In the Bahamas, Anna Nicole Smith’s longtime publicist David Granoff wanted to pay respects. The small cemetery is watched closely. He said he was Anna’s relative. Stolidly protective, they refused to point out the grave site. The reasoning? “There have been incidents.”
The caregiver commented, “You must clear the visit through Howard.” Howard K. Stern, the lover of her body, remains in charge.
David’s driver, despite being watched, knew the locations and pointed out Anna’s and son Daniel’s plots. Her huge tombstone has such glamorous etchings as Anna, hair flowing, singing into a mike. Nearby is the resting place of her husband J. Howard Marshall, over whose ashes she’d fought.
David’s relationship and untold yarns are being cobbled together for a book.
TUESDAY 7:15. Dinner at ‘21.’ Friends didn’t make their next appointment, a party, until 11:15. Food and health inspectors decided to pay the restaurant a visit that night, and the waiter never brought their food. To quote them: “We’d ordered chicken hash. By the time it came out it had congealed.”
INGRID Bergman’s daughter Isabella Rossellini understands all creatures have mothers. Her new project “Mammas,” nine new half-hour shorts, premieres Sunday, Mother’s Day, Sundance Channel.
“The piping plover,” she says, “immediately after giving birth, pretends it has a broken wing. Lurking predatory animals always prey on the helpless or wounded so that’s to detract a fox or wolf away from her newborns.
“The European cuckoo lays her eggs in another far-off bird’s nest. So they’re protected. Away. Safe. They have a baby sitter in an adopted mother’s nest.
“Hamster mothers delivering as many as 15 babies cannot feed all, so it’s survival of the fittest. She eats those she doesn’t want. Sustained by that food, she recoups nutrients and vitamins her body requires to take care of the rest.
“The pregnant wasp attacks a caterpillar. Doesn’t kill it. Paralyzes it. Puts it in her nest. This way her offspring has nourishment.”
And she learned all this where?
“I studied at a university for animal behavior. After reading a woman’s book about sexual selection, I contacted her. I learned the hamster’s way isn’t self-sacrifice. It’s good management. Creatures, animals, fish, insects know how much they can take and do. They’re good at managing procreation.
“Mammals do like we do. You can spend a whole day assisting and watching a mother dog deliver puppies. I’m there to help. If there’s a problem, I call the vet. I live in Long Island. A 30-acre farm. I’m training a litter of 10 Labs for the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind. Also there’s my own cat, two dogs and some chickens. I love animals.”
How about fish?
“A mouthbrooder male fertilizes by putting his sperm in her mouth, where she keeps her eggs. Result is she loses weight during pregnancy because she can’t eat for weeks so she gets skinny. The baby, born in her mouth, stays warm and when time comes, she just spits her child out.”
May 20, Isabella begins rehearsal in France. Next up is a theater monologue she’ll bring to Broadway.
DESIGNER Ralph Rucci moving his SoHo atelier uptown to the West 20s near the Fashion Institute of Technology. “SoHo’s noisy, crowded, there’s police cars. It’s now like Grand Central. It’s changed.” . . . Téa Leoni hitting an East Side flea market . . . Alec Baldwin’s daughter Ireland noshing a bunless burger at Third Avenue’s Bareburger.
QUALITY Meats, 57 W. 58th, got visited by Anjelica Huston (also quality meat) or her look-alike . . . Shoving calorie charts, Josh Gad, from TV’s “1600 Penn,” stuffed himself at Sammy’s Roumanian . . . Barbara Corcoran and daughter Kate sunning on a Central Park bench . . . Silas Chou, the cash behind Michael Kors and with more tea than China, bankrolls the Met’s History of Chinese Fashion ball two years hence.
PER Palm Beach court papers. The short marriage of diet maven Dr. Robert Atkins’ widow Veronica, 72, to Alexis Mersentes has gone the way of other old dogs — to poop. Newspapers mention his checkered past with wealthy widows. She calls their twosomeness “irretrievably broken.” She wants their prenup enforced. She hints there’s much more she wants to say about their couplehood.
To quote Confucius’ wise words: What a man spends on a date is pleasure. What he spends on his wife is wisdom. What he spends on others is trouble.
INSTEAD of the usual names clogging every freebie cocktail-pouring, this event was rump to rump with young, very young, tall, very tall, skinny, very skinny, beautiful, very beautiful models with noses shorter than their skirts. All unknown. The party planner to the host: “You only know those old ones. I’m interested in new hot young ones that photographers want.” Snapped the host: “No. You’re only interested in getting laid.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.