People in the News for June 27, 1997

Friday, June 27, 1997 | 11:17 a.m.

It has come to be called "Stallonegate," mostly because it involves Sylvester Stallone and a gate. A gate he and his neighbors want closed to keep riffraff out of their posh Miami neighborhood. City officials agreed Thursday, recommending that the gate -- built in May -- be closed at night. The sticking point: The gate falls under county jurisdiction, and county officials aren't sure they want it locked -- it would block a popular path to Key Biscayne. "You don't have our consent to close the gate, now or ever," warned a spokesman for the path users. Although the Stallone-led residents plan to erect a second gate at the other end of the neighborhood to keep out gawkers and tourists (Madonna also lives within), they want the existing gate shut to keep out prostitutes, gang members and criminals, who apparently come from a different direction than gawkers and tourists. This isn't Stallone's first attempt to seal off the area. Last month he tried to get the city to close his street to public traffic but was rebuffed. This week, he agreed to a tiny change in the wording on the buoys he put in the bay near his home: Instead of "Keep Out," they'll read "Shallow."

Startling powers!

Dudley Moore -- diminutive star of embarrassing movies or evil mind-control genius? In a new round of court complaints, his estranged wife, Nicole Rothschild Moore, not only repeats her claims that he pushed, hit, choked, shoved, kicked, cursed and spit at her, but now says he forced her to take amphetamines and dance in her underwear for almost 20 hours a day. Yikes! We thought only People in the News interns were treated that way! Why didn't she just reach down and slap him silly? "He had a strange power that he was able to exert over her," says the lawyer. But don't let these fantastic tales of brainwashing and forced go-go dancing convince you that Mrs. Moore is some half-baked, wild-eyed person seeking publicity. "She's not a half-baked, wild-eyed person seeking publicity," he lawyer says. "She feels she was wronged, abused by him and couldn't take it anymore." She is suing Moore for $10 million.

China groove

The return of Hong Kong to Chinese control has grizzled newsmen Dan Rather and Bernard Shaw bringing out their best China memories. Harken back to 1989, Tiananmen Square, the Chinese crackdown. "The Chinese Foreign Ministry stormed into the control room and summarily shut us down," Shaw of CNN remembers. "Fortunately, the whole world was watching that control-room scene, including President Bush," who was no doubt rooting for the Chinese. Rather than quip Who ordered Chinese, Dan found himself locked in a titanic battle of wills with a "stern-faced, stern-willed Chinese bureaucrat." "He kept telling us to pull the plug," Rather remembers. But the hapless Commie was no match for Dan's Dudley-Moore-like mental powers: "I kept telling him I'M NOT going to be the one to pull the plug. Any plug-pulling around here is going to be done by you." Let's hope he only uses his powers for the forces of good.

Compiled by Scott Dickensheets