Mogul Wife Goes Undercover

The husbands make films together; the wives write books. But director Ron Howard's wife CHERYL HOWARD CREW steered clear of the juicy Tinseltown yarns penned by Gigi Levangie Grazer, producer Brian Grazer's wife, whose third novel is due in June. Instead, Crew donned a burqa and made trips to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan with a CIA operative in the 1990s to research In the Face of Jinn, her tale, out last week, of an American searching for her missing sister in Central Asia. As she wrote, Crew sought input from her hubby--"Ron knows story"--who supported the often risky endeavor. "I like exotic cultures," Crew says. And she doesn't mean Malibu.