Veteran actor lured out of retirement

Press, 10 July 1989, Page 19

Veteran actor lured out of retirement

David Hartnell's

hollywood

I'm not one to gossip, but ... it took a World War II movie to lure veteran Glenn Ford out of his nine-year retirement from acting. He’ll make a comeback, in "Casablanca Express,” a drama about how the Allies transported Winston Churchill across North Africa during the war. Glenn will play an American general who organises the security on board a train carrying Churchill through Morocco, and supervises the British Prince Minister’s lookalikes who serve as decoys in the event of a Nazi assassination attempt. The movie will be in American theatres later this year. Palm Springs Mayor Sonny Bono’s former critics are speaking well of him after his first year in office. "I give him an ‘A’ for effort,” says former Mayor Frank Bogert. “I criticised him to beat the band before he got in because he didn’t have any experience, but he’s learned real fast and has a lot of very good ideas.” Joan Collins is currently writing yet another book, and it promises to

be steamier and sexier than her last one. From what I hear sister Jackie is not happy about Joan' coming over on to her territory, which has always been writing. Joan’s last book was quite spicy. This one has the working title, "Star Quality.” Actor Tony Curtis, who has been a long-time resident of the beautiful Bel Air Hotel, recently bought a suite of rooms there for $1.2 million. He now lives between Los Angeles and Hawaii, where he also has a house. As a P.R. gag Bo Derek was recently pictured scrubbing her former husband John’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The stunt worked very well — she got coverage around the world. “Do you realise that 88

per cent of the women who buy swimsuits never get them wet?” That’s former swimming star Esther Williams’ catchline, now that she is hawking her own brand of designer swimwear line. Maureen Starkey, former Beatle wife and mother of Ringo’s children, Lee, Jason and Zack, will marry Hard Rock Cafe co-founder Isaac Tigrett. They have been together for the past 13 years and have a daughter Augusta, who’s two years old. Boy George is soon to launch his own range of threads on the American market. If they take off, he’ll launch them in Britain. Johnny Deep and “Dirty Dancing’s” star, Jennifer Grey, have broken off their eightmonth engagement. Jon Peters, who was the co-executive producer of “Rain Man,” didn’t have enough trees around his new $6 million Beverly Hills come, so he trucked in a forest. At a quick count, there were 189 trees, of several varieties. He had all the large' trees flown in by helicopter during the night, which did not please the neighbours. Jon, who was involved with Barbra Streisand for many years, recently bought himself a motorcycle and now his close pal Sylvester Stallone is showing him how to ride it ... but my lips are sealed.