• March 16, 1987
• Vol. 27
• No. 11

Chatter

By Tim Allis

COOL CUSTOMERS: It was not the sort of event that would ordinarily attract such serious, singular folk as Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange, but there they were two weeks ago at a Beverly Hills bridal fair. The daylong do was put on by Geary's for the kind of newlyweds who might want to chow down with $213,000 worth of diamond-inlaid, sterling silver flatware, Baccarat crystal and Limoges china. It was neither the pricey table settings nor the jet-black wedding gown that caught the eyes of Shepard, 43, and Lange, 37, who have been living together since 1983 and are the parents of one child with another on the way. Instead the couple seemed absorbed in the jewelry. Any chance they might be contemplating something as cornball as a wedding themselves?

NEIMAN-MARCUS MEMOIRS: Neil Simon asked for his new bride's hand before he even knew her name. Actress Diane Lander says she first met the Broadway Bound playwright in November 1985 while she was giving out perfume samples at the Neiman-Marcus store in Beverly Hills. He scoped her out from across the floor, then came over and demanded, "Can I see your hand?" He was checking, Lander soon realized, to see if she was married. "I had no idea who he was. He was dressed like some shlubby guy," Lander recalls, "but he was very sweet." Two months ago the pair snuck off to a Los Angeles courthouse and married. "Then we went to Chinatown for lunch," she says. With that kind of luck, who needs fortune cookies?

WIND-CHILL FACTOR: Before Harrison Ford could travel through hyper-space or wash up on The Mosquito Coast, he had to get his feet wet first on the West Coast. His decision to move to California from Illinois was climatological rather than logical. Speaking to the British magazine Woman about starting out as a stage performer, Ford admitted that "getting up in front of all those people scared the hell out of me, but I was drawn to the challenge. It was the first time I had any significant ambition, but I knew nothing at all about show business. I did know that you had to go to Los Angeles or New York, so I tossed a coin. When it came down for New York, I tossed it again. I knew I'd be poor. I didn't see why I should be cold as well."

CANNES-DO CANDIDATE: Although Sonny Bono didn't consult with his friend Clint Eastwood before he announced his intention to run for mayor of Palm Springs, he plans to ask him for pointers when his campaign officially gets underway early next year. "He'll probably say, 'Don't do it,' " Bono predicts, "but I love this town." A homeowner in the California resort for 13 years, Sonny last year opened a restaurant and tennis complex there called Bono's. Three months ago he was named chairman of tourism for the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce. "My first big project," he says, "is to bring a film festival here." If Cannes in the desert sounds good to the locals, then come 1988 Bono might just be their man. Says civic Sonny: "I want to make this town California's Riviera." His second big project will be providing the sea.

INDECENT COMPOSURE: When he hasn't been turning out critical hits including The Brother From Another Planet, director-writer John Sayles has hacked through the horror genre with such gasp-and-gore numbers as The Howling and Piranha. During a lecture on screenwriting at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Sayles explained how fright films work. "With most horror movies the normal rules of realistic human behavior are suspended," he said. "For instance if you've had 10 friends ax-murdered in a building, you [wouldn't normally] go looking for your cat in that building. But in a horror movie, of course, you go—because you heard a noise. And if you're Sigourney Weaver," he added, recalling the memorable climax of Alien, "you do it in your underwear."