• May 16, 1988
• Vol. 29
• No. 19

Chatter

By Peter Castro

HER GERMAINE MAN: Feminist author Germaine Greer says she has slept with all kinds of men and—a drum roll, please—Italian men make the best lovers. "I think the English culture is basically homosexual," Greer told Woman's Journal magazine, a British publication, "in the sense that the men only really care about each other. They find it very difficult to treat women as people. Australian men have inherited the homosexuality of Englishmen. They are ill at ease with women and comfortable with each other. [Americans] are frightened of women," she added, "but they're terrific lovers because they try so hard. But after a while the fact that they're trying so hard becomes really depressing. The Frenchman is so vain. He's always watching himself. Italian men are genuinely heterosexual, mainly because their mothers ate them alive when they were babies, and convinced them that they were utterly adorable. And they know that making love is a matter of fantasy and language and not a genital performance."

HOW BOARING: Rocker Sting, who has little trouble bringing home the bacon as a rock and roll performer, has adopted an attitude toward his craft that's just swine and dandy. The Stinger told Panorama, an Italian magazine, "I sing music. I don't care about rock music. If it ends tomorrow, I wouldn't care. What I think people are coming around to is music as a whole—pop music as a culture that will carry on." He also said that rock and roll is stuck in a time capsule. "I'm bored with music between 1955 and 1980," says the Police-man of rock and roll. "I'm completely bored. I can't listen to a rock and roll record. I can't do it. I would rather listen to hogs screwing."

WITHOUT A HITCH: Country singer and Grammy winner K.T. Oslin, a late bloomer who last year recorded her first gold record, 80's Ladies, at age 45, is as patient in her private life as she is in her artistic one. "I never married because I was either too smart, too dumb or too chicken," says K.T. "I was very involved in my career, and I never really had a burning desire to have kids, so what on earth would I want to put up with a husband for? I was having an awful lot of fun, but I always dated musicians and actors. They were charming, wonderful men, but you don't marry them."

MOUNTING UP: Bridget Fonda, 24, who has a part in the new movie Aria, is the latest Fonda to become a thespian. Says proud daddy Peter: "All I told Bridget when she wanted to be an actor was that she had to realize that the rest of the world would be seeing her first as Henry's granddaughter, then as my daughter, then as Jane's niece. I told her she would have to climb Mount Everest four times. She'd have to climb it for her grandfather, for her father, for her aunt and for herself—unless she was extraordinarily bright, unique and open. Then she'd only have to climb it once, and that would be for herself." But is there room for one more Fonda? "Well, it's either we've had enough of the Fondas, or, hey, this [Bridget] is different. So far, what I've seen, this is different. So I'm pleased."

VINYL TAP: In 1974, as a 6-year-old, Molly Ringwald went on the record as a jazz singer. Her father, Bob Ringwald, a blind jazz pianist, helped found the Sacramento Jazz Festival, and when Molly was 4 years old, she sang with his band. Two years later she recorded her first and only album, Molly Sings. "My mom still has 25 copies," says Ringwald. "A friend of mine saw one in a record store selling for around $200." Does she ever play it? "If I want to shock someone, I'll play it," she says, "but the reaction is always the same: 'What the hell are we listening to?' "