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Dishing With Sally Field

It's probably a good idea to hide the fine china whenever two-time Oscar winner Sally Field gets angry. It seems the 53-year-old actress (Norma Rae, Places in the Heart) has something of a history of breaking dishes as a way of letting off steam, according to her upcoming A&E Biography (airing June 12). "There's a little bit of a fire in my mom's belly and occasionally she, especially in her mid-30s, would just lash out," recalls son Eli Craig. "Not ever at people, not ever at her children, but occasionally at inanimate kitchenware. She'd smash dishes and fling them across the room. I was, like, 8 years old and saying, 'Mom, why are you smashing all the dishes?' And she'd say, 'I hate these dishes!'&nbsp;" The former star of TV's The Flying Nun went through her last memorable dish-throwing spell during the early 1980s, a period marked by forgetta

Tue, May 30, 2000

Game Show Guru's Dark Side

Despite his enormous success as a game-show producer, the late Mark Goodson battled severe bouts of depression that confounded his family and friends. "He never felt that people really approved of him," says ex-wife Suzanne on an upcoming A&E Biography (airing June 3). "I think in many ways Mark was ashamed of what he did. He was great at it but he would have rather been a theatrical producer or a movie producer and made great, great important works." The man behind countless game show hits  The Price Is Right (hosted by Bob Barker, pictured), To Tell the Truth, What's My Line?, Family Feud, Password, Match Game  is described as a workaholic who suffered through hypochondria, depression and three failed marriages. "He took things very deeply," says showbiz pal Betty White, recalling Goodson's deep depression following the 1971 breakup of his second marriage. "He was never one o

Mon, May 29, 2000

Andy Richter Disses Late Night

Andy Richter, who on Friday ended his seven-year run as co-host of NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien, took an unexpected swipe at the talk show during an appearance last week on Howard Stern's radio show. Asked by Stern if he'd ever like to switch seats with carrot-top Late Night host O'Brien, Richter responded with a sarcastic dig: "There's nothing I'd love better than interviewing the third star of the latest midseason replacement." Richter, 33, announced a year ago that he planned to leave the talk show for other creative pursuits. He has a part in the upcoming movie Dr. T and the Women (for which, he said, he was paid "almost nothing") and has hopes of developing a sketch-comedy TV show. Right now, he told Stern, "I don't really have anything lined up." An incredulous Stern repeatedly grilled Richter as to why he would walk away from a steady gig that pays more than $500,000 a year. "All I'm doing is going to work freelance,

Mon, May 29, 2000

Richter Disses Late Night

Andy Richter, who tonight ends his seven-year run as co-host of NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien, took an unexpected swipe at the talk show during an appearance on yesterday's Howard Stern radio show. Asked by Stern if he'd ever like to switch seats with carrot-top Late Night host O'Brien, Richter responded with a sarcastic dig: "There's nothing I'd love better than interviewing the third star of the latest midseason replacement." Richter, 33, announced a year ago that he planned to leave the talk show for other creative pursuits. He has a part in the upcoming movie Dr. T and the Women (for which, he said, he was paid "almost nothing") and has hopes of developing a sketch-comedy TV show. Right now, he told Stern, "I don't really have anything lined up." An incredulous Stern repeatedly grilled Richter as to why he would walk away from a steady gig that pays more than $500,000 a year. "All I'm doing is going to work freelance,

Fri, May 26, 2000

Game Show Guru's Dark Side

Despite his enormous success as a game-show producer, the late Mark Goodson battled severe bouts of depression that confounded his family and friends. "He never felt that people really approved of him," says ex-wife Suzanne on an upcoming A&E Biography (airing June 3). "I think in many ways Mark was ashamed of what he did. He was great at it but he would have rather been a theatrical producer or a movie producer and made great, great important works." The man behind countless game show hits ? The Price Is Right (hosted by Bob Barker, pictured), To Tell the Truth, What's My Line?, Family Feud, Password, Match Game ? is described as a workaholic who suffered through hypochondria, depression and three failed marriages. "He took things very deeply," says showbiz pal Betty White, recalling Goodson's deep depression following the 1971 breakup of his second marriage. "He was never one of those ni

Fri, May 26, 2000

Superman's Gay Turn

Former Lois & Clark star Dean Cain says he hasn't gotten a fair shake in Hollywood because people still only think of him as Superman. But that perception might change with the actor's next project. "It's the studio people," Cain complains of the career pigeonholing in The Advocate. "That's something I've been working to change in the last three years." Cain will get the chance to show audiences a whole new side of himself in The Broken Hearts Club ? A Romantic Comedy, a gay buddy movie opening this fall. The former Man of Steel will play a gay actor whose heart gets broken by a closeted action star (played by Baywatch Hawaii hunk Michael Bergin). "My mother and father were not wide-open to it, to be quite honest," says Cain. "They didn't want me to be perceived as the guy who plays gay characters all the time any more than they want me to be perceived

Thu, May 25, 2000

Gilligan Applauds Friends Stars

Bob Denver, who collects no residuals for his work on the enduring 1960s sitcom Gilligan's Island, applauds the megabucks deal the cast of Friends recently signed. "Good for them," Denver, 65, tells us by phone from his home in rural West Virginia. "It's a whole different ballgame now." Denver, who now makes his living through personal appearances and his bobdenver.com web site, had little reason to believe back in 1964 that his role as the Skipper's goofy "little buddy" would carry into the new millennium. He certainly couldn't have predicted in those days before cable TV that reruns of the show would one day return to prime time via Nick at Nite (a stunt marathon runs June 4 to 9; regularly scheduled episodes begin airing June 12). "If somebody had told me that Gilligan's Island was going to run for 35 years, I'd look at them and say they were out of their minds," he

Thu, May 25, 2000

Katherine Heigl's Dangerous Curves

Katherine Heigl of WB's Roswell says she has the power of prayer to thank for her curvaceous body. "When I was 13, I was flat as a board and totally unhappy about it," the 21-year-old actress tells Maxim. "I would write in my diary every day, 'Oh, if I could just have a B cup by summer!' I actually prayed for big boobs. So I developed at about 14, and then I was 15, 16, 17, and they kept going." Ironically, the top-heavy Heigl is now expressing regrets about agreeing to wear only a bra and jeans for a scene in the upcoming movie 100 Girls. "I'm leaning over this guy and shaking him, and I didn't realize exactly what they do when you're moving around a lot," she says. "If they were fake it'd probably look better." Hard as it is to imagine, the blond bombshell has yet to find the man of her dreams. She says she'd ideally like an older man who dresses in khaki pants, T-shirts and baseball caps. (David Letterman, perhaps?) "Guys are ki

Wed, May 24, 2000

Fox and Gross's Final Spin

Former Family Ties dad Michael Gross says Michael J. Fox's emotional battle with Parkinson's disease has rekindled his relationship with his TV son. Gross, who guest-stars as a psychologist on tomorrow's Spin City season finale, confesses to the TV Guide Channel that he and Fox had dropped out of touch following their long run on the popular 1980s sitcom. "When I first heard about Michael's illness, I was entirely taken by surprise," says Gross, who was doing a play in Chicago when Fox first went public with his illness. "Outside of family and a few close friends, and some of his co-workers on Spin City, very few people knew about Michael's condition." Upon hearing the news, Gross placed a phone call to Fox and the two began chatting again. Their renewed bond grew stronger when Gross, looking to pursue theater full-time, moved to New York City last fall. "I g

Tue, May 23, 2000

Ribisi's Regrettable Roles

Prior to landing critically acclaimed roles in such movies as Saving Private Ryan and Boiler Room, Giovanni Ribisi was just another young Hollywood actor paying his dues with less-than-stellar projects. The 24-year-old actor, who stars in the upcoming big-budget pics Gone in Sixty Seconds and The Gift, doesn't mince words when describing cheapo 1995 sci-fi flick The Outpost. "It was horrible," he tells W magazine. "But I was broke, and it was my first film and a chance to go to Bulgaria. It's hard to say that I knew it would get better. But I just knew if I committed myself as much I could physically, mentally and spiritually, I wouldn't have to worry about it." Ribisi ? who also enjoyed success as recurring character Frank Jr. on Friends ? had equally humble beginnings in TV, playing dorky next-door neighbor Cory Kupkus on the sitcom My

Tue, May 23, 2000

Cattrall Recalls Porky's Past

Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall says she had one motivation for agreeing to star in the 1981 sex comedy Porky's: money. "I was broke," confesses the actress on an upcoming Lifetime Intimate Portrait. "I thought I might have to go back to waitressing and I didn't want to do that. It seemed three days out of my life to go to Florida and I could live on that money for the next two years." Porky's went on to become a smash hit and the serious actress ? a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts ? suddenly found herself cast in the equally low-brow Police Academy. "I found myself one day standing on the set in formation and I thought to myself, 'What am I doing here? This is not really me,'&nbsp;" she says of Police Academy. "I didn't feel any connection to playing this hot little number here. I decided to really question what was going on in my life and I started to realize the meaning of the word no."

Fri, May 19, 2000

Gina Gershon Floors Bob Dylan!

Gina Gershon has a confession to make: She once nearly broke the jaw of music legend Bob Dylan. Gershon says she had been taking boxing lessons to prepare for her tough-gal role in 1996's Bound when her trainer decided to put her in the ring with the famed singer. For a while, her weekly bouts with Dylan were working out just fine. Eventually, however, things got out of hand. "One time he gave me a little jab in the face, and since I'd told him not to do that, of course I went insane and hit him really hard," the actress tells Interview. "He did go down, and I almost started to cry, thinking, 'Oh my God, I'm the jerk who broke Bob Dylan's jaw.'&nbsp;" But Dylan took the walloping in good humor. "He just said, 'Oh no, I need a good woman to kick my ass every now and then.'&nbsp;" In fact, he even invited her to play her Jew's harp with him on stage. Unfortunately, Gershon was shooting Bound and couldn't get off work. "I kept

Fri, May 19, 2000

Later's Garrett Gets What She Wants

NBC Later host Cynthia Garrett says she knew from the time she was 10 years old that she would one day host her own talk show. "I was watching a Barbara Walters special one day before the Academy Awards," Garrett tells the TV Guide Channel. "And I looked at my grandfather and I said, 'One day I'm gonna have my own television show and interview people like Barbara Walters, and then I'm gonna win an Academy Award.'&nbsp;" And that's not all. The precocious child also told her grandfather that she'd one day go to law school. "He didn't make me feel like a really crazy kid," says Garrett, who would go on to earn a law degree from the University of Southern California and a certificate in comparative law from England's prestigious Oxford University. "Two out of three, so far; I'm working on the Academy Award." No doubt about it, Garrett is driven. To land her first big break with music video network VH1, she went the almost-unheard-of route of produc

Fri, May 19, 2000

Mena Through With Nude Scenes?

Mena Suvari's topless scene with Kevin Spacey in American Beauty might turn out to be the last chance moviegoers will ever get to see the actress au naturel. "I wouldn't necessarily do it again, but for that scene, it seemed to work," the 21-year-old actress tells Cosmopolitan. "I didn't want to be seen as that kind of actress, but for this, it was more than just an 'Oh, I'm taking my top off' shot. It was a revelation of who the character really was. "And also, because Thora Birch, Annette Bening, Wes Bentley and Kevin had some nudity, too, I felt like I wasn't the only one," she adds. Maybe that explains why Suvari looked so comfortable rolling about in rose petals during the movie's fantasy sequences. Says American Beauty co-producer Bruce Cohen: "She was incredibly professional and a really good sport when it came to the all-important positioning of the rose petals." Suvari, whose character seduces an o

Thu, May 18, 2000

Kutcher's Blissful Ignorance

Ignorance is bliss for That '70s Show star Ashton Kutcher. While most sitcom players typically sit on the edge of their seats this time of year awaiting word on renewal, the actor who plays goofy Michael Kelso says he just presumed that all shows would return to the network schedules next fall. He presumed right in the case of his own sitcom, which Fox has just renewed for an impressive two seasons. "I really didn't know anything about the business so I kind of assumed that if they were making a TV show, and spending that much money to make a TV show, that it was gonna be on for a while," says Kutcher, 22. "I didn't know that some shows only go a couple of episodes and get canned because I never really paid attention. The shows that I watched were good shows, and they stick around for a while. So I didn't really realize that shows get canceled." Kutcher's not alone in his showbiz na&iuml;vet&eacute;. That '70s Show co-star Laura Pr

Thu, May 18, 2000

Here's the Story, of a Clever Actress...

How did Rebeccah Bush nab the part of Brady Bunch mom Florence Henderson for the upcoming NBC movie Growing Up Brady? By showing up at her audition in a vintage 1970s outfit! "I think they were in shock," the actress recalls of her audition with director Richard Colla and ex-Brady Bunch star Barry Williams. "I don't really think they expected anyone to come in fully dressed as Florence Henderson. I bought a wig, I got a little dress, little sandals. Oh, the looks I got on the freeway!" It turns out the Mississippi native was the only actress who showed up for the audition in costume. "They just burst out laughing and I thought, 'Oh God, I've completely made a huge mistake. This is never going to work. They think I'm a freak,'&nbsp;" she tells TV Guide Channel. "Then I got the role." Of course, her winning outfit was accompanied by a winning r&eacute;sum&eacute;: The actress has appeared on E.R., Fras

Thu, May 18, 2000

Sean Penn's Dark Fantasy

Hollywood bad boy Sean Penn, who once did jail time for punching out a photographer, says he'd someday like to see all paparazzi die of spontaneous combustion. "That's my private little fantasy," he confesses to Detour. "I'd love to be at a movie premiere, or drive by a movie premiere, and see them all out there, and all of a sudden they blow up." "The people who go around hunting people with cameras are not people to me; they're just toe jam molded into the form of a man who is given a machine so he can live in his mother's back room," he adds. Penn, who has a tendency to say whatever's on his mind, is still trying to clarify statements he made over a year ago about former pal Nicolas Cage. At the time, Penn said Cage had given up as an actor by appearing in such big-budget action pics as Snake Eyes. The two haven't spoken with each other since. "I didn't say anything damaging about him," insists Penn. "All I said was ? and it seems to m

Tue, May 16, 2000

Lucy's Dark Side

Ten years after Lucille Ball's death, friends and family still marvel at the secret sadness that surrounded America's favorite redhead. The I Love Lucy star was apparently so broken up by her 1960 divorce from former co-star Desi Arnaz that she couldn't even look at him on reruns of their popular sitcom, cousin Cleo Smith tells Talk magazine. Lucy's second husband, the late Gary Morton, once told pal Paula Stewart that the famous funny girl never got over her love for Desi. "After she died, [Gary] said to me, 'I guess she's happy now; she's with Desi,'&nbsp" says Stewart. "I grew up watching two gigantic stars have all the fame there is, all the money they needed, and they still weren't happy," adds daughter Lucie Arnaz. "They had the best life ever, according to what people think. And yet my father was still an alcoholic. My mother was

Thu, May 11, 2000

Dyan Cannon Monkeys Around

When she's not busy playing a judge on Fox's Ally McBeal, Dyan Cannon can be found at home caring for a baby chimpanzee named Shu Shu. Cannon, a longtime volunteer for California's Wildlife Waystation, occasionally takes six-and-a-half-month-old Shu Shu home with her in order to give the primate's caretakers a rest. By now, visitors to her Hollywood home are no longer surprised by the sight of Cannon bottle-feeding or changing the diapers of her furry friend. "It's all worth it for the way she looks up at me," Cannon confesses to Good Housekeeping. "All these little guys want to do is cling, so it's no different from having a baby." Motherhood is nothing new for Cannon: The 63-year-old star is the mother of actress Jennifer Grant, 34, whose father is late actor Cary Grant. Cannon also

Wed, May 10, 2000

Lawless Takes a Big Leap

When she's not busy playing TV's Xena, Warrior Princess, tough gal Lucy Lawless enjoys taking the occasional bungee jump. "I once bungee-jumped out of a helicopter," the actress coolly tells Stuff. "It was an 800-foot fall, and I wasn't that impressed. You're so high above the ground that you don't get the sense of imminent death like you do when you're jumping off, say, a bridge." The 32-year-old actress attributes her nerves of steel to her New Zealand heritage. "We live at the edge of the world, so we live on the edge," she says. "Kiwis will always sacrifice money and security for adventure and challenge." Lawless says she actually performs a lot of her own stunts on the action-packed Xena series ? and has the cuts, bruises and torn ligaments to prove it. "Sometimes you've just got to give it a whirl," she tells the article's author. "Embrace death, darling." Still, as tough as she is, Lawless doesn't miss her grueling years as a teena

Tue, May 9, 2000

Sisto's Healing Powers

When he wasn't busy healing the sick in the lead role of Jesus, Jeremy Sisto was busy healing a sick cat on the set of the upcoming CBS miniseries. The actor tells the TV Guide Channel he picked up the stray cat on the streets of Morocco while shooting the project and wound up nursing her back to health before bringing her home with him to the States. "I healed it," says the actor. "Well... I took it to the vet." Unfortunately, the cat, which he named Misha, ran away a week after he returned to Los Angeles. "I mean, I was very upset about that because she was supposed to be my friend," he says. "I thought we had something special. I guess I shouldn't have let her out, though. "She had a very wet nose and she would bite my head in the middle of the night," recalls Sisto. "She played the whole sick thing like, 'Oh, I'm sick,' and now I think I'm gonna see her here in some kitty commercials in a few days." Among other revelations, Sisto says he was recupe

Tue, May 9, 2000

Pals Analyze Shirley MacLaine

So what do Shirley MacLaine's friends really think about her talk about past lives and all that other New Age mumbo jumbo? "Shirley's the greatest audience for jokes about her metaphysical stuff," says book publicist Stuart Applebaum, one of several pals featured on the actress's upcoming A&E Biography (May 14, 8 pm/ET). "Some of that is self-effacing and some of that is shrewd communication skills and some of that is Shirley likes to have a good, good time." It sounds like MacLaine takes a fair amount of ribbing from producer/director pal James L. Brooks, who worked with the actress on 1983's Terms of Endearment. "I clown around with it and I shouldn't, but for some reason I can't stop myself from doing it ? and she tolerates it and it's great," he says. Another friend, tough guy 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace, says he's been "a li

Mon, May 8, 2000