People in the News for October 8, 1997

Wednesday, Oct. 8, 1997 | 11:53 a.m.

The '90s must be an exciting time for scientists, an egghead paradise of Mars exploration, human genome projects and sheep cloning. Almost daily, new research extends the frontiers of human knowledge, and, faced with that heady challenge, the brain gang at Kent State University has boldly declared, Let's analyze Larry King's voice instead! Researchers there viewed 25 episodes of "Larry King Live" in search of insights into that perennially vexing topic, King's deference to his guests. They studied his tone of voice; the dominant person in a conversation sets a "frequency" with his vocal cords and the second person alters his tone to match. Among those King vocally deferred to were: George Bush, Elizabeth Taylor, Ross Perot, Bill Clinton; those who treated King like a king included Henry Kissinger, Lee Iacocca and Spike Lee. "Throughout the animal world, there's always a pecking order," says Kent State sociologist Stanford Gregory, "and (tone of voice) is a way of producing an order." The ultimate wisdom to be gleaned from this very important research: That vocal frequency "gives an indication of status ... it has nothing to do with what's said." You mean -- gee whiz! -- it's not what you say but how you say it? Another load of grant money well spent; color us blinded by science!

Making book

One book on the O.J. Simpson case that's been eagerly awaited by people who eagerly await such things is Dominick Dunne's novel, "Another City, Not My Own." Dunne covered the trial for Vanity Fair, making a bit of a promo splash by not disguising his belief in Simpson's guilt. His book mixes fictional characters with real figures, quotes actual people and resonates with the pinging of dropped names. As demonstrated in an excerpt in the upcoming Vanity Fair, Dunne himself is the main character, journalist Gus Bailey. In one scene, Bailey is with the wife of "Howard Weitzman," an attorney who quit the Simpson team. She tells him she went to O.J.'s house the morning after the murders. "I swear to God, Gus, I saw blood on the driveway." Other scenes have Gus lunching with trial buff Nancy Reagan and Elizabeth Taylor telling him how she got Michael Jackson together with Johnnie Cochran.

Rockers, please!

There's a bout of slapsies going on between fey British popster Elton John and not-dead-yet Rolling Stone Keith Richards. It seems Richards recently cracked wise about John's performance of "Candle in the Wind" at Princess Diana's funeral; saying John's main distinction, he said, was "writing songs for dead blondes." Ouch, mate! This week, Elton fired back, saying Richards has stunted the Rolling Stones' growth. "He's so pathetic, poor thing," John said, apparently forgetting that people who live in glass houses -- particularly while wearing feathered boas, blinking neon glasses and three-story platform shoes -- shouldn't throw stones at Stones. "It's like a monkey with arthritis, trying to go onstage and look young." Throughout the animal world, there's always a pecking order, and the man who devised the chords to "Satisfaction" is higher on it than the man who brought us "Crocodile Rock," and we don't need a university think tank to tell us that.

Compiled by Scott Dickensheets