November 2, 1999

RICKY MARTIN ON MENUDO: LOOK BACK IN ANGER

By ROGER ANDERSON Scripps Howard News Service

HARD LINES IN THE CELEBRITY BUSINESS: We know what you're thinking - that a huge star like Ricky Martin has it made and has always had it made. But that's because you assume that starting out in life as a member of the teenybopper group Menudo is necessarily a cushy kind of deal. Judging by what Ricky tells the upcoming issue of USA Weekend, however, that's far from being the case.

"My personality was sabotaged in the band," Ricky charges. "We were told what to sing and what to wear, what haircut to have. I didn't know who I was. When I left the band in '89, I had to think, 'Do I like this haircut? Do I like these jeans?''' It's amazing he can still feed himself.

HAIL TO THE BILLIONAIRE: Don't forget, now, that Donald Trump is seriously mulling a White House run and may need your support. His latest brainstorm along those lines is that, if elected, he will appoint himself as U.S. trade representative, in which case he would practice a bit of tough love with certain allies of ours who are better known for eating snails than for having a lick of business sense.

"France just doesn't respect this country," The Donald opined on a Fox TV news show recently. "France is a terrible partner … They are a very disloyal group in terms of their government and I think they have to be taught respect." Sounds like a good thrashing may be in order.

A REPUTABLE SOURCE OF DISREPUTABLE NON-NEWS: We're very pleased to see that gossip dowager Liz Smith is willing to go on the record with word that multimillionaire trash novelist Danielle Steel is billing and cooing with tanning god George Hamilton. Liz even gets an unnamed "onlooker" to say, "She can't keep her hands off him."

MORE FROM LIZ: Which does not exhaust the contribution Liz has to make to the national discourse this week, for she has also returned from a luncheon with trash novelist Victoria Gotti with a snappy quote.

"This one is about Hollywood - old and new," Victoria says of her next book, which will hit the stalls soon. "And I know already the press will only be asking me questions that have nothing to do with the book." Like what? "But I'm ready for them!"

THE NEWS JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER: If you've been wasting away for lack of fresh reports concerning Barbra Streisand's fairly new marriage to James Brolin, buck up - relief is on the way, in the form of a big pair of Babs-and-Jimmy interviews in the pages of McCall's mag.

For one thing, the diva sees fit to admit that she and her husband often don't bother with clothes during a typical relaxing weekend.

"We hardly ever get dressed," she says. "We like to spend time in nature. We read to each other out loud."

The McCall's offering gets even more interesting, though, as Jimmy recalls how close he came to wimping out on his first date with the woman.

"I had my cell phone in my hand, he recalls, and I was going to call and cancel. I thought, 'I need this like a hole in the head.' I had so many disappointments in my life, I saw no future in romance."

LIFE UNDER THE BIG TOP: So many exciting things are happening lately that a lot of people seem to have forgotten that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is in the middle of a squalid divorce in which "another woman" plays a role. In fact, the legal machinery pertinent to the dissolution continues to grind, and Newt's squeeze - her name is Callista Bisek - is due to sit for a deposition.

"They can come in and ask any questions they want to ask," says Randy Evans, a lawyer who is on the Newt retainer. "... We don't have anything to hide. We just want to put an end to the circus atmosphere surrounding that deposition." Can we get some cotton candy first?

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

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