He's the top--at last. (The Buzz).

THE BUZZ WAS ALL EARS when veteran film director Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon, Deathtrap) told of an upcoming "warts and all" project on gay songwriter Cole Porter. Admitting that the 1946 fabrication, the Cary Grant vehicle Night and Day, was done "very badly," Lumet promises a story of an "incredibly talented man who is married to the same woman for 34 years but was gay--and not a closet gay either." Porter's wife, Linda, is not presented as gay (which apparently she wasn't) but as a woman who "gets upset, leaves, comes back.... They have this kind of strange, rocky relationship. It's a great story."

As to who will play the part, Lumet is unsure, but he's not worried about comparisons since "not many people know Cary Grant anymore.... They don't even know Cole Porter." Well, The Buzz does, and The Buzz would like to see another British-born actor in the role: Rupert Everett. He is, after all, easy to love, so easy to love.