Private Life

With the Constitution's 200th birthday next year, it might be a good time to take a little more interest in Thomas Jefferson - even if Jefferson was in Europe the whole time the Constitution was being drawn up and adopted. Consider "Thomas Jefferson at Monticello," a permanent exhibit at Jefferson's home near Charlottesville, Va., that opened last month and is designed to offer a view of Jefferson's private life. It consists of nearly 400 objects and artifacts, many only recently dug up on the Monticello grounds.

Nancy Reagan confessed yesterday that leaving the White House had been a "wrenching experience" and that private life took some getting used to - especially when she needed a plumber. "I can't image what it's like to leave defeated - it must be painful," Reagan said. "Even leaving as we did it under the best of circumstances . . . it was a wrenching experience. " Reagan was back in Washington to promote her memoirs, which will be published this fall. Appearing at a panel discussion at the Library of Congress, Reagan described her book, My Turn, as her personal response to the "kiss and tell" books penned by members of her husband's administration.

I am not sure whether the smoke which recently filled the skies of the Delaware Valley was caused by the forest fires in the South or by the massive celebrations ignited by the withdrawal of Judge Douglas Ginsburg. Was Ginsburg's departure prompted by a legitimate concern or did we permit the smoke of his past to blind us from more legitmate concern? I did not support Ginsburg's nomination for Supreme Court. Although I am comfortable with Ginsburg's judicial conservatism, his short stint as a federal appeals court judge provided him with little, if any, of the experience necessary for nomination to the highest court of the land.

The assertion that a candidate can be one type of person in private and a different type of person in public is nothing more than a rationalization to justify immorality. The justifications Gary Hart tried to make for his behavior, and those made for him by others, were pathetic. Perhaps worst of all were the comments of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, who said on ABC's "Nightline" that Hart was strong where it really counted - on "women's issues. " Surely a critical "women's issue" for a married woman is whether her husband is faithful.

First there was his face. Until a week ago Sunday, the image of this man had been freeze-framed in a photograph blown up to the size of a heroic political poster. The phrase "Free Mandela" under this picture had been a slogan as much as a plea. Now, Nelson Mandela has walked out of prison, a dignified, gray-haired, 71-year-old elder. The face was not that of an icon, but a man. Then there were the hands. The news reports would say that Mandela and his wife were holding hands, but that wasn't quite right.

It was just another day at the office yesterday for Wilson Goode - in before 8 a.m., off to a public appearance, lunch at his desk, out way past 5 p.m. The location had changed, but the routine was the same. On the day when the city celebrated the inauguration of his successor as mayor, Edward G. Rendell, Goode worked his way through the transition from public to private life. Except for the two-hour inauguration ceremony at the Academy of Music, Goode spent the day ensconced in his new Center City high-rise office.

Dick Clark, who died Wednesday at 82 of a heart attack, has been cremated, rep Paul Shefrin tells USA Today. Entertainment Tonight reports the ashes will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean, but Shefrin says Clark's family had not yet decided what to do with them. Plans for a public memorial hadn't been finalized. Simon Cowell: Not gay Simon Cowell, whose sexuality has been the subject of not a few gossip items, tells biographer Tom Bower in a new book he is straight.

Husbands come and go, but friendship is forever. This was the Elizabeth Taylor philosophy of men. In her life, they neatly divided between transient spouses and permanent platonic attachments. Miss Taylor's longest relationship was with Roddy McDowall, her costar in Lassie Come Home (1943), a confidant and platonic friend who would steer her to the Betty Ford Center in 1983. (McDowall died in 1998.) He began running interference for "Little Miss Gorgeous" when a cameraman on the Lassie set asked the 10-year-old to remove her false eyelashes.

She says she just wants to be recognized as Buddy Cianfrani's other daughter - the one who was not listed among his survivors and who, by her account, was excluded from participating in his funeral. Gabrielle is her name. Gabrielle Cianfrani. She is 26, with bouncy black hair and hazel-green eyes. She lives in South Jersey, and with her husband, Jim Clancy, is expecting her second child - Cianfrani's grandchild - any day. Cianfrani, a former state senator who was once among the most powerful people in Pennsylvania, died last week at age 79. He was a colorful figure with droopy eyelids and a gray mustache whose life story - going from power to prison and back to his old clout as a Democratic power broker - made him a local legend.

So many readers have written to ask: what's it like being Vanna White's younger sister? Well, unfortunately I can't say. In spite of our uncanny physical resemblance, Vanna and I are not related, even remotely, at least as far as I know. Of course, there's always a chance one of us was spirited away at birth in a kind of princess-and-pauper scenario. That might explain why Vanna and I have so much in common. Our amazing physical likeness. Our last name. Our careers. Can it be a coincidence that we both arrange letters for a living?

Dick Clark, who died Wednesday at 82 of a heart attack, has been cremated, rep Paul Shefrin tells USA Today. Entertainment Tonight reports the ashes will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean, but Shefrin says Clark's family had not yet decided what to do with them. Plans for a public memorial hadn't been finalized. Simon Cowell: Not gay Simon Cowell, whose sexuality has been the subject of not a few gossip items, tells biographer Tom Bower in a new book he is straight.

Eight years is an aeon in politics. Witness the waning potency of the gay-marriage issue. During the 2004 campaign, Republican strategists put gay marriage on referendum ballots in key swing states, as a "wedge" issue to unnerve Democrats and gin up the conservative base for President George W. Bush. The Massachusetts high court had just ruled for legalization, and hostility toward the concept was the centrist position in America. This is no longer true. Granted, social conservatives voiced anger Tuesday when, for the first time ever, a federal court of appeals declared that gay marriage was a constitutional expression of equal rights.

James Farentino, 73, whose private life was sometimes as dramatic as the roles he played in theater and on television, died Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He had suffered from a lengthy illness, said family spokesman Bob Palmer. Best known for his TV work, Mr. Farentino was among the last contract performers with Universal Studios in the 1960s. His nearly 100 roles included recurring appearances in such series as The Bold Ones: The Lawyers, Dynasty, Blue Thunder , and Police Story . Born Feb. 24, 1938, in Brooklyn, N.Y., he was the son of a clothing designer trained for the stage at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before launching his career with a 1961 Broadway appearance in Night of the Iguana . His film roles included The Pad and How to Use It (1966)

Husbands come and go, but friendship is forever. This was the Elizabeth Taylor philosophy of men. In her life, they neatly divided between transient spouses and permanent platonic attachments. Miss Taylor's longest relationship was with Roddy McDowall, her costar in Lassie Come Home (1943), a confidant and platonic friend who would steer her to the Betty Ford Center in 1983. (McDowall died in 1998.) He began running interference for "Little Miss Gorgeous" when a cameraman on the Lassie set asked the 10-year-old to remove her false eyelashes.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Ad guru Paul Arden was your sign mate. His advice applies to you: "If you get stuck, draw with a different pen. Change your tools, it may free your thinking. " TAURUS (April 20-May 20). You need a starting point. Anything will do. Take someone else's idea and respond to it. GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Some will be unclear about how things work. You see the system and figure out quickly how to make it run in your favor. CANCER (June 22-July 22). You can make your group great.

Set exactly a century ago, The Last Station is a droll tragicomedy starring those battling Tolstoys, whose family is unhappy in its own way. Christopher Plummer, self-effacing as the peasant-loving Lev, and Helen Mirren, self-aggrandizing as Countess Sofya Tolstoy, are playful, poignant . . . and magnificent. Both were cited with richly deserved Oscar nominations this week. If enough Academy viewers saw their work they surely would win their respective categories. Michael Hoffman's adaptation of the Jay Parini novel is a most affecting look at the twilight of a marriage and how its parties adapt to the dawn of a new era. It is also a nonpartisan glimpse of what so often is a Great Man's last marital battle: Who gets to play the role of his widow?

AMY FISHER wants people to know that she's not the same girl who shot her lover's wife in the face 16 years ago. She's 34 now, still with a thing for older men - she's married to her 56-year-old agent, Lou Bellera - and mother of three, ages 3 months to 8 years. Amy also has a new career: Porn actress and stripper. In Touch magazine talked with her about porn and the pole. Tattle offers commentary in brackets. IT: Why did you decide to get into porn? AF: I'm doing it for me, to have a good time.

Three things you probably don't know about Sandra Dungee Glenn, new boss of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission. She loves Desperate Housewives. She is a distant cousin of Super Bowl-winning Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy. Her nickname used to be "General MacArthur. " An intensely private person, Dungee Glenn would rather serve detention than discuss her personal life. Even longtime acquaintances know very little about the wizard behind the curtain. "I'm very, very selective about how I share myself," says Dungee Glenn, 50, appointed chairwoman of the embattled commission by Gov. Rendell in August.

If popular culture, like life, is about managing expectations, then Britney Spears must be a genius. After all, Blackout, Spears' fifth album - and her first since she became a shaven-headed, unbuckled-baby-driving girl gone wild, fueling the 24-hour celebrity cycle - comes out on Tuesday, and you've got to admit: You're pretty sure it's going to suck. How could it not? Bad Britney is as reliable and predictable an Extra and TMZ.com headline as Good Justin, the virtuous, post-teen pop star who was her Mickey Mouse Club mate - and her ex-boyfriend.

IT IS TOO EASY to find fault with Michael Jackson's eccentric behavior because it is filled with so many contradictions. Michael was born African-American but now looks so pale no suntan can cure it. Michael married Elvis Presley's daughter even though Elvis once said that the "only thing a colored person can do for me is to buy my records and shine my shoes. " Michael says his childhood was abusive, and yet he has been accused of sexually abusing minors. It is not important how the media sensationalizes Michael's private life.