BAHAMAS BLAST: As a native New Yorker, I really wish I could boast of having endured the fourth-largest blizzard in New York history last week. Really. I would have been able to swap stories with other survivors about shoveling a pile of snow as high as Mount Everest from the driveway, rescuing my kids and their sleds from under a giant drift, or how I got into fisticuffs with another soccer mom over the last quart of milk at the market. But I can’t. I was elsewhere and had it much, much worse.
Parental duty required me to brave the 86-degree heat on a balmy beach at the Caribbean island paradise of Atlantis (you might remember Oprah Winfrey broadcast from there once). I know that sounds a lot better than a snowstorm, but wait! My duty was to chaperone my three teenage sons and three of their school chums for winter recess. And because the New York airports were closed on Monday, we were stranded in the Bahamas for three extra days.
Now before you frostbitten city slickers wish death on me over this tale, imagine what it’s like roping in six young teenagers getting their first taste of paradise. As I supervised sessions of beach-blanket bingo (with 15-year-old Pam Anderson wannabes everywhere) and swimming with the dolphins (I got the one that bit), I was roasted in the sun and had to spend my downtime at night soaking in a tub filled with water and white vinegar.
Mind you, I wasn’t the only “soldier” to bail out before the snowstorm kicked up into full force. Funnyman Mike Myers roamed the resort doing his best Austin Powers imitation, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) was spotted sunning on the beaches and basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gave out autographs well into the night.
New York-based security expert Richard “Bo” Dietl and family also sought refuge in one of the resort’s palatial presidential suites. Dietl also was responsible for my first near-nervous breakdown when he generously invited my group onto a buddy’s yacht that was more like a floating mansion. Watching the boys dive into the deep water from the side of the boat, snorkeling on the ocean reef and Jet-Skiing far from the shoreline is a lot more nerve-racking than cuddling the family in front of a fire at home as the snow tumbles down.
Eventually, the airline cleared our reservations back to New York. On the way home, all the children could talk about was their upcoming spring break, hinting that Cancun might be fun. God help me! Perhaps with a late-season snowstorm that keeps us here, safely at home?
HAIL THE QUEEN: She’s already a rapper and an Oscar-nominated actress, now add “producer” to Queen Latifah‘s stunning career résumé. She is the production brains behind the new comedy “Bringing Down the House,” in which she stars opposite Steve Martin. As for casting, what the Queen wants, the Queen gets.
“Martin always was the actor I had in mind for the role, and I was excited beyond belief when he decided instantly to take it,” Latifah said. If “Bringing Down the House” is as good as Martin’s previous side-splitters, Latifah need not worry about a second project!
LADY SINGS THE BLUES: Poor Sadie Frost deserves better than the bitter split-up with sexy actor Jude Law. I’m told by sources close to the pair that Law never discussed the breakup with Frost for fear his “sensitive” wife would sink deeper into her postpartum depression. So he waited until the day before she was scheduled to be released from the hospital to move out, taking some of the couple’s furnishings and extensive art collection with him to an apartment down the road. So be warned, ladies, the cute ones can become callous – even when you convince yourself they can’t.
VICTORIA’S SECRET: Michael Jackson is smiling this weekend after Fox aired on Thursday night some of his own footage of his interviews with Martin Bashir, whose damning documentary was aired on ABC. I know first-hand that Jackson is telling pals he is relieved that Bashir was finally exposed “for the double-dealing vulture that he is.”