COLUMN/FILM: Film Celebs Opine On Weight, Wrinkles and Winger

JOHN TRAVOLTA IS PAN-FRIED SEXUAL

SYLVESTER STALLONE GAINS WEIGHT

DIANE KEATON SHOWS HER WRINKLES

SCOTT RUDIN IS REPETITIOUS

SHIRLEY MACLAINE TAKES ANOTHER WHACK AT DEBRA WINGER

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

By Robert Hofler

HOLLYWOOD (Reuters) - John Travolta has been called many things, but Nora Ephron, who directs him in the upcoming fantasy "Michael," says he's "totally pansexual."

How does Travolta, who plays a lustful angel in the film, relate to that assessment of his allure?

"Nora just thinks I'm so many things," he says, then quickling segues to an Ephron remark he'd just as soon not have repeated.

"According to Nora, I eat 11 meals a day. I wish she wouldn't have said that in Premiere' magazine," says Travolta, who is back to his old "Pulp Fiction" bulk in "Michael."

He staunchly defends his diet.

"I have snacks. They're not real meals. I go to the set and have an orange juice, expresso, and maybe some kind of breakfast. That's all I can handle first thing in the morning.

"Then it moves on to 10 a.m. I start feeling a little hungry, so maybe I order a sandwich. Then about four hours later, it's lunch time, and I eat a modest lunch.

"Then at about four in the afternoon I want everyone to have a little treat. They'll bring out a cake."

He explains, "I have to keep the blood sugar up."

THROWING HIS WEIGHT AROUND

The Travolta comeback doesn't surprise the man who put at least one nail in the actor's career coffin, 13 years ago.

"He's a very talented actor, so it was expected," says Sylvester Stallone, who directed him in "Staying Alive," the disastrous "Saturday Night Fever" sequel that had Travolta at his trimmest.

"As soon as John gained the weight, took off the tank top, and stopped posing, he was great," says Sly. "He was always a great actor. Suddenly, he was more."

Apparently, what was good for the gander is also good for another gander. In the upcoming "Copland," Stallone gained 30 pounds and lets his gut hang out.

"The hardest thing, I discovered, is I'd lost my ability to be completely involved in acting the character," he says.

For the first week of filming, Stallone admits he went around making excuses for his newly added poundage.

"I was giving all these disclaimers. Finally, I said, This is exactly what's wrong with what I've been doing for years. If you're going to play this fellow, shut up and stop my excuses for how you look. Be loyal to the character.

"Once I started doing that I lost this vanity, and I realized how much I'd been involved with bodybuilding and how much vanity goes into it."

Stallone claims not to have lifted weights in over five months.

Before we get to see a less sleek Sly in "Copland," there's his "Daylight," due in theaters on December 6. In that actioner, he sports his old body-builder look, which he now calls, regrettably, "serpentine. I wish I was a bit heavier in 'Daylight.' I look a bit drawn in the face."

Fifty-year-olds have a right to look that way.

"That made me reach for the Xanax," Stallone says of hitting the half-century mark back in July. He says he "wept" on his birthday.

"It's a nightmare. When you're younger, you think you're going to live forever. Twenty years is so far away. But twenty years is really just a speed bump in the middle of life. My God!"

WRINKLES AND ALL

Another Hollywood legend has also found the big 5-0 a bit daunting.

"Fifty is really the beginning of the end," says Diane Keaton. "You see the end. The wall is there and the wall is visible. Before it wasn't visible so much. Now it is and you see it. What can you do?"

Keaton can take comfort in that, at 50, she has the one-two punch of "The First Wives Club" and "Marvin's Room," which has Industry insiders talking a third Oscar nomination for the actress.

In the latter film, she really showcases her wrinkles. How did the fashion-plate actress avoid being sucked into the Beauty Myth?

"I don't think I've avoided it," she's quick to point out. "People are always going to obsess about being young. They can't let go. It's hard. I don't blame them. But the thing is, I'm just being honest. Otherwise, it's a lie."

ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH

What with "Marvin's Room," "Mother," "Ransom," and "The First Wives Club" under his belt, Scott Rudin is definitely the producer du jour.

Despite his success, he has run into something of a snag with narrow-minded studio execs who keep trying to second-guess his upcoming project "In and out," about a gay high school teacher (Kevin Kline) who is outed.

"Everytime there's some male-on-male contact in the movie," says Rudin, "an executive will say, 'Isn't that repetitious?"' The producer has had the question put to him so often that he now says, "The new word in Hollywood for homosexuality is 'repetitious."'

MACLAINE HITS A BULL'S-EYE

Paramount unspooled "The Evening Star," the sequel to "Terms of Endearment," for the press this past weekend in New York City.

Once again, Shirley MacLaine is the indomitable Aurora Greenfield. Understandably, Debra Winger couldn't make the return trip: her character died of cancer in "Terms."

Not that she's exactly missed. Photos of DW literally populate "The Evening Star," and as anyone who knows MacLaine knows, the two actresses did not exactly part on terms of endearment 12 years ago. Will Winger enjoy the sequel?

"I think she'll like it," opines MacLaine. "And I think she'll be very glad that I didn't throw darts at her picture."

Reuters/Variety