By Dave Donnelly
Thursday, December 19, 1996
Steven Spielberg, Doc Buyers
Steven Spielberg, Doc Buyers
HE'S all over the papers, this Steven Spielberg. He bid over $500,000 for the Oscar which Clark Cable won for "It Happened One Night," and then assuaged the miffed Academy of Arts and Sciences by donating it to them. His name was brought up by Drew Barrymore on the David Letterman show this week. The actress who floored the talk show host by baring her breasts to him on his birthday last year was most subdued, and mentioned that when she went to see Spielberg, who directed her in "E.T.," that he told her, "Off with the lipstick." She had to remove it before he talked to her. "He's the closest thing I have to a father," said Drew, lovingly. So where is Spielberg while all this is going on? Why, on Kauai, of course ... Spielberg scopes
Garden Isle sitesIT was on the Garden Isle, you may recall, that Spielberg was shooting "Jurassic Park" and had just wrapped when Hurricane Iniki hit. His cameraman got some footage of a real hurricane in action, but Spielberg said it was simply a "home movie" and wouldn't be used in "Jurassic Park." And it wasn't. But it may still pop up somewhere along the line. The famed director was at Tidepools Restaurant at the Hyatt Regency Kauai the other night, enjoying relative solitude there before the Christmas rush. He's scoping film locales for "Lost World" in the Kipu Kai Beach area on private property owned by the Rice family, just around Kawelikoa Point from the Hyatt ...
COMPUTER/marketing whiz Paul Klink, enjoying a getaway with his mother visiting from New York, was one of the few people on Kauai to recognize Spielberg, describing him as "humble, direct, easy-going, real and down to earth." He presented him with some of the "Live Aloha" bumper stickers which were his brainchild, and is hoping the director will put them on his Kauai production vehicles, if not his personal cars back home where he still car-pools his kids three times a week ...
YES, many stores are experiencing holdups in handling customers, but others appear to be welcoming them. Did you read about the 7-Eleven manager in Odessa, Texas, who apprehended a 15-year-old stealing beer in his store? Despite the fact that the manager won an award and been rewarded at a dinner, he was later fired for violating a "strict company policy that forbids employees from interfering with anyone stealing or holding up the store." I'm not making this up! 7-Eleven might as well put up open invitation signs: "Welcome thieves. No waiting. No resistance. No kidding." ... Christmas holdups
THEY had a quiet little party in the classic C. Brewer Building on the Fort Street Mall Tuesday night. Ostensibly it was a Christmas gathering, but to honcho Doc Buyers and his top people, it was a 10-year celebration of the leveraged buyout they did of the Big Five company which was completed on Dec. 17, 1986 ...
WAIPAHU Taco Bell assistant manager John Alvarado won an essay contest run by the international division of the company on why there's nothing ordinary about Taco Bell. His entry was extremely literate, but won anyway. It read, "Divergent paths. Multiplicity of destinations. For those who would choose the way less traveled, the rewards are unrivaled. Choose the border. Mediocrity costs too much." Alvarado and his fiancee won an all-expenses-paid trip to Moab Valley, Utah, to watch the filming of that "Rollerblade" commercial that seems to be on TV every hour or so ...
WHEN Ivan Delaforce, the Leeward Oahu native now appearing with the national touring company of "Stomp," visited Damien High, he did a mini-performance of the show. After seeing his yearbook photo on the wall next to the "Stomp" poster announcing the in-school event, he mentioned he'd lost his yearbook after going on the road. Result: The Class of '87 provided him with a replacement, a nice gesture that made him, well, stomp for joy. "Stomp," the entire show, continues at the Hawaii Theatre through Dec. 29 ... Stumping for ‘Stomp’
