SUZY Byline: Aileen Mehle Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon have been w..

SUZY

Byline: Aileen Mehle

Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon have been working their pretty butts off in Italy this summer filming “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” But Matt has somehow found time to tell friends how somehow Gwyneth found time to arrange a special birthday gift for her current love, Ben Affleck, Matt’s big buddy. She bought Ben the exact platinum watch that Harry Winston loaned Ben to wear to the Academy Awards. Is she not the sweetest? It proved to be good luck for Ben’s career, so maybe it will do the trick again for this hot Hollywood couple. It better. Those things cost $30,000. They throw in the second hand.
Now that Claire Danes is enrolled at Yale — following in the footsteps of her idol, Jodie Foster — our Gwyneth is having a few thoughts herself along those lines. She’s considering taking a year off to return to university and study either psychology or English lit. “If I don’t do it soon, I never will,” says Gwyneth. Speaking of English lit, if Gwyneth decides to really pursue higher education, whatever will happen to Rare Ben? Not in Jonson, but in Affleck.

Leelee Sobieski, new and hot on the cinema scene, has a high school comedy in her future, “Never Been Kissed.” Type casting, when you realize lovely Leelee is only 16 — and sweet. She was “discovered” while having lunch in her high school cafeteria. Pass the meatloaf.

Diana Rigg, the incomparable, and Toby Stephens, the talented son of the stupendous actress Maggie Smith, are sizzling in London in the Greek tragedy, “Phaedra,” the story of an older woman and her younger stepson. Haven’t we heard all this before? Yes. Both Melina Mercouri and Sophia Loren played the part opposite Anthony Perkins. Sophia also starred in the movie, “Desire Under the Elms,” which Rigg will bring to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for three weeks in January. There are just so many plays and so many fine actresses to go around. Dame Diana continues to score hits, but no more long runs for her, thanks a lot.

I Know What You Did This Summer: The Baron and Baroness Enrico di Portanova, who live in style in Houston and Acapulco — when they’re not in the south of France — celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary at the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo with Sandra di Portanova in white lace and tulle designed by Pat Kerr and waiters in attendance wearing powdered wigs and bright blue livery by don’t-ask-me. The guests danced to a great big orchestra and stared at a great big anniversary cake that tried to reach the ceiling and missed by inches. Everyone was dressed to the nines, with the exception of a couple of ladies who were dressed to the tens — but adorable. The only reason the jewels looked real is because they were.
People came from miles around to help Sandra and Ricky — everybody calls him Ricky — celebrate: Jane Stevens of London society and Ned Ryan of whom the same can be said; Jeannette Longoria of Mexico City, New York and San Antonio, who arrived in a shimmering blue caftan; Betsy Bloomingdale of the Beverly Hills Bloomingdales, and Wendy Stark Morrisey and John Morrisey, also Beverly Hills social activists; Arnold Scaasi and Parker Ladd of around here; Roger Moore, the ex-James Bond, hugging Ursula Andress, the ex-James Bond girl (she’s still wearing headbands); Yanna Avis in clinging crepe split to the clavicle; ex-astronaut Buzz Aldrin and his wife, Lois; Kathleen Hearst in strapless red chiffon; Joan Collins with tousled hair and a white dress dropping from her shoulders; Lynn Wyatt of Houston and the south of France in beige and white and stupendous earrings; Bobby Short in a white dinner jacket. Like that. Of course, there were fireworks in the garden. Monte Carlo without fireworks is unthinkable. With them it’s thinkable, sort of.

“The English Patient” left her in a cave to die, but Kristin Scott Thomas has finally seen the light. “Up at the Villa,” a story of sexy goings-on in pre-World War II Tuscany adapted from a Somerset Maugham novel, stars Thomas as a capricious widow indulging in dalliances with Sean Penn as an American playboy (what?), James Fox as a kindly older diplomat and Jeremy Davies as a love-struck young Austrian refugee. Kristin says it’s all a bit of revenge. “It’s not a case of the guy gets the girl. This girl gets the guys, all three of them. The question is — does she throw two of them back in? Heh-heh-heh.

Next week, the rarely seen Twiggy, once the modeling world’s ultimate stick figure (she’s rounder now); Alan Cummings of “Cabaret,” and Adam Cooper, the star of the new controversial “Swan Lake,” will, all three, unveil Samantha Keil’s sculpture of Cooper and the sexy male swans who dance in the show. Invited to the viewing at the Axelle Fine Arts Gallery in SoHo are such as Warren Beatty, Annette Bening and Shirley MacLaine. May they all show in the quivering flesh. As for “Swan Lake,” the all-male production, a hit in London and Los Angeles, opens on Broadway this Saturday. Will it ruffle feathers? Why should it? Swans are good little birds. They, at least the heterosexual ones, mate for life and don’t cheat.

Vanessa L. Williams’s next flick for Columbia is “Elmo in Grouchland,” with Vanessa playing “The Queen of Trash.” Her co-star is Mandy Patinkin. How terrific and how “oy!”

Bridget Fonda spent this past year playing an abused wife, a conniving wife and, in the recently finished “The Break-Up,” a beleaguered wife, unmercifully pushed to the edge. Next, she plays a scheming wife, hoping to keep a $4 million cache found in a crashed plane in the movie “A Simple Plan,” adapted from Scott B. Smith’s psychological shocker bestseller. Her co-stars are Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, but Bridget is said to win the day. (In real life, Bridget is not married, but, lordy, she’s had the practice.)

Julia Roberts is ready for a comedy. “I’m very much hoping my next project will be a film loosely based on the life of Lucille Ball,” she says. “I’m talking about it at the moment. She had an interesting and traumatic life, and I’d really like to do a role like that.” But hasn’t Julia’s own life been something like a comedy. And then there’s Lyle Lovett.

To clear up a date mix-up in an earlier column, God’s Love We Deliver’s Race to Deliver kickoff party happens at Polo Ralph Lauren’s on Mad Ave. this evening. The actual race is on Sept. 27 in Central Park. Stand and deliver. Then run like hell.