It’s like a punch to the gut this morning: People magazine reports that Valerie Harper has terminal brain cancer. The multiple Emmy winner for “Rhoda,” Tony nominee for “Looped,” and great lady and friend to so many, seems too full of life to have it taken away. Still, her attitude in People is bright. Valerie has been a mover and shaker in the Screen Actors Guild, a tireless advocate for causes she believes in, and an all around champion. When she was fired from her own TV show, “Valerie,” by crazy producers, she fought back, sued them, and won. A versatile stage actress from Paul Sills’ “StoryTheater” in the late 60s, Valerie made the one of the most indelible impressions in cultural history as Rhoda Morgenstern. It’s a role she can’t shake, but who would want to? Rhoda was an iconic character that still–watch her now on DVD– steals the show. She tells like it is, just like Valerie. I know everyone will send prayers to Valerie, Tony, and their daughter Christina.

When Fox Sports 1 starts broadcasting on August 19th, Regis Philbin will have his own daily half hour show at 5pm. This is the best news ever. Regis, an avowed football fan, will be going nuts from Day 1. Plus, he told me tonight at the sensational Cafe Carlyle opening for Herb Alpert and Lani Hall, there will be celebrities.

“If Clooney’s on, we’ll talk about his favorite team. Then we’ll talk about his new projects.” So it’s be going to sports mixed with mainstream celebrity, Regis style, I asked? “That’s it!” Reege declared. “You’ve got it!”

I wish it were starting now. But Regis feels the sports season runs through the World Series up til the Super Bowl. So he’s just signed on for five months. And then? “We’ll see,” he said, although I think Joy–who looked beautiful as usual– will not let him work full time again.

Meantime, you must go see Herb Alpert and Lani Hall at the Carlyle. One of their guests tonight was famed jazz and pop producer, Tommy LiPuma. It was also press night, which meant the staff looked sort of horrified at what the cat dragged in. I felt like I was in “Downton Abbey.” But you know, Lani Hall’s voice is like butter even after all these years. (She’s only in her late 60s.) And Herb Alpert’s trumpet is worth the price of admission alone.

They’ve been married 39 years and tour all the time. They tell stories, and Herb plays his hits from “Rise” to “This Guy’s In Love with You” to “Spanish Flea.”  They play from a new album, too, including a dark and cool arrangement of one my all time favorite songs, “It’s All in the Game.”

You know that Herb Alpert was the A in A&M Records with Jerry Moss, too. He signed the Carpenters, Peter Frampton, The Police, Sting, Cat Stevens, made the deal with Lou Adler for Carole King from “Tapestry” on, and so on. He’s a living legend. Lani is sensational. Regis and Joy can’t be there every night, but there are always stars in the audience at Cafe Carlyle. A great night.

EXCLUSIVE: When Clarence Clemons, the Big Man of Bruce Springsteen‘s E Street Band, died in June 2011, the word was it from complications from a stroke. But now I’ve learned that the situation may not be so cut and dried. Clemons’s family quietly filed a malpractice suit against Clarence’s doctors in 2012. Last month the case was approved to go ahead to a jury trial.

William Clemons–  Clarence’s brother and father of Jake Clemons, who now plays with the E Street Band– filed his case against the Palm Beach Cancer Center and three physicians. The allegation is that the medical team involved may have made a mistake by advising that Clarence off of blood thinners when he had surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome. By doing so, and not giving him intermediary blood thinners, they could have caused his stroke.

Victoria Clemons, Clarence’s widow, told Rolling Stone a month after her husband’s death: “Shortly before the stroke, Clarence lost sensation in his index finger and his thumb. He had carpal tunnel surgery performed. He was seriously concerned about the ability to play sax again.”

Over the years, Clarence, who was 71, suffered through a minor heart attack, spinal fusion surgery, retinal detachment and several joint replacements.

Even though the Clemons family wants a jury trial, which will be public, the case was sealed by a judge on May 25, 2012 in a Palm Beach court. Neither of the lawyers in the case has responded for comment. And the case has been so low key that even musicians Clarence played with didn’t know it had been filed.

But I’ve obtained the complaint which accuses Drs. Robert J. Jacobson, David W. Dodson and Keith Meyer– three specialists connected to the Palm Beach Cancer Center– of not administering Lovenox, a short term blood thinner, before or after the hand surgery. The hand surgeon is not a defendant– that surgery went fine. Clemons also did not have cancer in case you were wondering. But Victoria Clemons says that the day after the surgery she found Clarence “on the floor, beside the bed, confused and dysarthric [unable to speak properly].”

The allegations may explain at least in part what happened to the world renown sax player who was beloved by everyone. His death rocked the rock world and Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band when it happened.  William Clemons, according to sources, has not yet accepted his brother’s death. “They were best friends,” says a source.

Remember last summer when everyone was obsessed with Taylor Swift and the Kennedy compound house in Hyannisport? Taylor was dating five years younger Conor Kennedy and hanging out with grandma Ethel. Then the word went out that Taylor had bought–for a song– the only non Kennedy house in the famous Hyannisport neighborhood.

Now Nancy Jo Sales writes in Vanity Fair (www.vanityfair.com) that Swift did buy the house after all. Well, we know she did because it was reported in the Cape Cod Times back in November by Robert Gold. Gold uncovered the Ocean Drive LLC  that Sales mentions in her piece. So she did buy the place. http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121107/NEWS/211070350

Sales suggests that the house was flipped right after that. Swift didn’t keep it. But read my explanation from last summer of what may have happened.

http://www.showbiz411.com/2012/08/15/taylor-swift-and-the-kennedys-a-weird-yet-plausible-explanation

You know, New Yorkers have the most chutzpah of anyone in the world. And so it is that at all Broadway openings and many movie premieres, there are professional crashers. They are not invited to the event, know no one, are not press, media, guests, relatives of guests, or have any association with anyone on the premises.

There is a group, and they are known, although not by name except for a couple–Shaggy, a like able guy who looks like Big Bird and manages to get into places. And Doreen, an elderly lady, well dressed, with short gray hair. She carries a cane. The others include a tall, older, scary looking dude with a rock star gray shag hair cut, lanky– I call him Lurch. He wears mostly black clothes and runs like a panther on the African plain if anyone tries to photograph him.

There’s a cherubic lady, also with a cane, and blonde hair, heavy set. There’s a light skinned black man who looks like he’s trying out to the be the older version of the Will Smith character in “Six Degrees of Separation.” He wears a suit and usually has some kind of scarf tied around his neck. There’s another guy, white, who also wears a suit, and a hat or bandana, and sneakers. There’s a younger guy who looks like the son of Professor Irwin Corey. He has a bony head and wild flying, stringy hair. And oh yes–two guys who travel together. One looks like a walrus, heavy set. The other reminds me of a character actor or cartoon character from TV– sort of a comic face.

And so our story from Sunday night’s premiere of “Cinderella” concerns Doreen, who made it into the show and then into the party at Gotham Hall. How does she do it? How do they do all do it? They stand outside and ask everyone who comes by if they have an extra ticket. It’s like a game. Someone always takes pity on them. There’s always one in a hundred whose friend got sick, couldn’t make it, missed a train, something. The comic faced guy also got into “Cinderella” and held up his ticket. It’s a game show called “Survivor: Crashing NYC.”

I spotted Doreen in the Gotham and pointed her out to a major Broadway producer. We were admiring her tenacity. Seated at table by us, mind you, was Polie Commissioner Ray Kelly and his wife. This didn’t stop Doreen. Seeing that we were talking about her, she was not ashamed or embarrassed. Or feeling guilty. Quite the contrary. Doreen came right up to us. “How dare you single me out,” she said loudly.

My producer friend, whose parents were landlords to thousands of nutty New Yorkers over the years, was bemused. “We were complimenting you,” she said to Doreen. The old lady wouldn’t have it. “I have every right to be here!” she said. “What’s it to you?”

I said, “This is something. You’re doing this in front of the police commissioner.”

She tilted her head and looked over. She didn’t care. So we are not at the point that the crashers are indignant about being pointed out.

Hey: it’s a career.