Yasmine Bleeth
Mr. Show Biz
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Quick Hits: News on Pierce Brosnan, Ken Wahl, Yasmine Bleeth, and Others . . .

Pierce Brosnan reportedly wants to retire as secret agent James Bond after only four films. "I'm still enjoying it but I'm forty-three now. I don't want people to watch me getting old and see my waist getting bigger and my hair thinning," he told the Sun tabloid. "That would be just horrible." Brosnan, who starred as Bond in 1995's Goldeneye and is under contract for three more spy films, is just about to start filming Tomorrow Never Dies. "If the four Bonds I make are successful, then I'm sure the studio will put pressure on me to stay for another one," he says. "But even if they offered me $49 million, I don't think I would. Then again, $49 million is a lot of money, isn't it?" Brosnan will be the third actor to play Bond for more than two films, along with Roger Moore and Sean Connery.

We already told you that Ken (Wahl) and (Shane) Barbi were getting hitched. But now comes news that Barbi, one half of female surgical wonder-siblings and Playboy models the Barbi twins, is a month pregnant. "I'm going to be a father again!" Wahl told USA Today. Wahl already has a teenage son. The former Wiseguy star was recently sentenced to a live-in alcohol-rehabilitation program after his abuse of vodka got him into trouble. He says he took his last drink on March 2. "I love him," Barbi says. "It's all very fairy tale, but I need him to be sober." We're sure Barbi will help wean (wink wink nudge nudge) Wahl off alcohol.

Baywatch babe Yasmine Bleeth and Richard Grieco have finally called it quits, according to the New York Daily News. "They are totally broken up," said a source. We think young Yasmine made the right decision. Grieco is so 1989.

Chrysler, which has been a weekly sponsor of the sitcom Ellen all season, has pulled out of the show's coming-out episode. A company spokeswoman told the New York Post on Friday that the episode is "generating a lot of news and we just don't want to be in the middle of something so controversial."

DreamWorks has refused NBC's demand to hand over fifty percent ownership in Nearly Yours and New Strings Attached, two new sitcoms the fledgling studio is developing for the peacock network. The stalemate could mean that the shows might not end up on NBC--or any network at all, for that matter. The Los Angeles Times reports that NBC could prevent DreamWorks from shopping the shows elsewhere. The network and the studio are set to meet on Tuesday to discuss the matter.

Loved The English Patient but having trouble getting through the Histories by Herodotus, that book Ralph Fiennes' character was so attached to? Don't worry. Since the release of the film, sales of the book have soared, so Britain's Penguin Classics has decided to release a more user-friendly version. A Penguin editor told the London Daily Telegraph that excerpts from the Greek historian's nine-volume work have been whittled down to a far more manageable special edition. The thirty-four stories will be "about flying ants, giant serpents, a bit of sport, and a bit of sex," said the editor.