Operating on Cruise Control

The legal battles are far from over for Bold magazine Publisher Michael Davis, the man who earned notoriety last year after Tom Cruise filed a $100-million defamation suit against him.

Shortly after Cruise filed his suit, Davis fired the editorial staff of his publication with promises to relaunch in the fall. Some writers were told they weren’t young or hip enough for his magazine. Others were told the magazine was acquired by new investors.

In recent weeks, Davis has been sued for sexual harassment by his former female associate publisher, sued by a former writer for unpaid writing fees and duped by another employee who billed the company for false expenses. Now the magazine is indefinitely on hold.

Davis could not be reached for comment.

Last summer, Davis claimed to have a videotape of Cruise having sex with another man and sent out news releases alleging that the actor had engaged in a homosexual relationship during his marriage to Nicole Kidman, according to Cruise’s lawsuit. No such article ever appeared in Davis’ magazine. Cruise dropped the suit in December after the publisher admitted that he didn’t have a tape. (Davis told us last summer he had been duped by a source.) Now, Davis is barred by the terms of the settlement from questioning Cruise’s sexuality.

But the hype hasn’t stopped. Davis’ publicist, Julie Smith, claimed in a mass e-mail that “damaging tapes” will clear Davis of the sexual harassment charges. And, in an e-mail to us, she wrote: “No one has ever gotten his side of the Tom Cruise matter either. Hint--Big Story.”

We’ll believe it when we see it.

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Help From Writers

If the government wants help in the war on terrorism, author and entertainment lawyer Brian Lysaght has one piece of advice: Forget about Hollywood.

“Nobody in Hollywood thinks outside the box,” Lysaght said over lunch at Ca’ Brea on La Brea Avenue. “If they did, they wouldn’t be in Hollywood. They’d be in independent film.”

Rather, the government should pick the brains of writers such as Tom Clancy, and himself, he said.

The plot of Lysaght’s most recent novel, “Last Dance of the Viper” (Forge Books, 2001), involves a terrorist conspiracy to distribute the nerve agent Sarin. To write it, Lysaght read up on chemical and biological warfare and became, in courtroom parlance, “intimate with the facts.”

“Thriller writers are canaries in the mine” when it comes to imagining terrorism scenarios, he said.

A former federal prosecutor whose Santa Monica law firm handles high-profile litigation, Lysaght often uses real-life cases as inspiration for his books. “I see some of the greatest scams, some wonderful scams,” he said with a grin. “It’s incredible--the inexhaustible greed of men.”

The lawyer considers his crime fiction a meaningful hobby. “It takes less time than golf, but you don’t get the fresh air.”

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Mix and Match Party

Talk magazine hosted an unorthodox pairing of folks at a dinner Thursday at Spago in Beverly Hills. General Motors executives, in town for the L.A. Auto Show, mixed with James Woods, Elizabeth Shue, her husband Davis Guggenheim, Pam and Ed McMahon, Jay Leno and his wife, Mavis, and Arianna Huffington. It was a casual affair; Woods chatted about his golf game, Huffington quizzed Jerry Bruckheimer on his latest film, “Black Hawk Down,” and “Stuart Little 2” director Rob Minkoff made friends with GM President Gary Cowger. Let’s see if the stars of Minkoff’s upcoming film arrive at the premiere in GM’s latest models.

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Quote/Unquote:

“I’m not a face-lift person. I am what I am.”--Robert Redford, 64, echoing Popeye, on why he won’t go under the knife, in the Jan. 12 issue of TV Guide.