Bountiful Time for a Baby

By LIZ SMITH

Jan. 6, 1993 12 AM PT

NEW YORK — Simon & Schuster frequently gets there first with those hot books and authors. But now we have a sizzling scoop on S&S;’s guy at the top.

Head man Dick Snyder and his bride of a year, Laura Yorke, are expecting the stork. These two have have been the happiest couple on several blocks since their Jan. 17, 1992, wedlock, and the expected baby is simply the icing on the wedding cake.

Snyder has two grown children by a previous marriage, but this time he is so gung-ho and happy he may just get an A-plus in the daddy business. (The happy event should occur next summer.)

More baby news: Designer Tommy Hilfiger and his wife, Susie, are expecting their third child in May. If it’s a boy, he’ll be a real good luck talisman for daddy’s new line of little boy’s wear, which debuts in June.

Whitney Houston is also blooming with pregnancy. Her movie “The Bodyguard,” bashed by critics, is a smash that is still going strong. Now she has joined her husband, Bobby Brown, for the remainder of his “Humpin’ Around” tour. And please don’t read anything into this action--Houston and Brown want to be together. Period. She says she’s not keeping tabs on him.

Here’s another Houston bit. Over the holidays, Houston, who has her own foundation to assist underprivileged kids, visited a group of schoolchildren in Newark, N.J. She and several other celebs, such as Keisha Knight Pulliam of “The Cosby Show,” distributed toys and spread a lot of goodwill and genuine Christmas spirit. The 800 or so children were practically speechless at Houston’s ebullient presence.

Helen Gurley Brown, the soul of tact, doesn’t want to mud wrestle with her advertising agency, Cox, Landey & Partners. But she says they went a bit overboard in their interview with New York Times columnist Stuart Elliott, wherein they pronounced the end of “That Cosmopolitan Girl.” CL&P; have new Cosmo ads ready to run that tout the magazine as “the largest young women’s magazine in the world--circulation 2.7 million.”

Brown, who created the “I guess you could say I’m that Cosmopolitan girl” slogan, told me, “As long as I’m editor, there is always going to be a Cosmo girl, because I believe we can be both girls inside, and women. We can rise to different occasions. And I consider myself a devout feminist. The Times story makes it sound as if I’ve been battling feminists on this issue. I haven’t. I have struggled to keep my young readers and so the announcement of the death of the Cosmo girl is premature, to say the least.”

Take that, CL&P;!

Martin Scorsese tells Showtime’s new film series “Private Screening With . . .” that the question he gets most these days is “Will there be a sequel to ‘Cape Fear’?” Scorsese’s answer is an emphatic and unequivocal “No! . . . I tried to show that he died . I don’t know why everybody doesn’t think he died.” (Blame it on Jason and all those “Friday the 13th” movies.)

“Private Screening With . . .” debuts Sunday; future shows will include talks with directors Barry Levinson and Ron Howard.