A Former Phantom, a Future Noah

No, he’s not Jewish. In case you were wondering.

And apparently everyone was wondering about hunky former Phantom Davis Gaines when he traveled to Israel to record composer Shuki Levy’s “Masada: The Musical” with the Moscow Symphony. So maybe the yarmulke Gaines was wearing at the Wailing Wall threw them off.

By the way, Jon Voight isn’t Jewish either, even though he was one of the narrators in the multi-culti concert performance of “Masada” at the Shubert Theatre in Century City on Wednesday. And what was up with that shmatte on his head?

“I’m playing Noah in ‘Noah’s Ark’ [for NBC],” he said at the pre-show reception. “I wore a wig piece, and they had to shave my own hair to put the hairpiece in, so I got used to wearing something until it grows in.”

Everybody happy? Can we move on now?

Before the curtain went up on the benefit performance, DARE President Glenn Levant reported that the early U.S. reviews were in on the “Masada” recording, and the “musical saga” had gotten two thumbs up. From President Clinton. Clinton was presented with the compact disc a few days ago when he visited the ancient site where 967 Jewish zealots committed suicide rather than surrender to 15,000 Roman soldiers.

Hmmmmmm, being a music critic might be kind of kicky. That is, if Clinton happens to start thinking about career development.

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With all the huffing and puffing to blow down Universal’s “Babe: Pig in the City,” did you guys notice that Babe II isn’t really Babe I?

Babe experts may remember that le premier Babe spoke through Christine Cavanaugh, who set off a run on pink, pig-shaped Judith Leiber purses after she toted one to the Oscars.

The cuddly Cavanaugh became enough of an icon that she morphed into a “Jeopardy” question. Apparently that wasn’t singular enough for Universal, which offered Cavanaugh only $54,000 to reprise her role--double her $27,000 fee for Babe I--even though the film made more than $200 million globally.

Cavanaugh declined, and E.G. Daily stepped in to imitate her voice for Babe II. Daily knows it well because the voice-over actors work together on “Rugrats.”

“The joke is, she ended up making more than E.G.,” says Cavanaugh’s manager, Danielle Galiana-Allman, “because they were using her voice when they used the ‘la, la, la’ thing [in trailers] to promote the second ‘Babe.’ ”