People in the News for June 3, 1997

Tuesday, June 3, 1997 | 11:32 a.m.

You stroll into Wal-Mart to pick up a sweatshop suit and some cheap plastic junk, and you think, Hey, I wonder what's shaking with that Frank Gifford fellow. So at the checkout stand, you reach for The Globe, only to grab ... empty air! Luckily for you, bub, the big brothers running the nation's super Marts, Wal- and K, are looking out for your moral health. Neither chain will carry the tabloid as long as it banners the story of Frank's high infidelity. "Some lines were crossed in this situation," says a Kmart spokeswoman. As for Wal-Mart, why, there's absolutely no connection between this move and the chain's line of Kathie Lee Gifford clothing. A spokesman characterized the tabloid yanking as part of the company's "ongoing attempt to offer customers the types of products they would expect to find in a Wal-Mart store," a definition that, while it might include funwear stitched by 13-year-old Honduran girls for 8 cents a day, most certainly does not include gunky tabloid journalism. The Globe contends the Giffords orchestrated the ban, which it called "tantamount to censorship" and "un-American." He claims, his nose presumably at three feet and growing, that the story was "edited by Globe to conform with the standards of a family publication."

Dylan OK

Welcome to today's Cavalcade of Cliches, brought to you by the speedy recovery of crooner and heart patient Bob Dylan. Don't think twice, he's all right! He's no longer knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door! The pump still works because the vandals didn't, uh, take the handles, or whatever! "I don't know what I'm going to do," Dylan, 56, said about his recovery period after treatment for a heart fungus. "I'm just glad to be feeling better. I really thought I'd be seeing Elvis soon." Where, at the Michigan Quickie Mart where he clerks? It will take Dylan up to six weeks to fully recover, doctors say. "Everyone's relieved that he's not deathly ill," says Laurie McCuistion, editor of "On the Tracks" magazine, which runs a Dylan hot line. "Fans were in a panic." While he's canceled a June tour of Europe, Dylan plans to tour America in August. Like a rolling stone, of course.

Full marital straightjacket

Now for a little slap shtick: Honolulu police are checking out claims that singer Bobby Brown smacked wife Whitney Houston in a mall parking lot the other day. Witnesses report seeing Brown get out of a limo, beer in hand, then slap Houston as she tried to get out. Back inside the vehicle, Houston was apparently heard screaming for help as the couple argued for 10 minutes, before driving away. Says a Whitney witness, "It looked like somebody -- probably her -- was trying to get out of the limousine and she was either pulled back or yanked back." When mall security intervened, the couple, their noses presumably at three feet and growing, said the situation was under control. What's come over this once happy pair? Dueling celebrity? Heart fungus? Perhaps Frank and Kathie Lee can suggest a good counselor.

Compiled by Scott Dickensheets