Now it’s in black and white

John Tesh has confirmed a more extensive romance with media mogul Oprah Winfrey than either have ever let on.

Excerpts from Kitty Kelley’s new “Oprah: A Biography” were published in the New York Daily News saying Tesh and Winfrey had lived together when they were starting their careers in 1974.

“Oprah and I were cub (TV) reporters in Nashville nearly 40 years ago and we dated for a short time,” musician and former “Entertainment Tonight” host Tesh told his old show.

“We even talked about it during one of my appearances on her show.”

But what they talked about on Winfrey’s 10th-anniversary show in 1996 was actually much less than Tesh remembers: Winfrey said they had simply had a single “platonic dinner date.”

One of Tesh’s ex-girlfriends told celebrity biographer Kelley, who also has written tomes on Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra and Nancy Reagan, that he succumbed to the pressure of being an interracial couple in the South at that time:

“He said one night he looked down and saw his white body next to her black body and couldn’t take it anymore. He walked out in the middle of the night. … He told me he later felt very guilty about it.”

Showgirl-and-tell

Actress Elizabeth Berkley is writing “Ask Elizabeth,” a “self-esteem handbook for teen girls” based on questions she has been asked over the years.

The 37-year-old Berkley is best known for the sitcom “Saved by the Bell” and for playing an exotic dancer in the movie “Showgirls.”

The birthday bunch

Singer Bobby Vinton is 75. Singer Gerry Rafferty is 63. Actress Ellen Barkin is 56. Singer Jimmy Osmond is 47. Actor-comedian Martin Lawrence is 45. Actor Jon Cryer is 45. Actor Peter Billingsley (“A Christmas Story”) is 39. Actor Lukas Haas is 34.