Day at the races: Strange bet-fellows

by Nancy Gaines

Hollywood: The digital connection Cambridge writer and avid e-mailer Margo Howard recently learned of the odd advantages that a far-flung digital correspondence can bestow. One day this spring, Howard got a message from an old Harvard pal of her significant other, cardiologist Ronald Weintraub. The friend, who lives in Portland, Oregon, said a strange thing had happened: his rabbi had told him he'd been asked for technical assistance from a movie company about how to portray a Jewish double wedding. The rabbi said it was for a movie about the "advice twins" -- Howard's mother, Ann Landers, and Landers's sister, Abigail Van Buren, a/k/a Dear Abby. Howard, who knew nothing about such a movie, asked the rabbi to investigate further. Word came back that the producer was Freyda Rothstein, for Lifetime Television. Given that a book Howard had written in 1981 was, as far as she was concerned, the family story, she was apprehensive. She phoned Rothstein, who said that because there is a long-standing feud between Ann and Abby, immediate family had not been interviewed. But, yes, the TV special was slated for July, with Wendie Malick playing the twins. As they chatted, Howard, who had been married to Ken Howard (of the '70s TV series The White Shadow) and who knew her way around Hollywood, learned that she and Rothstein share a close friend. Eventually, Howard was reassured that the movie would be accurate. But "the last craziness in this six degrees thing," as Howard says, was when another friend of hers visited Boston with her husband, who happened to be the head of movies for Lifetime Television. "He said the minute he got wind of the project, he asked for the script to make sure it wasn't anything that would jeopardize the relationship of his wife and Ann Landers's daughter."

McDermott/O'Neill public-relations executive Geri Denterlein, arriving late at a Suffolk Downs party Saturday, barely had time to get down a bet on the last race before the day's big event, the simulcast Preakness. Saying she knew nothing about racing, she asked for advice. A friend, knowing that Denterlein and her husband, Boston Globe ombudsman Jack Thomas, had just returned from a trip to Ireland, whimsically suggested the number-five horse, Galloping Gael. And how much to bet? What else but "five on five," said the friend, referring to the WCVB-TV show on which Denterlein is often a guest. After Gael galloped into the winner's circle, Denterlein, flush with victory, was invited into a Preakness pool organized by John Sasso, another guest at the politics-meets-business love fest (hosted by the Rasky/Baerlein public-relations group, but full of PR folks from all over town). Denterlein, Globe writer Joan Vennochi, and others at the table -- all proclaiming themselves racing naifs -- followed Sasso's lead. Their winning ticket earned a collective $1325. Quipped another of the partygoers -- who picked the winning horse but managed to lose money because of a complicated bet -- "It just proves once again it's who you know, not what you know."

Regan's best and worst of times

As press secretary to former mayor Kevin White and a tough PR strategist, George Regan has been said to prefer cultivating enemies to friends. But it was Regan's friends, a panoply of the city's influential, who were much in evidence during a tough few weeks. Regan's sister, Patty, died April 26, after a decades-long battle with anorexia. Last week, Suffolk University opened its new gym, named after their father, George K. Regan Sr., who died in December of 1997. At the Suffolk ceremony, Regan noted there might be "fewer places set at the table" this year, but thanked "the extended family" who participated in the funeral and the dedication, such as BankBoston's Ira Jackson and Bob McQuade, Mass Turnpike chairman Jim Kerasiotes, restaurateurs Joe Cimino and Jack Gateman, TV's Dixie Whatley and Tom Ellis, US representative Bill Delahunt, Boston Herald publisher Pat Purcell, New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft, and former mayors White and Ray Flynn.

Native intelligence

Talk about a man of eclectic tastes: Matt Campbell has a degree in journalism, toured with Letters to Cleo, cooked at the fabled Michela's and Rialto, and, this week, joins 29 Newbury as head chef. . . . Robert De Niro, who we reported last fall was house-hunting on the Vineyard, has plunked down an estimated $200,000 to rent a home on the island's Cow Bay for the season. . . . The Exchange on State Street has rejiggered its restaurant, now called Heaven, to open June 10 under new chef Juan Guerra. Said mono-named co-owner Harry, with an ever-ready eye on cute marketing, "you can take someone to Heaven and then go to Hell," the name of the downstairs nightclub.