Now, about that nice Colorado fam ily and how nobody went up . . . up . . . and away . . . in their balloon . . . and about the talk that what was mostly filled with helium was their story . . . and about the murmur that this hot air or gas was mainly coming from them . . . and about the rumor that what their spacecraft was really floating on was bs.
Pay attention, kiddies, as mother tells you the plot of 1957’s “The Invisible Boy”:
This sci-fi film curiously mixes lighthearted playfulness and menacing evil. Ten-year-old Timmie, who seems only to want to play, jiggers up a robot that his scientist father has been ready to discard. No one pays attention until little Timmie gets taken aloft by some huge kite that the robot builds. In one scary scene the kid’s flying high in the sky and his mother’s screaming etc., etc., OK?
Who else would tell you these things?
EXCUUUUUSE me but another thing nobody else would tell you? You’ve freshly heard burblings that Ted Turner wants back running CNN? Months ago, months ago, I told you that. Months ago.
AWFUL Jon Gosselin, whose fat fi nances his separated wife is ques tioning these days, offered to buy furniture for his new apartment building’s 28th-floor skydeck. The board said no. Too windy. Stuff would fly off. Now if only he would . . . Harbour, a recently opened Hudson Street restaurant, is designed like a private yacht. Portholes, seashell trinkets, “first-class restroom” on the john door, high-polished wood. And wonderful seafood. Beats a private yacht because nobody gets seasick . . . Sumner Redstone must be happy these days. He, Bob Evans, Manuela Herzer, Jerry Bruckheimer all hit Hollywood’s Tower Bar on Sunset Boulevard. And he got up to play the piano . . . UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland requested and got cuts in their NYC leases . . . The late Marvin Mitchelson’s longtime aide Tashi Grady peddling a book on lawyer Mitchelson. It includes a load of dish on onetime client Phil Spector, now residing in the can.
CHEYENNE Jackson, as colorful as his first name, opens in “Finian’s Rainbow” the 29th. Handsome, tal ented, also a gorgeous voice. “The show’s great songs ‘Old Devil Moon,’ ‘Look to the Rainbow’ and ‘This Isn’t Love,’ I sing. It’s a cast of 35 and a big orchestra. The music is really the star.”
OK, so no big ego. Has he viewed the original movie with Fred Astaire? “No. I’ve heard mixed things, so I don’t want to.” OK, so no big critic, either.
And his lifestyle? “My partner of nine years is a medical physicist who loves the arts and is very supportive. Unfortunately, we have different time zones. He’s up when I’m sleeping. And we also zigzag caring for our 100-pound adopted Rottweiler, Zora, who was found tied to a fence in a 2-by-3 cage in Harlem.
“My partner is very supportive because my whole day is about the evening performance. Everything is focused toward that. Eight shows a week is serious business. I see a friend across the street? I wave. I don’t shout. I avoid loud places where I must raise my voice to be heard. I eat right. I’m from Idaho, so I’m a meat and potatoes man, but no heavy meals at night. I work out six days a week, 30 minutes of cardio and two specific body parts each day. I work out to pumping music. I need that stimulus. And to my neighbors’ chagrin, I warm up in the shower.
“I do lots of glasses of water and tea and lemon. Don’t drink. Sleep nine hours. Take multivitamins. Like a runner treats her legs well and a ballerina cares for her toes, I watch my voice.
“Y’know, my leading lady in this is Kate Baldwin. Seven years ago she was in ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie.’ She was an understudy. I was in ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie.’ It was my Broadway debut. I was a chorus boy.”
IT’S Liev Schreiber and Fisher Ste vens at the Midtown Tennis Club . . . Told, with an African-American presi dent and governor maybe it’s not the time to run for mayor, Bill Thompson said: “That’s precisely why. We’re now a strong voting bloc.” . . . Yankee brass left their glassed-in skybox’s couches, food, drink, TVs, johns, waitstaff, to show solidarity with the Stadium’s 50,000 fans and sit outside in Saturday night’s freezing rain . . . Nov. 16, Mandarin Oriental, Cardozo Law school makes Chris Seeger Alumnus of the Year . . . Ralph Fiennes: I’m a bit taken off-guard by the lot of American actresses ready to rip their clothes off with alarmingly little warning. I’m learning to steel myself against temptation.”
WINDY, rainy, chilly, people waiting outside to get into a 51st and 12th Prada sale. Car pulls up. Guy sees the long line, steps back into his limo and, with heat on and windows up, sits inside cozy and warm until it’s his turn on the line. One shiverer muttered: “If he’s that rich, why doesn’t he just buy the stuff on Madison Avenue?”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.