Mirror Magazine
20th May 2001 
Front Page
News/Comment
Editorial/Opinion| Plus
Business| Sports
The Sunday Times on the Web
Line
Image

The mystery deepens at the Wendt

Contents Index Page
Front Page
News/Comments
Editorial/Opinion
Plus
Business
Sports

The Goss

  • Clapton's gal pal pregnant 
  • Zeta Jones doesn't want 'Glamour'
  • Combs, Signs on for 'Monster's Ball
  • Legendary Perry Como dies at 88
  • Clapton's gal pal pregnant 

    This time, rocker Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven will be tears of joy. 

    The legendary guitarist - who lost his 4-year-old son, Conor, a decade ago when he accidentally fell to his death from the 57th floor of a New York apartment building - is about to be a daddy again. 

    Clapton's pregnant galpal of two years, American Melia McEnery, who is of Irish and Korean heritage, is due in early June, according to her grandfather.

    A baby shower is planned at her folks' home in Columbus, Ohio, this month and Clapton scheduled the Midwest leg of his upcoming tour in June so he can be there for the birth. No word on the kid's gender just yet. 

    It's the sort of pulse -quickening great news for Eric who often said he had no reason to live after his son died. The rock 'n' roll Hall-of-Famer - who has a daughter, Ruth, 16, by another girlfriend - translated the crushing heartbreak of his son's death into the classic ballad Tears in Heaven. 

    Then Clapton, 56 met graphic artist Melia, who turned 25 last month. They met in 1999 in L.A. while he was working on an album with bluesman B.B. King. 

    She had just left Ohio with a high school sweetheart to try her luck in Tinseltown. But it was Clapton who rocked her world, and she his. And the boyfriend was history. 

    "Melia and Eric met at a party," a family friend said. Eric was quite taken by the fact that she had never heard of him and didn't fawn over him like others." Last summer, they broke up. Melia returned to Ohio, where she worked for her dad's contracting business. 

    By September, however, Melia and Eric were back together. 

    And within weeks Melia, the product of a strict Catholic upbringing, announced she was pregnant by Eric. 

    "Yes, Melia is expecting Eric's baby," said her grandpa, Walter McEnery, 74, of Bonita Springs, Fla. " That's just the way things are in this day and age. Are they going to get married? Who knows?" 

    Said a source close to the singer: "Although he'll never forget Conor, Eric is looking forward to bonding with another child, boy or girl. All he cares about is that it's a healthy baby." 


    Zeta Jones doesn't want 'Glamour'

    We're sure Catherine Zeta-Jones is pleased as punch that she made the cover of People's "50 Most Beautiful People" issue, but the raven-haired actress is steaming mad at another mag that plans to slap her face on its glossy front page. 

    Zeta-Jones is the subject of an upcoming feature in Glamour, but the Welsh-born star didn't even grant an interview for the piece. Insiders say that Zeta-Jones is not happy with the fashion publication, claiming that Glamour is adding insult to injury by using 2-year-old photos of the actress. 

    "They're making it look as though they had Catherine's cooperation, when they didn't," one insider snipes. "Catherine is very selective about where she wants to appear and she would not have given an interview to Glamour at this point in her career. It's much too downscale for her. She's threatening to sue." 

    Zeta-Jones' publicist says that the star is indeed "disappointed" that Glamour, which plans to put the star on its June cover, has "taken liberties" with the archaic photos. The rep says a lawsuit is not being discussed at this time. 

    According to one source, Glamour's decision to run an article without Zeta-Jones' blessing is an attempt to ambush rival fashion glossy Vogue, which did interview the star for its July issue. 

    Last week, Zeta-Jones made headlines when a London tabloid accused the 31-year-old actress of having cosmetic surgery to enhance her eyes. Those stories were denied by Zeta-Jones' camp.


    Combs, Signs on for 'Monster's Ball

    The worl'd may finally find out if rap star Sean "P. Diddy" Combs can act. After a clash with director Oliver Stone led to his drop-kicking the football film Any Given Sunday, the former Puff Daddy is again venturing into films. 

    Combs, who avoided a real-life prison term after being acquitted of gun and bribery charges earlier this year, is negotiating to play a death row inmate in Monster's Ball. The dark drama will star Billy Bob Thornton, Heath Ledger, and Everybody Loves Raymond''s Peter Boyle . 

    This summer, Combs will appear in Made, a comedy about low-level mobsters that re-teams Swingers ' dudes Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn. 

    Combs is not one of the major characters in the film, but his influence in New York reportedly came in handy during the filming — he gained the crew access to expensive clubs such as Spa, China Club, and 357.


    Legendary Perry Como dies at 88

    One of the last of the legendary crooners has passed away. Laidback singer Perry Como, whose career stretched from the 1930s to the 1980s, died on Saturday at his home in Florida, The Palm Beach Post reported. He was 88. 

    The newspaper cited his daughter Terry Thibadeau as saying the veteran singer died in his sleep at his home in Jupiter Inlet Beach Colony. 

    Como, who started out serenading customers in a barbershop, soared to fame with a relaxed singing style that endured from the swing era of the 1930s to the rock-drenched 1980s. 

    Although he appeared in a few Hollywood musicals in the 1940s, it was on television that he really felt at home, and he achieved enormous popularity on the small screen on the long-running Perry Como Show, which won him an Emmy in 1956. 

    At 21, Como embarked on a career as a professional entertainer, eventually leading to a $25 million television contract, and sales of well over 50 million records. 

    By the end of the 1940s, Como had become a superstar with easy-listening ballads such as "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes," "Catch a Falling Star," and "It's Impossible". 

    Pierino Roland Como was born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, on May 18, 1912, the seventh son of a seventh son, a traditional sign of luck in Italian families. 

    He married his childhood sweetheart and soon after won national exposure while touring the country as a featured singer with the Ted Weems band. The couple had three children. 

    Como retired briefly in the early 1970s but could not resist going back to work and, well into his 60s, had more hit records. 

    In 1980, 1982, and 1984 he was the host of Christmas specials on television, broadcast from Israel, Paris and London, respectively. 

    Line

    More Mirror Magazine

    Return to Mirror MagazineContents

    Line

    Front Page| News/Comment| Editorial/Opinion| Plus| Business| Sports| Mirror Magazine

    Please send your comments and suggestions on this web site to 

    The Sunday Times or to Information Laboratories (Pvt.) Ltd.

    Presented on the World Wide Web by Infomation Laboratories (Pvt.) Ltd.
    Hosted By LAcNet