Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 14, 1990 TAG: 9003143021
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: from wire reports
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The 83-year-old author has no plans for another epic that would require years of geographical reasearch, so he's hunting for a winter retirement home, coordinating editor James Kings said. Michener will spend his summers at a condominium he bought in Brunswick, Maine, Kings said.
For years, Michener has set up quarters in whatever part of the world he happens to be writing about. He spent three years in Miami while writing "Caribbean," his latest best-seller.
Last month, Michener visited a group of retired professionals at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg.
"He said they were very interesting people down there, and he was more interested in that than he was in the sun," Kings said.
Leona Helmsley, the New York hotel queen, says her 81-year-old husband is "all right" after tumbling down a flight of stairs and hitting his head.
Real estate magnate Harry Helmsley fell after exercising with a physical therapist Monday in his Park Lane Hotel apartment.
Columnist Cindy Adams wrote in Tuesday's New York Post that Hemsley had issued standing orders that someone always precede her husband down the stairs. But no one was in front of Helmsley when he lost his footing, Adams wrote.
"I was waiting for Harry to join me for lunch," Helmsley said. "Instead, an ambulance became my lunch."
Leona Helmsley was convicted on charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and fraud, ordered to pay $7.5 million in fines and to serve four years in prison. She is free pending an appeal.
Valerie Bertinelli says she is struggling to save her nine-year marriage to rock star Eddie Van Halen while he works to overcome alcoholism.
"He doesn't abuse me; he hurts himself," Bertinelli, 30, is quoted as saying in April's Redbook magazine. "He's got a problem I'm not happy with, but I bring stability to his life.
"And besides, I love him. It's my weakness. Some people are addicted to food. I'm addicted to my husband," she said.
Van Halen, 33, checked into a drug and alcohol treatment program in Burbank, Calif., on Jan. 1. Bertinelli says she gets support from the families of other substance abusers at Al-Anon meetings.
by CNB