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

DATE: SATURDAY, September 16, 1995                   TAG: 9509180050
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE PEOPLE COLUMN

Hammer is in a major fiscal fix and could lose a real estate empire including his $9 million San Francisco Bay mansion. He owes $42,000 in taxes on it, plus he's defaulted on payments for three other Bay Area properties. One, up for auction Wednesday, got a reprieve when the rapper negotiated a delay until Oct. 16. He's out with a new CD this week, ``M.C. Hammer V Inside Out.''

\ Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were honored at New York's City Hall Thursday for nearly six decades in movies, rodeos and television.

Rogers and Evans, now 83 and 82 respectively, were in New York to receive a humanitarian award from a Bronx medical center. A children's unit named after them is to be dedicated there in June.

Evans, who wore a sea-blue dress with a Western-style tunic and belt buckle, fought back tears as she said, ``I feel very humble to accept an award for something I enjoyed doing.''

Rogers, wearing a Western-style suit, string tie, 10-gallon hat (white, of course), and boots, added: ``Now you know why we're together for 47 years. She's always been a great mother and a great wife.''

\ Chi Chi Rodriguez sees nothing funny about the hit comedy ``To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.''

The 59-year-old golfer has sued the movie's production company and Universal Pictures over a drag queen character named Chi Chi Rodriguez.

The golfer's attorneys said the character, played by John Leguizamo, ``engages in numerous disreputable acts and is portrayed as sexually promiscuous.''

A spokesman for Universal, Alan Sutton, declined to comment.

Rodriguez, who lives in Florida but has business interests in Las Vegas, wants to stop showings of the movie with his name.

The comedy is about three drag queens who become stranded in a small Nebraska town while traveling across the country to Hollywood.

\ Robert James Waller's ``The Bridges of Madison County,'' on the New York Times best-seller list longer than any fictional book in more than 40 years, will drop off on Sept. 24 after 162 weeks.

The record of 178 weeks is held by ``The Robe,'' about the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

``It wasn't just a best seller,'' Times book review editor Charles McGrath said of ``Bridges.'' ``It became a huge phenomenon.''

Indeed, in the last year at least 30 couples have wed at covered bridges in Madison County, Iowa, and next month a hundred busloads of pilgrims are set to hit Winterset for the county's 26th annual covered bridge festival.

by CNB