CAGE DUMPED HIS DATE WHEN RALPH SHOWED UP

Yeah, so Nicolas Cage is now a big star. An Oscar-winning star, no less.

But there's at least one of his Beverly Hills High School acquaintances who remembers him when.

"I remember my prom was a complete disaster," Cage told Movieline magazine. "I used bonds my grandmother had given me to rent a tuxedo and a limousine so I could go to the prom with this beautiful girl. And at the end of the night I went to kiss her." The problem then was a combination full stomach and anxious disposition. "I was so nervous that my stomach got really nauseous and I said, `Excuse me' and just threw up on the street all over my shoes and my rented tux. The limo driver wouldn't let me in the car. He split and I had to walk home. That was my prom night." Loose talk Spike Lee on world affairs (as reported by the Associated Press): "As we move toward the millennium, the year 2000, the most powerful nations are not those that have nuclear bombs, but those that control the media." They're no longer kids, so they must be Braves David Justice and Greg Maddux turns 30 today. In Disneyland, remember, the song is `It's a Small World' Explaining the reason behind his book "Mug Shots: Celebrities Under Arrest," author George Seminara says that, "The whole idea, was to take away that beautiful sheen of celebrity. They look like people. I think it's an equalizer." Others disagree. "I just think people want to make money from whatever reason they can find," says Pat Kingsley of the public relations firm PMK Inc. "It's a strange world." Oui, they do love l'Arnold and le Sly in lovely Paris Actor Jean-Paul Belmondo doesn't like the fact that French film distributors prefer to book American rather than French films. "The big French movie distributors are the Trojan horse of the American cinema," Belmondo told the Paris daily Le Figaro. "I do not condemn the American cinema, I am against all forms of censorship. But I would like the public to be able to judge by itself." How many seals star in their own x-rated movies? According to Advertising Age, John Bobbitt is back in the news. Or at least part of him is. The International Fund for Animal Welfare, protesting the killing of seals - and the subsequent sale of seal penises to Asia - ran an ad in the British press that featured a photo of Bobbitt's male member in, er, its disconnected state. "When it happened to John Wayne Bobbitt," said the ad, "it got worldwide exposure. When it happens to 10,000 seals, it gets slightly less coverage." We stopped watching when he reached for his nose As part of a Lee Strasberg acting technique called the "Private Moment," students are expected to "simulate 30 minutes of private time." In a recent class, "Guiding Light" regular Marc Holzman, as he explains, "entered the scene naked - except for my Birkenstocks." He insisted "it was not at all sexual." Still, he admits, "Getting naked is probably not something you want to do in a beginners' class."

Copyright 1996 Cowles Publishing Company
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