Woodystock Nation
Under an upside-down American flag, actor Woody Harrelson arrived in Santa Barbara on Wednesday to a hero’s welcome, completing the final leg of his 1,500-mile bike trip down the Pacific Coast.
As he rolled into the college town, students surrounded Harrelson’s rainbow-painted “mother ship,” an old Chicago transit bus fueled by hemp, reeking of patchouli and outfitted with bunk beds.
Later, Harrelson wore purple hemp clothing as he preached revolution to a crowd of 400 at UC Santa Barbara’s Campbell Hall. He urged students to participate in boycotts and “massive civil disobedience” to protest big business and destruction of the environment. “I’d like to egg the White House,” Harrelson said. “Wouldn’t that be fun? Hey, W., come out here!”
Along for the ride, which began in Seattle on April 12, were a few crew members from the sitcom “Will & Grace.” Harrelson’s entourage also met up with actors Robin Williams, Sean Penn and Jim Carrey.
Harrelson and his supporters partied into the wee hours as his wife, Laura, recovered in a nearby hospital from minor injuries after being knocked off her bike by an 18-wheel truck. She was released Thursday.
Lady Jane in Chains
Sarah Ferguson’s former dresser is headed to prison for killing her lover with a knife and a cricket bat when he wouldn’t commit.
“In killing the man you loved, you ended his life and ruined your own,” Judge Michael Hyam told Jane Andrews, 34, handing her a life sentence. So ended the “Lady Jane” murder trial, which has captivated Britain for a month.
Andrews worked for the Royals for nearly a third of her life, before being sacked in 1997. According to testimony, she never got over it. She latched on to Tom Cressman, 39, but couldn’t persuade the confirmed bachelor to marry her. In a torn-up letter reassembled by police, Cressman wrote Andrews that her jealousy and mood swings had “just gotten too much” and he felt he was “walking on eggshells all the time.”
Andrews offered a multiple-choice defense when she took the stand at Old Bailey. She testified that she and Cressman were happy and planning to marry, that he raped her the day he died, and that he accidentally fell on the knife. Jurors didn’t buy it, voting to convict.
The jury found the prosecution theory much easier to swallow--that a jealous Andrews whacked Cressman on the head with a cricket bat and stabbed him in the chest in bed on Sept. 17. Prosecutors said she flew into a rage after stumbling across Cressman’s suggestive e-mails to a Las Vegas woman, in which he described Andrews as “an old pair of slippers.” She becomes eligible for release in eight years.
Pay Up, Please
Celebrity lawyer Bert Fields claims that the late Dodi Fayed’s father owes him $92,426 for legal services. Fields has sued Mohamed Al Fayed, owner of Harrods department store in London, for breach of contract. The bill, according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court suit, covers six months of fees and an investigation of someone who supposedly said mean things about Al Fayed’s dearly departed son. Al Fayed could not be reached. Dodi Fayed died with Princess Diana in a 1997 Paris car crash.
Curiouser and Curiouser
Here in Los Angeles, the sideshow to the slaying of actor Robert Blake’s wife is getting surreal: Blake canceled a private memorial service after it was swarmed by media, and O.J. Simpson offered the “Baretta” star some unsolicited advice.
“Don’t watch TV, Robert,” Simpson said during an appearance on the syndicated TV show “Extra.” “I’ve got to admit, I was pretty fascinated when I first heard it,” Simpson said. The Juice speaks from experience. After he was acquitted at what was dubbed “The Trial of the Century,” he was found civilly liable for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her waiter friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman.
It’s a new century, and no one has been charged in the May 4 shooting death of Blake’s wife, Bonny Lee Bakley. Police aren’t naming or ruling out any suspects.
Simpson said he felt compassion for Blake “because I knew what he was about to go through. I was just saying, ‘Man, this poor guy.’ I hope they find who did it right away because this next week or two is going to be horrible for him being under that veil of suspicion.”
Quote, Unquote
“Hi, my name is Al Gore, and I used to be the next president of the United States.”--Gore, at a private gathering recently in Hancock Park.
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Times staff writers Louise Roug and Gina Piccalo contributed to this report. City of Angles runs Tuesday-Friday. E-mail: angles@latimes.com.