• February 28, 2000
• Vol. 53
• No. 8

Insider

By Tom Cunneff

President Clinton has another 11 months in the White House, but he's already getting to know the neighbors in his new hometown of Chappaqua, N.Y. On a recent stop at Langes Little Store, a coffee shop, he schmoozed with six locals who meet there a few mornings a week to talk stocks. With coffee and a muffin in hand, Clinton walked over and asked, "Can I join you fellows?" and chatted for about eight minutes. "It was like being in a dream," says Dr. Ross Levy. "He talked about stocks, but he wouldn't get specific. He said, sort of tongue-in-cheek, that as long as he was around, the economy would be doing well. Before he left, one of the guys said, 'We have an opening in our investment club,' but he said, 'I'm going to have to pass on that one, guys.' " Maybe he'll reconsider
next January.

Even though Catherine Zeta-Jones had to pull out of the Oliver Stone-directed
love story Beyond Borders because she's pregnant, that didn't deter the producers of Traffic. They offered her a part in the film and made her character pregnant since Zeta-Jones will be in her fifth month or so when filming starts in April. In the suspense drama about the narcotics trade, Harrison Ford will most likely star as the U.S. government's drug czar, while Zeta-Jones is close to signing on as the wife of a drug trafficker. In the original script, her character had two children. Now she'll have one, with another
on the way.

When Regis Philbin, host of ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, recently
showed up at an L.A. studio lot to tape an appearance on FOX's Mad TV, he parked his rental car right next to the studio where Greed, a competing game show, was taping. When Philbin later returned to his car, he triggered the car alarm and didn't know how to turn it off. Using all his lifelines, an apologetic Philbin soon had a crew of studio security guards, producers and executives trying to stifle the ear-splitting siren. Even the FOX studio manager came out to help. When he saw it was Philbin's car he jokingly suggested that the game show host was trying to shut down his competition. After more than a half hour, Regis himself found the correct answer —a simple key—and shut the alarm off.

Doctor, heal thyself! James Garner starts japing his four-episode Chicago Hope storyline in March. He plays a millionaire ex-doctor who buys the hospital. Coincidentally, Garner, 71, is just coming off major surgery himself after having both knees replaced. Too bad he didn't wait until after he played a doctor on TV. Maybe he would have gotten a professional discount.

Fast Takes: If Charlie Sheen replaces Michael J. Fox on ABC's Spin City next season, he'll be going head-to-head with his dad, Martin Sheen, whose NBC series The West Wing also airs on Wednesday nights.... In Thirteen Days, the film Kevin Costner is currently making about JFK's handling of the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy's nephew Chris Lawford plays a U2 pilot.

Additional reporting by Hugh McCarten
Nancy Perry Graham is on vacation

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