Elizabeth, the Hollywood icon, packs her bags (lots of 'em), hops the pond and gets named a dame
Focus
Elizabeth Taylor has always been a dame, in the sense that Humphrey Bogart would use the word: a woman with a ready quip, a sway of the hips. So it was only fitting that or May 16, Queen Elizabeth II made it official, naming the London-born Taylor a dame in the veddy British sense: Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the female equivalent of a knight. "Me! Getting a dameship!" exclaimed the gleeful star after receiving her title. "I feel like I am floating on a cloud. I feel wonderful. World, watch out!"
Naturally, Taylor, 68, had little trouble turning the honor into an event. Sweeping into Heathrow Airport with more than 20 pieces of luggage for her two-week stay, Taylor swiftly settled in at London's posh Dorchester Hotel. The grande dame was also well-accommodated at Buckingham Palace, where she used a wheelchair upon arrival and was granted access to Her Majesty's private elevator. But ongoing hip and back problems didn't keep Taylor chair-bound for the palace ceremony, which honored 143 others as well. Steadied on the arm of a page and flashing the 33.19-carat Krupp diamond ring given to her by two-time ex-husband Richard Burton, Taylor stood before the Queen to receive her title—"For services to Acting and to Charity''—just after Julie Andrews was awarded hers. (Proclaimed Andrews, 64: "I feel terribly honored, thrilled and rather shy.")
Following the ceremony, Taylor reminisced about Burton ("I miss him so much"), whom she once accompanied to Buckingham Palace, and declared the day "the most exciting—and I do not exaggerate—of my life." She also left no doubt about whether she would be using her noble new title. "We have been told," said her son Michael Wilding Jr., 47, who attended the ceremony along with Taylor's other three children, "not to call her anything else."
Christine, the Bride of Ben!
Perhaps it was the location that persuaded Ben Stiller to keep news of his marriage to actress Christine Taylor so hush-hush in the days following their May 13 ceremony. After all, the two said "I do" just a shell's throw from Secret Beach, a little stretch of paradise near the steep cliffs and tumbling waterfalls on the north side of the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
Although the secret was revealed a few days later, when a source close to the couple confirmed that the ceremony had taken place, details were sparse. One of the island's bakers prepared a wedding cake for the event, but a pastry chef was ultimately flown in from New York City for the occasion. One observer said the wedding party wore yellow and pink plumeria (a type of flower) leis, and that Taylor, wearing a white wedding gown, walked over a carpet of flower petals to meet Stiller, dressed in a tuxedo.
About 80 people attended, including Stiller's parents, the comedians Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Most arrived May 11 and stayed at the island's Princeville Resort, where the staff were told not to breathe a word about the upcoming wedding to anyone. The locals were conspicuously quiet about the wedding guests.
This much is known: Stiller, 34, a writer, director and actor featured in the current film Keeping the Faith (and best known as the lovelorn loser who gets the girl in There's Something About Mary), and Taylor, 28, who played Marcia in the Brady Bunch movies, plan to keep their honeymoon a secret too.
A Romance Ends for Alley, Alas
"I am 100 percent certain," Kirstie Alley told In Style in 1997 about her relationship with onetime Melrose Place stud James Wilder. "I feel like if I am not meant to be with James, then I will be with no one." These days, Alley, 49, surely hopes that isn't true. She and Wilder, 38, have called it quits, her publicist confirms. The two met on a movie set in 1996. At the time, Alley was still married to actor Parker Stevenson, whom she divorced in 1998. (The couple share custody of their two children.) Alley and Wilder, who live in adjoining Hollywood Hills homes connected by a glass bridge, declined to comment on the split. Meanwhile, Alley dealt with more bad news last week: NBC gave her show Veronica's Closet the heave-ho.
Let Tom, Jodie & Walter Be Your Guides
If you're browsing at New York City's Guggenheim museum and notice a plummy British accent caressing your ears, don't be alarmed—it's just Jeremy Irons narrating the audio tour for the "1900: Art at the Crossroads" exhibit, which opened last week. Irons joins an illustrious chorus of VIP voice-overs at highbrow spots, including Walter Cronkite, Morgan Freeman and Yo-Yo Ma at the Smithsonian and Tom Hanks and Jodie Foster at New York City's Hayden Planetarium.
Why do stars lend their dulcet tones to august institutions? "It's like a friend speaking in your ear," says Paula Rackow, a New York City-based audio-tour producer. Not everyone is sold on the idea. Last year, Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art replaced celeb narrators with actual artists. Says MOCA's Wendy Woon: "People prefer hearing the artists in their own words."
Hurley Bets on a Binky
Elizabeth Hurley is a model pacifist. Or, more precisely, a pacifist model. The actress recently frolicked in the St. Bart's surf with a baby pacifier poking from her pout. Was she on a play date with her inner child? Dealing with unresolved issues from her infancy? A Hurley mouthpiece says, "She wants to stop smoking [Hurley admits to a 10-cigarette-a-day habit], and she read in a Desmond Morris book that sucking a pacifier can help." The 1977 book, Manwatching, posits that cigarettes replace the oral gratification of a mother's breast. "It's just a need to have something soft in their mouths," Morris :old Scoop, while noting that sucking a pacifier in public "takes strength of character. Liz Hurley doesn't care what other people think." You goochie-goochie-goo, girl!
Mobsters alla Marinara
Two things are bound to happen on any given Sopranos episode: Somebody's gonna get whacked and somebody's gonna gulp down a plateful of pasta. "In the Mob circle, whenever they're talking business they do it over lunch and dinner," says Tony Sirico, who plays Paulie Walnuts on the show and whose real-life culinary specialty is "a marinara sauce that would knock you on your behind." Sirico and castmate Dominic Chianese (Uncle Junior) ruminated on life, red sauce and rigatoni at last week's opening of Baldoria, an Italian restaurant in Manhattan. "The Italians love to eat—they're great chefs," proclaimed Chianese, while admitting that "the only thing I can make is sausage and peppers." Sirico, meanwhile, forked over his secret meatball ingredient: "Always add in the cheese. That's the magic."
POP QUIZ
with Kirsten Dunst
Although Kirsten Dunst is about to begin another film (Getting Over Allison), there are other matters on the actress's mind. Corsages, for example. Limos. And the absolute totally perfect dress. It's prom season, and Dunst, 18, will be sharing a last dance this month with classmates from her high school in Southern California's San Fernando Valley. Scoop asked Dunst, Tom Cruise's young victim in Interview with the Vampire and star of "Drop Dead Gorgeous, Dick and The Virgin Suicides, how the preparations were going.
Got a date?
Andrew Ruby, and I've known him all my years of high school. I didn't have a boyfriend, and he didn't have a girlfriend, so we just decided to go together. We are really good friends, and we knew we'd have a blast. We love to dance together.
What are you wearing?
I'm borrowing a dress from Sofia Coppola [her director in The Virgin Suicides], this gorgeous John Galliano gown that she wore to the Golden Globes. It's a deep red-y purple-y color, almost like a black rose. It kind of looks Brigitte Bardot-y.
Sounds impressive.
Everyone is doing the skirt-and-shirt thing this year, so I wanted something different. And I don't think anyone else will be wearing a Galliano!
Hair?
Well, I think I'm going to do a Grace Kelly thing, softly curled and put up. I'm going for elegance.
Shoes?
Dolce & Gabbana. They have turquoise and burgundy sparkles on them, and the burgundy matches my dress, so I'll have some color on my feet. I'm going to look hot!
What's up first?
I think everyone is going to come to my house for picture-taking—all my friends, their parents.
Will Andrew drive?
Well, we are going in a group, so we want to rent a limo. But we want, like, a Hummer limo or a Ford Explorer—something big.
Will you be a star attraction?
Everyone treats me normally at school. It's just like, "Oh, Kirsten's here." Nothing special.
After the prom?
My friends and I will get a hotel room, like a Holiday Inn, or something nearby, and we'll all party and sleep over. We'll all be drinking water. [California's drinking age is 21.] It's like a tradition to stay in a hotel on prom night.
ON THE BLOCK
OSCAR'S CORNER
Isn't anyone happy with their day job? Boxer Oscar De La Hoya won his World Boxing Council welterweight bout Feb. 26, and is set to fight again June 17. But what he also likes to do is sing. According to a Los Angeles real estate agent, the 27-year-old just put his 10,000-sq.-ft. Bel Air mansion on the market because he was spending so much time pursuing a music career in Miami. The Mediterranean-style home, on sale for $5.5 million, has eight bedrooms plus a humidor and temperature-controlled wine room. And should De La Hoya consider another career change—say, acting—he can always stay at his home in California's San Bernardino mountains.
- Contributors:
- Michelle Tauber,
- Shirley Brady,
- Barbara Benham,
- Michelle Caruso,
- Caris Davis,
- Robyn Flans,
- Mary Green,
- Jennifer Longley,
- Jeannie McCabe,
- Simon Perry,
- Michele Stueven,
- Joseph V. Tirella.
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!
