People talk 5/9/03

Former '007' doing well after collapse

NEW YORK -- Roger Moore, the suave star of seven James Bond movies, was recovering in a hospital Thursday after collapsing during a Broadway performance.

Moore, 75, was diagnosed as suffering from exhaustion and dehydration after fainting during a Wednesday matinee performance of the comedy "The Play What I Wrote," said Jerry Pam, the English actor's agent in the United States.

Jackie Green, a spokeswoman for the show's press agent, said, "He is absolutely fine. The doctor is pleased with his progress."

He finished the performance after a 10-minute break, Green said. After the show, EMS personnel took Moore from the Lyceum Theatre to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, Pam said.

Vandross breathing on his own, reports say

NEW YORK -- Luther Vandross, who had a tube inserted in his throat to help him breathe after a stroke, is breathing on his own, his publicist said Thursday.

However, the Grammy-winning singer remains in intensive care and has not regained consciousness since the April 16 stroke, publicist Lois Najarian said.

"There's been no radical change is his condition," she told The Associated Press.

The 52-year-old singer, whose hits include "Here and Now" and "Superstar," has been in critical condition at Weill-Cornell Medical College since suffering the stroke at his Manhattan home.

He underwent a tracheotomy and had a tube inserted in his throat to assist his breathing, in part because he had contracted pneumonia.

Najarian said doctors remain hopeful the singer will regain consciousness.

O'Donnell to pen column for Advocate magazine

NEW YORK -- Rosie O'Donnell is back in the magazine business.

The comedian and former talk show host, whose Rosie magazine lasted for a year and a half, will be a regular contributor to the gay and lesbian magazine The Advocate. Her first column appears in the Tuesday issue.

O'Donnell came out as a lesbian in March 2002. Her girlfriend, Kelli Carpenter, gave birth in November to a daughter, who joins O'Donnell's three adopted children.

"Today, Rosie's long and brave journey has led her not only to the cover of The Advocate -- Rosie was honored with the magazine's Person of the Year Award for 2002 -- but now to its chorus of voices, as a columnist," Judy Wieder, editorial director of LPI Media, publisher of The Advocate, said Thursday.

O'Donnell, 41, pulled out of Rosie magazine last year, saying the publisher was squelching her editorial voice. The publisher, Gruner + Jahr USA, sued her for leaving.

Clothing designer sets up historical exhibition

BERLIN -- Giorgio Armani brought an exhibition that spans more than a quarter-century of fashion design to Berlin, enthusing about the backdrop that the German capital's Neue Nationalgalerie will provide for his creations.

"The linear architecture and the discreet background will show off the clothes well," the Italian designer told reporters Wednesday at the steel-and-glass building, designed by Mies van der Rohe. The exhibition, titled simply "Giorgio Armani," opened to the public Thursday and will remain on show until July 13.

The collection of some 500 Armani creations first opened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in late 2000 and showed the following year at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. The show, which theater director Robert Wilson organized, has been expanded for Berlin to include more recent models and video projections.

Armani, 68, said he remains attached to all the pieces in the exhibition.

"They represent moments from my work -- they recall happy, unhappy and stressful moments," he said.

The Armani label was born in 1975, when Armani and Sergio Galeotti sold their Volkswagen and with the proceeds started a company, Giorgio Armani SpA.

Madonna fans mob London record store

LONDON -- Hundreds of fans lined up in front of a London record store after it was announced that Madonna would perform today.

Her appearance at the HMV store on Oxford Street, London's main shopping thoroughfare, was announced by a disc jockey on British Broadcasting Corp. radio and on the pop singer's Web site.

The first 500 people outside the store at closing Wednesday night were promised wristbands admitting them to today's show.

Madonna will perform songs from her latest album, "American Life," her Web site said.

The 44-year-old pop singer lives part-time in London with her husband, film director Guy Ritchie, and her two children.

French actor injured in motorcycle accident

PARIS -- Gerard Depardieu, star of the 1990 Hollywood romantic comedy "Green Card" and dozens of French films, lightly injured his right leg in a motorcycle accident near Paris' old opera house, police said.

The 54-year-old actor was able to walk away from the scene of the accident, the Paris police prefecture said Wednesday.

Further details weren't immediately available.

In 1998, Depardieu crashed his motorcycle when his blood-alcohol content was five times over the legal limit, escaping with leg and face injuries.

His 32-year-old son, Guillaume, also an actor, fell off a motorcycle in 1996 and needed several operations, one of which led to a bacterial infection that never properly healed.

The younger Depardieu recently announced that after years of pain in his right leg, he planned to have it amputated next month.

Current governor chats with his predecessor

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Gov. Tim Pawlenty got a ride in Jesse Ventura's new car, along with some advice from his predecessor.

"Just don't watch the news or read newspapers at all," Ventura said with a laugh.

The former wrestler-turned-governor, who had many a dust-up with the press during his term, swung by the Capitol grounds Tuesday to show off his new deep-blue Porsche Biturbo to his friends working in security.

Pawlenty was standing nearby, and the two chatted for a bit before Pawlenty jumped in the passenger side for a ride.

The governor hinted that Ventura might have exceeded the speed limit. "I think most Minnesotans break the limit once in a while," Pawlenty said.

According to Pawlenty spokeswoman Leslie Kupchella, it was the first time the two had spoken at length since Pawlenty was elected in November.