Star takes a shine to bay area model

By MARY EVERTZ

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 9, 2000

When Tracy Hitchcox of St. Petersburg entered a model search at Atlantic City's Trump Plaza casino last month, she had no idea of the celebrity that would come with it.

One of the judges was actor Bruce Willis. Willis, who is in a relationship with actor Maria Bravo, apparently took a personal interest in Hitchcox.

So much so that he staked her to some cash while she played at the baccarat table. According to the New York Post Page 6 column, "Hitchcox soon parlayed the cash into several thousand more than the $1,000 top prize in the beauty pageant." Willis insisted that she keep the winnings, according to Hitchcox's agent, Pat Tortorello of Bloomfield, N.J.

The Hollywood he-man, reports the Post, also tried to give Hitchcox the key to his room, which she declined.

"It did happen," Tortorello told the Times.

Hitchcox, who grew up in St. Petersburg, is married. When she is not modeling, she is a teaching assistant at a church preschool.

The adventure behind her, Wilcox is in negotiations with the European makeup company Rivage.

And if what she told swimsuit Web site http://www.hitthebeach.com (which shows more body than bathing suit) is true, Willis never had a chance, and not just because she's married. Her ideal man is "is tall, dark-haired" as well as "easy to talk to, athletic and romantic."

Blondie gets national attention

Blondie, the star of the long-running cartoon of the same name, is getting national recognition. "Blondie Gets Married: Comic Strip Drawings by Chic Young" is the new exhibit at the Library of Congress in Washington. The exhibit, which opened June 22, will be on display through September.

Visitors can see about 30 of the 150 original strips recently donated by Jeanne Young O'Neil of Tampa, the cartoonist's daughter.

Chic Young lived in Clearwater from 1956 until his death in 1973. Since that time his son Dean, who lives on Clearwater Beach, has worked with Denis Lebrun to continue the strip.

"The strip didn't do so well until Dagwood and Blondie got married and the strip became domestic," says Sara Duke, curatorial project assistant at the Library of Congress.

O'Neil remembers her father coming out of his home office before dinner and asking the family what they thought of his ideas. But some of the secrets he never told, such as the origin of the strip's name.

At the time of Young's death, King Features executives told the Times that "Blondie" "was the most widely read comic strip in the history of journalism." Today "Blondie" appears in 35 languages and more than 2,000 newspapers.

Another Eszterhas experience

All of New York is abuzz in anticipation of the July 17 reading of Joe Eszterhas' American Rhapsody at the Douglas Fairbanks Theater. Talk magazine editor Tina Brown and Knopf publisher Sonny Mehta are hosting the event. Actors will read excerpts from Eszterhas' novel, which is full of fantasies involving the sex lives of Bill Clinton, Al and Tipper Gore and Monica Lewinsky. The book is excerpted in Talk's August issue. Broadway producer Randall Wreighitt is casting the reading.

Eszterhas became Hollywood's highest-paid screenwriter in 1990 with the $3-million sale of Basic Instinct. He also wrote Flashdance, Showgirls and Telling Lies in America.

Eszterhas is no stranger to the Tampa Bay area.

In 1994, he announced that his script for Foreplay, a rock 'n' roll mystery, was about serial killings set in the Sunshine City. "I've spent a lot of time in the area. I know the turf from Naples to Tampa and spent a lot of time at the Don CeSar on St. Pete Beach," Eszterhas said at the time. The film, slated to be shot in the Tampa Bay area, never materialized.

Look for 'G.I. Jack'

Reportedly it looks more like Rambo than the former president of the United States, but a pumped-up John F. Kennedy will hit the toy stores as the latest G.I. Joe action figure. Hasbro has dressed the JFK doll in World War II combat fatigues and given it bulging pecs and the proportional equivalent of 161/2-inch biceps. The figure, sporting a familiar grin, holds a knife and coconut in celebration of the diet that nourished Kennedy and his crew on the Pacific island of Naura after the sinking of his PT-109 in 1943.

A perfect item for the gift shop at "John F. Kennedy: The Exhibition" at the Florida International Museum.

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