To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People March 20, 2000 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/2000/03/20/ted Everybody loves Ted The crowd goes wild for Ted Turner at the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation annual banquet and celebration of the First Amendment. The world is indeed full of wonders. Plus! Jennifer Love Hewitt's secret clerical obsession. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter I owe Jane Fonda a big apology. In Friday's column, I ridiculed Jane for falling head-over-heels in love with the dress she plans to wear to this year's Oscars. I sneered, I smirked, I gave the relationship a year. But then, just a few short hours after filing that column, I had an experience so profound, so mind-altering ... it turned me right around on the dress thing. What happened? I had a close encounter with ... Ted Turner. Jane's estranged hubby was among the honorees at this year's Radio and Television News Directors Foundation annual banquet and celebration of the First Amendment (a foundation that clearly exercises its freedom to give its banquet a very long name). But the billionaire magnate was nowhere to be seen as the black-tied and begowned TV types -- including Sam Donaldson and White House spokesman Joe Lockhart -- downed strong cocktails and networked like they meant it. I was halfway through my salad, reliving the good old days -- which apparently transpired before I was born -- with a charming retired news bigwig on my left, when Turner strolled in like a cowboy who'd only just dismounted, sidled right up to me, stopped, flashed a smile and moved on. The guy exuded so much sex appeal, I nearly choked on my greens. "Too arrogant," declared one woman at my table, when I confessed my shameful attraction. True, so true. Up on the dais, he tipped his chair back, way back on its hind legs like a bored teenager looking for danger. He forgot to look interested during Jane Pauley's and fellow honoree Diane Sawyer's speeches, despite the fact that both paid him homage. In return, he offered a big, open-mouthed yawn. (My date, who ran into Ted in the bathroom, said he even looked bored at the urinal, showily checking his watch mid-pee!) Despite this, everyone seemed impressed by his presence. "Am I the only one who's thinking 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'?" quipped Pauley with a sidelong glance at Turner. "I think I know a little bit about how it must feel to be the warm-up act for Santana," said honoree Lee Giles. Even his bosses, AOL's Steve Case and Time Warner's Gerald Levin, did a "we're not worthy" routine. Levin said he'd been in great demand as a speaker since he introduced Turner at the U.N. event at which the CNN founder pledged to donate $1 billion to the organization. "It says a lot about Ted Turner that you need two people to present his award," said Case, who called Turner "one of my great heroes" and confessed he was "in awe of him." And if it felt like we were all here for Ted, it felt even more so when he got up to speak. The audience hooted and hollered as he told of how he worked his way up from selling newspapers for a nickel at age 6 to becoming "the news king!" He punctuated his speech by high-fiving Gerald Levin. "I've been in Washington a long time," said M.C. Rita Braver, after Turner's standing O. "And that's the first speech I've ever heard where people shouted 'Encore!'" - - - - - - - - - - - - 12 steps for P.J.? "Lushes are morally superior to un-inebriated people. Consider the greatest evils in history. Hitler was a teetotaler." -- P.J. O'Rourke on why drinking to excess is something every man should do "for the sake of humanity," in Men's Journal. - - - - - - - - - - - - While you were out ... Hollywood, shmollywood. Jennifer Love Hewitt would trade it all tomorrow for a chance to be a ... secretary. "I know it sounds dorky," she tells TV Guide, "but I've always wanted an office. My dream growing up was to be a secretary. Then this whole acting thing got in the way." But Hewitt is not above a little creative role-playing. "I still bring Post-its with me to work," she says, "and I just write people messages. 'So-and-so called.' It's very exciting." A real thrill. - - - - - - - - - - - - Open mouth, insert well-shod foot "I love Madonna. You have to admire her. She hides her lack of talent so well." -- Celebrity heeler Manolo Blahnik, dissing his famous client who once said his shoes are as good as -- but last longer than -- sex, in the New Yorker. - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits Leonardo DiCaprio may have a rep as a Hollywood bad boy, but he's apparently got nothing on his stepbrother, Adam Farrar. Last week, Farrar was arrested in L.A. for attempted murder and making terrorist threats against his girlfriend. After the arrest, Leo's spokesman, Ken Sunshine, told the press, "Leonardo's only comment is that he has no comment." You don't say ... If you can't get Anne Murray, you may as well get ... Robin Williams? Williams has agreed to sing Trey Parker and Marc Shaiman's "Blame Canada," a best song nominee from "South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut," at the Oscars. Too bad Celine Dion isn't available. Harry Potter, unoriginal? An American writer named Nancy Stouffer is suing Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for plagiarism. Stouffer says Rowling lifted ideas from her 1984 book, "The Legend of Rah and Muggles," which includes a character named Larry Potter, another named Lilly Potter and the word "muggles," which she claims to have trademarked. "I think coincidences happen, but I still say if it looks like a duck and acts like a duck, it's a duck," Stouffer told the BBC. Quack! salon.com | March 20, 2000   - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Amy Reiter is a staff writer for Salon People. For more columns by Amy Reiter, visit her column archive.