People

By Belinda Luscombe

NOW FOR THE REAL OSCAR WINNERS...

The Babylonian backslapping fest that is the Academy Awards has passed again, and 43 people have fetching new doorstops. But after every Oscar ceremony there are folks who won whether or not they took a little gold guy home. People like Peter Fonda. His nomination coincided with the release of his memoir Don't Tell Dad, neatly rescuing it from another-bygone-celebrity-spills-his-guts status. And HELEN HUNT'S agent. Two Emmys and an Oscar really help in renegotiating your client's sitcom contract. Then there's CHER. Just when folks were thinking of her as the late Congressman's ex, Bob Mackie and that hat reminded us why she's famous. Mothers were also big winners this year. MATT DAMON and BEN AFFLECK brought theirs, as did Vanessa Redgrave, Robin Williams and Naomi Judd. And finally, Stanley Donen. His sweet, self-effacing song made a pointed contrast to Titanic director Jim Cameron's "King of the World" shtick. There were losers too, of course. Poor Joan Rivers, broadcasting live, didn't recognize Rosa Parks, Tyra Banks or Mercedes McCambridge and asked five-time nominee, one-time winner Robert Duvall if he'd ever been nominated before. Just plain E!mbarrassing.

IT'S THE FROCKSCARS!

The rush to dress the stars was more frantic than ever, to the point where Escada made fabric especially to match nominee Gloria Stuart's eyes. But most celebs played it safe, which made ROBIN WILLIAMS' suit--he quipped that it came from "the Giorgio Armani Amish collection"--look all the more stylish. ROD STEIGER went for the minimalist T shirt and jewelry look, apparently unaware that this works only on people with near perfect bodies, like MINNIE DRIVER, who wore a "take that, Matt Damon" Halston. MADONNA mixed designers, but oops, they didn't match.

COME FLY WHO?

Poor CRISTY ZERCHER. The most newly proclaimed Clinton harassee, whose story appears this week in the Star, didn't get nearly as much for telling her tale as her predecessors. The former flight attendant, who claims Clinton stroked her breast from the side for 40 minutes and fondled a suggestively shaped orange during campaign flights, was paid about $50,000 for her story. Gennifer Flowers made three times that. "It's getting a little like Filene's Basement out there," says the Star's editor in chief, Phil Bunton. When TIME spoke to Zercher, she was a little foggy on dates and details, but not enough for the story to be easily labeled a fiction. And Zercher claims she's not in it for the money. She says, "I'd like to tell my story and go back to my job." Good luck.

LEO THE LIVID

Currently the subject of four best-selling paperback books, LEONARDO DICAPRIO doesn't want to become the subject of a best-selling issue of Playgirl as well. According to a suit DiCaprio's lawyers filed last week, the skin magazine is planning to publish pictures of the star of The Man in the Iron Mask without anything masking him at all. Although the lawsuit says DiCaprio has not seen the photos and doesn't know whence they came, they are thought to be from the movie Total Eclipse, which has a gay sex scene. Brad Pitt fought a similar case last year and won, but only after the issue was out. DiCaprio was tipped off to the magazine's plan when the editor resigned in shocked--shocked!--disbelief that Playgirl would run pictures of famous people nekkid.

Q&A

RAY LIOTTA is playing Frank Sinatra in The Rat Pack for HBO, alongside, from left, DON CHEADLE as Sammy Davis Jr., ANGUS MACFADYEN as Peter Lawford, JOE MANTEGNA as Dean Martin and BOBBY SLAYTON as Joey Bishop. We talked to New Blue Eyes.

Q: You play Frank Sinatra in a movie. His children disapprove of it. Is this wise?

A: What, for them to disapprove?

Q: No, for you to earn the Sinatra family ire.

A: I'm not sure what their agenda is. They once offered me to play him in their mini-series. So I know it's not about me.

Q: So you're not expecting a horse's head in your bed anytime soon?

A: Noooo.

Q: Are they making you wear a rug when you play old Frank?

A: I'm definitely wearing a rug. I got a hamburger on my head.

Q: The Rat Pack was the epitome of cool. Did they send you to a special school?

A: What you do is, you say you're going to have a ring-a-ding time. Everything is ring-a-ding. Instead of saying, "Look at that guy; he's such an idiot," you say, "Look at that Clyde." It's a little foreign at first, but that's all we do now.

Q: Which of Sinatra's broads do you think was the swingingest?

A: Which of his broads? See, you're into it! You're there! You're happening! Ava.

Q. Ava?

A. Ava Gardner, according to what I've read, was the female equivalent of him. Oh, no, no, now I have to say Nancy too. Because of those three beautiful children.

WANTED: SPEECHWRITER, ENLIGHTENED

Maybe REGGIE WHITE needs to get out a little more. The Green Bay Packer, who's also a man of the cloth, was invited to speak at the Wisconsin state assembly. His words were stirring, but probably not in exactly the way he'd hoped. After denouncing homosexuality, he tried to explain how all races, when combined, added up to God. "Black people are very gifted in...worship and celebration," he said, while "white people were blessed with the gift of structure and organization," adding that they "know how to tap into the money." The Asian talent is "creativity and invention...they can turn a television into a watch"; Hispanics have a gift for family and "can put 20 or 30 people in one home"; and American Indians are spiritual. Moreover, they were never enslaved because "they knew how to sneak up on people." So who has the gift of stereotyping?