To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People July 7, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/1999/07/07/billsr Gates the Elder forced to change name Hey, Pops! Who do you want to be today? Clampetts about to morph into the Corleones: Beverly Hillbillies casino on the way; Prince Charles gets flashed by British bad girl. Plus: Latest from the Cherry Pit Spitting Championship. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter "I remember introducing myself one time to someone over the phone, and just like anybody else would, I said, 'Hello, this is Bill Gates.' The voice on the other end said, 'Oh, sure, and I'm Minnie Mouse' ... I don't really have my name anymore. He's Bill Gates III, but that doesn't seem to work for people; it's confusing. I mean, as you observe me up here today, would you think of me as Junior? So for the sake of clarity, I've had to change my name to Bill Gates Senior." -- William Gates Sr., father of THE Bill Gates, gamely griping to a group in Minnesota about how his famous son swiped his name, in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. - - - - - - - - - - - - Hurling away Hugh for the Spicey life? Perhaps you think Elizabeth Hurley has it all: awe-inspiring beauty, a talented and doting (if occasionally wayward) boyfriend, fame, fortune, an especially shagadelic relationship with Austin Powers. But Hurley herself would rather be ... a Spice Girl. The model-actress tells teen magazine Jump that if she could change places with anyone, she'd slip into a spicy little getup and have "a blast" strutting her stuff onstage. However, quips the 33-year-old Hurley, she's a little afraid that she might be known as "Old Spice." OK, well, how about "Ungrateful Spice"? - - - - - - - - - - - - What would Miss Hathaway say about this? Come 'n' listen to my story 'bout a man named Max. Who's starting a casino that could stop you in your tracks. Capitalizing on the success of a 1960s show ... on which he played a loaded hick they liked to call Jethro. OK, so the TV theme-song writing offers aren't exactly flooding my way, but neither, presumably, are the acting offers for Max Baer Jr., whom the world once knew as dull-as-polluted-pond-water Jethro on the classic sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies." But heck, that ain't gonna keep Baer, now in his 60s, from trying to shoot for a little black gold -- or green gold, or gold gold -- of his own. (After all, with a sixth-grade education, ol' Jethro always was the brains of the Clampett clan.) Reuters reports that Baer has scored a big round of financing (cash, that is!) to build a $175 million, 391-room hotel-casino in Reno, Nev., featuring a fire-spitting oil derrick and workers dressed as characters from the boomer-beloved show about a feisty family of bumblin' bumpkins who strike "crude" while shootin' at some food and pack up and move to moneyed Beverly Hills. If all goes as planned, visitors to Jethro's Beverly Hillbillies Mansion and Casino will be able to dip in the "Seement Pond" (swimmin' pools, movie stars!) and tie the knot in the "Shot-gun" wedding chapel, provided the bride is up for donning a gown padded to make her look pregnant and doesn't mind "Granny" gunning down a trash-talking parrot in the middle of the blissful moment (lawdy it was swank!). They can also indulge in some good ol' fashioned eatin'. A buffet highlight: the two-pound "Jethro hot dogs on Ellie May's buns" (Jed, move away from there!). But winking hints at incestuous sodomy are only part of the vintage fun! "We're going to have waitresses dressed like Ellie May but padded like Dolly Parton," Baer told Reuters, referring to his character's naively nubile cousin. "What you will have here is a virginal version of Hooters." Sounds like a quite a heapin' helpin' of hillbilly hospitality, Max. Y'all come back now, hear? - - - - - - - - - - - - Oh, you nasty boy "I'm in show business. I wanna hang out with Janet Jackson, not Jesse Jackson." -- Funnyman Chris Rock on why the political arena isn't for him, despite Rev. Jesse Jackson's persistent plea that he enter it. - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits Prince Charles got a royal flashing at a London charity concert on Sunday from British babe Denise Van Outen -- once voted TV's sexiest woman by U.K. couch potatoes -- but staunchly refused to get royally flushed. In fact, he didn't even blink. The 25-year-old bad girl told the Daily Mirror on Monday that, after officials blocked her access to a lineup to meet the prince, she hoisted up her top and stuck out her tongue at the stone-faced Chuckster. "He looked at me but didn't acknowledge me even though he got a real eyeful," said Van Outen, who was persona non grata even before she was persona no shirta at Buckingham Palace, having swiped an ashtray and a velvet tissue box cover on a visit there last year. "I can't help being naughty when a royal is around," said the sticky-fingered star of her impetuous unveiling. She does, however, have one regret: "If I'd planned it I would have made sure I was wearing a nicer bra." Meanwhile, back in the U.S., Rick "Pellet Gun" Krause spat his way to pretty pitty victory in the 11th International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship in Eau Claire, Mich., on Saturday. Krause, 45, beat his top-seeded son, Brian, with a powerful pit-spit clearing a whopping 67 feet, 2 inches. "My first spit I got off a pretty good one and put pretty good pressure on his," the elder Krause told the Associated Press. "Last year, he did that to me when he beat my record. That put the pressure on me. This time I spit first and put the pressure on him." Well, you know what they say, he who spits first, spits best. salon.com | July 7, 1999