Yvonne
Home: Forest Hills
Age Range 40-50
Height 5’5”
Weight 130 lbs
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blonde
Stats: 40-34-40

Action speaks louder than words and that’s what it's all  about for Yvonne from Forest Hills.

She ought to be in pictures and she already has been in her native Poland, in the spy/action film "Gdansk" and in a more recent flick here called “Ganges to the Hudson.” She is currently looking to land some more roles with help from Camera Two Studio in Forest Hills which represents her.

You may also recognize Yvonne from her Channel 25 show called “Cooking Lessons.”

But just because she knows how to cook doesn’t mean Yvonne spends her entire life in the kitchen. In fact she is currently toughing it out on the streets of Queens as an auxiliary police officer.

“ I love action,” Yvonne said convincingly and one can tell she means it after viewing her list of hobbies which include skiing, horseback riding, parasailing and scuba diving.

“ I am a licensed scuba diver. I dove with sharks in the Bahamas and I’ve been diving in Egypt,” Yvonne told us.

She also loves to fly and has received training as a pilot.

“I have had mostly flying lessons on a small Cessna,” she said.

It looks like the knack for flying runs in the family, Yvonne’s son works as a commercial pilot.

Aside from acting gigs, Yvonne hopes to write a book about her adventures and she told us someday soon would like to find herself working as a private investigator.

“I would be good at it,” she said.

Yvonne said she is also good at living in Forest Hills.

“I love it here,” she said about Austin Street.

“It reminds me of Vienna with the outdoor cafes.”

Surprise!

Bayside civic leader Frank Skala is known for being a troublemaker. He’s proud of it, in fact.

He meddles in affairs, complains loudly when he sees problems, and doesn’t rest until the wrongs in his neighborhood are righted. He’s a watchdog. And he recently turned 65 – in Skala-like style.

Skala’s children Bonnie and Edward held a “surprise” birthday party for him at Bell Boulevard’s Bourbon Street on July 14 – Bastille Day, as pointed out on the invitation. The invitation included a list of exciting things that happened in 1937 besides Skala’s birth, a request that people dress as casually as possible (“shorts are fine, ties are not”), and phone numbers where people can call to RSVP.

Strangely enough, one of the phone numbers was Skala’s.

In fact, the invitation said, “Frank Skala’s Surprise 65th birthday party, which – of course – he is carefully orchestrating.”

The party, which was not much of a surprise, included guests from all walks of life, from politicians to journalists to civic leaders to Community Board members. Skala, who admitted that he has “stepped on some toes and hurt some egos,” over the years, told QConf before the party, “The party won’t be a surprise, but the people who show up will be.”

Connection?

Remember the Mets’ Mark Corey?  The 27-year-old pitcher admitted to smoking marijuana shortly before having a seizure and collapsing on a street corner near Shea Stadium on June 26th. Tony Tarasco, who drove Corey to the hospital after alledgedly getting high with him, only had three hits in his last seven games before the All-Star break.  After several years of quality play at the Baltimore Orioles, Tarasco’s average this season has remained well below .250.  Corey is still on the DL, after pitching in only five games for the Mets this year.

Koch Ya!

QConfidential has learned that former Queens Tribune contributor of “Koch Goes to the Movies” and former Mayor of New York City Ed Koch was still, well, going to the movies.

Ed Koch, one recent Saturday, was seen at the Sunshine Theater on E. Houston in Manhattan.  He was watching “The Fast Runner,” a film based on a legend about two brothers passed down within the Inuit tradition, directed by and about the Inuit living in Canada.

    In an 1998 editorial in the Tribune titled “Koch Defends Movie Goers,” Koch said “Movie theater operators are becoming extremely aggressive in their efforts to increase profits — they are forbidding movie patrons from bringing candy and snacks into the theaters.”

    “If the movie operators continue, let them be on notice — Grandmothers, tots, and their supporters can organize, and if they do, they can overwhelm the theaters.”

    He proceeded, “I call upon the grandmothers and tots of this city to organize.  You have friends everywhere, and you have nothing to lose but your chocolate bars.  Stand up and be counted,” he said.

    Prices of candy at Sunshine are relatively similar to all other New York City theaters, yet Koch was not organizing or rousing the crowd with such sentiments.   In fact, the whole theater seemed to be sedated by the three-hour film, which has been hailed as a masterpiece and nominated at the Cannes Film Festival, but a far cry from a protest inciter as the former mayor might have liked.

            Popcorn, anyone?

Queens Wall Writing On The Web

The writing is on the wall for graffiti in Queens at downquotes.com – a website strictly devoted to Queens’ graffiti artists.

Downquotes.com features photos of the work of local graffiti artists at familiar Queens locales and on its subway trains.

The site that dubs itself “strictly Queens graffiti” also features interviews with some of the borough’s most notorious scrawlers that provide insight on their favorite places to do “tags,” “ fill-ins” or “throw-ups” – graffiti lingo for specific styles of artwork — and their brushes with the law.

The creators of the website issue a disclaimer that says although the site features photos of the destruction of private or public property, they do not condone it.

“We feel that graffiti is an art form and are using the internet as a medium to display this art, much like a gallery or museum would.”

Confidentially New York . . .

E-MAIL your items to: conf@queenspress.com