To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People Jan. 11, 2000 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/2000/01/11/np0111 Ally McSqueal? Nell and Cage: Crack team. Is she experienced? Bonnie Raitt spills all. Plus: The King and I -- Carter and Presley, together again. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter Talk about must-flee TV. Portia de Rossi, who plays Nell on "Ally McBeal," says things got a little out of hand while filming the episode in which she was spanked by costar Peter MacNicol. (He thought she wanted it. Really, he did.) "I split a prosthetic butt cheek during the spanking scene," de Rossi recently told the Calgary Sun. "We had this big plastic thing and he slapped the hair brush down and cracked it in half." But if you're worried about her broken booty, fear not. "We had great fun doing that scene," the actress adds. One more crack like that ... - - - - - - - - - - - - You'll be relieved to know ... "No kitchen implements were involved." -- Filmmaker Julie Cypher, Melissa Etheridge's squeeze, on the mechanics of being artificially inseminated with David Crosby's sperm, in Rolling Stone. - - - - - - - - - - - - The leak of love Et tu, Bonnie? One star I thought I could depend on not to overshare was Bonnie Raitt. Oh well, I guess when she sang "Let's give 'em something to talk about," she wasn't bluffing. In an upcoming VH1 special on the 100 greatest rock songs of all time (a five-nighter kicking off Jan. 17), Raitt divulges that she had a ... uh ... profound physical reaction to hearing Jimi Hendrix sing "Purple Haze" for the first time. "I had to change my pants when I heard it. That's how much I liked it," she leaks. Could the experience have inspired her hit "Love Has No Pride?" - - - - - - - - - - - - Oldsters need not apply "I'm not into wrinkles." -- Winona Ryder expressing her distaste for older men, and particularly for Richard Gere, with whom she was paired in the film "Autumn in New York." - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits Who wants to watch TV game shows? Everyone, apparently. But some TV execs warn that that might not be the quiz-addicted public's final answer. "It's like crack," NBC Entertainment president Garth Ancier told the Television Critics Association on Sunday. "Once you're on it, it's wonderful because you get these giant ratings, but no one believes it's going to work forever." Bring on the methadone. Victoria Beckham may want to change her handle to Scared Spice. U.K. papers reported this weekend that Scotland Yard's organized crime unit thwarted a plot to kidnap Posh and baby Brooklyn late last year. What the would-be kidnappers wanted -- what they really, really wanted -- was nearly $2 million cash. I'm all shook up! A 1991 genealogical study reprinted last week on RootsWeb Review, in honor of what would have been Elvis Presley's 65th birthday, reveals that Presley was related to former president Jimmy Carter. According to the report, Jimmy and the King were likely sixth cousins once removed. That oughta put a little extra swivel in the ex-prez's hips ... Lucianne Goldberg can dish it out, but she's not gonna take the allegations leveled by New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin in his new book "A Vast Conspiracy" without a fight. News broke Monday that Goldberg's lawyers are threatening Toobin's publisher, Random House, with a libel suit if it declines to withdraw the book, which accuses her of marital infidelity and of boasting to friends that she had a youthful affair with President Johnson. Perhaps someone got that on tape? salon.com | Jan. 11, 2000   - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Amy Reiter is a staff writer for Salon People. For more columns by Amy Reiter, visit her column archive.