PEOPLE

By Belinda Luscombe

GUESS WHO ELSE IS COMING TO DINNER?

There will never be another SIDNEY POITIER. But there is, in fact, a SYDNEY POITIER, and she's coming to a TV screen near you sometime next year. Sydney, 23, is Sidney's youngest daughter. (He has six, three of whom are actresses.) When he was cast in the Showtime movie Free of Eden as a former schoolteacher turned big-shot businessman, he asked the producers to look at his daughter's audition tape for a small part. "He called me at the record company where I was working as an assistant and told me they wanted me for the lead," says Poitier fille. "I said, 'What are you talking about?' He said he couldn't believe it either." While her father and mother have always been supportive of her career choice, "I definitely got the vibe that other things were more stable," Sydney says. The movie, in which she plays a high school dropout trying to turn her life around, wrapped last week. She has no new work lined up, but she's optimistic. After all, her dad probably still has a copy of that tape. If that doesn't bring new offers, "the record company said I could always come back."

WOMEN WHO USED TO RUN WITH O.J.

She's not sure about those murders in Brentwood, but PAULA BARBIERI thinks O.J. Simpson is guilty of one thing--being a very bad boyfriend. Not that Barbieri's choice in menfolk is all that shrewd. In her new book, The Other Woman, she reveals that on the night of the murders she was on a date in Las Vegas with Michael Bolton. She had previously lived with Dolph Lundgren and hung out with Roman Polanski and George Hamilton. Barbieri, who says her support of Simpson during the criminal trial led to the loss of all her money, her career and her apartment (although she reportedly got $3 million for the book, which should ease the sting a touch), now claims O.J. was a liar--especially about other women--but that she still loves him. In another new book, I'm Not Dancing Anymore, O.J.'s niece Terri Baker expresses her own doubts about O.J.'s innocence. She also writes that he wasn't such a great uncle either.

SEEN & HEARD

Of all the celebs in the world, whose image is protected most fiercely? Barbie's. Now ever vigilant Mattel, which makes the toy, is suing MCA records for trademark infringement over Barbie Girl, a bubble-gum dance song by the Danish band Aqua. It doesn't help that the song has lyrics like "You can brush my hair/ Undress me everywhere."

Can a director win against a studio? Maybe. Robert Altman's cut for The Gingerbread Man didn't get the response at test screenings that PolyGram wanted. So, although Altman threatened to take his name off the film, the studio had a new editor chop off eight minutes. But the new cut tested only a little better. The studio chose to keep the Altman version--and his name.

SHAKUR BOOTY

Here's a new growth industry: TUPAC SHAKUR litigation. In the year since Shakur's death, at least five suits have been brought against his estate, the most recent by a suspect in his murder. Last week Orlando Anderson filed a personal-injury suit that claimed he was beaten up by Shakur and friends hours before the rap star was killed. Shakur's lawyer, Richard Fischbein, immediately fired back with a wrongful-death lawsuit against Anderson. Earlier, Shakur's mother Afeni won control of Shakur's master recordings from Death Row Records, and settled a claim that the estate owed the company more than $7 million. An Arkansas woman's award of $16.6 million after being shot and paralyzed at a Shakur concert is being appealed. Even Shakur's father is suing for a cut. The prize for the most bizarre suit, however, goes to antirap warrior C. DeLores Tucker, who claims that lewd remarks made about her on Shakur's album All Eyez on Me caused her so much distress that she and her husband have not been able to have sex. She wants $10 million.