Will time run out for Wallace?
Before he retires from “60 Minutes,” Mike Wallace is making a last-ditch effort to sit down with President Bush.
“I’ve never even shaken hands with the man,” said Wallace, 87, who has interviewed every sitting president since Kennedy.
It’s not for lack of trying. Several previous requests have been rebuffed, and Wallace even ended his memoir, “Between You and Me,” with a plea: “So how about it, Mr. President, isn’t it time you gave this old man a break?”
But actually, the one interview Wallace most regrets never landing was with Pat Nixon.
He says he learned while traveling with the Nixons in 1968 that she was a brave, smart woman – not “plastic Pat,” as she was sometimes portrayed.
“She was a genuine, lovely, fine woman who was bruised by what happened to her husband,” he says.
So was he lifting, too?
It’s been a bit of a rough stretch health-wise for “The View” co-host Star Jones Reynolds and her husband.
On the same day that she underwent breast-lift surgery last Friday, Al Reynolds slipped at a gym and was taken to the emergency room with two cuts to the head.
Both are recovering just fine, her spokesman says, despite rumors of complications from the breast operation.
Just a little spine control
Gloria Estefan, who was temporarily paralyzed after breaking her back in 1990 when her tour bus was hit by a tractor-trailer, has given $1 million to create a clinical-trial program at the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.
“I don’t beep at airports,” Estefan joked about the metal rods implanted in her 16 years ago. “I always get that question.
“I’m not magnetic. Space-age metal. And titanium reinforced. Guys in my band called me ‘robo-pop.’ “
Dude looks like he’s laid up
Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler has been sidelined by surgery for an undisclosed medical condition, forcing the band to cancel the remaining dates of its North American tour.
Doctors for Tyler, who turns 58 on Sunday, have “advised him not to continue performing to give his voice time to recover.”
Ready for some sleazeball?
A 19-year-old waitress has accused Hank Williams Jr. of harassing her in a Memphis hotel bar.
Holly Hornbeak claims that around midnight Saturday the country music star swore at her, tried to kiss her and lifted her in a chokehold, according to a police report.
A spokesman for Williams, who has sung the “Monday Night Football” theme since 1989, denied the allegations.
Williams’ two daughters are recovering in a Memphis hospital from injuries suffered in a car crash.
The birthday bunch
Cartoonist Joseph Barbera (Hanna and Barbera) is 95. Comedian Louie Anderson is 53. Actor Robert Carradine is 52. Actress Kelly LeBrock is 46. “The View” co-host Star Jones Reynolds is 44. Actress Annabella Sciorra is 42. Actress Lara Flynn Boyle is 36. Rapper Maceo (De La Soul) is 36. Actress Alyson Hannigan (“How I Met Your Mother”) is 32. Actress Keisha Castle-Hughes (“Whale Rider”) is 16.