JILL JACKSON’S HOLLYWOOD
By Jill Jackson
HOLLYWOOD … Happily we are seeing action after all the Awards activities. Julia Roberts’ production company is filming “Jesus Henry Christ,” the story of a boy conceived in a petri dish and raised by a left-wing feminist. Not satisfied with the love he is getting from this woman, he puts Post-it notes all over town looking for his biological father. Miss Julia will not appear in the fils (so far), but she will be the boss. …
Further on filming, Johnny Depp has forsaken beards and weird hairdos to play clean-shaven gangster John Dillinger in “Public Enemies.” … Young Miss Dakota Fanning has been cast as a vampire in “New Moon.” (Watch out, Dakota, younger sister Elle is fast becoming an up-and-coming star.) … Rita Wilson joins Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin in “My Life in Ruins.” And of course, you know Steve is a great actor, mime, author and etc., but did you know he also plays a wicked guitar?
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By the time you read this, Mariska Hargitay should be well on the mend and back on “Law and Order: SVU” after being hospitalized for a partially collapsed lung. By the way, did you know Mariska is the daughter of late actress Jayne Mansfield? AND although she spells her name Mariska, she pronounces it MaRISHka.
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Leighton Meester, one of the stars of “Gossip Girl” on the small screen, is headed for the big one to star in a thriller titled “The Roommate.” This about a college student named Sara assigned to a dorm with a roommate named Rebecca. Things take a bad turn when Rebecca becomes obsessed and starts going after people in Sara’s life in a most deadly way.
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One of the happiest marriages in Hollywood is between Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. I’ve often watched them at parties and other gatherings, always giggling and having fun together. Someone ought to co-star them in something. And yes, Tom was married before to Samantha Lewes and had two children, Colin and Elizabeth, and another child with Rita named Truman Theodore.
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And how’s this for a title? “The Wicked Wit of the West.” It’s a book by Irving Brecher as told to Hank Rosenfeld about stars of the so-called Golden Era of Hollywood, wherein he says: “She was no star. She wasn’t even an asterisk.” and “George Burns had not one single enemy at age 101. They all died.” and on and on with the fun.
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BITS ’N’ PIECES FROM THE PAST: Douglas Fairbanks was sued for $500 after he accidentally plunged an arrow into the bottom of a tailor while doing a promo for “Robin Hood.” That was back in 1922, when $500 was a LOT of money. … AND when Warner Brothers threatened to sue the Marx Brothers for their film title “A Night in Casablanca,” saying the word “Casablanca” was an infringement on their film “Casablanca,” the brothers shot back they would sue Warner for using the word “Brothers.” That ended that!
© 2009 King Features Synd., Inc.