The one feature Julia Roberts finds ’embarrassing’ from watching her early films

Hitting royalty’s high peak

Wildly cavorting unHRH Prince Harry stiffed his kingdom to do it to me-me-me-Meghan. What makes you prouder than to see this unemployed ex HRH shimmying in a party while too broke to pay for his kids’ security in his own birth country.

Centuries ago I flew to Bagdogra from Calcutta and on to Sikkim. Its then queen was America’s Hope Cooke. From Seal Harbor, Maine, by way of Sarah Lawrence.

The schlep to this kingdom on a one-engine kite then took eight hours later on a dirt highway. My driver in a cardboard suit in a doorless jeep — WITH a gold flagstaff — pulled into Sikkim’s capital Gangtok — 5,500 feet straight up the Himalayas. Its citizens? Sheep, goats, elephants. An ox had the right of way. Giant boulders got cleared away en route. Periodically our dirty chariot had to be pulled from some muddy pit and, it being doorless, I fell out twice.

She was called “Gyalmo,” meaning queen. Barefoot servants produced noodles for lunch on hand-carved tables. “I renounced my American citizenship,” she told me. Yeah, OK.

Military guards. Palace salmon-colored. Women with nose rings carrying burdens atop their heads. Servants approached on knees. Several Mercedes could be seen parked on dry ground. Private chapel on the grounds. Visitors book featured Angie Dickinson’s scribble. “Our lives are different from the everyday lives. We grow flowers, visit friends, play music, have our own sense of peace.” Yeah, OK.

She never mentioned it was a helluva long walk to the Bergdorf sale. She did however say: “In student days, life for me differed from everyone else’s. I was more detached, which is what Buddha teaches. Here I have gotten more deeply into Buddhism.” Me, I made a note to mention that to His Eminence the Cardinal when next I saw him.

But that was then. She is no longer queening in downtown Sikkim. Why, I don’t know. Another trip to downtown Sikkim is — forget it. My zeal in those days was to find out what makes US females scratch around to find a prince. Even a part-time one.

Must be they even have lawyers up the Himalayas.

It’s a’bout time

More thrills coming our way. In the works, Sylvester Stallone doing a — surprise! Surprise! — “Rocky” movie script.

Just a few quirks of fame

Julia Roberts: “Watching one of my early films is very embarrassing. Most hideous thing that can happen to a person. It was because of my unplucked eyebrows. They were three times the size they are now” . . . Mira Sorvino: “A magazine story said I use an electric eyelash curler. Obscure rumor. Hard to imagine how such a gadget would work. But, if they ever build one I’ll be happy to try it” . . . Anyone know that on air — live — James Brown once proposed to talk show host Rolonda Watts? She replied gently: “Let’s continue this discussion on the phone later, James.”

Woody Allen’s neuroses are a thing of legend. Once took a 100-mile detour rather than cross through a tunnel . . . When charmer John Malkovich called his teacher a bad name, he said, “My father, a paratrooper, then beat my ass for six hours” . . . Clint Eastwood, in preparing for a role, once took so much carotene that his hands turned orange . . . Back a few creations ago, Albert Einstein was so annoyed by his celebrity that he listed his occupation as “artist’s model.”

I NEED to say that in all honesty — as an all honest journalist — I cannot actually promise this is an exclusive statement, fresh from an open gaping mouth, but it is my information that in the future all manhole covers will officially need to be welded shut. The reason? Sliwa’s going to run for pope.

Only in America, kids, only in America.