Limo

CRIKEY, MATE! That's no way to start out your day in Philly! "Crocodile Hunter" host Steve Irwin had just completed his first of many interviews yesterday on WTXF-TV's "Good Day Philadelphia" to promote his flick "Crocodile Hunter: The Collision Course" out this Friday, when the well-known conservationist had his world turned upside down. Irwin, who appeared on the show with his wife and fellow rescuer, Terri, watched in horror as a segment, he said was on "straight after" his, featured the serving of, oh no!

How on earth can we go on? Jennifer Lopez's rep said yesterday that Bennifer is no more. "I am confirming the reports that Jennifer Lopez has ended her engagement to Ben Affleck," Lopez's spokeswoman said in a statement reported by People.com. "At this difficult time, we ask that you respect her privacy. " Said Affleck's publicist, Ken Sunshine: "As usual, we never comment on the private lives of our clients. " Since the couple's fiasco of a non-wedding in September, they have worked hard to squelch rumors that they were breaking up for good, even as gossip columns speculated otherwise.

Va-va-boom dress. Check. Awkward photos. Check. And signed pledge card. Mock-accident viewing. Approved limo. Check. Check. Check. It must be prom season. Prom-safety programs - sobriety-pledge cards, mock DUI car accidents, alcohol-free limo lists and more have become as much a part of the Big Dance as the fancy dresses and clicking cameras. "I think it's a necessary part of the ritual," said Barbara Mitidieri, student activities coordinator for Cherry Hill High School West.

QUOTE "Warhol was here. He wasn't much. " - Georgia O'Keefe, to Joni Mitchell A TIME FOR GRACELESS RHYME Once again, our mouth is hanging open at what people will say in public. Flunkeys for wealthy industrialist J. Peter Grace are engaging in frantic spin control. Their boss, in dedicating the new Ambrosia Chocolate Co. in Milwaukee on Tuesday, called New York Gov. Mario Cuomo a "homo" and New York City Mayor David Dinkins a "pinkins. " It went like this: Grace, who as head honcho of the chemical giant made nearly some $7 million in salary, bonus and stocks last year, was praising Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson.

It could have been a scene from the Academy Awards. The girls behind the chain-link fence screamed, yelled and waved their arms when the white super-stretch Mercedes limo glided to a stop. "Earl! Earl!" shrilled Carlette Miller and her friend Shelly Walker as others cheered. The limo door opened and a young man in a yellow satin and purple-sequined custom tuxedo stepped out into a burst of bright lights and flashbulbs. He helped a tall young woman in a matching gown out of the car, and together they walked toward the announcers, handed them a name card, and turned to face the more than 1,000 people gathered in the bleachers.

"If any player ever asks me about playing in Philadelphia, what I thought it was and what it actually is, it's completely different. I've never had anyone yell at me. "   - Doc Halladay, The Inquirer, Feb. 22, 2012   In the dead of winter, circa 2002, in South Philadelphia, a stretch limo, windows darkened, purrs down Broad Street and slows to a crawl where a majestic new ballpark is rising and where...

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...

This whole movie star thing will take some getting used to for a Northeast Philadelphia kid. Take the other day, for instance, when the long, black stretch limo pulled up in front of the home of Blake Bashoff, ready to whisk the 14-year-old eighth grader and his mom to the airport to fly to the Bahamas on a publicity tour for his new movie, Bushwhacked. "It's very early in the morning, 5:30, 6:30, I forget, when the limo arrives," recalls Blake's dad, attorney Ken Bashoff.

There's trouble again in pachyderm paradise, where city fathers have stopped paying utility bills for their beloved elephant icon, Lucy. They have accused Lucy's executive director, Richard Helfant, of drawing too large a salary for the task of caring for a stationary elephant. Of splurging with Lucy dough for limo rides to NYC to go shopping. Of squandering money in a dubious effort to lure Barry Manilow to Lucy's cause. Of mismanaging the only surviving wooden elephant of three built by Philadelphia Realtor James Lafferty in the 1880s.

AT HOME in Los Angeles, Catherine Zeta-Jones had to deal with a stalker. So she goes off to Mexico to shoot "Legend of Zorro" . . . and she almost gets kidnapped. The London Sun reports a gang of Mexican bandits "armed to the teeth," according to police, ambushed Zeta-Jones' limo Saturday as she was returning from filming. Quick-thinking bodyguards rammed the bad guys' car and Catherine's driver used the diversion to floor the gas pedal and whisk the star back to her rented villa.