June 13th, 2007

Failing an act of God, by the time you read these words, party girl and movie-town miscreant, Paris Hilton, should be ensconced in a cozy, "celebrity" cell at Century Regional Detention Center in suburban Lynwood, serving a reduced sentence of 23 days [down from 45 days] for parole violation and driving on a suspended license while drunk. The cell is decidedly un-air conditioned, so when the hair-brained heiress declares, "That's hot!" you can bet it's a literal assessment of her surroundings. The circumstances led us to wonder about the price the tabloids would be willing to pay for a snapshot of Paris in prison orange. One paparazzo confided that such a photo should be worth "around $200,000." Another put the figure at a half-million "if they could get her in a fetal position, reciting her rosary and with a half-eaten bologna sandwich, perhaps even more if the glint of a tear were visible. " It would not be totally unreasonable for one of her guards to catch her via a cell phone camera and text it to the highest bidder in the world of scandal-fueled journalism. We would not be surprised if those in charge of Paris 's incarceration would give her a pass on the tangerine jumpsuit and allow her to be dressed in keeping with her sense of entitlement and her celebrity status.

Following Lindsay Lohan's recent drinking-and-drugging binge, Karl Lagerfeld remarked on the idiocy of these young girls "getting behind the wheel when they are drinking." Indeed, with multiple drunk-driving infractions on their records, these high-living gadabouts should realize that a car and driver certainly would be an intelligent alternative.

Ironically, Li-Lo's dad, just released from prison where he underwent a jail-house conversion, found the Lord and became an ordained preacher, is urging his daughter "to get serious about getting sober" and "to find a place where God is paramount in her life. If that be in rehab, so be it, " he cautioned her. There's no "if" about her rehab stint: She is in the chic facility Promises and will be there for at least 30 days, which means she 'll probably observe her 21st birthday [July 21] while confined to the facility.

Until her most recent contretemps with the cops is resolved, Lindsay's proposed second album will be postponed for the time being, one supposes. She says the CD will have an urban-pop sound and will take four months to complete. After very publicly admitting a few weeks ago that she "loves the paparazzi attention," she may be singing a different tune in view of the recent attention given her by these same photographers, particularly the shot of her sprawled unconscious in the back seat of a car two days after she crashed her one-hundred grand Mercedes convertible on Sunset Boulevard just minutes from her condo building. A couple of days after this recent dust-up, we ran into Lindsay and expressed our empathy, reminding ourselves of our own substance addictions when we were her age. Late-breaking news: Lindsay, Rosario Dawson, and Channing Tatum have been announced for the Shirley McLaine-produced picture, described by Daily Variety as "a grandma-gang comedy." McLaine and Olympia Dukakis are the grandmas in the film, Poor Things, directed by Ash Baron Cohen.

With Lindsay in rehab and Paris in prison, who's going to be out there at party central, hoisting the banner for all the girls gone bad? Nicole Richie is certainly one candidate. As this column is being written, the weight-challenged waif is answering critics about her unseemly e-mail invitation to a Memorial Day bash, mocking her own issues with eating disorders: "No one over 100 pounds admitted," read the e-mail. And, "There will be a scale at the door, so stop eating now." As she told Ryan Seacrest about it, she insisted, "It's a joke, for crying out loud!" However, we've heard that Nicole is worried that she may be following Paris into the hoosegow. Well, there 's always Mischa Barton, who's been exhibiting some questionable behavior of late, though some would question her credentials as a true A-list celebutard and, thus, is not really a worthy stand-in for Paris, Lindsay, and Nicole.

Hollywood princess, Drew Barrymore, former wild child, but now a successful movie producer, heading her own production company and an A-list star, once wrestled with substance abuse at an even younger age than Lindsay Lohan --she was 12 when she took her first drink. Drew was asked to give some advice to young stars struggling with booze. She said, "I feel like I'm no one to give advice to anyone. Yet I know you have to be true to yourself, confront your excesses, don 't pretend to be perfect, embrace your flaws and have as much fun as you can."

We ran into Penelope Cruz, the Madrid Madonna, the sultry, sexy, Oscar nominee (for Volver) and the muse of director Pedro Almodovar at the Chateau Marmont. She's almost as well known for serial dating her leading men in films as she is for acting in them. We 're talking Matt Damon, Tom Cruise, Matthew McConaughey, and most recently, Scarlett Johansson's ex, Josh Hartnett, who by the way was spotted at the Beatrice Inn in the Big Apple, dancing with his Levis slung so low that you couldn 't miss his bum cleavage. Shrugging off comments from others on the dance floor who pointed out he was showing a bit too much flesh, he said, according to a report, "It's cool. I never wear underwear." We offer the foregoing because of Penelope's reluctance to talk about what everyone wants to know but are afraid to ask her about --her love life. When we brought it up to her, she said, "Yes, I know. But I don't want to play this game. Everyone knows I avoid talking about my private life. If you get into this game then, later on it 's quite difficult to get out, you know?" Career wise? "I'm going to take my time in selecting good and challenging roles. But I'm not turning my back on big, popcorn movies. After having roles like Raimunda and in Don't Move, I've become more choosey." On the immediate horizon is a picture called Elegy with Ben Kingsley. "I'm leaving in a couple of weeks for Canada for the Elegy shoot," she said. "And later in the summer, I'll be going to Barcelona for a film for Woody Allen, in which I co-star with Javier Bardem and Scarlett Johansson." We don't know if Penelope and Scarlett will be comparing notes on Hartnett, but it sounds to us like she has done some pretty good movie "choosing. She does not go to the gym and attributes her great shape to "lots of walking in airports."

Are we about to have a repeat of the situation like we had when there were two Christopher Columbus projects in work at the same time. There were also competing Truman Capote movies filming simultaneously a year or so ago. Now, it appears, we're about to witness dueling Dalis--two biopics of the legendary Spanish-born surrealist, our friend, the late Salvador Dali. One of the films was announced at the recent Cannes Film Fest--a movie filmed with Panavision Digital 3-D cameras. It so happens that Dali was a big fan of the process, which prompted writer/director Philippe Mora to comment, "This is the film spectacle Dali would want you to see." This picture focuses on the early life of Dali and producers are looking for an accomplished actor, in his twenties for this role. (We heard rumors that Jack Huston, of the iconic Hollywood family, the Hustons, as in Walter, John and Angelica, is being considered for the part. But when we asked him, he expressed ignorance of the project.) Producer Peter Rawley adds, "[The film] will put you inside the extraordinary surrealist's vision for the first time." For the first time? They'll have to get cracking if they want to beat out Dali & I: The Surreal Story starring Al Pacino in the title role, skedded for release later this year. This film is based on a Dali biography by art dealer Stan Lauryssen and explores the painter's relationship with the young art dealer whom he mentored in the Seventies and Eighties when most of Dali 's great work was behind him and he became somewhat of a characature of himself. Al Pacino 's career is ablaze. He's being cited for Lifetime Achievement by AFI, he's got a role in the eagerly received Ocean's Thirteen, stars in the remake of the French gangster classic, Rififi, and is awaiting the release next year of the picture, Righteous Kill.

Life imitates art imitates life. That's the situation Aussie songbird Kylie Minogue has been experiencing. When she was recovering from breast cancer, homebound with her mother caring for her, their constancy in viewing the Maysles brothers' 1975 documentary, Grey Gardens, about Edith and Little Edie Bouvier Beale, cousins of the late Jackie Kennedy Onassis, was all-consuming: She screened it more than 100 times. In fact, she spoke of her first photo shoot after her bout with cancer for a U.K. magazine, an homage to Edie Beale, and about seeing the Broadway musical, Grey Gardens, based on the documentary, at the Walter Kerr Theatre. "I was with Sandra Bernhard and we went backstage after the performance," she related. "I wanted to tell Christine [Ebersole] about living my own version of the Grey Gardens story--minus the squalor, of course." We told Kylie about the Jessica Lang-Drew Barrymore version of the lives of the mother-daughter, but couldn't tell her the status of the film or when it will be coming out, but we promised to check into it for her.

Could Heidi Klum pile any more projects on her plate? In addition to her continuing with Victoria 's Secret and working on her popular reality series about fashion design, Project Runway, she's just taken on Jordache as its new "face." She recently shot the Jordache Jeans' campaign, with director Brett Ratner in charge. We've been told the pictures "are stunning."

The beautiful Natalie Dormer, fresh from her triumph as Anne Boleyn in Showtime's brilliantly realized The Tudors had all eyes on her at the Chateau Marmont, including ours. Her resume also includes the Heath Ledger-Sienna Miller Victorian era comedy/drama, Casanova, a lovely film to look at that never found its audience. Soon she 'll be back at work until the end of the year, with Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the second part of The Tudors. Meanwhile, she's starring in the contemporary urban drama, Incendiary, co-starring Ewan McGregor and Michele Williams and directed by Sharon Maguire, which examines the devastating aftermath wrought by a suicide bomber in the middle of London.

Another popular Showtime series, Weeds, has added new talent to its cast for the third season. Matthew Modine and Mary-Kate Olsen will join the show as, respectively, a real-estate agent and Tara, a devoted Christian girl who becomes enamored of the son of Nancy Botwin [ Mary-Louise Parker], Silas [Hunter Parrish]. We're promised a totally different side of M-K and she'll be seen in a totally different light.

The pink silk dress that Audrey Hepburn wore in a key scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's has gone under the gavel at Christie's auction house in New York City. The dress went for more than $30,000 and gossips are alleging that it was purchased by Brad Pitt for his significant other, Angelina Jolie. The appliqued-and-rhinestone encrusted frock, a size "O," is the same as Jolie, who reportedly was "painfully thin, with blue veins popping out of her arms" at Cannes, where her film, A Mighty Heart, premiered. However, everyone agreed that she looked gorgeous in her vintage Balmain dress. Lending credence to the gossip that Brad bought the dress for Jolie that was once worn by her idol ( Hepburn) is that both Hepburn and Jolie were/are UNICEF ambassadors.

The specially invited audience attending the premiere of MGM's Mr. Brooks at Grauman's Chinese Theatre were ready for a drink after seeing Kevin Costner as a quietly scary, bowtie-wearing, Volvo-driving, 12-step program-attending serial killer. Fortunately, drinks were only a short distance away at The Annex after-party, where executive producer, Sam Nazarian asked rhetorically, "How many actors can give you a serial killer you can root for?" At the after party, the crowd was pretty evenly split between the Annex's quiet porch and the music-blasted interior, where co-star Demi Moore was in a booth with both current husband and ex--Ashton Kutcher and Bruce Willis. Costner has been everywhere beating the drums for Mr. Brooks of which he says he readily accepted the challenge of playing a dark character. "It really spoke to me," he said over and over in TV interviews, adding, "I've never operated out of fear. I did two baseball movies back-to-back. A lot of people thought that wasn 't too smart either."

We were among a half-dozen guests at a dinner party hosted by Nikki Haskell at Maddeo's, one of whom was George Schlatter who told us he'll be producing a reality TV series about a bunch of hunky guys who not only kick a black-and-white soccer ball around, but also wreak havoc on each other. George said the idea came to him after witnessing all the hullabaloo engendered by David Beckham's move to Los Angeles to play for the Galaxy.

Speaking of David Beckham, we hear he's interested in (and looked at) the Newport, RI, mansion of the late Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, who preceded Brooke Astor and was known as "the" Mrs. Astor, the co-creator and staunch guardian of society's original "400 list." The mansion, Beechwood, on Newport's historic Bellevue Avenue, boasts 15 bedrooms and a 19,000-square-foot ballroom, with an asking price of $16 million, a paltry sum considering the home 's provenance. Our source says that Beckham wants to make an indoor soccer court out of the huge ballroom, should they decide to purchase the property. "Who gives balls in their homes anymore?" someone asked incredulously. "Those days are long gone."

Our source for the above story also told us that Tinsley Mortimer, the "It girl" who ruled N.Y.C.'s social set for the last few years, is heading out our way as the house guest of her sister-in-law Minnie Mortimer in Malibu. Minnie is the recent bride of Stephen Gaghan, who wrote and directed Syriana and was Oscar honored for writing Traffic. Tinsley became something of a pariah among New York's young social set, with "Page Six" telling its readers that "[Tinsley] is wearing out her welcome at N.Y. social events and nobody wants to see her anymore. " Ouch! Gotham's loss is Tinseltown's gain, we say. Amen Tinsley, who has a shot at films clearly in her sights. The daughter of a Virginia carpet salesman, Tinsley acquired her social pedigree by marrying Topper, a great-grandson of Henry Morgan Tilford, a founder of Standard Oil Company. Her goal in life was to lead her group of a 100 status-conscious, hip, well-dressed, well-connected young 20-somethings into the void created when Paris Hilton moved from the Big Apple to the Big Orange. Now it 's Tinsley who's moving to the Left Coast and she hopes to emulate Paris's success, but will leave her under panties where they were meant to be--on! Tinsley wears baby-doll dresses, cinched at the waist and fanning out mid-thigh. When posing for pictures, she likes to open her mouth, arch her neck, and wink at the camera, like a "virgin holding a secret." Gossip at the B.H. Hotel said Tinsley wants to get into all the right parties here and become a household name --like Paris Hilton! Note to Tinsley: Be careful what you wish for.

Dining outside on the Polo Lounge patio was Mamie Gummer, 23, daughter of multi-nominated Oscar winner Meryl Streep, and if she inherited her mother's acting DNA as much as she did her physicality, she's looking at a busy, award-laden career in the not-to-distant future. The mother-daughter combo is currently on view in the film Evening, with Meryl portraying Mamie's older self with astonishing results. The resemblance between the two is uncanny: the point of the nose, the slope of the cheekbones, the soft precise enunciation of their words. Mamie portrays Lila Wittenborn, a Newport, RI-bred bride who hides her misery underneath her twinset and pearls. "It's got this amazing, sprawling cast and a lot happens. Relationships are created and broken. Tragedies occur. It 's two movies in one," says Mamie. The cast includes Claire Danes, Hugh Dancy, Patrick Wilson, and a host of youngsters. She is also in Stop Loss, top-lining Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum, and Joseph Gordon Levitt, a film that tells what happens when a soldier returns home on leave from the Iraqi war and refuses to return to the battlefront to complete his tour of duty. We 've written about the picture before when reporting on Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon Levitt, when it was called Untitled Kimberly Peirce Project. Up next for Mamie is an HBO miniseries about President John Adams and in August, she'll be at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Lillian Hellman's old chestnut, The Autumn Garden, which had a brief run on Broadway in 1951.

"I was the only game in town. I was it." That's Ellen Barkin speaking to us of her role as Abigail Sponder, right-hand woman to Al Pacino's hotel magnate in Ocean's Thirteen. In Ocean's Eleven, it was Julia Roberts as the only distaff member of the cast. In Ocean's Twelve, Roberts was joined by Catherine Zeta-Jones as the second femme. Now it's Ellen, alone, facing all that testosterone. Being the lone woman, great care was given to her wardrobe, all of it designed by L'Wren Scott, Mick Jagger's girlfriend, and also a friend for 15 years of Ellen. In fact, Ellen was so taken with the clothes that she packed them all and took them with her to Cannes for the high-profile premiere of Ocean's Thirteen.

We spent a terrific afternoon with our dear friend Cornelia Guest at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool, lunching and sunning and hearing about Cornelia 's role in I Know Who Killed Me, in which for much of the film she makes life a living hell for Lindsay Lohan. Lunch was served to director Alan Mendal, Angela Janklow, and the two great designers Todd Romano and Waldo Fernandez. And, of course, to the two of us. In the next cabana we spied Barbara Davis who was serving lunch to her daughter Nancy and Nancy's twin daughters. We also spied Calum Best, son of the legendary soccer star George Best, who refused to comment on his reported status as Lindsay's boyfriend. He'd only say, "She's a fantastic girl." We wondered being the son of a great athlete if he ever considered taking up soccer as a professional. "I did play until I reached 18, but I decided to forgo the discipline and training that soccer requires and go to Italy where I was paid thousands of dollars to model with a bunch of female models, " he said.

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