Award awaits recuperating Mailer
Happy to hear Norman Mailer's resting comfortably after open-heart surgery, but it's still too soon to say if the legendary writer will be well enough to make it to New York in November to pick up a prestigious award from the National Book Foundation. The 82-year-old Mailer, who had successful bypass surgery a few weeks back, is due to be released from Massachusetts General Hospital today. (The surgery, we're told, was performed by Dr. Gus Vlahakes, chief of cardiac surgery at Mass. General.) The author of many great books over the past five decades, including ''The Naked and The Dead" and ''The Armies of the Night," Mailer will rehab at a facility not far from his Provincetown home. He's due to receive the 2005 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at a ceremony in New York Nov. 16, and none other than novelist Toni Morrison is presenting the award. We couldn't reach Mailer yesterday, but the literary lion's longtime assistant, Judith McNally, said he's ''naturally very pleased" that he's being honored.
New make of the Cars?
If, as has been rumored, Boston rockers the Cars decide to rev it up and hit the road again, they'll do it without two of the band's original members. Word is singer Ric Ocasek and drummer David Robinson will not be joining guitarist Elliott Easton and keyboardist Greg Hawkes in a new-model Cars. (Bass player Ben Orr died of cancer in 2000.) So who'd man the mike on ''Moving in Stereo" and ''Good Times Roll"? How about Todd Rundgren? Neither Easton nor Hawkes returned calls yesterday. Ocasek, who lives with wife Paulina Porizkova in New York these days, just released a not-half-bad solo CD called ''Nexterday," and Robinson's staying busy with his new restaurant in Rockport.Matt Damon’s dad will marry, too
Turns out Matt Damon's not the only member of his family getting hitched. The actor's father, Kent, is getting remarried this fall, and sons Matt and Kyle are standing up with dear old dad. (Matt's nuptials to Luciana Barroso have been announced but not scheduled.) The elder Damon and his bride-to-be attended Sunday's benefit for Sean McDonough's charitable foundation and watched proudly as tickets to the premiere of ''Syriana," Matt's new movie with George Clooney, fetched big dough for children's charities. . . .Last week's ''From Fenway to the Runway" fashion show featuring Sox wives Tiffany Ortiz, Juliana Ramirez, and Michelle Mangan, among others, raised $100,000 for Dana-Farber.
Patricia Henderson, the nurse who helped Hizzoner Tom Menino recover from surgery a few years ago, was among those honored the other day by the Visiting Nurse Association of Boston.
Joel helps BSO
He's gone from ''Uptown Girl" to Broadway. Now, Billy Joel is taking his act to Symphony Hall. The pop singer, who's composed a little classical music, has given $300,000 through his endowment to the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It will be used to restore practice rooms at the Tappan Manor House at Tanglewood. . . . Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez dined with four friends at Fugakyu, in Brookline.Ted Kennedy's wife, Vicki, stopped by the MFA this week, where she's been named to the board of overseers.
'Frontline' wins
David Fanning, an executive producer of WGBH's ''Frontline," was in New York this week when the series won a News and Documentary Emmy Award for outstanding investigative journalism for ''The Secret History of the Credit Card." And Sharon Grimberg, series producer of ''American Experience" and director Barak Goodman were there when the program won an Emmy for outstanding individual achievement in a craft: direction, for ''The Fight," the story of the 1938 title bout between Max Schmeling and Joe Louis. Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253. 
