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Friday, Oct 12, 2001 4:25 PM UTC

See no evil

Van Damme proceeds with terrorist movie while Willis and Schwarzenegger hoist the white flag; "Survivor's" Rudy defends show. Plus: "E.T." de-terrorizes; and Eminem de-marries!

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Topics: Celebrity, Whitney Houston, Arnold Schwarzenegger,

Was Jean-Claude Van Damme the last action hero to get the memo announcing the jig is up?

Van Damme has just decided to go ahead with “Derailed,” a movie about a train that gets hijacked by terrorists intent on slamming it into an unsuspecting city. The flick, in which the Muscles From Brussels will engage in his usual evil-fighting bloodsport, begins shooting in just a few weeks. But it looks like Van Damme’s about the only big-screen action star to shrug off the events of the last few weeks and karate-chop his way back onto the screen.

Bruce Willis, for instance, says real-life terrorism has caused his interest in starring in violent films to die hard.

“I’m not an action hero anymore,” Willis, who costars in the comedy “Bandits,” tells TV Guide Online, “and I think it would be inappropriate for me to compare anything that happens in Hollywood and the entertainment industry to the tragic loss of life on Sept. 11.”

Willis says that, like the rest of us, he’s still struggling to reconcile the events of 9/11 with big-screen violence. “I know people who died in that tragedy,” he says. “It’s impossible to wrap your mind around what happened there. What happens in Hollywood isn’t real — it’s about diversion. What I’m trying to do is just entertain people. I’m proud to be an entertainer.”

A kinder, gentler entertainer, he means.

And even that’s more Hollywood than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s prepared to get at the moment. Now that his new, terrorist-themed movie “Collateral Damage” has been put on hold, he’s terminated his film work … at least for the time being.

Instead, he’s decided to spend some time promoting “Lights on Afterschool,” which supports after-school programs for kids. “So,” he says of his unexpected free time, “the whole thing ended up being a positive in that regard.”

Yeah, but I’m sure he’ll be back.

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Show them the money

“I think CBS ought to keep doing ["Survivor"]. And I’m sure they will as long as they’re making money — and I agree with that. And they wouldn’t be doing it unless they were making money.”

– “Survivor” veteran Rudy Boesch on whether the venal reality TV show should go on in light of the terrorist attacks.

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Juicy bits

Even extraterrestrials are adjusting to the new normalcy. Cinescape.com reports that a brief reference to terrorism has been removed from the upcoming 20th anniversary edition of “ET: The Extra-Terrestrial.” “There was some reference to one of the Halloween characters in the film looking like a terrorist,” Dee Wallace-Stone, who played the mother in the film, told the site, “so we’re going in to reloop that line.” Maybe they can reloop all that sugary “phone home” dialogue, too.

That’s a rap: One chapter of Eminem’s problem-plagued personal life has apparently closed. The hostile rapper’s divorce from now ex-wife Kim Mathers is finally official. The former couple have agreed to share custody of their 5-year-old daughter, Hailie. He’ll fork over $1,000 a week in child support, which is less than her lawyers were trying for but more than Eminem’s hapless mother was awarded in her defamation suit.

America, America … you bought Whitney Houston’s single. The rerelease of Houston’s 1991 rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” (packaged with a rendition of “America the Beautiful”) has reached No.1 on the singles charts. So far, the CD has raised more than a million dollars for charities benefiting victims of the attack.

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Miss something? Read yesterday’s Nothing Personal.

More Amy Reiter.

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