To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People March 10, 2000 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/2000/03/10/npfri Egomania! Lucianne Goldberg's is monumental; Judge Jerry's is bigger than Judge Judy's; Rick Rockwell's is black-and-blue; but Muhammad Ali's is definitely the greatest of all time. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter Attention, urban planners: Lucianne Goldberg wants her due. And don't worry, the pigeon droppings won't be a problem. "I really want a statue in the park or something," she told Salon's Daryl Lindsey this week, "because I have really given an awful lot of business to a lot of people." What's more, she said, "Monica deserves one too, and so does Linda, because it was a big industry there for a while." Oh, and she wouldn't mind shaking down all those fine folks who profited from the presidential scandal she helped stir, either. "There's a guy in my neighborhood who makes political buttons. That's his livelihood," the literary agent explained. "And he saw me in the street one day and he just thanked me all over the place. He said, 'If it weren't for you, I'd have gone broke.'" The guy's made a killing on his line of "nasty, X-rated Clinton buttons," said Goldberg, adding mournfully. "He doesn't give me a kickback, though." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The music of love "I listen to [my own music] a lot, but not when I'm with a woman. I want to give a woman my full attention, and if my music is on, I can't do that. I'm in a different frame of mind. For me, my music is very deep stuff." -- D'Angelo on why Sam Cooke's love songs are his makeout music of choice, in the upcoming issue of USA Weekend. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Vanity on the bench The verdict is in: Judge Jerry Sheindlin is way more vain than his wife, Judge Judy. "The first year that my program was on, I didn't watch it at all," says Judy Sheindlin, who's just published a kids book called "Win or Lose by How You Choose." "It was a calculated decision on my part because when I do each case I really forget about the lights, the camera angles -- as you can see from some of the unflattering ways I sit and react. And I knew that if I watched myself, I would become self-conscious." The second year, she says, she'd watch occasionally. But if she's home when her husband's show is on, it's a whole different story. "He glues me to the seat: 'Why don't you just sit and watch me? Stop fooling around in the kitchen. Stop playing with the dog. Stop folding laundry, just sit and watch me.'" So she does, and showers him with flattery because, she says, "Now that he's seasoned ... he doesn't accept the criticism very well." She still isn't particularly interested in watching her own show, she says, but she doesn't mind admitting to enjoying trouncing him in the ratings. "Do we vie for the ratings?" she asks herself. "No, I've told him that being No. 2 would be just fine ... for him." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Who wants to follow a multimillionaire? "Let me just clean this off in case stupid is contagious." -- Comic Steve Marmel, who followed multimillionaire groom/struggling comic Rick Rockwell at L.A.'s Improv Monday night, wiping off the mike before launching into a well-received batch of jokes at Rockwell's expense. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits If at first you don't succeed ... The Academy Awards overseers have re-sent Oscar ballots to the 4,200 California-dwelling Oscar voters whose ballots got lost in the mail last week and extended the deadline by two days, until March 23. The new ballots -- mailed with a bright yellow return envelope, rather than a plain white one, for tracking purposes -- were picked up by Los Angeles Postmaster Kerry Wolny. They say the postmaster always rings twice -- let's just hope the second time around he delivers. Those people in Thailand are starting to sound a little whiny when it comes to "The Beach." Earlier this week, angry environmentalists grabbed headlines by having a man in a Leonardo DiCaprio mask stage a mock suicide at the film's opening. Alas, no effigy. Now, a cache of Thai politicians have called for the film to be banned because they feel it's blasphemous and portrays their country as a drug paradise. Damn, what are those people smoking over there? I don't know about floating like a butterfly, but Muhammad Ali has proven he can still sting like a bee. And Will Smith, who will play Ali in an upcoming biopic, is probably still picking out bits of stinger. "I'm the greatest of all time," Ali told a crowd at ShoWest in Las Vegas. "Some guy named Will Smith is trying to play me? Impossible." Pow! Who green-lighted this concept? A remake of "A Star Is Born" directed by Oliver Stone, featuring Jamie Foxx and possibly starring Mariah Carey. The Hollywood Reporter reports that the film, for which Stone and Foxx are in final negotiations, follows the basic plot of its three predecessors, but tosses in a little "Romeo and Juliet" for good measure. Never thought I'd ask, but wherefore art thou Barbra Streisand? Get out your cheese. "Wallace and Gromit" are coming to the big screen. Series creator Nick Park has inked a deal with Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks to create a film starring his lovably quirky animated characters. Since Park is currently at work on two other films, "Chicken Run" (featuring the voices of Mel Gibson and Miranda Richardson) and "The Tortoise and the Hare," Wallace and Gromit probably won't get their feature treatment until 2004. On second thought, maybe you'd better put away your cheese. Kathie Lee Gifford is making love and war. In the new issue of People magazine, she says that, while her marriage to Frank Gifford "will probably never be the same" after his infamous infidelity, she tries to heal things by having sex as often as possible. "Each time you make love, that person feels forgiven, and you feel restored and loved again," she says. But as for Regis, "He comes in some mornings and I just know he's not there. Our audiences deserve better ... He's tired." Let the healing begin. salon.com | March 10, 2000   - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Amy Reiter is a staff writer for Salon People. For more columns by Amy Reiter, visit her column archive.