Crystal-ball gazing

Press, 9 March 1987, Page 19

Crystal-ball gazing

David Hartnell's

.mwooo.

I’m not one to gossip but ... here are some of the latest Hollywood predictions for the first part of this year.

“Moonlighting’s” Cybill Shepherd will have a real-life fist fight on the show, which will flair up during filming, and the producers will like the angry scene so much they will leave it in the show.

Shelly Long from “Cheers” will star in the re-make movie, “The Bride Of Frankenstein," and she will talk her costar, Ted Danson, into starring as Frankenstein. The movie will be a box office smash.

Comic Bill Cosby will make a rock video to promote his song; overnight it will rocket to number one around the world. He will leave television and become a rock star.

Priscilla Presley will marry the father of her unborn baby and then divorce him shortly after giving birth to a boy. She will call him ... guess what ... Elvis!

Country singing star Dolly Parton will get carried away with her diet, and will dwindle to a fraction of her former size. Terrified of growing old, Michael Jackson will spend millions of dollars trying to find the cure for ageing. Princess Stephanie will become the world’s first female

gender bender. She will dress as a male for her stage act and start singing in a very deep voice; she will call her self Prince Steve. Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith will again team up for “Charlie’s Angels,” and the show will again go to number one in the American television ratings. Marie Osmond will be under a lot of criticism from the Mormon Church about her new television wardrobe — they say her gowns are far too sexy. Elizabeth Taylor will make a home video in which she gives some of her personal beauty tips. It will become an all-time best-seller. Joan Collins will retire from television at the end of this year and set up a chain of fashion shops throughout America. She will become one of that country’s leading designers.

I guess we will just have to see how many of them come true ... if any. In America there is a brand new telephone service, “ABC Soaptalk,” which gives you the chance to hear from the

people whose lives you follow every day, the characters on ABC’s daytime dramas. You ring 1-900-410 in Los Angeles weekdays and the soap stars tell you their most intimate thoughts and let you into the latest gossip from their show. It brings you a different soap opera every day — it could only happen in America. Jerry Douglas, who plays John Abbott on “The Young and the Restless,” recently married Kymberly Banks, who was a former Miss Michigan. The 24-year age gap doesn’t bother them, nor does it bother Jerry’s children from his first marriage, Jod, aged 17, and Avra, aged 23 — they all get on very well. Now Jerry’s ex-wife has married a man 25 years her junior. Only in California could you find these crazy families. A very ugly feud has broken out between superstars, Burt Reynolds, and Sally Fields. It all started with a comment that Burt has A.I.D.S. Instead of being a loyal friend and totally denying it, Sally last year told “Playboy” magazine she didn’t know whether Burt had the virus or not. Burt went on national television and stated that he does not have the dreaded disease, and said he could not understand why Sally didn’t defend him. Burt is sick of these rumours about his health and just wants to get on with his life.

Elizabeth Taylor and Mr Smoothy, George Hamilton, are no longer the darling Hollywood twosome. They have not fallen out, but have simply started going their own ways. At the recent Hollywood Golden Globe awards both turned up alone and told reporters that they were still great friends. My bet is that their P.R. agents thought their relationship was becoming too boring for the press ... but my lips are sealed.