People, Aug. 28, 1995

DID SOMEONE SAY DIVORCE?

Watched for more eagerly than the Second Coming, the divorce of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley was heralded again last week when the Daily Mirror, one of England’s highest selling newspapers, announced that Presley, incensed over a jaunt Jackson took to Europe with two young boys, had called it quits. Both Presley and Jackson, who recently demonstrated their obviously genuine affection for each other in one of Jackson’s music videos, denied they’d split (and the boys’ father said Jackson was just an old family friend). But that didn’t stop the New York tabloids from jumping all over the story. Jackson needs all the wifely support he can get at the moment. On top of trying to rescue a tanking album, he’s suing the Mirror for reporting in 1992 that his features had be come “hideously distorted” by plastic surgery.

SEEN & HEARD

Although Dan Quayle isn’t known for inspiring confidence, a mutual fund has invited him onto its board of advisers. His job is to make nice with investors (minimum investment: $1 million) at annual gatherings. For fussy fund seekers, John Sununu is also on board.

A nasty feud between model Anna Nicole Smith and E. Pierce Marshall, her stepson,was narrowly averted when both parties agreed that the ashes of Smith’s dead multimillionaire husband should be split between them. “I’m at peace with what happened,” she said. Now there’s just the teensy matter of the money. epic records

NEXT: TOM SNYDER DOES BERGMAN

“When my reps told me that Sydney Pollack wanted to meet me,” says GREG KINNEAR, “I assumed he probably wanted me to come by and wax his car.” In fact, the director wanted Kinnear–host of Later, NBC’s post-Conan O’Brien talk show-to co-star in a remake ofSabrina, alongside HARRISON FORD and JULIA ORMOND. “I was disappointed when I found out he wasn’t considering me for the part of Sabrina,” Kinnear says of his first film role. “But hey, you take your lumps in show biz.” Returning to earth–and Later–doesn’t seem to have had a dampening effect on his confidence.Although his character doesn’t get the girl, “Julia dug me,” Kinnear insists. “I mean, she’s only human.”

NO HARD FEELINGS

Thirty-two years after he needed the help of the National Guard to get past Governor George Wallace and enroll at the University of Alabama, James Hood, 52, has returned, this time to study for a Ph.D. And to prove he doesn’t hold a grudge, Hood plans to ask Wallace–who once pledged to “bar the schoolhouse door” to prevent desegregation–to hand him his diploma, come graduation. Now a dean at Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin, Hood says he realized even back then that Wallace’s stance was just a gesture. “I respect him as a human being. He did what he did because he was the ultimate politician,” says Hood, who left Alabama shortly after he enrolled, in part because of the pressure of national scrutiny. Since then, the school has erected a sculpture commemorating his first enrollment. “I always said I would come back,” he says, “and 32 years later, here I am.”