Lots of Smiley Faces for Tavis

Things are looking up for television and radio personality Tavis Smiley, who kicked off his youth foundation’s fund-raising season Saturday with a small dinner and gala at the Bel-Air home of baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield and his wife, Tonya.

“He’s going to be doing a lot more things on a lot bigger stage,” said Winfield, “and I’ve gotta give him five.” Winfield said he happily opened up his home for the event, even though the carpets are white and the wine was red. “I respect him. I like him. We’re friends,” he said.

Smiley, 37, once an aide to the late L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley, was fired from Black Entertainment Television in March, sparking heated protests from viewers. Now he’s a special correspondent with ABC’s “Primetime Thursday” and “Good Morning America.”

He also is a CNN contributor and can be heard on the ABC Radio Network and, as of this fall, on National Public Radio.

“I’m really proud of what has happened to my friend,” said Arianna Huffington. “I have many goals in my life, and one of them is to see Tavis married.” Warren Beatty joked that he was willing to work as Smiley’s agent to broker the marriage--and his ABC contract.

Guests, including Angela Bassett and husband Courtney B. Vance, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and the Dodgers’ Gary Sheffield, dined on a five-course meal prepared by San Francisco chef Dave Lawrence.

The Smiley Foundation, established last year, awards scholarships and teaches leadership skills to African American teenagers.

As Smiley told his guests, “This is the first generation of black folk in this country who are assuming leadership positions who haven’t lived through the civil rights struggle.

We have never had leaders who couldn’t compare the before and after pictures. All they know is the after picture.”

Show and Tell

Once-rumored gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger played motivational speaker Monday to a classroom of Compton eighth-graders, lecturing Willowbrook Middle School students on the importance of persistence and goal-setting. The action hero discussed his life as a young bodybuilder whose tenacity helped spark a national fitness trend. His lesson plan was part of Teach for America Week, a national campaign to encourage community and business leaders to spend an hour reading to students. The campaign also builds awareness of the Teach for America program that places teachers in two-year positions at public schools.

“I was fortunate to have had the support, family structure and education necessary to reach my goals and become successful in bodybuilding and at the box office,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “Working with children who need help achieving their goals and dreams is by far the most significant job I have ever had.”

Bad Karma

Add Richard Gere to the higher life forms who want to bombard the terrorists behind the Sept. 11 attacks with love. The oft-reincarnated Shirley MacLaine recently urged anyone who clicked on her Web site to “melt their hearts, melt their weapons” with love and positive energy. Now Gere has told ABC News Radio that the best way to combat terrorism is to emit love vibes.

“It’s all of our jobs to keep our minds as expansive as possible,” explained the Buddhist actor, urging everyone to view the bad guys as sick relatives. “We have to give them medicine and the medicine is love and compassion; there’s nothing better.”

Still, he added, the terrorists “are creating such horrible future lives for themselves because of the negativity of this karma.”

Love and the Jackal

Jailed guerrilla leader Carlos the Jackal is in love with his lawyer and hopes to marry her in a few months. “It’s a meeting of hearts and of minds,” the lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, told Reuters in Paris.

The Jackal, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, is serving a life term in Paris’ Sante prison for the 1975 murders of two French secret service agents. He’s now in his 50s and spends most of his time in solitary confinement.

On Ben and Men

Gwyneth Paltrow has finally admitted publicly what the canoodle patrol has long suspected--she and Ben Affleck were an on-again, off-again item long after they were officially considered kaput. Paltrow tells Harper’s Bazaar even while denying they were a couple, she and Affleck were seeing each other while they were making “Bounce” together. They didn’t officially call it quits for the final time until a year ago, Paltrow reveals.

She also is quoted in the magazine as saying that she’s “a very sexual person” who loves men, “even though they’re lyin’, cheatin’ scum ....” As for relationships, she says, “I’m lucky if I get past six weeks. The make-or-break is six weeks.”

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Times staff writers Gina Piccalo and Louise Roug contributed to this column. City of Angles runs Tuesday-Friday. E-mail: angles@latimes.com.