People

By Belinda Luscombe

LIFE'S UUUPS AND DOWNS

Attention, NASA: if you're looking for three humans who like head rushes and can go the distance in uncomfortable machines, try Georgia. In March, Six Flags over Georgia offered a Jeep to the person who rode the Scream Machine, a roller coaster, for the longest time. After 60 days, the park declared a three-way tie. JONATHAN THOMPSON, DARTHY BROWN and DION HUGHES, left to right, had spent 17 hours a day riding the rails, with small breaks for food. "Any of us was willing to go 100 days," says Hughes. "I just adapted to an everyday way of life on a roller coaster." Why do it at all? "I thought it would only last two weeks," says Brown. For now, Hughes and Brown can only ride in their Jeeps. Says Hughes: "I can't drive a stick."

JUST THAT LITTLE BIT X-TRA

CHRIS CARTER, creator of The X-Files, is going the extra light-year to make sure the future is filled with conventions where people in Scully and Mulder masks beg former extras on the show for autographs and talk sotto voce about aliens they have met. He has recorded a spoken-word piece on the movie sound track for The X Files: Fight the Future. But only true believers will catch it--it's 10 minutes and 13 seconds after the last track. As any aficionado knows, Ten Thirteen is the name of Carter's production company; on the TV show, it's also the time frequently shown on clocks, 555-1013 is a common phone number, and October 13 is often the date. (It's Carter's birthday.) In Carter's piece, the text of which is top secret, he explains how the X-Files came to being and the conspiracy around them. The truth is out there. You just have to wait around a bit to hear it.

CHARM INTACT

People generally want to avert their eyes from the sight of those dealing with overwhelming physical challenges. But CHRISTOPHER REEVE won't let us. Reeve's book Still Me lodges itself at No. 1 on various best-seller lists. No wonder. By the day of his book-launch party, Reeve had already appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman (who, oddly, did not use the opportunity for a guest-specific Top 10 list), the Today show, Oprah, 20/20 and Larry King Live and done countless print interviews. Writing the book, Reeve says, "was one of the highlights of my life, before and after the accident." He still can't eat, breathe or do almost anything on his own. But he can smile.

CATFIGHT AT CANNES! SORT OF

They must have been a spirited couple in their day. Mira Sorvino, whose former boyfriend Quentin Tarantino was recently embroiled in a wee bar punch-up, had her own little confrontation at Cannes. For some reason Sorvino decided to attend a press event for a Johnny Depp-Roman Polanski movie. After it was fini, Sorvino was introduced to movie critic Jami Bernard, who wrote a biography of Tarantino. The Oscar winner angrily demanded to know why Bernard subsequently interviewed Tony Tarantino, her old flame's biological but very estranged father, for Premiere. "It was a cruel and immoral thing to do," she told the critic loudly. "I loved this man. I still love this man, and you hurt him terribly." Bernard stood her ground, but unfortunately for the assembled press, it did not come to blows.