News Article

Monitor

Celebrity news for the week of December 9, 1994

DEALS

The still nameless company formed by Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen, and Steven Spielberg in October will join forces with Capital Cities/ABC to produce programming for network, cable, and syndicated TV. Shows are expected to air within a year.

RETIRING

Akio Morita, 73, chairman of Sony, resigned on Nov. 25. The mogul hadn't fully recovered from a stroke he suffered last year. His resignation was reportedly unrelated to Sony's troubles in Hollywood, which resulted in a corporate write-off of $2.7 billion.

SUING

Denying a tabloid report that she's a heroin addict, Baywatch's Pamela Anderson has filed a $12-million libel suit against the Globe. The suit says the paper's statement has ''injured her in her occupation.''

BIRTHS

Twin girls, Madeline Rose and Brianna Elizabeth, born to TV producer Norman Lear, 72, and Lyn Davis Lear, 47, on Nov. 24 via a surrogate mother. ''They arrived on Thanksgiving and that says it all,'' says the proud papa...Roseanne has announced that she has undergone in vitro fertilization using the sperm of fiancé/ bodyguard Ben Thomas. She'll find out on Dec. 15 if she has conceived.

DIVORCES

Jean-Claude Van Damme, 33, and fourth wife, Darcy Van Varenberg, 28, after nine months of marriage. Van Varenberg has petitioned an L.A. court to throw out the couple's prenuptial agreement and award her a few trinkets, including a 10-carat sapphire ring, a Cartier watch, and a Harley-Davidson.

DEATHS

Tommy Boyce, 55, songwriter for the Monkees, shot himself in his Nashville home on Nov. 25. ''He was quite a character — eccentric, extremely talented,'' says Micky Dolenz, ''and also a bit tortured, as most talented and eccentric people are.''...Sonja Davis, 32, Angela Bassett's stuntwoman in Eddie Murphy's Vampire in Brooklyn, died Nov. 16 in L.A. following an accident on the set two weeks earlier. ''The matter is under investigation,'' says a Paramount spokesman.

Originally posted Dec 09, 1994 Published in issue #252 Dec 09, 1994 Order article reprints

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