Ronnie Didn’T Do A Thing Without Asking Mommy
Think Hillary Rodham Clinton is a hands-on first lady? Vanity Fair dishes more details about Nancy Reagan’s behind-the-scenes influence in her White House days.
“If Ronnie was screwing up in one area or another, she’d get (deputy chief of staff) Mike Deaver on the phone,” says former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Burt. “For anybody outside to break into that inner circle, Mrs. Reagan had to approve.”
The magazine credits the former first lady with paving the way for her husband’s summits with Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
As Reagan herself once said: “I protect Ronnie from himself. You know he has a big Irish heart. He trusts everybody, and he doesn’t see when he’s being blindsided or when people are acting out of motives that are less than noble.”
Loose talk
The Sun tabloid, urging Prince Charles to make longtime mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles his public companion: “Show us you love her. For goodness sake, get on with it. Neither of you is getting any younger.”
Let’s all wish happy sweating to the oldie
Richard Simmons turns 50 today.
Guess Will was trying to stay mum about it
Prince William finally met Camilla Parker-Bowles - the nemesis of his late mother, Princess Diana - last month when he arrived unexpectedly at his father’s residence, St. James’s Palace, to change clothes before going out with friends. They had an amicable half-hour chat and have seen each other twice since, according to The Sun, but Parker-Bowles has yet to meet Will’s younger brother, Prince Harry.
Suppose he’s been teaching Bob new tricks?
Former GOP presidential hopeful Bob Dole’s latest public appearance was awarding $10,000 to the winner of the Purina Dog Chow Search for the Great American Dog. He had a personal interest; Dole’s own dog, a schnauzer named Leader, was chosen as “Mr. September” for the Ralston Purina calendar.
That’s not particularly political, nor polite
Hollywood couple Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger are throwing a “summer lawn party” fund-raiser for President Clinton at their home in the Hamptons next month, but politics aren’t exactly in Basinger’s blood. “Up until now,” she said, “when we’d get into those long discussions about politics, I would run to my bathroom, put on my favorite CD and turn it up as loud as I could.”
Tributes? He’s certainly receiving his share
There’s talk at the University of California at Riverside of establishing a Sonny Bono School of Government, a statue of the late singer-cum-congressman is being built in downtown Palm Springs (where he was once mayor) and a triangle of land in Dupont Circle in Washington is being designated Sonny Bono Park, complete with a plaque and a vault containing a pair of congressional cufflinks and the sheet music for “The Beat Goes On.”