A New Figure Emerges in the HGH Scandal

Say you're a mom of four, pushing 40, and you're determined that this year you don't just want to look okay in your bathing suit, you want to look world-class.

Would it occur to you to try HGH?

No? Well, who knows, maybe a nation of women will start taking it up after the revelation that Debbie Clemens's 39-year-old rockin' bod, as seen in Sports Illustrated's 2003 swimsuit issue, came not just via the jogging and yoga she touted on her Web site but a dose of human growth hormone. That was the story husband Roger offered Congress last week while denying that he took the performance enhancer himself.

So: Can HGH help if your goal isn't home runs or gold medals but looking hot? And will it turn out that every woman in Hollywood has been doing it for years?

Karlis Ullis thinks not. The Santa Monica, Calif., physician who specializes in sports medicine and anti-aging says estrogen thwarts much of HGH's muscle-defining magic, and very few women seek it out, for fear of bulking up.

Clearly it was a unique sort of pressure that Debbie Clemens faced, agreeing to pose in a bikini. Many of the players' wives recruited for the swimsuit issue are starlet/model types in their 20s. "It's stressful," said Julie Crenshaw, "because it's the most read -- well, I don't know if it's 'read,' but looked-at issue." The mom of three and wife of golfer Ben Crenshaw posed for SI in 2000 at age 35. And no, she didn't take HGH. "It wouldn't have crossed my mind. In golf, we don't have an issue like that." Though already slim, she spent three months working out daily and shunning carbs.

"The mentality is watch everything you eat," she told us. "You're obsessed. I can see someone getting manic about it." Even so, she was baffled that Debbie, a friend for 20 years, would need the HGH. "She's a wonderful woman. And she's always had a fabulous figure."

HEY, ISN'T THAT . . . ?

Adam Levine hanging out behind the bar at Tattoo on Saturday night, unrecognized by many patrons who ordered beers from him. The Maroon 5 frontman/Hollywood heartthrob, in town for a promotional spot on Hot 99.5, wore a black leather jacket, brown v-neck tee, jeans; looked thinner in person; drank Heineken; played it cool. When the bar played one of his songs, he just bobbed his head to the music, did not sing along.

UPDATE

Isabelle Johnston and her dad, Lt. Col. Frank Johnston, were reunited just in time for Valentine's Day. The 7-year-old was just one of 23 mice in the Washington Ballet's December production of "The Nutcracker" -- but she broke out as an international star of sorts when her father, then stationed in Iraq, requested a tape and the Pentagon Channel instead decided to broadcast it worldwide. Johnston returned home last week and "had to carry her around for a long time because she wouldn't let go," reports mom Theresa Minni. Dad's back for good; on Friday, he sat in on Isabelle's ballet class.

THIS JUST IN . . .

The late Heath Ledger -- whose most recent film, "I'm Not There," featured him as one of six actors playing Bob Dylan -- might himself be replaced by not one but three actors in his final film, Terry Gilliam's fantasy "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," the BBC reports. The lineup: Jude Law , Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell, though Law's rep says all are still in negotiations. The BBC speculates the actors will play "different incarnations" of Ledger's character (whose scenes will likely stay in the pic) passing through "alternate dimensions."