Cindy Adams

Cindy Adams

Celebrity News

Janet Evanovich’s new book is for ‘people who want to be happy’

Janet Evanovich on her new 20th best seller “Dangerous Minds.”

“This book’s a mystery, but I write happy books for people who want to be happy. I don’t kill any cats or dogs. I always put some hot guy in it. I stay away from politics. Don’t do social messages. I only work in good American values.

“Writing took four months, with two months to think about it. Dialogue and funny bits move the reader from part to part. The ending is always the bitch.

“Our country hasn’t bookstores anymore. It’s all Costco, Walmart, Amazon. ‘Dangerous Minds’ had a strange underprinted life. The Times had it at No. 5. USA Today listed it No. 2. Hard to make yourself visible these days.”

Celebs yak it up at the Y

Oct. 17, 7:30, 92nd Street Y, for $36 you can hear Timothy Cardinal Dolan and Rabbi Peter J. Rubinstein talk faith. The Y’s also scheduling Richard Gere, Julianna Margulies, Maria Sharapova, Adam Gopnik, Armistead Maupin, Fareed Zakaria, Lawrence O’Donnell, Thomas Friedman, Valerie Bertinelli, Jann Wenner, Art Garfunkel and US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Aug. 1 it’s Mick Fleetwood pushing his new book “Love That Burns: A Chronicle of Fleetwood Mac, Volume 1: 1967-1974.” Only, to hear Mick it’s $40 — five bucks more than the cardinal and rabbi.

Farewell, Barbara

We just lost Barbara Sinatra. I remember her jumping out of husband Frank’s birthday cake. And was alongside her when someone asked him about his former wife. And our discussion of her hiring round-the-clock attendants for Frank.

Living big, she knew to save small. Bought handbags at the Lower East Side’s discount Fine & Klein. Shopped at Sol Moscot’s discount eyeglass place. Sold pieces of Frank’s memorabilia.

Good to friends, she called Rosemarie when husband Robert Stack died. Gave Angie Dickinson’s birthday party. Called me to get Anthony Quinn sculptures for charity. Grabbed Julio Iglesias for a World Mercy Fund benefit.

She wrote a memoir — “Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank.” In ’08 the stepkids worked to insure she wouldn’t receive another dime. Barbara Sinatra’s life was sometimes difficult.

‘Christmas’ is coming

Fox-TV’s prepping a musical of “A Christmas Story.” New songs by composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who got a “Dear Evan Hansen” Tony and a “La La Land” Oscar and are multiplying awards faster than Beyoncé has babies.

The three-hour December production will televise live.


Fresco by Scotto. Mama Marion, keeper of the flame and the restaurant, is to have knee surgery. Papa Anthony and Anthony Jr. kissed former Mayor David Dinkins hello. Daughter Rosanna Scotto said she got her Michael Kors dress on sale. Greg Kelly, before Fox-TV, had been a Marine lieutenant colonel. His dad Ray Kelly had been a Marine colonel. Mom Veronica had been a chief in the Coast Guard.

So what do these New Yorkers discuss over dinner? Subways, construction, homeless, taxes, de Blasio? Marines. Dinkins had been a Marine.

Talk then turned to Jan. 1, 1990, his first day as mayor. And Hizzoner’s exact word-for-word quote, which I immediately wrote down in spaghetti sauce: “It was the coldest day ever.” How cold was it? “It was as cold as a gravedigger’s ass in Idaho.”

Only in New York, kids, only in New York.