"I'm paying $20 million to a woman I believe is the love child of Bernie Madoff and Heather Mills!"

So exclaims the former "Monty Python" star, John Cleese wherever he goes these days with his latest one-man show. He says he needs money because of the expensive divorce settlement with Alyce Eichelberger, a woman he wed back in 1992. Mr. Cleese calls this European extravaganza his "How to Finance Your Divorce Tour." He refers to his psychotherapist wife's divorce lawyer as being one of the monstrous Orcs from "The Lord of the Rings."

John, age 70, likes to startle his audience by saying, "Imagine how much I would have had to pay, if Alyce had contributed anything to the relationship -- such as children or a conversation."

Mr. Cleese is a cult hero all over Scandinavia where they love reruns of "Monty Python" and "Fawlty Towers."

YOU CAN tell I've been reading the British newspapers where sometimes the gossip about show business is so much richer than here in the United States. For instance, the idea of the Tate Modern Gallery taking down a nude photo of Brooke Shields shocked everyone.

It may have been serendipitous, but really it wasn't a comment on the controversial arrest of director Roman Polanski. But the gallery did have a picture of our Brooke, age 10, heavily made-up and standing totally nude in a bathtub. It had been taken by New York lensman Richard Prince and was titled "Spiritual America" for his exhibition "Pop Life: Art in a Material World."

The background of this? It was a photograph of a previous photo made by Garry Gross who had been commissioned by Brooke's mother back when perhaps she wasn't thinking straight. Brooke made an unsuccessful bid to buy the negative back in 1981.

Child porn fighters swore that, "Brooke could not have given informed consent to its being used. It must be bordering on child pornography. It is certainly not art." The British cops agreed.

I THOUGHT David Letterman came off real well in his second outing since the late unpleasantness and then he had his pals Steve Martin and Martin Short come on after some "mea culpa" stuff and everybody had a grand time acting as if nothing has happened.

The Brit's William Langley described Letterman like this -- "his just-plain-Joe persona was a little bent out of shape." The writer went on to describe the talk show host as "sharp and pesky" and said that Oprah Winfrey's mood of forgiveness-for-all-things works in Letterman's favor. He recalled Letterman's words after his first divorce in 1977 from Marcia Cook. "I should rot in hell for what I put her through." He described Letterman in his early beginnings as "hard-up and considered dangerously eccentric," writing that Dave has kept his private life a closed book until now and saying he seemed "happier to be alone with his anxieties inside the elegant Connecticut fortress that he calls home ... he can best be appreciated in the context of his shortcomings. They were on display again last week, and even if his audiences keep laughing, he may never quite be the same again."

I was personally amazed that so many readers e-mailed me the same words after we wrote on David Letterman's troubles. They chorused: "Who cares?" Well, as the New York tabloids have kept running story after story and as Letterman has millions of fans and viewers and is one of CBS's big money makers, I am here to tell you that quite a few people care a lot.

My own verdict: Maybe next week nobody will even be talking about this or remembering it. But sharp-eyed critics will observe his every gesture and comment in the future on the basis of this little scandal of questionable ethics.

And isn't it odd that in a Manhattan world where David Letterman has met the most divine stars and women in the world, he was too lazy to go outside his own workspace for companionship? In all the time I have known of David Letterman, only once have I ever even glimpsed him in a normal social circumstance.

HERE IS something I just loved about one of my favorites, the actress Joan Collins, written by Frank Johnson in his book "Best Seat in the House."

"I regard Miss Joan Collins the way that other Londoners regard the Albert Memorial. I realize that, as a construct, she is rather overdone. But the style in which she was designed reflects the taste of the age in which she was built ... the envious, or less kindly disposed, hinted that she must have had a facelift.

"If she has, I would have been against it. It is to me a Heritage issue. Any of the materials used to carry out the work would have been inauthentic. Plastic and foam rubber were not used on women during the time when she was built."

(E-mail Liz Smith at MES3838@aol.com, or write to her c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.)

"I'm paying $20 million to a woman I believe is the love child of Bernie Madoff and Heather Mills!"

So exclaims the former "Monty Python" star, John Cleese wherever he goes these days with his latest one-man show. He says he needs money because of the expensive divorce settlement with Alyce Eichelberger, a woman he wed back in 1992. Mr. Cleese calls this European extravaganza his "How to Finance Your Divorce Tour." He refers to his psychotherapist wife's divorce lawyer as being one of the monstrous Orcs from "The Lord of the Rings."

John, age 70, likes to startle his audience by saying, "Imagine how much I would have had to pay, if Alyce had contributed anything to the relationship -- such as children or a conversation."

Mr. Cleese is a cult hero all over Scandinavia where they love reruns of "Monty Python" and "Fawlty Towers."

YOU CAN tell I've been reading the British newspapers where sometimes the gossip about show business is so much richer than here in the United States. For instance, the idea of the Tate Modern Gallery taking down a nude photo of Brooke Shields shocked everyone.

It may have been serendipitous, but really it wasn't a comment on the controversial arrest of director Roman Polanski. But the gallery did have a picture of our Brooke, age 10, heavily made-up and standing totally nude in a bathtub. It had been taken by New York lensman Richard Prince and was titled "Spiritual America" for his exhibition "Pop Life: Art in a Material World."

The background of this? It was a photograph of a previous photo made by Garry Gross who had been commissioned by Brooke's mother back when perhaps she wasn't thinking straight. Brooke made an unsuccessful bid to buy the negative back in 1981.

Child porn fighters swore that, "Brooke could not have given informed consent to its being used. It must be bordering on child pornography. It is certainly not art." The British cops agreed.

I THOUGHT David Letterman came off real well in his second outing since the late unpleasantness and then he had his pals Steve Martin and Martin Short come on after some "mea culpa" stuff and everybody had a grand time acting as if nothing has happened.

The Brit's William Langley described Letterman like this -- "his just-plain-Joe persona was a little bent out of shape." The writer went on to describe the talk show host as "sharp and pesky" and said that Oprah Winfrey's mood of forgiveness-for-all-things works in Letterman's favor. He recalled Letterman's words after his first divorce in 1977 from Marcia Cook. "I should rot in hell for what I put her through." He described Letterman in his early beginnings as "hard-up and considered dangerously eccentric," writing that Dave has kept his private life a closed book until now and saying he seemed "happier to be alone with his anxieties inside the elegant Connecticut fortress that he calls home ... he can best be appreciated in the context of his shortcomings. They were on display again last week, and even if his audiences keep laughing, he may never quite be the same again."

I was personally amazed that so many readers e-mailed me the same words after we wrote on David Letterman's troubles. They chorused: "Who cares?" Well, as the New York tabloids have kept running story after story and as Letterman has millions of fans and viewers and is one of CBS's big money makers, I am here to tell you that quite a few people care a lot.

My own verdict: Maybe next week nobody will even be talking about this or remembering it. But sharp-eyed critics will observe his every gesture and comment in the future on the basis of this little scandal of questionable ethics.

And isn't it odd that in a Manhattan world where David Letterman has met the most divine stars and women in the world, he was too lazy to go outside his own workspace for companionship? In all the time I have known of David Letterman, only once have I ever even glimpsed him in a normal social circumstance.

HERE IS something I just loved about one of my favorites, the actress Joan Collins, written by Frank Johnson in his book "Best Seat in the House."

"I regard Miss Joan Collins the way that other Londoners regard the Albert Memorial. I realize that, as a construct, she is rather overdone. But the style in which she was designed reflects the taste of the age in which she was built ... the envious, or less kindly disposed, hinted that she must have had a facelift.

"If she has, I would have been against it. It is to me a Heritage issue. Any of the materials used to carry out the work would have been inauthentic. Plastic and foam rubber were not used on women during the time when she was built."

(E-mail Liz Smith at MES3838@aol.com, or write to her c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.)