‘Titantic’ Sale
The producers of Fox-Paramount’s “Titanic,” reportedly the most expensive movie ever made, have come up with a novel merchandising campaign just in time for the holiday season.
Through Lexington, Ky.-based catalog retailer J. Peterman Co., actual wardrobe and props used in “Titanic” are being offered up for sale.
How about tucking under your Christmas tree a 13-foot replica of the steamship’s anchor that was used in the film’s final scenes? The tab is $25,000, admittedly high for fiberglass, but hey, this is authentic Hollywood.
Also available are 28-foot replicas of “Titanic” lifeboats used during the sinking scenes. Only six are available for a mere $25,000 each. Unfortunately, these lifeboats aren’t seaworthy.
For those who want to go down with their own ship, there are 43 double-breasted, blue officer’s coats for sale. Thirteen come with gold braiding at $950. Thirty without the braiding cost $750 each.
Gushing teenagers smitten by the film’s star, Leonardo DiCaprio, can have his vest, cotton shirt and corduroy slacks with suspenders for a mere $9,000.
With “Titanic” reportedly costing as much as $200 million to make, even the kitchen sink should be on the block, but it isn’t.
Gubernatorial Lovefest
The life of a governor is not all bipartisan bickering, vetoing bills and preparing the state budget. Sometimes it’s being publicly serenaded by your wife.
At last week’s “Come Rain or Come Shine: Songs of Johnny Mercer” at the Mark Taper Forum, Gayle Wilson wife of Gov. Pete Wilson and a veteran of musical revues sang Mercer’s “I Remember You.”
At the end of the song, Gayle Wilson walked to the edge of the stage and sang the last “you” of the love song directly to the governor.
It was not the first public show of affection between the Wilsons, who were honorary chairs of last week’s Mercer tribute. The couple appeared together in a performance of the play “Love Letters” in Sacramento earlier this year.
Oil Covered
How’s this for local coverage: the Wall Street Journal’s Los Angeles bureau no longer covers Los Angeles oil and gas companies. Now, its Houston bureau reports on such Los Angeles-based heavyweights as Atlantic Richfield Co., Unocal Corp. and Occidental Petroleum Corp.
Does this suggest California’s role in the energy industry is fading?
“These changes at the Journal have nothing at all to do with changes in the local oil and gas market,” said Inga Loy, assistant to the Journal’s L.A. bureau chief, Peter Gumbel. “All we did was realign coverage of a couple national beats and make some swaps.”
So what did the L.A. bureau get in the “swap”? Coverage of utility companies operating in the region stretching from Topeka, Kansas to Amarillo, Texas.
Unofficial Mayoral Aide
Recently, P.R. giant Porter Novelli International launched “Kids Thinklink,” a Web site of pages created by students. In L.A., local children sent e-mails to Mayor Richard Riordan with their thoughts and suggestions about life in L.A.
Thirteen-year-old Hudie Hawkins had a lot of good things to say about living here, but also had a suggestion for Riordan on the heels of last month’s KCBS-TV Channel 2 series on restaurant sanitation.
“Mayor Riordan, one thing that we should work on in Los Angeles is health inspections for restaurants. We need to make sure that they are clean so no one gets sick. If restaurants fail, you can give them a certain time to clean up, and if they fail more than once, they should be fined or closed.”
Of course, Mayor Riordan is not responsible for the restaurant health inspection program; that’s the domain of the county Health Services Department.
But the mayor does have some first-hand experience with restaurant inspections: his Original Pantry diner in downtown was closed by county inspectors for a series of minor health code violations on Thanksgiving eve. The mayor came down in person on Thanksgiving morning and called county inspectors, asking them to reinspect the restaurant. It passed and was reopened later that morning.
