VegasBeat — Timothy McDarrah: For good mental health, keep reading

Monday, April 28, 2003 | 10:40 a.m.

When you peruse columns such as this one for bold-faced names, do you feel that you and your significant other would hit it off swimmingly as a foursome with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez if you ever met?

Ever rent "Notting Hill" and pretend what life would be like if it were you who had a chance meeting with Julia Roberts, then started to go out with her, instead of Hugh Grant?

Do you listen to Celine Dion CDs repeatedly and long to join her onstage at Caesars Palace -- thoroughly convinced that you could add to her show?

Do you just know that you and Brad Pitt (or Jennifer Aniston) would definitely be the best of friends?

If you have answered "yes" to any of the above questions, you are not alone.

Over the weekend MSNBC gossip Jeanette Walls and her trusty right hand, Ashley Pearson, brought to my attention a group of British scientists at the University of Leicester who have come up with a name for this condition: Celebrity Worship Syndrome.

Really.

Their study was published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, and the psychologists who wrote it say 36 percent of the people they studied harbor an "unhealthy fascination" with celebrities.

They didn't stop at merely identifying CWS. They studied varying degrees of this weighty syndrome, and in its most severe form, they said, fans feel they have a "special bond with their celebrity, believe their celebrity knows them and are prepared to lie or even die for their hero."

I wonder when they will identify the disease of writing about celebrities for a living.

Reg-gie! Reg-gie!

Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson concedes the current crop of New York Yankees is special -- the team is off to its best start ever at 20-5.

But he won't concede the team is better than his back-to-back World Series champion Yankees of 1977 and 1978.

"Wait until the season is over, then we can try to make a comparison. Talk to me in ... October," the slugger known as Mr. October told fans at Rain in the Desert at the Palms Saturday night.

Also in at Rain: actor/comedian Harland Williams, CART driver Paul Tracy , Minnesota Viking Brian Russell, Baltimore Raven Jonathan Ogden, Justin Jeffre of 98 Degrees and Howie Dorough of the Backstreet Boys.

Hot stuff

The fourth annual "Burning Down The House" firefighter auction heats up the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay Thursday.

"Meet and mingle at 6 p.m. -- buy 'em at 8 p.m.," HOB's Tanya Tumminia told VegasBeat.

KVBC Channel 3 anchor Beth Fisher hosts the event, where 20 date packages will be auctioned, all featuring Southern Nevada's "hottest" firefighters, Tumminia said.

The event is a benefit for the Southern Nevada Burn Foundation, which assists local firefighters and other fire survivors after the fire is out, but where need still exists.

More Puck

One of the larger urban redevelopment projects in the world is set to open Friday in Tokyo.

The $4 billion Roppongi Hills complex, which some liken to New York City's Rockefeller Center, includes a high-tech Hyatt hotel, a 54th-floor observation deck with 360-degree views of the city, an outdoor theater, scores of restaurants, more than 100 shops, a nine-screen movie theater and hundreds of apartments and offices.

A major art museum will be added in the fall.

And, of course, there will be a Wolfgang Puck Cafe and a Starbucks.

It is the first Japanese venture for Puck, who owns five restaurants in Las Vegas.

Roses run

The Legacy Society is having a Kentucky Derby party to benefit the Las Vegas Boys & Girls clubs.

The event is Saturday afternoon at Piero's Trattoria on Hughes Center Drive.

Among those on the host committee: Fred Walters, Hilary Kalb, Terri Maruca, Kelli Maruca, Bryan O'Reilly, Mark Ashworth, Matt Dickerson, Scott Duncan, Barry Duncan, Rob Kolesar, Scott Baecker, Kristi Rauch and Jae Schmutz.

VegasBits

Bite on: Broadway's best Dracula, Frank Langella, with a male friend, taking in "An Evening at La Cage" at the Riviera Sunday night. Some people remember when he was Whoopi Goldberg's main squeeze ...

High kick: Wanna be a Radio City Music Hall Rockette? Positions in their famous Christmas spectacular -- in New York and with their touring company -- are now up for grabs. Auditions will be held in Las Vegas this Friday and Saturday. Details can be found at radiocityauditions.com ...

Traveling diva: Dion will be on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" Tuesday night ...

Listen in: Bill Acosta -- "The Man of 1001 Voices" -- and Lucy Saunders, the principal performer for "Spirit of the Dance," join host Ira David Sternberg Tuesday at noon on "Las Vegas Notebook," broadcast live from Neonopolis downtown on KDWN 720-AM ...

Revealed: There is a profile of Las Vegan Andrea Hackett, founder and president of the Las Vegas Dancers Alliance, in the Nation this week, the venerable left-of-center magazine ...

Fair play: "MEN," a male revue (formerly "Men of Paradise") that played at the Riviera years ago, will reopen at the Riv on May 21, only this time with "more skin," the hotel says ...

Home boys: As misreported elsewhere over the weekend, the Beastie Boys, who stormed the House of Blues over the weekend, are not "Brooklyn-bred." King Ad-Roc (Adam Horvitz) was born in New Jersey and went to school with my younger brother in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. Mike Diamond, who started the group, also grew up in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side ...

Fairer half: Brenda Holmes (Clint Holmes' wife) addressed a Nevada Woman magazine luncheon Friday. The event was a benefit for the Las Vegas Academy of Performing Arts ...

Name game: One of the two groups playing in Las Vegas and calling themselves the Platters is apparently pulling the plug on their show. So, you can still see a version of the group at the Sahara, but not the Riviera ...

Fine wine: The closing event of the weekend UNLVino festival at Paris Las Vegas brought out lots of locals, including Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), KNBC's Ben Correa, KVVU Channel 5's Cher Calvin and Robin Leach, and Larry Ruvo from Southern Wine & Spirits of Southern Nevada.

Good act: Headliner Dennis Miller was standing in the wings and cracking up during his opening act, Steve Sorrentino, at Paris Las Vegas Saturday night ...

From Sun wires

After laying out a seven-figure advance for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's memoirs, her publishers are counting on seven-figure sales.

The account of her years in the White House will have a first printing of 1 million copies, her lawyer told the Associated Press. The 576-page book, entitled "Living History," is scheduled for release June 9.

"Only a small handful of books have a 1-million-copy first printing, and I cannot think of another nonfiction book in recent history that has had that large a first printing," Robert Barnett, Clinton's lawyer, said.

Clinton was paid an $8 million advance by Simon & Schuster.