The fate of Dateline NBC, the network's new—and 18th—try at a TV newsmagazine, may keep some NBC bigwigs awake at night, but co-anchor Jane Pauley isn't one of them. "I'm not worried about the debut. I've had, frankly, a little experience with this," says Pauley, 41, who, after 13 years cohosting the Today show, fronted NBC's 16th attempt, Real Life with Jane Pauley. "I am committed to the work and the travel for the long term. That's what keeps me awake at night." Not that she will be going it alone. Her co-anchor is Stone Phillips, who has the looks and bearing to match his name. "He's kind of awesome," says Pauley. "He was the quarterback of the Yale football team. The other morning he was speaking Russian with [Today cohost] Katie [Couric]." Also appearing on the show will be NBC's mobile Scud Stud, Arthur Kent. Sighs Pauley: "I'm glad I'm paid for this."
NEW YAWK CITY GIRL
In My Cousin Vinny, Marisa Tomei nearly steals the show from one of the great scene-stealers, Joe Pesci. As Pesci's sassy, language-mangling fiancée, Tomei uses poifect Brooklynese to explain auto mechanics and turns a dialogue about tire widths into a comic tour de force. But on her own time, Tomei, who, indeed, grew up in Brooklyn, speaks in well-modulated tones. "My mother was an English teacher," says Tomei, mid-20ish. "She wasn't about to let me speak like that. Put down that I speak standard English, that newscasters can't compare to me in how I articulate!"
DAYS OF WOO AND ROSES
As the cocky basketball hustler in White Men Can't Jump, Woody Harrelson prowls the playgrounds looking for his next court conquest. There was a time when this applied to his love life as well. "I became a zealous hedonist," says Harrelson, 30, of what he now regards as his colorful years. "I saw sex as recreation. There was no room for love, for understanding my partner. She was a symbol of my ability to conquer, not a real person." Adds Harrelson: "I bet there's millions of guys who know exactly what I'm talking about." But wait—there's hope! He claims he has abandoned his Don Juan ways and has a steady relationship—"I don't intend to say with whom, except to say I'm really happy"—and now even finds himself considering fatherhood. He says, "I just need to convince somebody else."
SULTANS OF SWING
If his costar Bruce Boxleitner is to be believed, John Goodman will be most convincing as Babe Ruth in The Babe, a movie about the legendary New York Yankee slugger due April 17. Boxleitner says Goodman showed real team spirit when the film was being shot last summer in Chicago. "One night we all went out, determined to actually live like Babe Ruth," says Boxleitner, 41. "So a bunch of us went drinking and carousing in a bar right outside Wrigley Field. After a number of rounds, I looked down the bar and saw that John was taking on the entire bar—I mean everyone—in Indian leg wrestling, and winning. I knew then, yes, this is the one true man, the only actor to play Babe Ruth."
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!
