Stardust sticks with Rickles

Los Angeles — Don Rickles will be doing another year of slinging insults in Las Vegas.

The 78-year-old King of Zing, who has performed in Las Vegas for 46 years, has signed on for another year of exclusive engagements at the Stardust Resort and Casino.

His first performances under the new contract will be Thursday through March 6 in the Wayne Newton Theater.

Rickles made his Las Vegas debut in 1959 at the Sahara Hotel and Casino.

“I love working at the Stardust,” the comedian said in a statement Friday. “The showroom has that true nightclub feeling and being under contract automatically gets me to the front of the line for the buffet.”

Stone says ‘Basic Instinct 2’ will feature ‘lesbian love’

New York — Sharon Stone says her character will have a bisexual relationship in the upcoming film “Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction.”

“There is lesbian love,” Stone said in an interview on the syndicated entertainment TV show “Access Hollywood” that aired Thursday. “We’re testing for her now.”

When asked if she would mind if life ever imitated art, the 46-year-old actress said with a smile: “Why not? Middle age is an open-minded period.”

Stone said she was surprised at the attention her interrogation scene in the original 1992 “Basic Instinct” movie — in which she is famously underdressed — received.

“People still want to see some more of that,” she said with a laugh. When asked if that was the plan for the sequel, she smiled and replied, “You can spend your $12 and go find out for yourself.”

For sale at Poconos lodge: Heart-shaped tub and more

Mount Pocono, Pa. — Heart-shaped bathtub, anyone?

More than 80 of them will be auctioned off next month, along with Engelbert Humperdinck’s gold-painted headboard and thousands of other items from the once-celebrated Mount Airy Lodge.

Closed since 2001 because of financial problems, Mount Airy is now boarded up and falling apart. Owner Louis DeNaples wants to sell pretty much everything that isn’t bolted down — and some things that are.

Auctioneer Bob Teel expects the March 5-6 sale to attract antique dealers, hoteliers and restaurateurs, and nostalgia-seekers who stayed at Mount Airy, once the largest resort in the Poconos.

Some of the biggest names in show business appeared there regularly, from Humperdinck to Bob Hope to Tony Bennett. Humperdinck always stayed in Room 519, outfitted especially for him with a sunken whirlpool tub, round bed, faux-gilded facade and billowing drapes.

DeNaples, a Scranton-area businessman, recently bought the lodge for more than $25 million, and he is widely expected to apply for a slot-machine casino license.

Houston hospitalized

Paris — Grammy-winning diva Whitney Houston was hospitalized in Paris after becoming violently ill Thursday on a transatlantic flight with what was apparently a nasty case of food poisoning, reports E!Online.

“Whitney Houston was rushed to a hospital in Paris because of severe vomiting. She was sick on the aircraft,” Houston’s Los Angeles-based publicist, Nancy Seltzer, said in a statement. “She is doing well. She has gastroenteritis.”

Upon landing in Paris, the 41-year-old star was ushered to an undisclosed hospital by her bodyguard and treated in the emergency room.

Houston is also due back in the studio next month to put the wraps on her first album since 2002’s “Just Whitney.” The album is being overseen by Houston’s longtime mentor and J Records boss Clive Davis.

Birthdays

Singer Fats Domino is 77. Political columnist Robert Novak is 74. Actor-director Bill Duke is 62. Singer Mitch Ryder is 60. Singer Michael Bolton is 52. Actor Greg Germann is 47. Bandleader John McDaniel is 44. Actress Jennifer Grant is 39. Singer Erykah Badu is 34. R&B singer Rico Wade (Society of Soul) is 33. Country singer Rodney Hayden is 25.