Presidential Peccadilloes

Monica Lewinsky--and we know you’re reading this--here’s your homework assignment: Bone up on Kay Summersby.

“If more young women read stories about having affairs with great men, then there’d be less having affairs with great men going on.”

Stay with us here. That’s Gail Collins, whose day job is writing for the editorial board of That Other Times. She also moonlights as the headmistress of the William Morrow School for Scandal. OK, so she’s really the author of “Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics,” the just-published, basic textbook on the history of statesmen and their nocturnal sweets.

We all know our Founding Fathers were the leaders of the pack of leaders dallying famously with Women Not Their Wife (although Thomas Jefferson may have been the only one channeled by Nick Nolte).

But even the demure mid-century had its juicy moments. Segue to Summersby, a divorced ex-model who liked Ike.

A lot.

Summersby drove around Gen. Dwight Eisenhower during World War II, while scorpion tongues savored the tasty void between the lines of press references to “Eisenhower’s pretty Irish driver.”

When does gossip become history? When you’re outed by another president who hates you.

Harry Truman told author Merle Miller that the war hero had wanted to divorce Mamie and marry “this Englishwoman.” Ike had asked the Pentagon to relieve him of duty so he could take care of business. But the war machine wasn’t feeling particularly romantic. Gen. George Marshall threatened to boot Ike out of the Army “if he even came close to doing such a thing.”

Hmmmmmmm. Place in history, girlfriend. Place in history, girlfriend.

When the Truman book came out in 1973, Summersby shot back with a revised version of her wartime memoir. She said the couple had spent months necking in airplanes until they could neck no more. They finally deplaned for the train heading into the tunnel.

Except there was one little problem. No Viagra.

After the war ended, Eisenhower promised to bring Summersby back to the Pentagon as his secretary. Ike left Europe. One Army telex and a general’s letter later,

Summersby discovered she was out of a job, which of course meant she was out of a man.

“It was a really sad story,” Collins says over lunch at Hugo’s in West Hollywood. “If more people read the Kay Summersby book, they could negotiate their lives better.”

Particularly girl people. Repeat after us: Gossip is good.

Not to mention confusing. Ever wonder about Grover Cleveland? Ask the expert.

“I know more about Grover Cleveland’s sex life than anyone in America, bar none.”

So who was the real father of Oscar Folsom Cleveland, known as the out-of-wedlock child of the bachelor president and the alcoholic widow lady Maria Halpin?

How about Oscar Folsom! Folsom was Cleveland’s late law partner and best friend. Oh, yes. Folsom had been a married man.

“It seems to me highly unlikely that Maria would have named the baby after a man that she was not sleeping with.”

Cleveland’s sex life became a big campaign issue, but voters didn’t mind electing a president accused of “despoiling virgins from sea to shining sea.” Which is typical.

Sex addicts in the White House. Could be a trend. A prequel to “Primary Colors,” perhaps?

“This would make such a great movie,” Collins says, picking at her Cajun tuna sandwich, “if only there was a market for movies about 300-pound politicians with little beady eyes and bad comb-overs.”

Class dismissed.

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The Buzz About Buzz: Is it true that we Angelenos are too busy pumping our pectorals to sustain two city magazines? Or is the market taking the fall for corporate greed?

There’s buzz around town that 8-year-old Buzz magazine might have escaped the ax two weeks ago--if the owners had cared to save it. Marilyn Bethany, erstwhile editor in chief of the glossy monthly, says she had lined up potential buyers for a meeting with owners Sharon and Parvinder Chadha two Mondays ago. The Chadhas rescheduled for the following Wednesday. But on Tuesday, they announced they were filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 11.

What could be more alluring than a buyer who would keep the magazine going? How about a buyer who would pay whatever it took to shut it down?

Disney-owned Fairchild Publications, which owns Buzz rival Los Angeles magazine, is reaching into its deep pockets and pulling out $5.3 million for the magazine’s assets--its subscription list and trademarks. Bethany says that was more than the magazine was worth--and half a million more than the Chadhas’ total stake.

“Disney was willing to pay whatever it cost to get rid of us,” Bethany says. “We were making Disney uncomfortable. [Editor in chief] Spencer Beck was quoted in Variety as saying he never viewed us as a competitor. The truth is, he and [executive editor] Glynis Costin were obsessed with Buzz.”

A Disney spokesman, Ken Green, denies the company’s offer is inflated: “We have merely offered to purchase their subscription list, their trademark and have offered to fulfill their unfilled subscriptions with issues of Los Angeles magazine. And we believe we’ve offered a fair price.”

Sharon Chadha has said she sold to Disney because Buzz was in sorry shape financially, unlikely to turn a profit any time soon. Even though ad revenue shot up 40% in 1997, she said Buzz was still sagging under the $11 million in debt she inherited when she bought the magazine 18 months ago.

But Bethany says that debt had been forgiven by the magazine’s previous owner, Thai media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul. And she said the magazine was projected to hit the black next year.

Not everyone believes the Chadhas had a choice. Ex-Buzz publisher Mark Smelzer says he seriously doubts anyone would have rescued the magazine before creditors closed it down. “We had literally slept with everybody in town and nobody would marry us,” he says. “I’m bummed that it happened, but as a businessman I can understand.”

Still, the bad news couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time. Magazine staffers had just finished a press release announcing Buzz’s capture of two 1998 MAGGIES--Magazine Awards of Western Publishing--for best city and metropolitan magazine and best consumer magazine. “The beautiful irony here is we beat out Los Angeles magazine,” Bethany says.

At least, ex-Buzz folk can take small solace in one thing--Minnie Driver had been scheduled to appear on the magazine’s July cover. But the new owner’s plans to reroute the star may have hit a roadblock; word is Driver’s people have balked at plans to move her to the cover of Los Angeles, on the grounds it isn’t hip enough.

A spokeswoman for Driver confirmed that the actress had no plans to appear on the cover of Los Angeles, but denied that it was a question of cool: “We have several other magazine covers confirmed for Minnie at this time, and we feel it’s better to wait. It has absolutely nothing to do with how hip the magazine is or isn’t.”

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Hunk Watch: Guess what? Leonardo is not the last man on earth. There’s one more. There might be another, but we don’t want to commit.

What we can confirm is that Vincent Perez fits the bill. Of course, being a European hunk, the Swiss-born actor is more than juicy--he’s complicated.

Isn’t being a heartthrob enough for any man?

Mais, non, the “Queen Margot” star told us at the opening night of City of Lights, City of Angels, a French film festival held recently at the Directors Guild. Perez was appearing in festival opener “En Garde,” an insouciant swashbuckler directed by Philippe de Broca and co-starring Daniel Auteuil.

Can we see Perez as a dashing 18th century lord who’s a chick magnet? Well, yeah.

How about a transsexual?

“It’s like a little surprise,” Perez, 33, says coyly of his role in this month’s Cannes Festival entry “Ceux Qui M’Aiment Predront Le Train (Those Who Love Me Will Take the Train)” by “Margot” director Patrice Chereau. “It wasn’t about sexuality. It was about not being sexual at all. It was about being an angel, and an angel doesn’t have a sex. So it’s in this direction that I’m working.”

Cutiepie alert: Hunks don’t need to stretch.

At least Perez is bi-continental, straddling Paris and Los Angeles, so presumably he won’t have to for his Hollywood gigs. He’ll appear as a friend estranged by the war in Sarajevo in the upcoming HBO film “Shot Through the Heart,” his first American production since “The Crow: City of Angels” in 1996.

Perez says he’s being selective about parts here and abroad because “I’m growing up and making the right decisions.”

And what else do grown-ups do?

Sorry, girls.

“I’m going to get married soon, hopefully,” Perez says. His intended is 30-year-old ex-New Yorker Karina Silla, who lives in France. “I’m ready to go into the real thing, and I’m very happy about it.”