People: So it didn’t end on a sour note?
Just when we had made our peace with “The Sopranos” finale and moved on with our lives, David Chase has stirred things up again.
In an interview in “The Sopranos: The Complete Book,” published this week, the creator of the groundbreaking HBO mob drama strongly suggests that, no, Tony Soprano didn’t get whacked as the screen suddenly went black.
He says Tony “had been people’s alter ego. They had gleefully watched him rob, kill, pillage, lie and cheat. … And then, all of a sudden, they wanted to see him punished for all that. They wanted ‘justice’…
“The pathetic thing – to me – was how much they wanted his blood, after cheering him on for eight years.”
Chase insists that what you saw (and didn’t see) in the June 10 episode is what you get.
“There are no esoteric clues in there. No ‘Da Vinci Code,’ ” he declares.
And while the unexpected finish left lots of viewers thinking their cable service was on the fritz, Chase insists it wasn’t meant as a prank.
“Why would we want to do that?” he asks. “Why would we entertain people for eight years only to give them the finger?”
Don’t clog in the smog
Marie Osmond says she doesn’t know why she fainted during a broadcast of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” but that it may have something to do with allergies.
The 48-year-old singer and her partner, the first performers on Monday night’s show, had just finished a samba and were listening to judges’ comments when she suddenly toppled.
“The only thing I can think of, I have allergies. … The air quality (in Los Angeles) is terrible. And I think I just couldn’t get my breath,” Osmond says.
Master of her romaine?
Jerry Seinfeld‘s wife is denying accusations of plagiarism after plugging her healthy cookbook for kids on Oprah Winfrey‘s show.
“Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food” by Jessica Seinfeld is strikingly similar to Missy Chase Lapine‘s “The Sneaky Chef,” according to several Web posters and Lapine herself – who says she was turned down by Oprah five times.
Replies Seinfeld: “My book came from years of trying to get my own children to eat healthy foods – my own trial and error in my own kitchen.”
Twilight Zone companion
Garrison Keillor has won a restraining order against a Georgia woman he claims sent him explicit e-mails and disturbing gifts – including a petrified alligator foot and dead beetles.
Keillor says the harassment started in April after Andrea R. Campbell attended a live performance of his public radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion.”
In one message she “graphically described making love to me,” he says, adding that Campbell once showed up outside his home.
Campbell, a self-described happily married mother of five, says she’s “unclear as to what the problem is,” adding: “It’s transcendental love, that’s all. Between a writer and a reader.”
The birthday bunch
Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman is 71. Actor F. Murray Abraham is 68. Actor Kevin Kline is 60. Actor B.D. Wong is 47. Singer Monica is 27. Singer-actress Adrienne Bailon (“The Cheetah Girls”) is 24.