At Least He Doesn’t Flee From Foray Into Comedy

Laurence Fishburne, who portrays a well-dressed gangster in his latest film, “Hoodlum,” is a very private person.

While on the road to promote the movie, he deflected personal questions - even down to which coast he lives on. “I live on the planet Earth,” he told an interviewer who dared ask.

“You know, Fish ain’t gonna tell you much,” said his friend Chi McBride, a co-star in “Hoodlum.” “And I don’t talk about my friendship with him because I know that Fish is very private.”

But the guy’s got a keen sense of humor. About his foray into comedy last year in “Fled,” he said: “I think people accepted that - the five people who went.”

Loose talk

Martha Stewart, on her down-home wardrobe (in Vogue magazine): “My Levi’s are just my Levi’s, my overalls are early Gap things, and I have 15 shades of blue work shirts.”

Is this the birthday party to whom I am speaking?

Lily Tomlin turns 58 today.

There go the property values - straight up

Mount Desert Island, a tiny village near Maine’s Bar Harbor, is all abuzz with reports that lifestyle maven Martha Stewart is moving into a 61-acre estate formerly owned by a Texas oil tycoon. Said a local restaurant owner: “Some people are a little nervous this will mean lots more activity. We have been assured by her friends she is looking for a quiet place to hang out.”

Nobody likes being the butt of Howard’s jokes

Former TV talk host Morton Downey Jr. has quit his call-in radio show to work full-time on a lawsuit against radio shock jock Howard Stern, who claimed on the air that he had started smoking again. Downey, a former chain smoker turned anti-tobacco advocate following lung surgery, says Stern’s information came from an erroneous newspaper report that was later retracted.

Bad judge? Not as bad as Imus’ judgment

The poor man’s Stern, Don Imus, has been slapped with a $50,000 libel suit by a state judge whom he called a “senile old dirt bag” and “an embittered old fool” for refusing to let his wife out of jury duty. Says Imus, who later made a mea culpa on the air: “I already apologized to the judge … which I don’t expect to do again.”

That’s ‘Liddy,’ ma’am, as in a double D

When Heidi Washburn of Norfolk, Va., asked conservative talk radio host and former Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy to autograph her brassiere at a book signing, he instead offered to sign “what’s inside of it” - to which she agreed, while her husband took pictures. “He’s G. Gordon Liddy!” she explained. “He’s my hero.” And as for Mr. Washburn? “Like she said, he’s G. Gordon Liddy.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos

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