It Took A Lot Of Laboring To Live In That Fashion

In a remembrance of the slain designer in the latest Time magazine, Madonna recalls a few days she spent at Gianni Versace’s villa in Italy.

She tells of pressing her face “onto the cool marble of any number of naked-men statues that filled his bedrooms” and being waited on by white-gloved servants.

“Dirty clothes never stayed on the floor for more than a few seconds, and beautiful Versace gowns kept arriving,” she wrote. “I even wore one to dinner … I was envious of a person who had the courage to live life so luxuriously. I’m too practical for that.”

But evidence of Versace’s work ethic was plentiful, she added, from sketches and art books scattered about the house to piles of magazines open to articles or ads featuring his clothes.

“Obviously, we were enjoying the fruits of Gianni’s labor,” she said.

Loose talk

Supermodel Naomi Campbell, on the eve of designer Gianni Versace’s funeral Tuesday: “I don’t really accept that he’s gone. Maybe tomorrow I will.”

And the Melman will bring him lots of cards

Calvert DeForest turns 69 today.

That Bobby always keeps her in stitches

Singer-actress Whitney Houston was treated Monday for a small but deep cut on her left cheek while vacationing off the Italian island of Capri with husband Bobby Brown. A crying Houston, whose relationship with the volatile Brown has been stormy, said she ran into a rock while swimming; however, a member of her yacht’s crew said she was hurt while on the boat. Police are investigating.

So, she’s only a baroness for the beef

Jamie Lee Curtis was on hand Monday to watch her husband, actor/screenwriter Christopher Guest - who became the fifth Baron Haden-Guest last year upon his father’s death - take his seat in England’s House of Lords. Curtis told The Daily Telegraph she only uses her title to “book a table in a very good British restaurant.”

He has the questions, she has the answers

August is shaping up as a big month for “Beverly Hills, 90210” star Ian Ziering and his wife of 2 weeks, model Nikki Shigler. Ziering will make his Los Angeles stage debut in the play “What Is Art?”, while Shigler shows her stuff on the cover of Playboy.

And, sadly, that day has come all too soon

A few final words from Gianni Versace himself, from an interview in the current issue of the New Yorker: “I’d like to live forever. If there’s anything I’m afraid of, it’s missing what will happen tomorrow. I’m very curious. I want to see what’s going to be on the cover of Time, who is going to be Man of the Year for another year, the new scientific discoveries … I won’t miss being younger, because we all know we’ll be old in 20 or 30 years. But one day, I’ll miss the people I love.”

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