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The stars can't help it
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April 12, 2000 | "Every week I get another frantic call from my mother asking if it is true that I have a compulsion to shoplift every day and that I have a special poncho to put stolen CDs in or that I am in love with my prison pen pal,
Charlie Manson. That's what I told the London Times," Gershon informed gossipist Baird Jones at the Coach party for Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides." "Actually I am obsessed with serial killers, but I have never corresponded with them." Recently, Gershon says, she told "this completely ignorant British interviewer" that "The Vagina Monologues," in which she's acting, is "a new sci-fi movie about how the last baby on Earth had to be hidden from UFOs inside the womb of a living sheep but you could still hear the baby talking." Amy Reiter Amy Reiter's column appears daily on the People site, Monday through Friday.
Got a hot tip? Tell Amy! "I expect the phone to ring any minute from Mom asking me if the sheep vagina story is true," Gershon chortles. "She keeps telling me, 'Gina, you're getting yourself into trouble with all those interview lies,' but really I'm just trying to have fun." Surely there are better ways. - - - - - - - - - - - - Windexed cortex "I like my mind right now. I feel like I unscrewed my head and washed my brain." -- Sandra Bullock on her current state of mind, in the Toronto Sun. - - - - - - - - - - - - The bewildering world of Billy Bob Please tell me Billy Bob Thornton's pulling a Gina Gershon. Alas, I fear it isn't so. I suspect the actor is quite sincere when, in an upcoming Men's Journal interview, he reveals he has more superstitions and phobias than you could shake a sling blade at. For starters, there's the cigarette thing: The lit end of the stub, which represents danger, must face away from wherever his children are before being ground out. He's been religious about it for the last three years. "It just happens one time," Thornton explains, "and then you always have to do it." Then there's his supreme fear of antiques. He can't eat or sleep around them and even has his assistant call ahead when he travels to make sure hotel rooms are antique-free. "I know it sounds like a joke," he says, "but it's very serious." Certain eras, he says, like "French or old English shit from castles," he "can't even think about." What's more, he eschews drinking out of regular glasses and eating off dishes. "Obviously, antique dishes I won't have anything to do with. I prefer plastic ware and paper plates," he says. And his views on reincarnation rival Shirley MacLaine's. "I was Ben Franklin in a former life," he asserts. He realized it one day while he was talking to then squeeze Laura Dern (who he has reportedly just dumped for Angelina Jolie). "She said, 'You know, I think you were Ben Franklin,' and I said, 'Yeah.' And it felt weird in the air and I got weird feelings and she got weird feelings and I remember a tear coming down, you know that thing when you get some spooky shit. And I feel myself walking around Philadelphia and Boston and I've never been to either place, but I feel it so strongly." Wish I could say Jolie would be a stabilizing influence ... - - - - - - - - - - - - The Pope better watch his back "People the world over recognize me as a great spiritual leader." -- Steven Seagal, showing his modest side in the U.K. Sun. - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits Sad news for "M*A*S*H" fans. Larry Linville, the man who played chicken-lipped Maj. Frank Burns in the long-running TV series, died Monday at age 60 of complications from pneumonia after a long struggle with lung cancer. Linville may be gone, but classic Maj. Burns moments like "I can go in or out. In. Out" and "Frank Burns eats worms" will forever live on in our hearts -- and in syndication. Finally! After buildup even longer than Warren Beatty's Oscars speech, Annette Bening has birthed a baby girl -- her fourth child with Beatty. According to the couple's publicist, Nancy Seltzer, "everyone is happy and healthy." Awww. How meta. Variety reports that Colin Firth has signed on to play Mark Darcy opposite Renée Zellweger in the on-screen adaptation of Helen Fielding's "Bridget Jones's Diary." Here's the strange part: Mark Darcy is based on Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy, from "Pride and Prejudice," a character Firth played in the BBC adaptation of Austen's novel. In Fielding's book, meanwhile, Bridget Jones and her buddies are obsessed with Firth's portrayal of Mr. Darcy. V. v. confusing. A street sign to honor Hugh Hefner in the City of Big Shoulders? Not so fast. One Chicago alderwoman is doing everything she can to stop a "Hugh Hefner Way" sign on the city's north side. "I don't care how many great things that he could have possibly done," says Alderwoman Carrie Austin of the Playboy founder. "I still could not vote for the naming of a street for a person who has earned his money on the backs of women." Well, not exactly the backs ... And speaking of making money off women's anatomy ... Reuters reports that Jenny Craig relaunched its ad campaign on Monday -- and Monica Lewinsky was nowhere in sight. The diet company's spokeswoman, Jeanne McDougall, says the handbag-maker's absence is no big deal and reflects only a shift in focus. "We have not dropped Monica or anything like that," she explained. "Our relationship is absolutely and completely unchanged." I'm sure you're all vastly relieved to hear it.
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