May 30, 2000

Rags clash over Ted Turner 'romance'

By ROGER ANDERSON Scripps Howard News Service

NEWS UPSET: Just when journalists were getting all happy and content with the idea that Ted Turner, currently estranged from his wife, Jane Fonda, had taken up with Bo Derek, word comes along that he has instead gotten himself involved with a 28-year­old professor named Karen Rosenfield.

So galvanized was the New York Daily News with this seeming revelation that the rag elected to put the highly photogenic Karen on its cover a few days back. On an inside page, one of the editors got her on the blower and was rewarded with this telling bit of verbiage.

"I don't feel comfortable talking to you, so I'm hanging up."

YET PERHAPS NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS: But then the News' archrival, the New York Post, enters the fray with the notion that the Karen-Ted thing is a total bunch of hogwash, even citing reports that rags like the National Enquirer, the Star and the Globe had all made efforts to capture the pair on film, with no success.

"The whole thing sounded bogus from the get-go," a "veteran reporter" tells the Post. "There was not one scintilla of evidence Ted Turner has ever met this woman."

"We got the tip two weeks ago," a National Enquirer person puts in, with reference to a plan to get pics of the two, "and we had a photographer outside the Waldorf. Ted turned up, but alone, and when Ted saw our photographer, he ran across Park Avenue,
trampling the tulips on the median." Someone should have given him a ticket for jaywalking and destruction of city property.

NEWS THAT MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER: Already tired of trying to make sense of the above imbroglio, we turn to a report saying that beleaguered author Salman Rushdie is going to appear in the movie version of "Bridget ]ones Diary."

MORE NEWS THAT MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER: Here we have People magazine announcing that George Hamilton's much-ballyhooed romantic relationship with multimillionaire novelist Danielle Steel is a thing of the past, with George reportedly reuniting with his ex-wife, Alana Stewart. The mag goes on to say that George and Alana are celebrating their renewed relationship by signing up for a long-term business deal with Stan Lee, the fellow who invented Spiderman. And why shouldn't they?

NEWS THAT MAKES A BIT OF SENSE, BUT NOT MUCH: Another controversy rears its head as Sir Elton John's assertion that dinner wasn't served at an AIDS research benefit in Cannes till 11:30 p.m. is countered by an event organizer, who swears on the tallest stack of Bibles you ever saw that in fact the food started arriving on the table as early as 9:30.

NEWS THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE: We guess Pamela Anderson Lee and her on-again-off-again husband, rocker Tommy Lee, are currently in "off-again" mode, because here's an item saying that Pam is now gadding about with famous male model Marcus
Schenkenberg, who used to go steady with female model Kylie Bax, who halls from New Zealand, which brings the whole thing full circle (but don't ask us how).

INNER WORKINGS OF THE SHOW BUSINESS: One of USA Today's main strengths is its ability to get entertainment-industry insiders to provide trenchant analysis on media matters. For instance, now that Woody Allen has released his new film, "Small Time Crooks," the folks at that paper - operating on the premise that the movie is proving far more popular with ordinary Americans than Woody's previous efforts - obtain incisive comment from Brian Callaghan, a spokesman for the 140-theater General Cinema chain.

"His movies always do well in downtown markets," Brian says owlishly, "but this movie is having good play in suburban and mid-sized markets as well."

No sooner has one begun to digest that piece of intelligence than Richard Fay, the head of AMC theaters, weighs in with further wisdom:

"The marketing and cast really caught the attention of the more blue-collar audience," Richard observes. "The cast was one that people can relate to. The ad campaign was all over TV." (Note: The cast includes such working-class heroes as Tracey Ullman and Hugh Grant.)

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? It seems like ages since we heard from ace song-and-dance meister Tommy Tune, and for excellent reason - it has been ages since he was sidelined with a broken foot while preparing to take the Great White Way by storm with a show he was working on.

"Broadway has been tough on me lately," Tommy told a reporter the other day. "'Busker Alley' is a dead duck now." ("Busker Alley" was, of course, the title of the show mentioned above.) "When I broke my foot, the show got canceled. By the time I was healed, the producers were embrolled with insurance companies." And the last thing you want is to have your producers embroiled with ANYBODY, let alone an insurance company.

Roger Anderson is arts and entertainment editor at Scripps Howard News Service.

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