PARKER: 'Rugby injury' story is all show

The Rocky

Published May 15, 2008 at 11 p.m.

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"It was a rugby injury," said former Gov. Bill Owens' mouthpiece, Dan Hopkins. That's his story, and he's sticking to it.

But if you want the truth behind Hopkins' lame leg, it happened inside a London theater during a performance of Wicked last week.

"Thirty minutes into the musical I thought I was getting a muscle cramp in my left leg," Hopkins said. "After one song, I walked into the aisle and immediately collapsed. When I tried to stand up again, my left leg immediately collapsed again."

Daughter Becky and wife Jill had accompanied Hopkins on the family's first vacation abroad. They started the trip in England and were supposed to continue on to Ireland, but Hopkins' limp limb had another idea.

"My daughter and some people in the audience helped get me up," he said. "I'm sure they were thinking, 'Look at that poor girl. She has to help her drunken father out of the theater.' "

Hopkins sat on some steps, pulled up his pant leg and saw that his knee had ballooned to the size of a grapefruit. The paramedics came to carry him out of the theater. "One paramedic looked at it and said, 'Bloody hell!' That's not what you want a paramedic to say."

X-rays revealed that Hopkins had torn most of the tendons in his left knee. "The surgeon said, 'We're going to have to take you to the theater this afternoon.' I said, 'No that's where the trouble all started.' He said, 'No, an operating theater.' "

Hopkins is back home and navigating around the house in a wheelchair, still with no inkling as to why his knee imploded.

"If you write this, say it's a rugby injury," he told me. "It sounds much better than a theater injury."

WICKED WOMAN: Wheat Ridge native and fixture in local theater Annaleigh Ashford landed her first film role in the movie version of Sex and the City, opening nationwide May 30.

Ashford plays one of the women interviewing to be Carrie Bradshaw's (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) assistant, a job that eventually goes to Jennifer Hudson. The scene took one day to film.

"I'm this awful, awful girl," she said. "I'm wearing Dior and Gucci."

She also has a small bit in Rachel's Wedding, Jonathan Demme's upcoming movie with Anne Hathaway. Ashford's stage credits include Glinda in Wicked on Broadway and in Chicago.

COUNCILMAN'S QUIP: The recent 10-hour marathon hearing about down-zoning parts of northwest Denver, caused Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown to pipe up, "After all this, we ought to have Blueprint Denver be the mayor's next One City, One Book selection."

EAVESDROPPING on a woman to a man in the Seawell Ballroom: "You're left brain, right?"

"I'm ambidextrous."

Penny Parker's column appears Tuesday through Saturday. Listen to her on the Caplis and Silverman radio show between 4 and 5 p.m. Fridays on KHOW-AM (630). Call her at 303-954-5224 or e-mail parkerp@RockyMountainNews.com.

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