People

By Michele Orecklin

SECOND ACTS

Whether for love of art or of money, book publisher Random House has decided to revive the Godfather saga. The problem is, the novel's author, Mario Puzo, died in 1999. To get around that, Random House senior editor Jonathan Karp, who worked with Puzo at the end of his life, sent an e-mail to literary agents to seek an author who is at roughly the same career point that Puzo was when he wrote the novel in 1969. There may not be too many writers eager to confess to that. Puzo said he wrote the story of the Corleone family as a way to make some money when he was broke at the midpoint of his career. Random House hopes the new book will be turned into a movie like the memorable first Godfather film, which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starred Marlon Brando. Proposals for possible story lines are due on Nov. 4, and Karp and the Puzo estate will choose the winner. If they really wanted to make some money, they'd turn the search into a competition and air it in weekly installments on TV. Right after The Sopranos.

Jordan Blows The Whistle

In life, as in sports, the best defense is a good offense, especially backed by capable lawyers. In court papers filed last week, former Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan, who now plays for the Washington Wizards, accused Karla Knafel of attempting to extort $5 million from him to keep their onetime affair a secret. Jordan acknowledged that he had a liaison with Knafel more than 10 years ago, though it was not specified when the relationship started or whether he was married at the time. He also admits having paid her $250,000 in hush money, but says that when she came back for more, he went to court. Earlier this year, Jordan's wife Juanita filed for divorce, but the two reconciled a month later. Not much is known about Knafel except that she had a bit part in the 1991 film Bikini Island.

STILL MORE QUALITY TELEVISION

Americans seem to have an insatiable appetite for reality TV--except when it comes to the Anna Nicole Show. Ratings plummeted after the first episode, and critics dug out their thesauri to find new words for "awful." So, of course, the show has been picked up for a second season. This is because it airs on the cable channel E!, where the standards for a hit are lower. Despite the audience drop, on E! the show still qualifies as a ratings winner. So far, the unintelligible ramblings and aimless meanderings of Anna Nicole Smith have left people agog that she uses silverware without harming herself. But E!'s executive vice president Mark Sonnenberg isn't concerned. He believes people are "rooting for [Smith] to get back into shape and revitalize her love life. What's in store next for Anna Nicole remains to be seen." Though probably not by many.

A JURY OF HER PEERS

Even jury duty in Los Angeles is glamorous. During jury selection at the shoplifting trial of actress Winona Ryder, at least half a dozen people connected to the film industry went through voir dire. At the end of the process, Peter Guber, former chairman of Sony Pictures, ended up being impaneled. Guber revealed that while he was head of the studio, his company made a film with Ryder, but after promising he could be objective, he was selected to serve. Guber, who heads Mandalay Entertainment, will have to lay off Daily Variety for a while. The judge has forbidden jurors to read about the case while the trial is under way.

Off the Red Carpet

Lizzie Grubman had the good sense to be born to a father with celebrity connections. (He's an entertainment lawyer.) She was also clever enough to become a publicist and use those connections to build a successful business representing people like Britney Spears and Jay-Z. But her instincts failed her two summers ago, when she backed a Mercedes SUV into a crowd at a Hamptons nightclub and fled the scene. Grubman kissed her friends and the good life a temporary goodbye last week and began serving 60 days in jail. Although scared, Grubman has suggested that her former life as a professional networker will help her in the slammer; as she told the New York Daily News, "I'm a people person."

THOSE BRITS ARE SO CLEVER!

Is an apology really an apology when it seems utterly insincere and comes wrapped in a cloak of cultural superiority? As profound as this question may seem, it is being hashed over not by philosophers but by lawyers. In a swell of nationalistic umbrage last year, a British tabloid, the Daily Mirror, printed the phone number of wealthy American film producer Steven Bing, whom it dubbed Bing Laden, and urged readers to call and berate him. Bing's crime? Denying he was the father of British model Elizabeth Hurley's child (DNA tests later proved his paternity). Bing, seen here with Hurley in happier times, threatened to sue the paper for libel, but the parties reached an agreement in which the paper would print an apology in its pages. The apology came last week in the form of a front-page headline that read, a humble and sincere apology to Mr. Steve Bing, philanthropist and humanitarian. The excessively abject tone of the retraction on the inside pages, as well as an article on a facing page suggesting that Americans lack the English proficiency at irony, led some, including Bing's lawyers, to believe the Mirror was not nearly so penitent as it should have been. Now they are deciding whether the Mirror has met the terms of its agreement--or whether Bing will have to continue his unironic crusade.

AIRING IT OUT

He spent nine years in the NFL and played on five teams, but defensive tackle Esera Tuaolo never told a single colleague he was gay. He will become one of the few retired athletes to reveal his homosexuality when he appears this week on the HBO show Real Sports. Tuaolo retired in 1999 because of failing knees and shoulders but also because of the discomfort he experienced hearing players make disparaging comments about gays. He says that withholding the secret made him so depressed he contemplated suicide. "I would make sure somebody saw me kiss a woman. I would do all of those things just to throw off the scent of the dogs," he reports. Former Green Bay teammate Sterling Sharpe said that had other players known Tuaolo was gay, "he would have been eaten alive."

SIGHTINGS

PRODUCT PLACEMENT At Game 2 of the World Series between the Angels and the Giants, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu took the opportunity to flog their Charlie's Angels sequel