At a black-tie fund-raiser in Manhattan for the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, Helen Hunt explained that the actor, who has been paralyzed since a 1995 equestrian accident, asked her to host the event because she nearly broke her neck while shooting the 1989 film Next of Kin. "I was in Hazard, Ky.—I should have known—and I had one foot dangling in a pool on a summer night," said Hunt, 38. "I was staring at the moon. Two actors who were in the film with me sort of made a joke that they were going to throw me in, and I thought, 'I'll show them, I'll dive in.' So into three feet of water I went—on my head." She added, "Why I am standing here and Chris is in that chair, I don't know."
Worker's Compensation
Australian actress Cate Blanchett, 32, who is expecting her first child in December, also has three movies coming out that month, including the adaptation of Annie Proulx's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Shipping News, opening Christmas Day, as well as the WWII drama Charlotte Gray. "I guess it looks like I planned it, but this is just the happy by-product of a happy marriage," says Blanchett, who wed screenwriter Andrew Upton in 1997. It's been a busy marriage as well. "I filmed Lord of the Rings and then Heaven. When Bandits was up and running [Shipping director] Lasse Hallström said, 'Come to Nova Scotia,' " says the actress, who didn't mind occasional separations from her husband. "We had many happy reunions. I guess it was those romantic liaisons in hotel rooms that put me where I am today."
Public Defender
Dogged by rumors that she's a demanding prima donna, Jennifer Lopez, who married dancer Cris Judd on Sept. 29, has learned to shrug them off. "People enjoy the idea of me misbehaving, but I'm a professional," says Lopez, 32. "I go where I'm supposed to be. I stay whenever they need me, Last night I worked till 6 a.m. I know people enjoy painting a picture of a diva. That is not me. I never do anything that's going to make it hard for me to sleep at night. That's how my parents raised me, and I'm proud of that, and that's how I go about my business." Lately that includes the sitcom pilot Lopez is developing for her own TV series, a role opposite Ben Affleck in the romance Gigli, which begins filming in December, and songwriting. "I always want to make music that people kind of want to clean the house to—that album you put on while you clean," says Lopez. "Those are my favorites."
Paper Profit
Fame has cast its spell over 12-year-old Daniel Radcliffe, who is bearing up exceedingly well as the star of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Or is he? "When all those flashbulbs went off in my face during the London premiere, I nearly hyperventilated," says Radcliffe. "I was hoping I just wouldn't pass out." But portraying Harry Potter came easily to the impish actor. "I'm quite like him," says Radcliffe. Good thing. Not only did the film break box office records, but masses of merchandise now feature Radcliffe's bespectacled countenance. "In England," says Radcliffe, "they have Harry Potter paper towels, which are just plain strange."
Diaper Duty
The 200th episode of Frasier aired on Nov, 13, but Kelsey Grammer marked a bigger milestone on Oct. 24, when daughter Mason Olivia was born to a surrogate mother. (He and wife Camille brought her home three days later.) "I call her the new Grammerian unit," says Grammer, 46, who has two daughters, Spencer, 18, and Greer, 9, from previous relationships. "The hard part doesn't come until later, when you have to try to pass on some kind of integrity. My phrase to my 17-year-old is learn by example, not by experience.' " Meanwhile the new dad is busy with more practical matters. "I'm doing diapers. I have a one-hand grip and a quick taping technique that I've worked out."
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!
