Crimson and Goldie
Hawn visits Harvard, where Hasty Pudding pursues its own Veritas: If life's a drag, make the most of it
Focus
Some 35 years ago, Goldie Hawn was too busy launching a stage career to complete her studies at American University in Washington, D.C. No matter. Work experience over the years earned the undumb blonde enough credits for Harvard's top weird honor: the Hasty Pudding Theatricals Woman of the Year award. Although no crushing tuition or grueling homework was involved, the prize—awarded in years past to women like Sigourney Weaver, Julia Roberts and Lauren Bacall—didn't come easy. First, Hawn, 53, mingled with burly male students in drag, one of the 204-year-old theatrical club's newer traditions. By the event's end, she was go-go dancing and sprayed with Silly String after being tricked into uttering her Laugh-In signature line, "Sock it to me."
Echoing the syntax of Marx (Groucho, not Karl), Hawn declared, "I love being a part of an institution that I was never able to be a part of." Hawn also offered some off-the-cuff advice in words any college senior could easily relate to. "I don't know what I'm going to do now," Hawn said, "and I don't want to know. It's more fun not to know."
Under the Gavel Again
"We need to let the public know that the criminal justice system is a failure," said Denver computer enthusiast Bob Enyart, explaining why he spent $16,000 on O.J. Simpson artifacts. He said he planned to destroy them on the steps of the L.A. County Courthouse. Enyart had joined about 250 sports nuts, antiques dealers, curiosity seekers and media at the Butterfield & Butterfield auction house in L.A., where more than 70 items seized from Simpson's home went up for bid Feb. 16. Proceeds, estimated at about $300,000, will settle only a tiny part of the $33.5 million civil judgment against the former football player for the 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman.
Among the items and prices (commissions not included): Simpson's Heisman Trophy, for his gridiron feats at the University of Southern California ($230,000); a Chinese art deco wool rug ($4,000); two football jerseys ($4,750); a football—one of 2,500 issued—commemorating Simpson's induction into the Professional Football Hall of Fame ($2,250); and a set of golf clubs engraved with "The Juice O.J. Simpson" ($2,250). The most personal item of clothing auctioned was a fox fur coat once owned by Simpson's first wife, Marguerite ($550).
While Enyart brought anger to the sale, others brought gentler motives. Marty Cohen, a Cleveland real estate investor, hoped to find a new home—his den—for the Heisman Trophy, but an anonymous East Coast bidder ended that dream with $230,000, $10,000 more than Cohen's last offer. "I was going to go to a quarter of a million, and then I got rational," said Cohen. "I was going to put it in my house. But then you consider, that's the cost of a real house."
Jordan Gettin' Jiggy?
Retirement agrees with Michael Jordan—as long as you let the former Chicago Bulls superstar define the term. "To me, retirement is you wake up and whatever you choose to do, you do it," Jordan, 36, explained at the NAACP Image Awards in Pasadena, Calif. These days he chooses between taking the kids to school or hopping a plane to New York for business meetings. The future could find him involved in the recording industry, Jordan said, which may be why he spent a few moments chatting with fellow NAACP award recipient Will Smith. Observes actress Halle Berry: "Who wouldn't want to work with Will Smith?"
Lean Bacon on the Hoof
Celebs usually stick to their seats at fashion shows, but designer Kenneth Cole got a few—including Kevin Bacon—to strut the runway at a pre-Valentine's Day benefit for the homeless in New York City.
Ropin' a Fastball
Garth Brooks playing baseball for the San Diego Padres? On paper it might make sense—clearly, he knows how to make a hit—but on the field it's another matter. The country music star just turned 37, past retirement age for many major leaguers. "I don't think he should quit his day job yet," said bemused New York Yankee Paul O'Neill. A college athlete (in track and field), Brooks will attend the Padres spring training camp and spend the regular season with a Padres minor league team—if he makes the grade. "For me, it's totally serious," he told reporters. "I'm going to go down there to live out my dream." Brooks acknowledges there are differences between singing and swinging. "When you play baseball, you have to forget there's a crowd and focus on the game," he told PEOPLE. Especially if the fans sour on the celebrity try-out. As one Padre partisan already wrote in The San Diego Union-Tribune, "What's next? Signing Shania Twain to play left?"
Still Brady After All These Years
Time can pass with mind-numbing slowness. (You mean the impeachment trial lasted only five weeks!?) And occasionally time races. Odd testimony to the latter: 1999 marks the 30th anniversary of The Brady Bunch, TV's silliest suburban fantasy. Looking back in wonder, Scoop discussed time, polyester and soft-ball with clan matriarch Carol Brady, a.k.a. Florence Henderson, 65.
Why is The Brady Bunch still so popular after 30 years?
It represents what people always wanted: a loving family. It's such a gentle, innocent, sweet show, and I guess it proves there's always an audience for that.
What do you think of the '70s revival? Did you really like those outfits you wore?
Disco's coming back! I'm so happy about that. That's the only thing from the '70s that I truly loved. But I used to hate wearing bell-bottoms—they made my butt look too big.
Okay, so what do you think about polyester?
It's great to travel in, I guess. I personally never liked it. It felt uncomfortable and cheap.
Any memorable fan stories?
We had to have security guards with us—fans were banging on our doors, we couldn't go out by ourselves. We were like the Beatles!
Any scandals on the show?
Mike and Carol Brady slept in the same bed. I purposely wore sexy nightgowns. We wanted to give off the image that this was a sexual couple in love.
Who would win a softball game—the Bradys or the Partridge Family?
The Bradys. The Partridge family? Ahh! They were all sitting in that bus too much.
What's the difference between Carol Brady and Florence Henderson?
My sense of humor. I played Carol as the mother I always wished I had, as the mother a lot of people wished they had. She was saintly, and no one is really like that, but in the show it was okay.
ON THE BLOCK
RODDY'S PARTY PAD
The Studio City, Calif., home where actor Roddy McDowall once entertained the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall is on the market for $1.3 million. The nearly-5,000-square-foot English-style home has four bedrooms, maid's quarters, a two-bedroom guest suite, swimming pool and rose gardens. The Planet of the Apes star, who died of cancer last October, was quite the host "He would have these evenings that were absolutely phenomenal," former guest Carol Burnett says. "There'd be Bette Davis, Ava Gardner and Laurence Olivier among the group." McDowall also partied with younger pals such as Johnny Depp and Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman).
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