Rex Reed has said she has a "round jolly face like an unbaked johnnycake." She once took up jogging and smoking to lose weight. Now, after a rough emotional tussle making The First Deadly Sin with Frank Sinatra (so much of her work wound up on the cutting room floor that "if you blink, you'll miss me"), Brenda Vaccaro has been feeling pudgy again. This time she's taken up Larry Hagman's "fast"—a liquid diet heavy with protein—and, having lost 12 pounds in the first 10 days, hoped to be down 32 by August 1. "I'm amazed I can handle it," said the waning one. "I'm Italian, and I thought that if you missed a meal you'd die."
Designated Fan
Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck will go to any lengths to plug his team—from conducting beer-case-stacking contests to admitting fans at half price if they bring instruments on Music Night. But when he heard that released hostage Richard Queen was a Sox fan, it wasn't Veeck the promoter but Veeck the concerned citizen who phoned him upon arrival at the hospital in West Germany to give him an update on the season so far. Veeck also sent him a Sox jacket, shirt and cap, and plans to arrange a visit for Queen to "the oldest and best ballpark in the country." But why would Queen, a native New Yorker, root for Chicago anyway? "I guess he's for the underdog," shrugged Veeck. "Why else would you wind up a Sox fan?"
Can't Stop the Daggers
Blazing its way up the East Coast, the publicity tour for Can't Stop the Music faltered after the movie ran into some hostile reviews in Washington and New York. By Boston, most of the cast had remembered urgent business elsewhere and fled the scene. Still trouping to the end, though, were June Havoc, 63, and Steve Guttenberg, 21. "It was my responsibility to show up," insists Steve. "There was a lot of work and a lot of money invested in the film [including a promotional Baskin-Robbins flavor called "Can't Stop the Nuts"]. I wanted to do everything I could to give it a shot." Besides, when he's not doing movie work, Guttenberg faces an even more rigorous grind. He's a student at the UCLA dental school.
The Sunshine Boys
Working together in Loophole in London, Albert Finney and Martin Sheen were interviewed, each in turn, by a TV crew, and the two stars put on an off-camera show of mock rivalry. During Sheen's interview Finney bellowed, in his best Shakespearean manner, "Must I wait until the last syllable of recorded time?" Sheen shot back: "I'm going to tell them about my film successes." "Oh," said Finney, "We'll not be waiting long then."
California Splits
A certain peace overcame Jimmy Seals and his partner in song, Dash Crofts, when the two took up the Bahá'í faith in the late '60s. Now, though they're not splitting professionally, Seals is moving to Costa Rica and Crofts to Cuernavaca, Mexico, apparently because serenity doesn't exactly run rampant at their previous base. "The earth is one country and we're all its citizens," intones Crofts benignly, "but it's not easy to feel that way living all your life in the San Fernando Valley."
Furthermore
•Playwright Edward Albee, on whom the critics have barely smiled since 1962's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is titling his next play Quitting. But don't jump to conclusions, warns the doughty dramatist. "It's not autobiographical."
•Gay Talese, author of Thy Neighbor's Wife, has his next project lined up. "I want to get away from sex," he says. "I would like to write about the Yankees. What could be more nonsexual than virginal ball players, green lawns and a little white ball?"
•At a San Francisco book-autographing session, one fan handed author Bette (A View from a Broad) Midler a paper to sign. Bette turned it over and saw it was a blank check. Without missing a beat, she made it out to herself for $5,000, endorsed it and then handed it back.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
