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Thursday, August 1, 1996
Hollywood Headlines

Madonna's Search for Mary Poppins . . . Tarantino's Pre-Oscar Advice . . . Rappers Rap Sheet . . . The latest on Aerosmith, the Chili Peppers, Johnny Rotten, and Humperdinck . . . John Cleese Faces Fierce Audiences . . . If a Body Catch a Body, Reprinting Without Permission . . .


Madonna's Search for Mary Poppins
Rumors continue to swirl around the birth of Madonna 's child. First we were told she was expecting a girl. Then we heard she was naming the child Lola after the Marlene Dietrich character in the 1930 film Blue Angel. Now comes the news that Madonna is searching for an English nanny to care for little Lola. Applicants must be single, between thirty-five and forty, and have excellent references. Apply now. Lola arrives in September.


Tarantino's Pre-Oscar Advice
Prior to
this year's Oscar night , Quentin Tarantino offered some rather daring advice to Best Actor nominee Nicolas Cage . "He told me it would be really cool if I screamed out 'fuck' at the Academy Awards ceremony if I lost," Cage reveals in the September issue of Playboy. Given Cage's reputation for recklessness (he trashed his trailer on The Cotton Club set, and ate a live cockroach in Vampire's Kiss), it's fortunate (or perhaps unfortunate) that Cage won the Oscar.


Rappers Rap Sheet
Warren G was charged yesterday with possession of a loaded gun. The twenty-five-year-old rapper, whose real name is Warren Griffin III, was arrested last week outside an L.A. lesbian nightclub after police searched his truck and found the gun. Griffin said he had no idea how the gun got in his truck. When asked what he was doing at a lesbian nightclub, he said that he and his friends go there because of the high women-to-men ratio. Griffin posted $10,000 bail and is due to be arraigned August 14. If convicted, he could get up to two years in prison. Next up: Griffin and his buddies are off to a nunnery, where they hear there are no men . . . In another rapper arrest, Notorious B.I.G., a.k.a. Christopher Wallace, was arrested in Teaneck, New Jersey, on weapons and drug charges. Police said they found four guns and almost fifty grams of marijuana in Wallace's home. Seven members of Wallace's rap group, the Junior M.A.F.I.A., were also arrested on marijuana charges.


The Latest on Aerosmith, the Chili Peppers, Johnny Rotten, and Humperdinck
In other music news, Aerosmith has fired Tim Collins, their longtime manager. Collins had been with the band for twelve years, and is credited with not only reviving the band's popularity, but helping the band members get sober. According to Collins, Aerosmith no longer wanted to be associated with his social causes, which have included sobriety and First Amendment rights. Collins should have no trouble getting another job, though: The Globe says he's received offers from
KISS and Pearl Jam , among many others. . . . Rumors of the demise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers have been greatly exaggerated. They started circulating after drummer Chad Smith played along with an English interviewer who asked if the band was finished. The Chili Peppers are very much together, and can currently be seen on tour. They will reportedly soon head to Hawaii to write material for their follow-up to 1995's One Hot Minute , which they will begin recording this fall. . . . Times have really changed. Former punk rocker bad boys Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols kicked off their first U.S. tour in eighteen years last night at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside Denver. But the altitude and the exertion apparently got the better of Rotten: he had to stop for a minute and suck some air from an oxygen tank that was conveniently wheeled onto the stage. After a few breaths, Rotten politely asked the crowd "You wouldn't mind if I took another puff of that oxygen, would you''? . . . Engelbert Humperdinck, who is apparently so square he's hip, will sing the title track to MTV Films' upcoming Beavis and Butt-head movie. This from New York's Daily News. Heh, heh, we said "dinck."


John Cleese Faces Fierce Audiences
John Cleese has discovered just how tough American moviegoers can be. His new film, Fierce Creatures, bombed with U.S. preview audiences, and now Cleese is going back to the studio for a few reshoots. Fierce Creatures is a follow-up but not a sequel to the very successful 1988 comedy A Fish Called Wanda. The film reunites original cast members Michael Palin, Jamie Lee Curtis , and Kevin Kline . Cleese spent eight years crafting the story of a small zoo about to be taken over by a large theme-park company, but American audiences just didn't get the film's black humor, and they were really upset when one of the several characters played by Kevin Kline--a slimy marketing exec--was killed off. Despite the setbacks, Cleese said he's aiming for a Christmas release. This isn't the first time Kline has been resurrected by his American fans. In the original version of A Fish Called Wanda, Kline's character, the dimwitted hitman Otto, was killed by a steamroller. But when American preview audiences objected, Otto was revived, additional scenes were added, and Kline won a
Best Supporting Actor Oscar .


If a Body Catch a Body, Reprinting Without Permission
J.D. Salinger is Luke Seemann's favorite author. So when the Northwestern University student found some extra time on his hands last November, he decided to build The Holden Server, a site that posts random quotes from the Salinger classic Catcher in the Rye. The Holden Server was well-received. People began writing Seemann to say how much they appreciated the site--some even said they'd been moved to tears after reading some of the excerpts. Not everyone was so happy, however. On June 27, Seemann received an e-mail from the law firm Harold Ober and Associates, asking him to cease and desist, and warning him that their client, Salinger, was on record as "someone who vigorously pursues all legal avenues available to protect his legal rights." At first, Seemann refused to take the site down, as did his Internet service provider, who was also threatened by Ober and Associates. But in the end, Seemann relented, saying that, although he believed the law was on his side, he had no desire to be disrespectful towards an author whose work he cherished so much. The story, which appeared in The New York Times this week, is sure to reignite the issue of individual expression on the Internet. And no, we don't expect a statement from Salinger anytime soon.

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