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Paul Barresi, the private eye hired by Amber Heard when she split from Johnny Depp, is writing a book, “Depp Declassified.”
Heard fired Barresi after he failed to find any evidence that Depp abused women.
Barresi, who subtitled his book “The Hollywood Fixer Who Saved A Pirate’s Booty,” said that Depp’s late mother Betty Sue was a drug-addled demon who was married five times. After Depp’s father decamped, she married civil servant Bob Burt eight days later.
“Burt is now dead but his children are keen on telling the true story about Betty Sue abusing their father,” Barresi told me.
The marriage lasted less than 18 months, but long enough for Johnny to have a roof over his head at age 17 and get him off the streets.
“Most of the time, Betty would stay home, watch TV and eat bonbons all day,” Barresi said.
“Betty Sue abused Burt terribly. When he came home from a hard day’s work, she made him put on a pink apron, fix dinner and clean house,” said Barresi, adding that after their divorce, “Betty Sue took all of the furniture, leaving Burt with a small bed to push up against the wall so he could watch TV.”
Depp is aware Barresi is writing the book, but is not helping the author.
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Shelley Herman, an Emmy-nominated TV veteran, goes back to the start of her career in “My Peacock Tale: Secrets of an NBC Page.”
“It’s a coming-of-age tale of 20-year-old me in ‘Alice in the Looking Glass.’ But instead of a looking glass it was a cathode ray,” Herman told me.
Her book confesses she had a “whirlwind romance, doing it all over NBC” with an unnamed actor who invited her to a fancy dinner where he was getting an award.
“I maxed out my credit card to make sure my new dress and shoes and underwear matched. I got there and he said with a big smile, ‘Hi Shelley, I want you to meet my wife.’”
“I didn’t realize married men would do that.” She doesn’t name the cad. “I don’t want the wife and kids to get the shrapnel.”
Herman has stories about John Travolta, Paul McCartney, Redd Foxx and a former star of TV’s M*A*S*H who she claims made unwanted advances towards her in his NBC office.
She’s proud of her career. “The odds of getting into Harvard are better than becoming an NBC page,” she said.
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Meryl Streep was at the Williamstown Theater Festival in western Massachusetts the other night for a very special performance of Chekov’s “Three Sisters.” The play starred her three daughters Mamie, Grace and Louisa, and her son Henry. A family affair.
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The giant Ferris wheel on the Hamptons estate of Neil Patrick Harris and David Burka was the star of a benefit for Gods Love We Deliver.
“We bought it through friends who had carny pals. They …put it up in one day,” Burka explained to a guest.
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“It doesn’t work, but we like the way it looks. We just started growing vines up it so it will look like it’s been there forever.”
In the mix at the carnival-themed party were Nathan Lane, Nicky Hilton Rothschild, Kyle MacLachlan, Desiree Gruber and Alex Guarnaschelli.
The organization’s board co-chair Terrence Meck said, “We haven’t had so many people at this event since Calvin Klein opened his house.”
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Two of the biggest DJ’s in the world, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, who are spinning at Ushuaïa Ibiza this week alongside Steve Aoki, are heading to Brooklyn.
The Greek brothers will headline a Halloween weekend show on Oct. 28 at Brooklyn Navy Yard called Twilight Harbor.
Some 5,000 revelers are expected at the show being produced by Nebula and Ignite Group.
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Need a first edition of “Tom Sawyer,” or a Ray Bradbury sci-fi novel from the ‘60s?
Eve and Edward Lemon will bring the Empire State Rare Book & Print Fair to St. Bartholomew’s Church this fall.
Ryan Miller, lead singer of the band Guster, will play his band’s song “Empire State” at the Oct. 5 opening night.
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The late Dina Merrill’s husband Ted Hartley is among the 30 artists, including Iris Dankner and Patti Grabel, who have painted surfboards that will be auctioned off to benefit The Ellen Hermanson Foundation at Holiday House on Aug. 11.
Merrill, who starred with Cary Grant in “Operation Petticoat” in 1959, was the daughter of cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, whose Palm Beach estate Mar-a-Lago was famously bought by former President Donald Trump.
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Out & About: Brooke Shields and billionaire John Paulson at Audrey Gruss’s Hope for Depression Research Foundation Race of Hope in Southampton … Top plastic Surgeon Dr. Lyle Leipziger at Polo Hamptons … Sergio Nicolosi at the Hamptons Concours and Rand Luxury car show to benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation … Geraldo Rivera and attorney Arthur Aidala at Rao’s.