"Gort! Blaatu. Barada. Nikto!" This is Oscar-winner Patricia Neal to the robot in the black-and-white 1951 version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still." This is as good as anything for starting off the silly summer season.

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People are still asking, "Whatever happened to Sean Flynn and Dana Stone?" These two courageous photojournalists drove a bright-red motorcycle into Communist-held Cambodia back in 1970 and were never seen again. Sean, the son of actor Errol Flynn, was on assignment for Time and Dana was a CBS cameraman.

The original book about these two adventurers, Two of the Missing, was called "unforgettable … magnificent … one of the best books of the Vietnam War." Christopher Isherwood, Newsday, David Kennerly and Truman Capote all raved about it. Now Press 53 has updated the work of author Perry Deane Young and the updated edition from Ingram and Baker & Taylor has 18 new pages of photos. 


Image: Amazon

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That was the fabled Scotsman, Mr. Harry Benson, showing off his Commander of the British Empire Medal at the residence of the Consul General from Her Majesty last week. The queen tapped our favorite photographer on June 4. Harry was accompanied by his favorite wife and ours too, Gigi Benson. 

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Joel Grey, "Cabaret’s" unforgettable maestro, is always showing us new aspects of his talent. The other eve he showed off a book of his cell-phone photos titled 1.3 — Images from My Phone at a party at Michael’s. Deb and Hugh Jackman, artist Ross Bleckner, Barbara Walters, Lauren Bacall, Bebe Neuwirth, Gloria Vanderbilt and Michael J. Fox all showed because I don’t think Joel has any enemies; only fans. 

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Tonight at Barnes & Noble in Tribeca (97 Warren Street) at seven o’clock PM there’ll be the saucy Paula Froelich doing a reading of her chick lit bit Mercury in Retrograde. Waltz right up and ask her for a date or for a gossip item. She’ll probably invite you to Book Hampton then on June 13, where she’ll do her stuff again out on Long Island.       

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When will we find out what Oprah, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, George Soros and a few others equally philanthropic were talking about several weeks back when the gang met to brainstorm about how to handle their charitable giving? These Richies got together at a private residence on the exclusive Upper East Side of Manhattan. We have our fingers crossed – waiting to know, wither goest they?


Oprah Winfrey © AP

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The last letter written by Louis XVI before he went to the guillotine in 1793, at the height of the French Revolution, had disappeared for eons. Now it is on public display in Paris’s Museum of Letters and Manuscripts, and it shows the French King asking the people to "return to your king. He will always be your father, your best friend." The letter was traced to a U.S. collector who, I’m told, parted with it for big, big bucks … And the letters of Oscar Wilde to young Lord Alfred Douglas, "Bosie," will be put online along with early drafts of Charles Dickens, William Blake and Emily Bronte, Robbie Burns and Walter Scott. It’s called British Literary Manuscript Online and though it first goes to schools and colleges, later there will be a pay-per-view service.