September 19, 1999

TRUMP MULLS TRAVEL PLANS, FROM ALTAR TO WHITE HOUSE

By ROGER ANDERSON Scripps Howard News Service

TAKE TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT - PLEASE!: It's hard to count all the ways in which it would be great to have real estate billionaire Donald Trump as our president or, at least, as a serious candidate for the office, but surely one such boon would be having his current concubine, model Melanie Knauss, as his newest wife - for Donald and Melanie have made it pretty clear that if he does throw his hat in the ring, he will turn her into Mrs. Trump III in no time flat.

But USA Today, always looking for the psychological angle, asks Melanie whether it bothers her that the man to whom she is so seriously considering becoming married is thought by everyone with any sense to have an oversize ego.

"Everybody needs to have an ego, if you want to be a success or be president," Melanie observes. "I don't see how much he has an ego."

Nor will she deny that the idea of living in the White House as mistress of the household appeals to her sense of glamour.

"I think every woman, every girl would," she says. "Yes, I would, why not? I will put all my energy in it, and I will support my man." So the free world can rest easy.

HIGH PRAISE INDEED: The New York Post, having gotten a gander at the USA Today item mentioned above, gets Donald himself on the blower in hopes of gleaning a comment or two from him. He obligingly allows that Melanie "is a woman of great style and elegance," and puts the finishing touches on his encomium with this sentence: "She's very poised and gracious and able to get along with everyone." And what a body!

COLOR HER DEMANDING: The latest word on this deal where Barbra Streisand is going to do a New Year's gig at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas is that she wants to install a whole mess of her personal bric-a-brac in the backstage area!

"She wants it to feel homey," an  “insider" tells the New York Daily News. "She's having furniture and paintings and rugs shipped from her home in L.A."

But that's just the tip of the Babs Iceberg.

"She's also assessing the acoustics at the hotel's theater," this person goes on. "She's talking about pulling up seats and re-insulating the room so the sound is perfect. The MGM people are saying, 'You want us to do what?'" So they're hard of hearing? Or the acoustics really are that bad?

FURTHER NON-NEWS FROM BARBRA'S WORLD: Which reminds us that those recent rumors saying Minnie Driver is going to get married to Josh Brolin, who is the male offspring of Barbra's current husband, James Brolin, are apparently just that - rumors, and groundless ones to boot. Minnie herself is spiking them.

THAT MAY-DECEMBER THING: Which in turn reminds us that a friend of Minnie's named George Waud reportedly is pitching woo with Jerry Hall, until recently the wife of Mick Jagger. Not only is George, who happens to be several years younger than Jerry, a friend of Minnie's, he's a friend of Elizabeth Hurley's.

THAT MAY-DECEMBER THING - THE SAGA CONTINUES: Speaking of somewhat older gals who get mixed up with men who were attending Cub Scouts meetings up until a couple of weeks ago, here's a print report saying that Diandra Douglas - once married to Michael Douglas, who is now famously dating Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones - is hanging big time with an artist named Sascha Newley. The story we're looking at strongly implies, without getting into the specifics, that Sascha is younger than Diandra, and that's good enough for us.

THAT MAY-DECEMBER THING - THE FINAL CHAPTER: Meantime, Julianne Phillips - the very same Julianne Phillips who used to be married to Bruce Springsteen until he threw her over for an older woman and who also once starred in the TV show "Sisters" - is cohabiting in Toronto with an Italian-Canadian photographer named Frank Tata who is six years her junior. "He's sexy in every way," Julianne tells an Inquiring People person. "He's older than I am on many levels." In every way, in fact, except chronologically.

HIGHER MATHEMATICS: Those who assume, quite unfairly, that Melanie Griffith is not terribly bright, just because she got married to Don Johnson not once but twice will be edified by a recent remark she made about her efforts to learn Spanish because that is the language spoken by her current husband, Antonio Banderas, and his family.

"I speak maybe 30 percent of Spanish," Melanie explains to a reporter. "I have 70 percent to go till I make 100."

HARD LINES IN THE WRITING GAME: Finally, we're interested to note that an unnamed publishing insider says that "Dutch," Edmund Morris' new biography of Ronald Reagan, which critics have been looking at with a jaundiced eye because of the liberties Ed takes therein, was a far more egregious piece of work when first turned in to the editors at Random House.

"You should have seen it," the insider says, "before we fixed it." That's what our editors say about this column, but we can't tell the difference.

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

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