Ben jilts 'Jersey' director, too; some news from Cronkite
DIRECTOR'S CUT Seems J.Lo isn't the only one who's been betrayed by Ben Affleck. Director Kevin Smith, in Boston yesterday to promote "Jersey Girl," said the Cambridge actor's a real sweetheart, "but he goes out and cheats on me, doing movies with other people." Best known for his 1994 comedy "Clerks," Smith is a big fan of the whole Affleck clan, having cast Ben in "Mall Rats," "Dogma," and now "Jersey Girl," and Ben and Casey Affleck in "Chasing Amy." "Their mom, Chris, also has exquisite taste," Smith said. "She's the one who told Ben that he should see `Clerks.' Actually, I hold his mom in much higher regard." Of "Jersey Girl," which hits theaters March 26, Smith said he's hoping it'll be Affleck's comeback film after the disaster that was "Gigli." "I helped put him on the map, and maybe this one will save his bacon," he said. "That [expletive] is going to owe me big time if this is a hit." The movie, which Smith describes as "about a dude and his kid," does not include a Ben-and-Jen wedding scene, although the scene was shot. "We decided we could tell the story without it, so we cut it," Smith said. Finally, we just had to ask about those persistent rumors that Ben wears a toupee. Any truth to that? "I came in one day and said, `Dude, I just read on the Internet you're wearing a rug,' " Smith said. "No, man, that fantastic head of hair is his."
AND THAT'S THE WAY IT IS Martha's Vineyard resident Walter Cronkite calls the Christian right's fierce opposition to gay marriage "obnoxious" and suggests he might have married a man. Yes. Explaining how he's stayed married for 63 years, Cronkite said in Tuesday's San Francisco Chronicle: "I do think one of the factors was we were of different sexes. That doesn't mean I wouldn't have been happy to be married to several friends I had of the same sex. It just never came up in our particular relations."
DREYFUSS AFFAIR Taking time out from "Sly Fox"at the Shubert, actor Richard Dreyfuss stopped by Harvard's Kirkland House yesterday to screen the first episode of "Cop Show," the actor's new PBS crime drama. (He's executive producer and appears in the first episode.) Dreyfuss was joined by David Black, "Cop Show" creator, and director Joe Cacaci.
LESS IS MORE Guess we know whom Sarah Vowell voted for yesterday. Chatting with students at MIT's Media Lab, the smart-aleck essayist who lives in New York said she likes John Edwards better than John Kerry. "Not because he's cute, which he is," Vowell said. "People say, `Isn't voting just choosing the lesser of two evils?' I say, yes, less evil is better."
LEADING LADY Among those who've RSVP'd for this weekend's "Ball of the Stars" at the Four Seasons is French actress Leslie Caron. (She was twice nominated for an Academy Award, for "Lili" in 1953 and "The L-Shaped Room" 10 years later.) Guests at Saturday's fund-raising dinner for the French Library/Alliance Francaise will get a glimpse of Caron as a young girl. The library plans to show a lost screen test done by Caron, now 72, when she was 17.
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