Bill’s Hollywood Blockbuster

MOVIE MOGUL, P.R. FIRM STAGED RETURN ‘SPECIAL’

WASHINGTON — Bill Clinton’s triumphant return from North Korea with two rescued US journalists had Hollywood written all over it — from the Burbank airport to the big-time producer who bankrolled the expedition to the celebrity public-relations firm that orchestrated the homecoming.

A key player in Clinton’s high-flying diplomatic mission to rescue Laura Ling and Euna Lee was entertainment mogul Steve Bing, a longtime “Friend of Bill” who lent the ex-president his private Boeing 737.

The multimillionaire mogul paid about $200,000 in fuel and other costs that came with the trans-Pacific flight.

Bing’s Shangri-La entertainment firm also funded a major logistical effort to carefully showcase Clinton’s arrival in Tinseltown — which featured Ling lauding the former president while almost in tears.