Bodyguard

Whoa, Nelly! The Bodyguard, in which Kevin Costner plays a top-flight personal security specialist to Whitney Houston's superstar singer-actress, is a near-classic - one of the sappiest, knuckleheaded bad movies to come out of Hollywood in years. Produced and scripted by Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill, Grand Canyon) and dutifully directed by Mick Jackson (you can almost hear the talented English filmmaker tossing his arms in futility), The Bodyguard is a shallow, narcissistic romantic melodrama about life in the high sanctums of show business.

George H. Davidson Jr., a retired Philadelphia detective sergeant and former bodyguard for Mayor James H.J. Tate, died Monday. He was 65 and lived in Juniata Park. Davidson was bodyguard for the late mayor for about six years. On one occasion in 1964, he was waiting for Tate near the mayor's limousine at Penn Center when he ran after and captured a man who had just held up a Philadelphia National Bank branch. Another time, in 1960, Davidson walked into a restaurant on Market Street near 13th for a bite to eat and spotted a check-scam suspect he had been seeking for more than three years.

A preliminary court date of Dec. 22 was set yesterday morning in Hampton, Va., for Terry Royster, the bodyguard of 76ers point guard Allen Iverson. Royster was arrested Saturday on a rape charge. Royster, 37, accompanied by his attorney, Larry Woodward of Virginia Beach, was arraigned in Hampton General District Court on charges of rape and two counts of assault, stemming from a Nov. 8 incident involving a 35-year-old woman believed to be a former girlfriend. No plea was entered by Royster.

A reputed bodyguard for a former boss of the so-called Junior Black Mafia has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Philadelphia on charges of illegally possessing four firearms. FBI agents, acting on information supplied by informants, found the weapons on Nov. 8 when they searched David Kendrick's apartment on 55th Street near Pennsgrove Street, according to court records. At the time, Kendrick was free on $150,000 bail, awaiting trial in the Jan. 17, 1990 shooting of a Philadelphia police officer.

Had he not failed to appear in court on four occasions, reputed mobster Martin "Marty" Angelina might be out of jail today. Angelina, 37, of Smedley Street near Forrestal, yesterday pleaded not guilty to federal racketeering conspiracy charges. He was held without bail. U.S. Magistrate Judge James R. Melinson commended Angelina's attorney, Jack McMahon, for his argument for bail, but said he could not release Angelina because he's repeatedly failed to appear for court. Angelina's wife, Danielle, who has two children under 2, bit her lip trying to hold back tears.

Troubled cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones won't be disciplined by the Dallas Cowboys for a scuffle with his bodyguard that team owner Jerry Jones said resulted from joking banter that got out of hand and was quickly settled. "They were literally kidding each other," Jerry Jones said yesterday. "They were jiving around . . . and all of a sudden one of them starting saying some things, and here you go. " Dallas police were called to an upscale downtown hotel because of the disturbance late Tuesday night.

LOS ANGELES - One of Michael Jackson's bodyguards had barely stepped into the singer's bedroom when he heard a scream. "Daddy!" Jackson's young daughter cried. A few feet away, the singer lay motionless in his bed, eyes slightly open. His personal doctor, Conrad Murray, was trying to revive him when he saw that Jackson's older children were watching. "Don't let them see their dad like this," Murray said, the first of many orders that bodyguard Alberto Alvarez testified Thursday that he heeded in the moments before paramedics arrived at Jackson's home in June 2009.

Terry Royster, a bodyguard for 76ers point guard Allen Iverson, surrendered Saturday to police in Hampton, Va., on a rape charge, law enforcement officials confirmed last night. Royster, 37, was held on charges stemming from what police said was a "domestic situation" with a 35-year-old Hampton woman on Nov. 8, at her home. Royster, who was in Hampton, turned himself in after police informed him of the charges by telephone. Officials said Royster had been detained since Saturday and would also be charged with assault.

  M   OSHE BENABOU , a former bodyguard for Justin Bieber, sued the pop superstar Thursday, seeking more than $420,000 in overtime and other wages and claiming that the singer repeatedly struck him during an October incident. Benabou's suit alleges that Bieber berated him and repeatedly punched him in the chest after a disagreement about how to handle a member of the singer's entourage. After he walked away, Bieber fired him, the suit claims. Benabou claims that he was mistakenly told that he wasn't entitled to receive OT despite having worked 14- to 18-hour days between March 2011 and October 2012.

In the early 1970s, police Lt. Frederick L. Ragsdale was among a group of hand-picked officers sent in to clean up a police district in South Philadelphia where corruption had been rampant. It would not be the last time Ragsdale was tapped for a highly sensitive assignment. In September 1983, Ragsdale - then working in the Police Department's civil affairs division - was assigned to guard Wilson Goode, the Democratic nominee for mayor. And in the nearly three years since, Ragsdale has rarely left Goode's side, or so it seems.

  M   OSHE BENABOU , a former bodyguard for Justin Bieber, sued the pop superstar Thursday, seeking more than $420,000 in overtime and other wages and claiming that the singer repeatedly struck him during an October incident. Benabou's suit alleges that Bieber berated him and repeatedly punched him in the chest after a disagreement about how to handle a member of the singer's entourage. After he walked away, Bieber fired him, the suit claims. Benabou claims that he was mistakenly told that he wasn't entitled to receive OT despite having worked 14- to 18-hour days between March 2011 and October 2012.

LOS ANGELES - Michael Clarke Duncan, the hulking, prolific character actor whose dozens of films included an Oscar-nominated performance as a death-row inmate in "The Green Mile" and such other box-office hits as "Armageddon," "Planet of the Apes" and "Kung Fu Panda," is dead at age 54. Clarke died Monday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for a heart attack, said his fiancée, reality-TV personality the...

The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston's 1992 film debut, crystallized the late pop sensation's success as a woman for all media. Commemorating both the 20th anniversary of the movie that nearly wasn't and the life of the talent that is no more, Warner Home Video releases a Blu-ray video of this film Tuesday that had a longer gestation than an elephant. On Wednesday, The Bodyguard will have a one-night-only revival on a big screen near you, the ideal context for fans to sing along with Houston's renditions of "Queen of the Night" and "I Will Always Love You," songs that made the film's soundtrack one of the best sellers in history.

WARREN Messing has two overstuffed, timeworn scrapbooks, painstakingly compiled by his wife, that document his 23 years in the Philadelphia Police Department. There aren't any perp walks here, though. Instead, there's the stocky officer with Elizabeth Taylor. And Sylvester Stallone. And John Travolta. To name a few. Messing, on the force from 1960 to 1983, was a bodyguard to the famous and glamorous who traveled through Philadelphia in an era when star sightings and film crews weren't as common as they are today.

LOS ANGELES - One of Michael Jackson's bodyguards had barely stepped into the singer's bedroom when he heard a scream. "Daddy!" Jackson's young daughter cried. A few feet away, the singer lay motionless in his bed, eyes slightly open. His personal doctor, Conrad Murray, was trying to revive him when he saw that Jackson's older children were watching. "Don't let them see their dad like this," Murray said, the first of many orders that bodyguard Alberto Alvarez testified Thursday that he heeded in the moments before paramedics arrived at Jackson's home in June 2009.

SEEMS AS IF Patti LaBelle 's next single should be a cover of the Police's "Don't Stand So Close to Me. " On Wednesday, Richard King filed a lawsuit against the Wynnewood-based LaBelle and her bodyguards after they allegedly beat the living crap out of him. King, a West Point cadet and member of the school's football team, was returning home for spring break on March 11 via Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston when LaBelle's bodyguard's...

MONTERREY, Mexico - The mayor of a Mexican town who survived two drug cartel assassination attempts now has his own corrido , a genre of Mexican folk song that in recent years has been more devoted to glorifying the exploits of drug traffickers than public servants. But in a Mexico desperate for heroes, plain-talking Mayor Jaime Rodriguez Calderon seems made to order: The song dedicated to him is called "El Alcalde Bronco," or "The Unbroken Mayor. " "I'm not one of these politicians who hides what they think.

WHILE ELIZABETH Taylor was in Philadelphia in 1982, performing the Noel Coward comedy "Private Lives" with ex-hubby Richard Burton, Warren Messing was always by her side. Messing, a veteran Philadelphia police officer, acted as Taylor's bodyguard, protecting her from overenthusiastic fans and ushering her through high society while she performed in a four-week run at the Forrest Theatre. Messing - now 74 and retired, living with his wife in North Wildwood - wasn't supposed to trail Dame Liz. He initially was hired to serve as extra security detail, despite retiring from the police force a week before, after 23 years on the job. But Taylor's regular bodyguard was sent off to New York due to a drug problem.

A former Camden police detective, once a mayoral bodyguard, was sentenced Friday to a year of probation for "offensively" touching women and filing false police reports. Keith Hicks, 51, had been on the force for 19 years and "served the community well" before violating the public's trust, Superior Court Judge Irvin J. Snyder said. In March, Hicks pleaded guilty to two counts of harassment and one count of tampering with or fabricating evidence related to three cases. Prosecutors said Hicks had offensively touched two women and ordered a third to undress.

A former Camden police detective, once a mayoral bodyguard, was sentenced Friday to a year of probation for "offensively" touching women and filing false police reports. Keith Hicks, 51, had been on the force for 19 years and "served the community well" before violating the public's trust, Superior Court Judge Irvin J. Snyder said. In March, Hicks pleaded guilty to two counts of harassment and one count of tampering with or fabricating evidence related to three cases. Prosecutors said Hicks had offensively touched two women and ordered a third to undress.