with an elephant is very preferable.”

Hey, chances are this IS the guy from the deli

In a cyber-chat, actor Kevin Bacon asked, “This is something that’s always interested me: You’re sitting there in front of your computer, Kevin Bacon is ostensibly answering these questions, but how do you really know it’s me? It could be the guy from the deli.”

There’s no business like show business…

Here’s a quick celeb-in-trouble roundup: Robert Downey Jr., 31, pleaded no contest to drug and weapons charges and was ordered to remain in a drug treatment center until sentencing on Nov. 6; Rapper Luther Campbell has been charged with battery for throwing a woman into the crowd during a concert; Jan-Michael Vincent, 52, who broke his neck in a car crash last month, has had his condition upgraded to fair.

He should have let him use his Etch-A-Sketch

It seemed like a good idea. Atlanta Constitution editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich had asked President Clinton to draw a caricature of himself aboard Air Force One. But when the pres was done, reports the Washington Post, Luckovich told him, “I can understand why you are working so hard to keep your day job.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos

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