Gossip

She's always been lovely

There's a big idea out there that fame makes monsters. More often, though, one suspects, fame exposes the monsters who were most avid in pursuing it. Dope Peddler happened to have a conversation recently with a high-school classmate of ridiculously pretty "Regis and Kelly" star Kelly Ripa. His take? "Have you ever seen that movie Heathers? Or Mean Girls? We lived in a small town. There were only 1,800 people in it. Kelly and her older sister Linda were the Queen Bees of the school and, believe me, they made life seriously miserable for a number of the other girls. They were pretty and popular, and they were masters at being nice to people face-to-face. When they weren't face-to-face, though? "

On the other hand?

Of course, sometime stories aren't so simple. A while back, Dope Peddler happened to bump into an old tennis partner of O.J. Simpson. Was O.J. always the bellicose, knife-wielding wife-murderer we've all heard? Not at all, this Wall Streeter, former college athlete and one-time L.A. party guy claims. "He was one of the most fun, nice, outgoing people you've ever met. He'd invite ten guys over to his place just like that, put on a ball game, tease everybody in the coolest way, put everyone at ease. Then he'd say: Let's play golf. Or whatever it was. Everyone liked him. The asshole in his set was [former Raiders running back and O.J. pal] Marcus Allen. I'm a good tennis player, and one day I got matched up in doubles with O.J.'s former Buffalo teammate Jim Braxton, and O.J. played with Marcus. We demolished them, and Allen was an amazing sore loser. He wouldn't even shake my hand." Was anyone else in the group unpleasant? "Actually, [O.J.'s] wife, Nicole [Brown Simpson], wasn't a day at the beach. She hated his having his friends over and was one of the whiniest people I've ever met."

And transplants have even given him hair again?

Are there any U.S. Senators who aren't screaming psychos of the Bob Dole (R. Kansas) and Tom Harkin (D. Iowa) species? Yes, apparently. One Washington insider reveals that Senator Joe Biden (D. Delaware) actually likes and respects the people who work for him. A one-time intern says: "He's a genuinely nice guy. If you take seriously that whole 'judge people by how they act towards the maid' standard, this guy should be president."

Too young?

Dope Peddler caught up with 70-something actress Joan Collins last week. Just returned to the States, she told us she was planning a thirty week cross-country tour in a new play called Legends. Cagey regarding her long-ago love Warren Beatty (who supposedly persuaded her to have an abortion and then ditched her after promising to wed her) and his possible plans to run for governor of California in 2006, Collins did reminisce a bit nonetheless, saying that she regretted not meeting William Faulkner, scriptwriter of her early film Land of the Pharoahs. "Of course," she admitted, "I was just 20, really too young to know I was missing anything there."

Just asking?

Which hot young starlet-now blonde, but once known for her flaming hairstyle-is reported by multiple sources to be not the only one in her family with a substance-abuse problem?