PEOPLE WATCH

Clean Bill of Health for Hackman: Gene Hackman checked out of a Portland, Ore. hospital over the weekend after a five-day stay, during which doctors cleared a narrowed artery to his heart, barely averting a heart attack, officials said. Hackman, 60, was released Saturday from St. Vincent Hospital and Medical Center, but hospital officials agreed not to make his departure public for 24 hours, apparently so he could slip away quietly. Hackman was spending a few days on vacation at the Oregon coast last week when chest pains that eventually spread to his arm prompted him to drive to Portland and check himself into the hospital. The next day, after a series of tests, doctors used a balloon catheter to clear the narrowing artery, a relatively new but routine procedure called angioplasty.