To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People Feb. 23, 2000 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/2000/02/23/npwed Between a Rick and a hard place As Rick "I'm going to make you so happy" Rockwell rocks Fox's world, Jenny "I'm a little hottie!" McCarthy rocks Kirk Douglas' lap. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter Who wants to talk to a possibly abusive multimillionaire's shrink for a second time? I guess I did. I knew it as soon as I heard his voice-mail message. "Hi, Amy. Dr. Goulston. Listen, I've been getting a lot of calls about this multimillionaire marriage thing being a hoax and I thought you might want to talk about it a little more. Feel free to call." Yes. I had to admit. I had unresolved issues with the man who claimed to be a wealthy real-estate developer earnestly searching for true love on national TV. And while uncertainty surrounds Rick Rockwell's financial status -- he lives in a modest 1,200-square-foot house in California with two broken toilets in the backyard -- this much seems certain: The guy's a shamelessly self-promoting comedian, bit-part player and perhaps an ex-girlfriend stalker to boot. Why, just the night before Goulston's call, I'd watched Rockwell hand out pizza to the press, looking mighty pleased with himself as he chatted away about his "wife" and "marriage." Already in the Guinness Book of World's Records for telling the world's longest joke, he now may have earned a place for putting over the world's biggest joke -- on Fox, on poor Darva Conger, on the American people and, yes, on Goulston, too. So did the doctor, who got called in to consult with Rockwell on questions for his potential brides, have any clue that this man may not have been altogether sincere? Nope. Sure, Rockwell seemed ambitious, impatient, maybe a little cocky even, but nothing out of the ordinary in an entrepreneur. "Being in Los Angeles and surrounded by lots of ambitious people, knowing some dot-com entrepreneurs, he wasn't that different from them," says Goulston. And although the doctor's not sure if Rockwell is all-out evil or just immature, he agrees that his post-honeymoon behavior is rather "revolting." "In retrospect, I feel like I have shrink egg on my face," Goulston admits, recalling a similar feeling when he worked for the prosecution on the O.J. Simpson case and failed to pick up on Mark Fuhrman's less savory characteristics. Nevertheless, Goulston -- who tells me with considerable glee that he's been interviewed by everyone from the BBC to Newsweek in the past week -- feels he's grown from the experience. "I've learned that in an effort to keep people's eyeballs on your station -- or your Web page -- you often need to appeal to baser emotions in them -- greed, fear, lust, sensationalism. That is a sad commentary on what it takes to attract and hold an audience." A sad commentary indeed. Now, back to celebrity body parts ... - - - - - - - - - - - - Blame Harvey Keitel "That's my bare butt. I've read that Mel Gibson has admitted he insists on a butt double these days. It's a point of pride with me. It will always be my own butt, even if it starts sagging." -- Ben Affleck on letting it all hang out (he wore only a sock and not on his foot) in his steamy "Reindeer Games" sex scene with Charlize Theron, in the London Free Press. - - - - - - - - - - - - Singled out for a lap dance Jenny McCarthy has a thing for older guys. "I never found pretty boys attractive," McCarthy admits in the upcoming issue of Maxim. In fact, back when she was in nursing school, she says, "I always loved little old men. I thought they were so wise and cute." And does she know how to take care of them? Ask Kirk Douglas. The actor got a little taste of McCarthy's nursing skills while celebrating his 80th birthday on the set of "Diamonds." "I wanted to give him something special," says McCarthy, "so I gave him a lap dance. We even got pictures of me shaking my booty in his face. I figured, what the hell, when you turn 80, wouldn't you like some little hottie to give you a lap dance?" Uh ... not really. - - - - - - - - - - - - Whiff! "I was tired after two swings." -- Garth Brooks on the rigors of training with the New York Mets. - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits After nearly a yearlong courtship, it looks like a love match. The BBC reports that Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi are planning to tie the knot on Graf's birthday -- June 13. Will the bride be wearing her tennis whites? If it gets the final go-ahead, "The Final Journey" will be no mere film. It'll be a Mir film. A Russian-British production team will shoot actor Vladimir Steklov into space to star in a thriller aboard the trouble-plagued Mir space station. Gary Oldman and Sean Penn are set to appear in the film as well, though they won't leave Earth. Speaking on Russian public TV, director Yuri Kara said, "In this third millennium, of course, as mankind develops, films will be made on the moon and on Mars." And let's not even talk about Uranus. Just what you've been waiting for -- a remake of "Planet of the Apes." Variety reports that Tim Burton is in final negotiations to direct a "re-imagining" of the 1968 sci-fi classic in which Charlton Heston crash-landed on a world ruled by talking apes. The new flick, scheduled for summer 2001, will star a Leonardo DiCaprio/Matt Damon type in the Heston role. Now you can breathe a little easier when you hit that "scan" button. Premiere Radio Networks has pulled the plug on Newt Gingrich's 90-second daily radio show, "The Age of Possibilities With Newt Gingrich." Kraig Kitchin, Premiere's president, told the Washington Post that the ex-House speaker's "prominence seemed to vaporize very, very quickly" once he left office. Heidi Fleiss is teaming up with Seattle's Internet Entertainment Group (the company that brought you Dr. Laura's nudie shots and the Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee video) to produce an entertainment Web site. Call her the dot-com madam. salon.com | Feb. 23, 2000   - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Amy Reiter is a staff writer for Salon People. For more columns by Amy Reiter, visit her column archive.