Who wants to be Regis Philbin?
"It's never been easy being me," ABC's prize talk/game-show host whines in his forthcoming autobiography, "Who Wants to Be Me?" excerpted in the upcoming issue of Us Weekly.
For one thing, people keep imagining that he and his erstwhile "Live!" co-host Kathie Lee secretly have eyes for each other -- including the show's producer Michael Gelman. Gelman figures sexual tension between the two is what kept the show going all those years, but Reege isn't buying it.
"There's more sexual tension between me and my urologist than there was between me and Kathie Lee!" he insists.
And then there's his wife, Joy, who he says pushed him into pursuing the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" host gig because she didn't want him around the house after he finished taping every day. "What woman wouldn't be thrilled to have her husband there with her all afternoon?" he asks. Then answers. "Exactly. No woman alive would want that." (Oh, Reege. You're so progressive!)
And then there's the little problem of the American public. They won't leave him alone! Things have gotten particularly out of hand since "Millionaire."
"Suddenly, I would quietly walk down the street and every other person was asking me if that was my final answer!"
I know. Heart-wrenching.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
But only one between 'em
"We do more than just sing and dance. We've got a brain, too."
-- Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson on how brilliant he and his fellow band members are proving themselves to be by investing in a convention hotel in Alabama.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
She's no angel
Farrah Fawcett is not to blame for her bizarre behavior on late night TV a few years back. Oh no. Instead, the finger of shame should be pointed directly at "that asshole," David Letterman.
So says Robert Altman, who directed Fawcett in the upcoming "Dr. T and the Women," in which she plays Richard Gere's mentally ill wife.
Typecasting? Don't even suggest it.
"The person who should be got after and looked at is kind of the asshole that did that talk show," Altman fumed at a press conference, when he was asked just how much Fawcett had in common with her onscreen character. "What's his name? David Letterman. He's the one that started it all."
Fawcett herself was a little more accepting of her wacky rep. "If that is the reputation -- whatever it is, [that I'm] crazy -- that's fine," she says. "It will change."
Well, we may forgive her strange behavior, but if she thinks we'll forget it, she's crazy.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Depp stuff
"I love Johnny. He has a great ass. In the red wig he looked like Sophia Loren."
-- Director Julian Schnabel on how great Johnny Depp looks in drag in Schnabel's new film, "Before Night Falls."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Tom Hanks' sexiest role?
Here's one I know you'll want to rush right out and see ...
Bill Condon, who wrote and directed "Gods and Monsters," says he's got big plans for his next movie. "Fox is giving me a huge budget to make a movie about Alfred Kinsey," the director told New York gossipist Baird Jones at the "Nurse Betty" premiere party. "I want it to be 'The Right Stuff' meets SEX."
And he's got the casting all mapped out. "I want Tom Hanks to play the lead with the other younger guys in the team to be Hugh Jackman and Mark Wahlberg," he says. "We're polishing the script to send them right now ... If Tom Hanks says no, I think we have a real chance to get Harrison Ford."
Brings a whole new meaning to Indy's fear of snakes ...
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Juicy bits
Does taking off your clothes in a film render you unfit to be a stepmom? That was the implication as Ellen Barkin took the stand in Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday to testify on behalf of her husband, Revlon tycoon Ron Perelman, in his battle with his ex-wife Patricia Duffy for custody of their 5-year-old daughter. "Have you made movies with an adult-only R rating?" the "Sea of Love" star was asked. "Have you made movies where you had full frontal nudity?" Objection, your honor.
Cheech & Chong are back! Well, Chong is back ... with an all-new Cheech, a friend of Tommy Chong's named Francisco. "I realized I had to go this route after talking to movie companies and them always telling me, 'Oh, if it was a Cheech & Chong movie, you'd have a deal right away,'" Chong told the Toronto Sun, explaining his decision to abandon his flagging solo career and go back to his stoner-duo roots. "When I talk to the first Cheech [Richard "Cheech" Marin], I realize no, he's a different guy, he couldn't play the role if he wanted to. He could never get into his [trademark] tutu. So, y'know, there's always a different James Bond. Why can't there be a different Cheech?" Put that in your pipe ...
Shares