TINKER, TAILOR, AUTHOR, STAR
Christopher Darden, currently teaching a trial-advocacy course once a week at Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, has said that his prosecuting days are probably behind him. But that doesn't mean he's confined to the classroom. I hear that following the success of his book In Contempt, describing his role in the O. J. Simpson trial, Darden's agents at the William Morris Agency are working on pitching him as a novelist specializing in legal thrillers and as a guest star in TV dramas, including ER and, yes, Murder One. Also being developed for him is a reality-based show on the law, for which Darden would serve as host and producer....
Though their reps are downplaying it, I'm told that ex-Baywatch hunk David Charvet, 24, and Spy Hard's lissome Nicollette Sheridan, 32, got chummy over the June 1 weekend. The two were among the celebrities at a charity sports tournament in the Dominican Republic. Though Charvet's rep Jay Schwartz says the two are "simply longtime friends who hung out together," my eyewitness spotted them making out....
When the new $110 million Jurassic Park ride opens June 21 at Universal Studios Hollywood, Steven Spielberg will admire it from afar. Though the ride ends with a great splash, it's not the water that bothers Spielberg, who directed the movie on which the attraction is based, but the 84-foot, 30-degree-angle drop that precedes it. Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy says the director gives roller coasters a wide berth. "Steven is not a thrill-ride person." says Levy....
In a scene in Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning play Love! Valour! Compassion! one of the characters, played on Broadway by Nathan Lane, comes on stage dressed only in an apron, hat and red high heels. The movie version, which begins filming later this month, stars Jason Alexander in the Lane role. When I asked Alexander's publicist whether the Seinfeld star was prepared to do the scene in a similar state of undress, I was told that if the scene is in the script—and it is—Alexander will do it. The rep reminded me that Alexander also went starkers in For Better or Worse, which he directed and starred in last year...
While the rest of America was going to see Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible over the holiday weekend, Cruise and wife Nicole Kidman checked out the new offbeat, black-comedy movie Welcome to the Dollhouse at a Manhattan theater....
Emmitt Smith, star rusher of the National Football League champion Dallas Cowboys, is venturing into the music business. I'm told Smith is financing the demo tape of a Dallas-Ft. Worth-area singer named Antonio Dale, a longtime pal. Smith also sang background vocals at Dale's recent demo session, which was produced by Erotic D....
After his cameo ("Would ya like to buy a monkey?") in the less-than-stellar Cabin Boy in 1994, who woulda thought David Letterman had a future in films? But there he is, playing himself in Eddie, the new Whoopi Goldberg comedy. How'd lie get the part? "Dave thinks the world of Whoopi and she asked him," says a Letter man aide. But last fall, when someone from Eddie approached Letter-man's then-producer, Robert Morton, about the talk show host shooting a Late Show scene with Goldberg's character, a New York Knicks fan who becomes the team's coach, Morton said Dave would oblige, but only if the Whoopster came on the show for real. At a session last September, Goldberg and Letterman filmed the Eddie scene, then taped Goldberg gabbing with Dave for the actual show. Has Dave seen the movie? Not yet, says his rep, explaining that Letterman was on vacation, "but he's eager to."
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