Madonna and child in a time crunch

The Material Baby might need a new b-day; Christopher Walken gets naked with cats; and more. Plus: Gay Tarot-reading Flockhart deemed a dud.

Published July 31, 2000 6:00PM (EDT)

Are Madonna and her boyfriend having a hard time keeping their priorities straight these days or what?

One minute the Ethereal Girl's expressing deep concern for her offspring, moaning to Britain's The Face magazine that, if Napster isn't stopped, "then people won't buy my records. And how will I pay for my daughter's schooling?" (That, just as she plunked down a cool $15 mill for a house in London's ritzy Belgravia section.)

The next minute, she's said to be contemplating inducing the birth of her baby so it won't conflict with the premiere of her lover Guy Ritchie's new film. The baby is due at the end of August, as is Ritchie's new gangster flick, "Snatch," starring Brad Pitt and Vinnie Jones. (The title may be changed for U.S. release, given its meaning in street parlance.)

"Guy is spending a lot of time in London promoting his new film and the premiere could clash with the birth," a "close friend of the couple" told the Scottish Daily Record. "But Madonna is having the child in L.A. so they are deciding whether to induce because Guy is determined not to miss a single thing."

"Surely, Guy could rearrange the premiere," opined another friend. "This is a bit strange and a tad obsessive of him if it's true."

But a source at Ritchie's production company, SKA, points out that the film is the director's "big movie and a host of stars from the film and other celebrities will be there for the premiere."

Well, he'd be hard-pressed to find a bigger celebrity than the one guaranteed to be there for the baby's premiere.

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Eminem's movie mystique

"Everything that happens in the movie didn't necessarily happen to me. There are also going to be some things that did happen to me that aren't going to be in the movie. We're leaving the mystique, I guess."

-- Eminem giving filmgoers a taste of what they have to look forward to in his upcoming biopic.

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Here, kitty, kitty ...

File this under "Christopher Walken says the darnedest things."

At last week's opening of "The Opportunists," in which he plays a mechanic opposite Cyndi Lauper, Walken told gossipist Baird Jones he'd got his start in acting as a nude model -- at just 14 months old.

"I posed naked snuggling with two cats for a series of calendar pictures, which were a big success," the actor recalled. "I haven't seen those pictures in a long, long time, but I remember doing it -- and I've always wondered what kind of cats those were. Finally, I've just accepted that they were just cats and I'll never know what kind."

Regrets, he has a few ...

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A thing goin' on Broadway

Lou Rawls knows a money idea when he sees one. That's why the soul singer's hard at work producing a Broadway stage musical called "Me and Mrs. Jones" based on Billy Paul's 1972 hit of the same name.

The show, which heads into rehearsal in a few weeks, will also star Rawls as the "me" who meets Mrs. Jones at a bar every afternoon for a little extramarital nookie. Members of the soul group the O'Jays will appear as "back stabbers," who try to sabotage the couple's thang.

Old soul favorites by the O'Jays, the Spinners and the Three Degrees will be included. And Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight (but, sadly, not the Pips) will also appear.

Rawls tells Wireless Flash News he's sure the play will be a big hit because "Everybody knows these songs and they're not that rap crap."

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Wedding bell blues

Note to blushing bride Jennifer Aniston: Your mother misses you.

Nancy Aniston, from whom the "Friends" actress is estranged, reached out to Jennifer and her groom, Brad Pitt, via New York Post columnist Cindy Adams last week.

"I love my daughter very much. I meditate about our relationship. I pray over it. Even if she's not close to me right now, I still worry about my daughter, whom I adore. I worry, is she all right? I worry, is she eating?

"I don't know Brad Pitt. I hear he's a fine young man. I thank God that he loves her because Jenny is a wonderful person. A dear person. I'm only concerned that he brings her happiness. If she experiences great happiness, perhaps that might mean an end to our difficulties. A husband as fine as I'm told Brad is might help that. I'm praying for it."

And you thought you and your mother sometimes had a hard time communicating ...

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Headlines we'd rather not picture

"Concorde Bodies Found, Eyes on Black Box"

-- Yahoo! headline for a Reuters story. The original Reuters headline was "Concorde Bodies Found, focus on Black Box data." Quips one NP reader, "What Yahoo made that change?"

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Juicy bits

Every Dogstar has his day at the altar -- and according to the London Evening Standard, Keanu Reeves and his British girlfriend Amanda de Cadenet are fixing to make like Brad and Jen and get hitched. "He invited Amanda to visit him on the set of 'Sweet November' in San Francisco last month," a friend of the couple's told the paper. "Then he went down on bended knee, took her hand and said, 'Marry me, it's for keeps.' Amanda broke down in tears and accepted. They have already found a house in the Hollywood Hills." I'm sure she loves him for his mind.

You'd think audiences would be all over "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her," what with a cast including Calista Flockhart, Glenn Close, Holly Hunter and Cameron Diaz. But the flick, in which Flockhart plays a lesbian tarot card reader whose lover is near death, was deemed so boring by test audiences, it's being pulled from release so the rest of us won't have a chance to make fun of it. Maybe they should have included a sex-in-a-carwash scene.


By Amy Reiter

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