Let's Be Naughty -- Witty, athletic, adventurous Manhattan book editor, 36, with Medusa tresses and a Circe smile. A whiz in the bedroom and the kitchen. Loves children, roller coasters, opera (esp. Madame Butterfly), gourmet food and cutlery. Hates rabbits, saying goodbye and meeting guys through a personals column like this one. But God put too many married men on this island, so let's have some fun. Just be smart, sexy, fearless and potentially unattached. Photo and resume will get a response from the woman of your dark dreams. Give me a chance and I'll love you to pieces. c/o ALEX.
What Am I Doing Here? -- Lawyer, personable, nice job, great wife, cute kid, very happily married . . . (well, reasonably happy, I mean, O.K., I'm fortyish and I don't even want to think about approaching mid-life, let alone a mid- life crisis, but still) . . . seeks . . . (no, not 'seeks,' maybe 'is willing to entertain the notion of meeting') . . . attractive woman who might want to spend a weekend over drinks, dinner and dishes. Or not. Your call. Uh, wait! Don't call -- at home or the office. Instead, write me if you want. c/o DAN.
Last of the Red-Hot Mothers -- And wife too. Gorgeous homemaker, spirited, nurturing, a vision of chic domesticity. Has loving, personable husband (whom I trust explicitly), an adorable child and a quiet new suburban home. Seeks more of the same, forever and ever. Amen. Will I protect my brood, come hellion or high water? You bet your wife. c/o BETH.
Three archetypes for a modern mortality play. Alex Forrest, a career woman whose forcefulness sheathes a precarious ego. Dan Gallagher, a guy who seems to have embraced personal and career contradictions in a big, easy bear hug. Beth Gallagher, comfortable in her roles as wife, mother and natural stunner. But what if Alex is a creature of insatiable lust and leeching possessiveness? And if Dan's amiability has made him too soft to resist Alex's attentions or, later, to protect his family from her vengeance? And if Beth, supermom in disguise, is roused to confront the beast Alex has become? Oh, and what if somebody made a movie about this trio of '80s Everypersons?
Somebody did make Fatal Attraction. And this fall, what if became wow! Striking moviegoers with the startling power of a madwoman in your bathroom, Paramount's lurid romantic thriller is the zeitgeist hit of the decade. It has been box-office champ for each of its first seven weeks in release, and shows little sign of slackening. Last week it reached the $80 million mark, to rank as the year's second highest grossing film. It's the movie with something for almost everybody. Says Michael Douglas, who plays Dan: "People leave saying 'I laughed, I got turned on by the sex scenes, and I got scared.' You can't ask for more than that."
But Paramount, which also released the year's No. 1 and No. 3 films (Beverly Hills Cop II and The Untouchables), is getting more than that. People can't stop talking about this movie, arguing about its characters, seeing in Dan, Beth and Alex creepy visions of themselves and their old flames. "Everybody can identify with obsessive love," says Co-Producer Sherry Lansing. "All of us have made a call in the middle of the night when we shouldn't have, or driven by somebody's house when we shouldn't have. I've never boiled a rabbit, but I've made phone calls."