Sophie B. Good

Sophie B. Hawkins is feeling lucky. After spending the last few months feverishly writing and recording in her home studio in Venice, the resilient singer-songwriter says she is considering “really good offers” from two major labels that resulted from just two weeks of shopping her new material.

On a balmy Monday afternoon at Venice beach, she sits in the sun, percolates over a Greek salad at the Sidewalk Cafe and talks about artistic vision, the fleeting nature of fame and the business of selling records. Her eyes are animated behind her orange-tinted glasses. “Isn’t this divine?” she asks.

Hawkins, 35, who earned fame with her 1992 hit, “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover,” is preparing for a comeback, of sorts. She had two successful records in the early 1990s, but was left nearly broke by bad financial decisions. Ryodisk Inc. released her third album, “Timbre,” last year, but she recently parted ways with the label, unhappy about the album’s promotion.

Now, as well as pitching her new record, Hawkins is pursuing work as a film composer. One of her songs is featured during a love scene in Josh Hartnett’s new film, “40 Days and 40 Nights,” and Billy Bob Thornton recently purchased another song. Hawkins is also keeping her fingers crossed that she’ll be chosen to help score “The Human Stain,” an upcoming Miramax film starring Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins.

This month, the 1998 documentary about her life, “The Cream Will Rise,” will be released on video. The film, by screenwriter and director Gigi Gaston, delves deeply into Hawkins’ difficult relationship with her family as well as a childhood haunted by sexual abuse, alcoholism and anorexia.

For Hawkins, the film represented a great risk. Ultimately, however, she said the project released her from a lot of lingering pain, and helped her realize her potential.

“The fact that I’m still around--that’s what’s important about the documentary,” Hawkins says. “The fact that I’m still doing more work, in more fields, and am making more money and feeling happier and doing better-- that is a good sign.”

Ken Lay’s Deal

Kenneth Lay’s cash flow improved this week, as an anonymous buyer purchased one of the Enron founder’s properties in Aspen, Colo. The cottage was valued at $4.1 million, but sold for $10 million.

The Lay family recently offered three other Aspen properties for sale: two homes valued at $6.1 million each and a lot listed at $2.9 million. The 3,015-square-foot cottage, however, was not listed for sale, and sold in a private deal. The Lay family also owns several other properties in Houston and Galveston.

The cottage, which was built in 1959, is modest by Aspen standards, and local real estate agents believe it is likely the anonymous buyer will tear it down to build a grander home. Michael Eisner, Jack Nicholson and Goldie Hawn also own property at the upscale ski-resort area.

Playboy Pet Dies

Pets have famously come and gone at the Playboy Mansion, but one, known only as Teri, endured for almost three decades.

The death of such a familiar figure has cast a pall over the Holmby Hills Estate. Teri, 32, was a wooly monkey, and, said Playboy spokesman Bill Farley, she died last week of natural causes.

Born in the Amazon region, Teri was among the last wooly monkeys to come to the United States. (In 1975, the federal government banned the private import of primates, other than for medical research.)

She spent most of her days in a cedar tree at the estate, entertaining celebrities and other visitors. Elizabeth Hurley recently became an ardent fan, Farley said.

Teri is believed to have been the oldest wooly monkey to live side-by-side with humans, Farley said, adding that she surpassed the average life expectancy for a female of her species by some seven years.

At the time of her death, Teri had lived the equivalent of more than 100 human years.

She left no survivors.

A memorial service is planned today at the mansion.

‘The Natural’ Politician

This time around, “Primary Colors” author Joe Klein has no qualms about taking credit for his work. “The Natural,” which hits bookstores next month, is his nonfiction account of the “misunderstood presidency of Bill Clinton.”

In the book, Klein argues that Clinton’s election campaign “appeared to exist entirely, and very comfortably, within the grammar of popular culture--a cross between a disaster movie and a country music song ....His staff called him Elvis--and, more privately, ‘The Natural,’ after the character played by Robert Redford in the film adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s baseball novel. He was, the consultant Paul Begala would say, quoting the film, ‘the best there ever was.’”

Later in the book, Klein makes this “damned with faint praise” assessment:

“He remains the most compelling politician of his generation, although that isn’t saying much.”

On Al Gore’s presidential aspirations, Klein offers: “Gore had a genius for subservience ... he was a shy, uncomfortable man, who once admitted to me that he probably wouldn’t have become a politician if his father--who had been an esteemed, if gaseous, liberal senator from Tennessee--hadn’t been in the business. Even as vice president, Gore seemed all tangled up in his sonhood ... he seemed the eternal protege, more a son than a father figure, more a student--the world’s best student--than a teacher. He was a natural number two.”

Ouch ...

Jet-Setter’s Birthday

Hotel heiress Paris Hilton celebrates her 21st birthday today with a jet-setter’s evening. It starts with dinner at Studio 54 in New York, followed by a Las Vegas bash at club Light in the Bellagio hotel.

By her side will be boyfriend and model Jason Shaw, and friends Tara Reid and Lionel Richie’s daughter, Nicole. But the fetes honoring Hilton’s transition into legal adulthood don’t stop there.

She started the celebrations last Friday with a pajama party at club Lotus in New York. On March 1, the party moves to Los Angeles with a late-night gathering at the new GQ Lounge inside the Sunset Room in Hollywood. By late March, Paris is off to Tokyo.

Quote/Unquote

Don Henley has no peaceful, easy feelings when he hears Shania Twain and Faith Hill clutter up the country airwaves--many of their songs inspired by the burnished pop-country sound of the Eagles.

“It’s a constant source of irritation to me that great country artists like Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and George Jones don’t get airplay on a great many country stations today,” he told The Times recently. “What they call ‘young country,’ unfortunately, is an offshoot of what we used to do. It’s our fault. I’m so sorry. I apologize to the entire universe.”

Times staff writers Mimi Avins and Geoff Boucher contributed to this report. City of Angles runs Tuesday-Friday. E-mail: angles @latimes.com.