Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 12, 1994                   TAG: 9401120125
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PEOPLE

Blackwell's latest fashion tongue-lashing was released Tuesday, with Close on top of his annual worst-dressed women list.

"Forget `Sunset Boulevard,' Glenn's taken a detour down `Nightmare Alley,' " said Blackwell, referring to her starring stint in the musical.

Next up was Julia Roberts. Blackwell called Lyle Lovett's new wife a "barefoot bride" who told fashion to "shove it."

Ranked third by the former actor and fashion designer was Diana Ross. Blackwell compared her to "a Martian meter maid - starring in a cancan revue."

Ross was followed by Perez; Susan Sarandon ("peekaboo Sue"); LaToya Jackson ("a tacky tragedy"); Holly Hunter ("frumpy, dumpy"); Rosie O'Donnell ("a fashion strikeout"); Tanya Tucker ("a tornado - trapped in a truck stop!"); and Daryl Hannah ("a dowdy dishrag").

Timothy Dalton admits he could fail as Rhett Butler. That's what he likes about the role.

"I've always liked challenges," he said from London as filming got under way this week on the TV miniseries "Scarlett," the sequel to "Gone With the Wind."

"Why drive a car fast? Why climb a mountain? Why take on a role that's challenging? It's because you can fail," Dalton said. "If we fail, we fail. But we're not going to."

Dalton, a former James Bond, plays Butler to Joanne Whalley-Kilmer's Scarlett O'Hara. The eight-hour miniseries will be broadcast on CBS in November, 55 years after the release of the 1939 classic "Gone With the Wind," starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

The Duchess of Kent, 60, one of the most popular members of the royal family, is leaving the Church of England to become a Roman Catholic.

British law forbids the monarch - the head of the Church of England - from being a Catholic or marrying a Catholic, but the decision announced by the duchess Tuesday raised no legal or constitutional issue.

The two archbishops of the Church of England said in a joint statement that they wished the duchess well as "a devout Christian on a spiritual journey."