People: John Leguizamo spared injury in auto crash

John Leguizamo considers himself lucky to be alive. Actually, we've all lucky to be alive, but Leguizamo recently had a close brush with mortality.


	Leguizamo

He told New York's Daily News he was almost killed while shooting the thriller "Cronicas" in Ecuador.

His driver was taking him home after a late-night shoot when they were hit by another car.

"It was about 6 a.m.," Leguizamo said. "The guy went through a stop sign at 60 miles per hour and slammed into us. We spun around and went out of control and slammed right into my house. I thought I was going to die."

But Leguizamo and his driver walked away from the crash.

The actor also told the Daily News he had to take a crash course in Spanish to star in the movie, even though he was born in Colombia.

"My mother and father tried to speak Spanish to me, but I always wanted to talk back to them in English," said the Queens-raised Mambo Mouth.

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Marlon Brando's annotated script from 1972's "The Godfather" brought more than $300,000 in an auction of the star's memorabilia that netted a total of $2.3 million.

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The script fetched more than 20 times its estimated auction price of $10,000 to $15,000. It was the largest amount paid for any single item at last week's auction, and the highest amount ever paid for a film script, according to Christie's New York.

"Godfather" mementos were the night's stars. Another top item related to the movie was a letter from the book's author, Mario Puzo, asking Brando to take the role of Don Vito Corleone. It brought $132,000.

A photograph of Brando and Rita Moreno in the 1968 film "The Night of the Following Day" -- the only piece of movie memorabilia that Brando kept in his home -- brought $48,000. A 1961 telegram from Brando to Marilyn Monroe sold for $36,000.

"I feel humbled by collectors and fans who have spent so freely to own a piece of my father's heritage and history," Miko Brando, one of the star's children, said in a statement.

The collection featured more than 250 items from Brando's Los Angeles home.

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The teenage witch is with child: The Associated Press says Melissa Joan Hart, who starred in the TV series "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," is expecting a baby in January.

Hart, 29, is married to Mark Wilkerson, 28, lead singer for Course of Nature.

Nobody expects sensitivity from Norman Mailer, but his lizard-brain racism is startling, even for him.

After the Daily News reported that Mailer disgraced himself in a Rolling Stone interview with racist slurs against New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani, the Asian American Journalists Association issued a protest.

The 82-year-old novelist described Japanese American Kakutani as a "one-woman kamikaze" and a "two-fer token."

Then he had the nerve to tell the Daily News that the journalists' group was being "high-octane" politically correct.

Dallas Morning News reporter Esther Wu, president of the 2,000-member journalists group, also pointed out that the writer of the Rolling Stone piece, Douglas Brinkley, called great attention to Mailer's two Pulitzer Prizes but failed to report that Kukutani won the same award in 1998, for criticism.

-- P-I staff

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