People, places & things in the news

*Index*
Dame Judi Dench	Meredith Brooks	Lollapalooza
Jerry Seinfeld	Amy Grant	Rev. Jerry Falwell
Lisa Rinna

Homing in

"City of Angels" star Nicholas Cage, with his wife, Patricia Arquette, shown last summer, has bought a west Los Angeles home for just under the asking price of $7 million, the Los Angeles Times has reported.

Dame Judi Dench is going to let her acting do the talking from now on.
The Oscar-nominated star of "Mrs. Brown" used the occasion of an interview in this week's Radio Times magazine to announce it would be her last.
"It was better in the old days when the public didn't know so much about actors," said Dench, 63.
"One journalist said anyone in the public eye is not entitled to a private life and I couldn't disagree more," she said. "We are more entitled to a private life, so I'm battening down."
Dench lost the Academy Award last month to Helen Hunt.

Argentina shouldn't look for Meredith Brooks anytime soon.

The singer said in yesterday's USA Today that she was pelted with everything from rocks to tampons for 45 minutes when she opened for the Rolling Stones on March 29 before 70,000 people in Buenos Aires.

"At one point, a big dirt clod hit my guitar and exploded and went into my left eye. It got black and blue and swollen. I think I went into shock, but I come from the school of 'the show must go on.' I finished my set and then totally broke down."

The crowd was apparently antsy to hear the Stones, Brooks said. Subsequent public outrage persuaded her to try the next night. She put on an Argentine soccer jersey and returned to the stage, only to be assaulted again.

Sobbing, she told Mick Jagger she was leaving the tour.

"Mick put his arms around me and said, 'I'm so sorry."'

Lollapalooza is taking the summer off.

Promoters couldn't sign a headline act, so the traveling rock festival that began in 1991 will not roll this year.

"We ran out of time," Ted Gardner, co-owner of Lollapalooza, said yesterday in USA Today.

Marilyn Manson, Green Day, Garbage, Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction all rejected offers to headline.

Lollapalooza had a lackluster year last summer, overshadowed by the women-only Lilith Fair and hurt by the marketplace fade of alternative rock, the music style it favored.

It shouldn't be too surprising that Jerry Seinfeld is ending his show after this, the ninth season.

Nine is his favorite number.

"People said, '10, why not 10?"' Seinfeld told Vanity Fair. "But 10 is lame. Nine is my number. And then I found out that nine in numerology means completion."

Seinfeld plans a long rest after the summer, when he tapes an HBO special that will mark the end of his standup act. A talk show may be in his future – and he may even write ads like his "Superman" commercials for American Express.

"In a 12-month period, I'll have ended a four-year relationship (with girlfriend Shoshanna Lonstein), ended the show, and retired my act," he said. "I've basically stripped myself of everything that ever meant anything to me."

Amy Grant has few doubts about her prowess on the guitar.

"I'm kind of a mediocre guitar player," she said in yesterday's Oakland Tribune. "But sometimes the earnestness of a so-so guitar player doing their best sounds better than a fantastic guitar player being sloppy."

The 38-year-old Grammy winner says her kids don't seem to mind.

"I rediscovered my love for playing guitar ... playing all the time, for my kids, in the living room ... just like when I first began to perform," she said while prepping for an Oakland concert.

Her latest album is "Behind the Eyes."

The Rev. Jerry Falwell is urging President Clinton to confess his sins and get help if he is sexually addicted.

"If the president has a sex addiction – and I don't know that he does – he needs to ask for help," Falwell told 450 people Sunday at Lighthouse Baptist Church in Hurricane, W.Va. "Don't deny it.

"It's real hard for parents and grandparents to explain to children what's going on here. He's our president," the Moral Majority founder said.

At eight months pregnant, Lisa Rinna is more than comfortable with her body.

"I feel sexier pregnant than I've ever felt before," the thirtysomething "Melrose Place" actress told Fit Pregnancy magazine. "There's something about it that has given me a feeling of confidence."

Once a five-day-a-week fitness fanatic, she focuses on calming exercises as she and hubby Harry Hamlin await the birth.

"Everything needs to be very calm, so I keep with my Pilates, a gentler yoga and walking."

She admits to some pregnancy cravings. "Rice, beans, chicken in a burrito are heaven to me now."

-- compiled from wire reports