ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990                   TAG: 9006140458
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PEOPLE

Elizabeth Taylor was the target of an elaborate hoax that used her public-relations firm's answering service to trick the news media into a phony story about the actress, her publicist said Monday.

The bogus story, distributed worldwide by The Associated Press and United Press International, said Taylor, 58, was romantically involved with a 23-year-old man and had undergone surgery over the weekend.

"It's just totally ridiculous," said publicist Chen Sam, whose New York City public-relations firm has been the sole media link during Taylor's nine-week hospitalization for pneumonia and complications at St. John's Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica.

The hoaxer said Taylor had undergone an abdominal biopsy and was expected to be released from the hospital within two weeks on the arm of Julian Lee Hobbs of Lake Orion, Mich., described as Taylor's boyfriend.

Marlon Brando's son made a brief court appearance Monday, and his new lawyer got a postponement in his murder case.

Christian Brando's new lawyer, Los Angeles attorney Robert L. Shapiro, is taking over from attorney William Kunstler.

Brando, 32, is charged with murdering his sister's boyfriend, Dag Drollet, 26, at the elder Brando's home May 16.

Susan Saint James, who co-starred with Jane Curtin on CBS' "Kate and Allie," has given birth to a boy.

Saint James, 43, had an 8-pound, 14-ounce baby Sunday, said Richard Bisi, a spokesman at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington, Conn. He said mother and child were doing fine.

This is Saint James' third child with her husband, former "Saturday Night Live" producer Dick Ebersol. She has two children from a previous marriage.

The couple plans to name the baby Edward Bright Ebersol.

Clint Black, the country singing star, said he didn't start strumming and crooning to become a sex symbol, but it happened anyway.

"If you asked me about the sex-symbol thing six months ago, I would have strayed away from the conversation," he said. "I would have said, `That's not me.' Now, it's getting kind of hard. I know I have to accept it."

"There's no way to think about a family now," he said. "I'm so gone all the time." 


 by CNB