Web posted on: Monday, August 10, 1998 5:24:11 PM

• How Stella kept her clothes on
• Being a bad boy pays off for Sean 'Puffy' Combs
• Wonderful afterlife could be ahead for Frank Capra
• Vince Vaughn takes on 'Psycho' critics
• Reiner takes to political stage to campaign for children

Bassett

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Actress Angela Bassett showed "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" without having to show everything. Bassett, who played an unhappy 40-year-old who hooks up with a 20-year-old in a Caribbean paradise, refused to do any nude scenes in the new movie. Bassett told the Daily News, "It's just not necessary" to take her clothes off for a role.

The film co-starring Whoopi Goldberg is Bassett's second movie based on a Terry McMillan novel. The first was "Waiting to Exhale."

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Being a bad boy is doing Sean "Puffy" Combs nothing but good. The hip-hop producer and entertainer is due to receive a bonus of between $40 million and $45 million from media giant BMG, the parent company of his label Bad Boy Entertainment, with another payment of as much as $20 million coming later, industry sources told Newsweek magazine.

Bad Boy Entertainment has sold more than $100 million worth of music by Combs and artists such as the late Notorious B.I.G. and Total since he started the label five years ago.

Combs hopes this is just the beginning of a long career in music, movies and publishing. "I'm trying to go where no young black man has gone before," he told the magazine. "And I pray to God that people are affected in a positive way by the things I do."

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- It could be a wonderful afterlife for late film director Frank Capra if the California Legislature approves a bill that would forgive his tax debts in exchange for his property. Capra, director of such classics as "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," owed the state $1.2 million when he died in 1991. A proposed bill would allow the state to acquire 160 acres of Southern California wildland owned by Capra to forgive his tax debts. The bill's sponsor, Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, calls the land a "priceless environmental value."

Vaughn

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Actor Vince Vaughn can't understand why people are upset about the remaking of Alfred Hitchcock's classic "Psycho." Vaughn, who reinvents the Norman Bates role played by Tony Perkins, said other people do it all the time. "Look, people do old songs all the time. Shakespeare's been performed since way back."

Vaughn said although he watched the old "Psycho" before Gus Van Sant started filming the new one, he's not trying to imitate Perkins' now infamous role. "Some of his stuff was great and some stuff I do is very much a tribute to him. But other stuff is my own strange thing."

Reiner

BEVERLY HILLS, California (AP) -- Rob Reiner, who was Meathead on "All in the Family" and has directed films including "When Harry Met Sally," is now seeking similar success on the political stage. The 51-year-old father of three is now working the phones to pass Proposition 10, the California Children and Families First Initiative, which would raise cigarette taxes by 50 cents a pack to generate an estimated $700 million a year.

The money would fund services for families with children under age 5, including prenatal care, stop-smoking programs and domestic violence prevention. Reiner said the initiative, which is opposed by the Committee Against Unfair Taxes, would be "the largest investment in young children in the history of the country" and would "send a very loud message to the rest of the country."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.