News you can use

Elizabeth Taylor spoke briefly at the Passport '97 fashion show Sept. 26 in Santa Monica, sponsored by Macy's and American Express. Funds will benefit HIV/ AIDS research, reports Reuters. POZ has an exclusive Taylor interview in their November issue.

New City Sept. 25 reported on the Jane Addams Hull House not renewing the lease on Famous Door, possibly in part because the theatre isn't gay enough. Instead, they're leasing the space (on Broadway just north of Belmont) to the queer About Face.

GLO radio Corporation in Seattle (206-322-9000; wesbite http://www.gloradio.com, info@gloradio.com) has a full line-up of guests for October, with 24-hour access. Guests include NGLTF's Kerry Lobel, Candace Gingrich, Betty DeGeneres, Kevin Jennings, Muffin Spencer-Devlin, Bruce Vilanch, and Ani DiFranco.

Ellen had a lot of companies represented among her advertisers on her very gay season premiere. GLAAD has a complete list: http://www.glaad.org. Ellen's web: http://www.abctelevision.com/primetime/ellen

Meanwhile, Ellen DeGeneres is expected at the Human Rights Campaign D.C. gala, along with girlfriend Anne Heche (and Prez. Clinton). Ellen is receiving a National Civil Rights Award for her coming out. [Civil-rights work is not simply about being a comic and coming out-maybe she should get the "Celebrity Outing of the Year Award."] Ellen's mom Betty is HRC's national Coming Out Project spokesperson.

The dinner occurs two days before the first White House Conference on Hate Crimes, scheduled for Nov. 10.

Ellen gave Jay Leno a passionate kiss on The Tonight Show Sept. 25. This was her third very hetero kiss for the cameras (on the Ellen show and with Bruce Willis after the Emmys)-maybe she's trying to warm folks up for some very public displays with Anne.

Anne Heche's career continues to take off. The Oct. 3 Entertainment Weekly (with a cover pic of Tom Selleck, Joan Cusack and Kevin Kline hyping In & Out-and with the men separated by Joan), it's noted that Anne has a film out this month, I Know What You Did Last Summer. Producer Scott Rudin wants her to play Bill Pullman's pregnant wife in A Simple Plan, and she recently got the part as Vince Vaughn's love interest in Force Majeure, Entertainment Weekly said.

Showtime network premieres a profile of Dr. Susan Love Wed., Oct. 22 on their Intimate Portraits series. It will include her work on breast cancer issues, and her openly lesbian relationship.

Chicago band Samba Bamba taped a rousing segment of The Jenny Jones Show Sept. 26. Jones invited them back, and also said she'd love to see them perform at Rhumba (Thursdays). The show should air in the next few weeks.

Triangle Broadcasting Co. will launch its Gay & Lesbian Radio & Television Oct. 1 on the Palm Springs Time Warner cable system. L.A. and Seattle also are included in the initial rollout.

In & Out didn't stay on top for long, but its opening was the 2nd best Sept. opening ever (behind First Wives Club, also by producer Scott Rudin). Contact: Tom Sherek, President, 20th Century Fox Studios, 10201 W. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90035, 5555@paramount.com.

Hollywood Reporter Sept 26 had a feature on Jodie Foster's Egg Pictures, which is finally hatching lots of projects (14 plus). One is Keely and Du, based on a play by Jane Martin, written by Theresa Rebeck (NYPD Blue), directed by Betty Thomas.

The 17th Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Fest, Nov. 7-20, is seeking volunteers. Call (773) 384-5533.

"Neo-con" writer Chandler Burr had an essay in the Sept. 29 National Review actually backing the Cuba plan to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. He said Cuba's quarantine of people who tested HIV positive worked well, with the AIDS crisis being limited in Cuba compared to other countries: "The results of Cuba's program speak for themselves. In 1997, 45,000 of the 260-million American population will become infected with the AIDS virus, and so far over 362,000 Americans have died; Cuba, with an 11-million population, has since the start of the epidemic seen 1,681 infected. So far, 442 have died. Control for the population difference, and here is what you get: There have been 35 times more deaths per capita in the United States than in Cuba. (Of all Americans alive since the start of the epidemic, AIDS has killed .14% of them; in Cuba, it has killed .004%.) Compare Cuba to New York, with its population of around 7.5 million: An estimated 128,700 New Yorkers live with AIDS or HIV, and 63,789 have died. Is very urban New York an unfair comparison? ... Illinois [which is Cuba's size], estimates 30,000 of its citizens are currently HIV infected. (Cuba: 1,239.) It has had 19,507 AIDS cases (Cuba: 1,681) and counting." Burr questions whether the trampling of civil rights wouldn't have been worth it here. But HIV/AIDS impacted mostly heterosexuals in Cuba, and Cuba is a dictatorship. You can't really compare apples and oranges, especially when it comes to HIV/AIDS. If U.S. society had not been so homophobic, and if it had been a smaller nation with aggressive and gay-inclusive education, perhaps prevention programs would have been more effective early on. A lot of "ifs."

Concerned Women for America has launched another attack on queers. Their new target is It's Elementary-Talking About Gay Issues in School by Academy Award-winner Debra Chasnoff and producer Helen Cohen. The acclaimed movie, filmed in communities across the U.S., looks at how different schools have incorporated an awareness of gay and lesbian issues into their curricula. CWA says the film is part of a "militant homosexual propaganda effort" that is "recruiting a new generation to become homosexuals." CWA's campaign comes on the heels of similar attacks by Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and the Phyllis Schlafley Report (even though her own son is gay). Chasnoff and Cohen, who are themselves mothers of grade-school children and active members of their own PTAs, say the hysteria of the attack points to the need for thoughtful discussion before schools are divided by controversy and hate campaigns. For info on the film, call Ariella Ben-Dov at (415) 641-4616.

Different for Girls, about a hetero male who falls for a trans woman, opens Oct. 10 at the Music Box. It has been getting great reviews in other cities and at film fests. Rupert Graves (Maurice) and Steven Macintosh (as Kim) star. Rupert has played a lot of gay roles (including currently in Intimate Relations), but he's not gay himself. He doesn't mind all the rumors, though. The San Francisco Chronicle Sept. 6 looked at other trans-related films, including: The Christine Jorgensen Story (1970), Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), I Want What I Want (1971, with Anne Heywood, after playing Sandy Dennis' lover in The Fox), In a Year of 13 Moons (1978, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's tale of Elvira, a tragic transsexual), Desperate Living (1979, John Waters), The World According to Garp (1982, with John Lithgow), Second Serve (1986, TV, with Vanessa Redgrave), Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City (1994, TV), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994).