Belmondo takes a flyer
His on-camera stunts might leave lesser (or wiser) actors breathless, but Jean-Paul Belmondo, 50 next year, doesn't want moviegoers to see a double just yet. Indeed, his aerial antics in The Ace of Aces (due out this month) might seem tame for a guy who, in 1977's L'Animal, wrestled a 300-pound Bengal tiger and executed a midair switch from a helicopter to a biplane. "One of the important rules in this profession," he once decreed, "is not to fool the public."
Ed's singing jailbird
At last year's benefit for the Christian Children's Fund, "Sheriff" Ed McMahon jailed Richard Pryor for "impersonating a black person." This time around he threw singer John Davidson in the slammer "because his dimples were too deep." Davidson was eventually bailed out (for $50) by sympathetic guests, 1,300 of whom jammed L.A.'s Park Plaza Hotel and raised an estimated $100,000 for chairwoman Sally Struthers' pet charity.
Twangin' Thomas
Richard Thomas, 31, makes the transition from John-Boy to good ol' boy in his role as Hank Williams Jr. in an NBC movie airing early next year. Based on the C&W star's 1979 autobiography, Living Proof, the telefilm features Thomas' singing debut and a fake beard. An opera buff, the actor called on pal Luciano (Yes, Giorgio) Pavarotti for advice, reporting: "He thought it was pretty funny that he was acting, and I was singing."
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