Wednesday, March 19, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Michael Jackson has won his latest trial run. A civil jury -- not, presumably, one of his peers; where besides our most harrowing nightmares can you find 12 of him? -- has rejected a wrongful termination suit brought against the pop pixie by five former Neverland Ranch employees. They claim they were fired either for cooperating with the 1993 child molestation investigation against Jackson, or for alerting authorities about illegal listening devices planted around the ranch. The jury disagreed. Further, they ordered two of the plaintiffs to pay Michael $60,000 for stealing and selling his "sketches, personal notes, hats, toys and candy." Sure, $60,000 will buy a lot of chimp chow, but, of course, money wasn't the point. The main thing, say Michael's lawyers, was dismissing the plaintiffs as "people trying to capitalize on Michael's fame." Unlike, say, Michael's lawyers.
Briefly
*Comedian Albert Brooks became an awfully wedded husband the other day, hitching his wagon to Kimberley Shlain, creative director of a Los Angeles multimedia company. "We knew immediately when we met that we would be together," said the bride. "It works because we're both artists with a tremendous respect for each other." The same thing that keeps Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson together.
*You're Mike Wallace, and you've got Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani on the "60 Minutes" rotisserie. Naturally, you hit him with the hard questions: "How are you familiar with Playboy programs? Do you have a satellite dish, Mr. President?" It seems Iranian officials fear their populace will fritter away its fundamentalist, kill-the-blasphemous-novelist edge in a welter of pirated satellite programs, "things like the Playboy channel," Rafsanjani says. In response to Wallace's question, he denies having a dish himself. So how does he know? "We hear these things."
Gender equity at last!
News flash: Journalism isn't a boy's club anymore! That's the encouraging word from ABC news pixie Barbara Walters. "Today," she said Tuesday, accepting a journalism award at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, "there is no difference between women and men being hired." Not as long as we're all artists with a tremendous respect for each other! "My advice for females is the same for males: Get your foot in the door." And brace yourself for the slam, because did you know that TV news is full of "enormous cutthroat competition"? "The name of the game is ratings." Really? We hear these things, but we weren't sure until now.
Compiled by Scott Dickensheets
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