People

BULL SIDELINES LYLE LOVETT

Lyle Lovett underwent surgery Wednesday to reconstruct the bone in his lower right leg, and faces maybe six months of rehabilitation -- following a run-in with a runaway bull at his uncle's farm outside of Houston. The four-time Grammy-winning singer had come to the aid of his uncle, 67-year-old Calvin Klein, after the bull flipped Klein. The animal did worse to Lovett -- trampling him to the point where the bone was broken in 20 places, according to the doctor who did the surgery. Dr. Kevin Coupe told the Houston Chronicle he had to put nine major bone fragments back together. Lovett won his first Grammy in 1989 for best country vocal performance, for the album, "Lyle Lovett and His Large Band." He won two Grammys in 1994 -- for best pop vocal collaboration with Al Green ("Funny How Time Slips Away") and country performance by a duo or group with vocal, with Asleep at the Wheel ("Blues for Dixie"). In 1996, he won for best country album, "The Road to Ensenada." Lovett also has a bit of a movie acting career going -- with appearances in "The Player" (1992), "Short Cuts" (1993) "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998) and "The Opposite of Sex" (1998). He made tabloid headlines in the mid-'90s for his brief marriage to actress Julia Roberts.

CREATIVE, YES, BUT ALSO INVENTIVE

People magazine has a report this week on celebrities who have been bitten by the invention bug. Based on an examination of records at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the magazine reports that Steven Spielberg once designed an ornamental switch for camera equipment and Michael Jackson came up with shoes that slip into a hitch attached to the stage floor -- so the wearer can lean so far he appears to defy gravity. Jamie Lee Curtis came up with a diaper that features a pre-moistened baby wipe, and Harry Connick Jr. recently got a patent for a new technique in coordinating players in an orchestra -- putting sheet music on computer screens. Connick got the idea after seeing pages fly off music stands while his band was playing.

HALLE HACKERS!

In a posting on her official Web site, Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry promises visitors that it is "the only place where I get to express myself freely, uncut and unedited. If it's said in hallewood ... you can believe it came from ME!" However, the site featured some scribblings Wednesday that were decidedly not put there by Berry. According to a report in the New York Daily News, a hacker got into Halle Berry's official Web site (hallewood.com) and vandalized it -- putting a mustache on Berry's face and leaving an e-mail address that apparently included the letters "KKK" -- the monogram of the racist Ku Klux Klan. A spokesman for the FBI told the paper no one had yet reported the incident to the bureau, but if someone did the matter could be investigated "as a violation of civil rights, according to hate-crimes guidelines." The site was back online Thursday, and Berry's Web master promised it would be more secure. A spokesman for Berry said the actress was so ecstatic about winning the Oscar Sunday that she hardly paid any attention to the act of vandalism. "It sounds very juvenile and childlike," said the publicist. "It's like what we used to do as children with Magic Markers." Not at all like the site Berry had in mind when she posted this warm welcome to visitors -- to "a place where can love each other, support one another and offer friendly advice to all those in need."

STREISAND ISSUES NEW TRUTH ALERT

Regular visitors to Barbra Streisand's regular Web site (barbrastreisand.com) are accustomed to seeing occasional "truth alert" postings -- in which the Oscar-winning entertainer tries to set the record straight when inaccurate stories about her appear in the media. The latest catch-up attempt involved a report in the April issue of Vanity Fair that one of Streisand's standard contract demands is that rose petals be "strewn" in her backstage toilet. "Absolutely false," said Streisand's Web site. "But this is one of those dreamed-up stories where a journalist figures 'if it's whacky enough, people will believe it.' Such journalists also assume that if it's silly enough, no one will bother to deny it and it will take on its own truth. But that's exactly why 'Truth Alert' was born, to keep sloppy journalists from making up their own 'truth' instead of writing a story the old fashioned way, researching and verifying it." In a report on the truth alert, the New York Post concluded that the Vanity Fair article is the reason why Streisand passed on the Vanity Fair post-Oscar party -- always a high-profile event in Hollywood. The paper reported that Streisand -- who presented an honorary Oscar to her "The Way We Were" co-star Robert Redford -- went to another party. The paper quoted "one partygoer" as reporting that Streisand complained at the party about the lighting at the Academy Awards.

UPI DAILY SURVEY QUESTION NO. 299

Wow, here it is one day before the 300th question and I have no idea what I'll ask. So, here's today's: "What is the one thing in your house that you would hide if your mother paid you a visit -- assuming she is still alive, or you don't live at home?" Put HIDE IT in the subject line and send to [email protected] via the Internet.

RESULTS OF QUESTION NO. 294 (STRANGE)

A week ago we asked about the strangest day of your life. Either a lot of people have never had anything strange happen or few wanted to volunteer the information. So, from the slim returns, here are some replies: SJ says that she lived through a tornado. It happened within half a mile of where she was. A total of 163 people died that day. She calls it a "near death" experience, living through the deadliest day in the history of Mississippi. IMTU recalls visiting Arizona and going to a city where many people thought he was someone else. The resemblance must have been striking because he was bombarded by comments from others. MH was once driving a big rig with a huge piece of equipment on the flat-bed trailer. Going up a twisting mountain road in West Virginia the switchback was so sharp the rig became jammed across both lanes, blocking the highway all night. He says a guy in a pickup banged on his door at two in the morning demanding: "Move that thing!" MIKEE says that during one seven-minute period in Washington State it went from "clear, to rain, to snow, to sunshine." Me, I remember when I was 10, riding through Columbus, Ohio, with my family. The radio said it was 112 degrees. Suddenly the sky got black. We went into a restaurant. A tornado hit, bringing down power lines and throwing the area into a blackout. When the weather cleared and we left, the temperature had dropped 45 degrees. TOMORROW: Your thoughts about this year's Oscar winners. GBA