A Sob Story Has a Happy Ending

The bad guys did their worst. But it won’t mean lean times for Sally Gautreau and her parrot, Baby, thanks to the generosity of cops at the LAPD’s Hollywood station.

These cops hear a lot of sob stories, but Gautreau, 88, who lives with Baby in a rented room in Hollywood, had one of the saddest.

There she was, wheeling her shopping cart filled with food across the street, when two presentable-looking young fellows offered to help. Instead, they made off with the cart and Gautreau’s purse, which had $66 in it--all her money for the month, along with her identification papers.

Gegam Dadayan, a passerby, found the purse at the corner of Normandie Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard and turned it in. The ID was there but the money was missing, so Officers Rick Roberts and Terri Robins took up a collection that yielded $240--more than three times the amount of money Gautreau lost in the robbery.

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UP IN SMOKE: Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation, has his sights set on Rep. Henry A. Waxman(D-Los Angeles).

No, Waxman did not join President Clinton and the First Lady in their ill-fated development in the Ozarks. He made no investments in James B. McDougal’s now-defunct Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan. And he didn’t abscond with papers in Vince Foster’s office after the White House deputy counsel shot himself.

No, Waxman has nothing to do with Whitewater at all.

Starr has been retained by tobacco giant Brown & Williamson to force Waxman and Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to hand over confidential documents the company says were pilfered from its corporate files.

A U.S. District judge quashed the company’s subpoenas last year, but the company appealed and the case came up before the U.S. Court of Appeals on Thursday. Starr, a former U.S. Solicitor General, once sat on the court himself.

House Counsel Cheryl Lau said in an interview that the Constitution protects congressional representatives from subpoenas “as long as they are operating in the legitimate legislative sphere.” Waxman’s committee hearings aimed at exposing the business practices of the tobacco industry were just that, she said.

A decision is expected soon.

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THE NEXT DANCE? Ready for The Prom You Never Had? Supporters of the Adolescent Gay and Lesbian Social Services agency came up with that theme for their fund-raiser, which is scheduled for the Women’s Club of Hollywood next month.

A poster for the event shows a gawky young man in a white tux standing next to a bashful young woman in a basic black frock. What makes this picture different from all other prom pictures is that the two are not holding onto each other.

Instead, the man is shown clutching the beefy arm of another man, while the woman is holding onto a female companion.

Tickets for the June 3 event can be ordered by phone at (310) 358-8727.