Stargell's frosted
"It was a 10-pound cake and he got nine pounds of it on his face," chortled Pittsburgh pitcher Jim Rooker, who threw the strike. The unsuspecting target was team captain Willie Stargell, who had turned 39. He had nobody to blame but himself. Stargell had suggested to his teammates that when spring training ended in Bradenton, Fla. they celebrate with a pie-throwing party. He got an early salvo. As he wiped off the pineapple cream filling, Stargell managed a straight if gooey face, proclaiming this was no laughing matter—"I'm quitting...to join the Baltimore Orioles."
Lasser branches out
Fernwood, Ohio might not recognize her, but that is indeed Louise Lasser, a/k/a Mary Hartman—minus the braids and plus 40 pounds. The 5'7" actress now weighs 160. "I feel more voluptuous," says Lasser, who wore a parachute-like smock in recent off-Broadway comedy. She'll shed the weight, though, and light on her personal traumas in her next vehicle, An Evening with Louise Lasser: The Woman behind the Pigtails, which she is taking on tour this month.
McQueen surfaces
Steve McQueen, 49, has raced cars and bikes, and recently he began buying and flying antique planes—a Stearman PT-17 and Pitcairn Mailwing. He has survived crackups and pneumonia. Now reports are circulating here and abroad that McQueen, a former heavy smoker, has incurable lung cancer. "It's ridiculous—I'm fine," he insists. To prove it, the recluse tipped the press that he and his bride of eight weeks, Barbara Minty, would show up for a preview of his new film, I, Tom Horn, in Oxnard, Calif.
Scheider protests
Oscar nominee Roy {All That Jazz) Scheider, who is also starring on Broadway in Harold Pinter's Betrayal, put on an outdoor performance with an all-star cast including Tony Randall, Lucie Arnaz and José Ferrer. It was part of an Actors Equity rally to protest the proposed demolition of three of Broadway's oldest theaters for the 54-story Portman Hotel complex. The Atlanta-based builders say they'll construct a 1,500-seat theater in the hotel, but Scheider's not buying all that jazz. "Any time you trade three theaters for one," he maintains, "you lose."
Carrie is censored
Could Carrie Fisher, who returns to the screen this spring in the Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back, have spotted Darth Vader? Well, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel didn't seem at all worried at the party following the opening of Carrie's Broadway play, the "comic extravaganza" Censored Scenes from King Kong. But evil forces were at work. The critics trashed the play and it closed three nights later.
Ford's their man
Gerald Ford, apparently easing into the GOP presidential race, was not about to turn down a place in the sun. He entered the Inverrary Classic pro-am near Fort Lauderdale, where an admiring throng of autograph seekers bolstered his game. Paired with Nathaniel Crosby, Bing's 18-year-old son, and defending champ Larry Nelson, the former President shot a (respectable, for him) 91 on the par-72 course. A sports wag noted that the erratically slicing and hooking Ford still plays "an infamous brand of Army golf—left, right, left, right."
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