"60 Minutes'" Bob Simon has left for Spain to interview the latest superstar of that country's storied matador dynasty — the dashing, super handsome, sometimes Giorgio Armani fashion model Cayetano Rivera Ordonez. Bob plans to stay safely behind the barricade. He's learned his lesson.

When the noted broadcast journalist journeyed to Spain to interview Cayetano's brother Francisco some years back, he accepted the bullfighter's invitation to step into the ring — and ended up getting gored. "I thought it would be a bit of a lark. It stopped being a lark when I got hurt,'" he says and then reveals, "I still have a scar from the experience in a very embarrassing place."

Simon notes that Cayetano, "who captures audiences every time he appears — he always plays to full arenas — was seriously gored this month. I'm sure he's still in pain — but he was back in the ring 15 days later. Bullfighters get gored so often they often become disabled — but there's no way to be great and not get gored."

The grandsons of late legendary bullfighter Antonio Ordonez Araujo and the sons of late bullfighting great Paquirri, they were encouraged by their families to stay away from the dangerous sport and shipped off to the United States for school. But bullfighting was in their blood, and they returned to Spain to challenge their ancestors as the greatest Spanish matadors of all time.

PERSISTENCE PAYS: Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who plays a public defender in TNT's new "Raising the Bar" drama that launches tonight (9/1), credits the show's co-creator, David Feige, and his never-say-die attitude with getting the show on the air. Feige, author and famous veteran of The Bronx Defenders office in the South Bronx, initially got turned down when he approached Steven Bochco about doing a series inspired by his real-life experiences, according to Mark-Paul.

"Steven at first wasn't interested. But David, being the sort of pitbull that he is, didn't give up. He wrote Steven a 10-page email outlining why he thought the show would be good and why it would work. Steven liked David's passion and said he wanted to be in business with people who are passionate about what they do."

Then there was Gosselaar, the veteran series star of "NYPD Blue" and "Saved by The Bell" fame, who wasn't quick to jump on the "Raising the Bar" bandwagon either.

He tells us that coincidentally enough, he'd completed an unsuccessful CBS pilot in which he was to have played a public defender last year. "Coming off that, at first I wasn't very interested," he admits. But then his old boss Bochco got him to meet with Feige — and the meeting changed his mind. By now, the actor and the legal eagle have become good friends, and Mark-Paul even got to play legal intern at Feige's old office to learn the ropes firsthand. "The majority of people I saw weren't like the criminals we're used to seeing onscreen."

THE VIDEOLAND VIEW: Jodi Lyn O'Keefe is grateful for her athletic background now that the "Prison Break" writer-producers have her assassin character, Susan B. Anthony, involved in an increasing amount of physical action scenes. "My dad was a coach. When I was a kid, we played a lot of sports — softball, volleyball, even a little girls' football. He wanted a boy and got three girls," she says. She also says, "I'm surprisingly good with a knife and a gun." O'Keefe, whose character was introduced in Season 3 of the show — which is now out on DVD and Blu-ray Disc from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment — adds that "my parents are so thrilled' with her job on "Prison Break." "They've been watching it from the beginning. When I told my mother I was joining the cast, she didn't believe me." She does now.

THINKING MAN'S BOOBY HUMOR: Zack Ward says some people might find his movie "Postal," which was just released on DVD, to be a little too crude, but he believes there is some good to it beneath the surface. "I think it's offensive where it tried to be offensive. There are some parts that are just silly booby humor, absolutely, but there are also some statements that are made that raise some questions. If you can use that kind of humor to help create a dialogue, then that's pretty exciting."

With reports by Emily Feimster.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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