Passages

Wild at heart or true romance? Screen stars Nicolas Cage, 31, and Patricia Arquette, 27, married two weeks ago in a private ceremony at an undisclosed location. The two, neither of whom have wed before, have been pals for eight years, says Arquette’s manager, adding, “I don’t know when the friendship turned up a degree.” Arquette has a son Enzo, 6, from a relationship with rocker Paul Rossi and Cage has a son Weston 4, by actress Kristina Fulton.

Actor Pat Corley, 64, who plays bar owner Phil on Murphy Brown, was released on April 3 after spending 10 days in a hospital in Tarzana, Calif., with a staphylococcal infection, which caused pneumonia like symptoms. A Murphy rep says Corley’s illness didn’t interfere with his time behind the bar….

Bewitched’s Elizabeth Montgomery, 62, had a small malignant tumor removed from her colon on April 7, according to her manager. She was expected to leave her Los Angeles hospital and return home by the weekend of April 14.

Rocker Eddie Van Halen, 40, joins Christian Slater and Harry Connick Jr. on the list of stars who’ve forgotten that firearms and X-ray luggage scanners are a bad match. The rocker was charged with bringing a loaded pistol into the Burbank, Calif., airport after he was detained on April 7 by police upon trying to board a plane with a registered Beretta semiautomatic pistol in his flight bag The charges carry a maximum penalty of $1 000 and six months in jail Sentencing is April 21

Ex-Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, 57, and his third wife, onetime model Suzanne, 35, are expecting a second child in October. Their first, daughter Katharine Noelle, is 7 months old.

Edda Ciano, 84, the oldest of Benito Mussolini’s five children and his favorite, died on April 8 in Rome of cardiac arrest related to lung and kidney failure. She renounced her famous surname in 1944 when her dictator father ordered the execution of her husband, Count Galeazzo Ciano, Italy’s foreign minister, after he voted for Il Duce’s removal following the Allied invasion of Italy. (Mussolini was executed by Italian partisans in 1945…

Actor Antony Hamilton, 42, who played secret agent Jack Striker in the TV series Cover Up (1984-85) died on March 29 in L.A. of pneumonia Hamilton originally a leading dancer with the Australian Ballet joined Cover Up to replace actor Jon-Erik Hexum, who had accidentally shot himself fatally in the head with a blank from a gun used as a prop….

Ruth Disney Beecher, 91, the only sister of studio founder Walt Disney, died on April 7 in Portland, Ore. In a sense her brother had her to thank for his career as an animator, since in 1911, was Ruth was years old and home sick with the measles, 9-year-old Walt made a flip book—his first effort at making his cartoons move—to cheer her up….

Raspy-voiced actor and comedian Rick Aviles, 41, whose movie credits include playing the lowlife who killed Patrick Swayze in Ghost (1990), died on March 17 of heart failure in Los Angeles. He also had numerous TV credits, including his own HBO comedy special.