Ali Treats Sick Children to Tricks

--Former boxing champion Muhammad Ali performed magic tricks for sick children and planted kisses on their cheeks when he visited a hospital in Salt Lake City, but he declined to get in a fight. In Salt Lake City to spend the Super Bowl weekend with friends, Ali spent three hours visiting 100 children at Primary Children’s Medical Center. “Are you a wrestler?” one child asked the 44-year-old three-time champion. “No, I’m an old fighter,” Ali replied. “Then fight me!” the boy said. Ali just smiled. Some youngsters clustered around as he put on a magic display. Those too ill to get out of bed received a bedside magic demonstration, a kiss on the cheek, an Islamic prayer book and an autograph. He paused briefly to answer reporters’ questions, saying he didn’t know whether boxing was in better or worse condition since he participated. “I don’t watch it much any more,” he said.

--New York cabaret owner Jan Wallman gave Joan Rivers, Dick Cavett, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara and others their first breaks, so the celebrities are returning the favor with a Carnegie Hall benefit to help start a new club. The Feb. 3 show is to raise funds to find a new home for Jan Wallman’s Restaurant, whose 9 1/2-year lease is expiring. “I get by with more than a little help from my friends,” said Wallman, whose 1950’s hangout, The Duplex, launched the careers of Woody Allen, Rodney Dangerfield and others. Wallman says she also works with unknown musicians “trying to build a renaissance in cabaret, which isn’t too successful in New York.” She added: “I’m not looking to get rich; it’s a labor of love.”

--Fans of the late Ruth Gordon will get the chance to bid on a yellow slicker the actress wore in the film “Harold and Maude.” Other items will include clothes designed by Balenciaga, Dior, Mainbocher and Chanel. Property from her estate, including memorabilia from her 70-year stage and screen career, will be sold in a two-session auction Feb. 13 at William Doyle Galleries in New York. Gordon died at 88 at her summer home on Martha’s Vineyard last August. Her husband, writer-director Garson Kanin, decided her belongings should go to her fans rather than to a museum.

--Opera star Placido Domingo will resume work on the film “Otello” on Tuesday following his recovery from hernia surgery Jan. 8 in a Barcelona, Spain, clinic. The tenor left his Barcelona home for the Balearic Islands, where he said he planned to “rest and take in some sun” before leaving for Rome, where the picture is being made.

--Swimming is a solitary pursuit for designer Yves Saint Laurent. “He has two swimming pools (at his home in Marrakesh, Morocco),” the Countess de Bretuil told Parade magazine. “Yves hates to swim with anyone else. One is for him. The other is for the rest of us,” she said.