People in the News for March 26, 1998

Thursday, March 26, 1998 | 9:12 a.m.

It was one small step for People in the News kind, one giant promotional opportunity for HBO when John F. Kenney Jr. visited the NASA facility at Cape Canaveral, Fla. In a rare stop at the space center bearing his father's name, Kennedy saluted the Apollo program, talked up HBO's new miniseries about the space race, then challenged NASA and the country to take a giant step backwards. "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before the decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth," he said, repeating his father's 1961 pledge. Note to John-John: Been there, done that. The $65 million HBO miniseries was filmed in part at Kennedy Space Center. The first of 12 episodes airs on April 5. "Some people thought that $65 million to do 'From the Earth to the Moon,' was a bit steep," Kennedy said, wrapping up the countdown to the obligatory "Titanic" joke. "But I remind all of you" ... 6, 5, 4 ... "that this film has landed 12 valiant men on the moon" ... 3, 2, 1 ... "for one-fourth the price James Cameron spent sinking one old boat." We have lift-off! Kennedy, by the way, has completed the promotional feedback loop by putting miniseries producer Tom Hanks on the cover of his George magazine. What have we learned from this bit of contrived historical posturing? Perhaps just this: that the Kennedy Space Center wasn't named for the fine character actor George Kennedy after all.

Briefly

Don't blame us for this fawning item on the "Friends" cast; we've been literally driven nuts by the system. Like many ground-breaking TV series before it -- "The Facts of Life" comes to mind -- "Friends" is going to London, ostensibly to film a very special episode but more probably for -- how do they say it in English? -- the boffo shopping between takes, mate! "It's actually quite exciting," star Jennifer Aniston said. "As long as we have each other, we can survive anything." The plot: Ross is getting married or something; expect lots of madcap high jinks! "I cause some problems," Courtney Cox said. "It's not just business as usual." Cast member Lisa Kudrow didn't attend the press gala announcing the episode. Officially, she's pregnant, but we suspect -- given the "Facts of Life" comparison -- she's in transition, laying low, blah, blah, blah.

Compiled by Scott Dickensheets