To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People Jan. 15, 2000 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/2000/01/15/npw0115 Dinosaurs, spanking and sprouts Barney found under covers with topless Norwegian; This just in: James Woods likes sex! Plus: Kate Winslet denies pernicious vegetable rumor! - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter It was a helluva week for dinosaurs. The untainted (though not untinted) Barney got tainted, Kitty Kelley cast aspersions on Ms. Goldberg, James "the woodman" Woods talked (a little too much) about lighting fires and fanning flames and Kate Winslet vehemently denied the scandalous gossip being bandied about by Liz Smith. Pass the veggies and read on ... - - - - - - - - - - - - Monday: "Purple dino prose " I love you; you love topless babes? Barney the purple dino might want to update his trademark song now that he's made a few new (and better developed) friends. The Associated Press reports that Avon books is recalling "Barney's Sing-Along Songs" after a kid in Massachusetts discovered an illustration of a bare-breasted woman in its lining. In the picture, the busty gal strokes the head of a reclining man. According to Michelle Capdeville (who says her son "came running into my room screaming, 'Oh, Mommy, look at this'"), the words "aphrodisiac" and "exotic literature" -- written in Norwegian -- are also visible in the image. Avon says the mix-up occurred because the printers used scrap paper left over from an astrology romance guide. Ah, the seamy underside of recycling. Read the entire Nothing Personal Column for Monday, Jan. 10. - - - - - - - - - - - - Tuesday: "Ally McSqueal? " 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 ... Read the entire Nothing Personal Column for Tuesday, Jan. 11. - - - - - - - - - - - - Wednesday: "Randy pols and sheepish veeps" Yesterday, in my item about Lucianne Goldberg's tantrum over Jeffrey Toobin's book "A Vast Conspiracy," I wondered if any friends of the wily book agent would step up and confirm Toobin's controversial allegations. Did Goldberg boast to friends that she had a youthful affair with President Johnson when she worked in the White House? Was she guilty of using a friend's New York pad for a little extramarital nookie with a "prominent Washington writer"? Today, I'm dishing dirt with preeminent dirt-disher Kitty Kelley, once a Goldberg client -- though not a particularly satisfied one. (Kelley tells me Goldberg "stole money" from her back in the early '80s, an allegation a federal jury apparently agreed with when it awarded her more than $40,000 in owed royalties and damages.) "Yes, I heard her brag about LBJ," Kelley confirms, "but I just thought she was flattering herself. She did it all the time." Read the entire Nothing Personal Column for Wednesday, Jan. 12. - - - - - - - - - - - - Thursday: "Babes in the Woods" It's official: James Woods has no shame. "I love fucking women, let me tell ya," the actor says in an upcoming Movieline interview. "I repeat: I love fucking women. Love it." Particularly, he confesses, women who are "a little crazy." "What's so provocative about insane women is that they're connected to their sexuality in such an unfettered way," waxes Woods. "For those moments when they're with you, you're in heaven because they're literally borderline personalities in every sense of the word. They merge with you. Why be in bed with a librarian when you can be in bed with an animal?" But not too crazy. Even though he says his bad-boy rep is like "catnip" to the chicks, sometimes he's gotta stomp on the brakes: "I have to tell women, 'Listen, I'll still tie you up and give you a little spanking if you want, but if you're looking for nothing but drama, I'm the wrong guy.'" Read the entire Nothing Personal Column for Thursday, Jan. 13. - - - - - - - - - - - - Friday: "Sprout, sprout, let it all out " That rumor about Kate Winslet eating only Brussels sprouts to slim down for her nude scene in "Holy Smoke"? "A complete load of shit!" exclaims the actress. She's pretty sure she's figured out how the item made it into Liz Smith's gossip column, though. While filming in Australia, she explains in an interview in Mademoiselle, she stopped off at a supermarket. "I went in, I saw Brussels sprouts -- they were massive -- and I just really wanted them." So she bought them and asked a cafe to cook them up for her. Next thing she knew, local reporters were nosing around the cafe asking questions and -- quicker than you can say, "How would you liked those cooked, ma'am?" -- a gossip item was born. "I don't even go on diets," says Winslet (who recently boasted that she liked "having a good pair of tits on me and a good ass"). "I don't believe in them." Read the entire Nothing Personal Column for Friday, Jan. 14. salon.com | Jan. 15, 2000   - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Amy Reiter is a staff writer for Salon People. For more columns by Amy Reiter, visit her column archive.