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Anna Nicole Smith (CP)

Perhaps he can drown his sorrows in the stuff

BRUCE Willis had a deal with Belvédère SA, the French company that owns Sobieski-brand vodka: He plugged the stuff in some 2009 TV ads, and got a 2.6 per cent stake in the company. And if the stock price fell, the fine print said, he would get Ǩ20 million ($25 million) instead.

But now Belvédère is in liquidation, broke, and Bruce is just another creditor, the Hollywood Reporter says, adding that he might see about $8 million.

Hope he's got a few cases of the stuff down his basement, at least.

Ladies and gentlemen, Hugh has left the building

HUGH Laurie ditched the première of his new movie The Oranges the other night in New York, the N.Y. Post reports.

The actor "seemed to grow increasingly impatient waiting for the film to start," says the paper's nameless source, and eventually "took off" before his scheduled introduction to the crowd by director Julian Farino.

The British actor's PR person blamed "exhaustion." This usually means drugs but not, I think, with Laurie.

The movie's about a married middle-aged suburbanite and his affair with the daughter of the couple next door. The cast includes a lot of talent: Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt, and Allison Janney. Early reviews range from quite positive to lukewarm.

Being a little hard on yourself, Nigella?

BRITISH celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, mother of two, tells the Telegraph "it's impossible to be a mother without a huge sense of failure."

"Not that I think of my children as failures," she added quickly. "I think they're wonderful. But one is always aware of what one isn't doing right."

Her kids, with the late John Diamond, are Cosima, 18, and Bruno, 16. She's 52.

He's rolling in it, yeah, yeah, yeah...

CONSIDER the phrase "richest lead singer in the world." An enviable distinction, don't you think?

It belongs to Paul McCartney, whose assets total $795.2 million, according to something called celebritynetworth.com, which claims to have done a lot of research about this -- as opposed to just, you know, making up some big numbers. (We love that ".2" at the end; $200,000 must be sofa-cushion change for Paul.)

St. Bono is deemed to be second, at a mere $595.2 million. Then, in this order, come our old favourite Jimmy Buffett, Elton John and Mick Jagger. The highest-placed woman is Gwen Stefani, at 29th.

Tell us more, you sexy thing, you

OH, shut up: Roger Moore, well into his anecdotage at 84, tells the Daily Mail that "I've always been a hit with the ladies. I couldn't possibly say how many I've been out with because I'm a gentleman... I just haven't kept count. I've had more women than James Bond."

Hmm. Moore, who's been married four times, starred in seven Bond films (1973-85) and played debonair good-guy thief Simon Templar in The Saint on TV in the '60s.

"I think a lot of the women who threw themselves at me thought they were with James Bond or Simon Templar... because I was the same on screen as off screen."

His current wife is Kristina Tholstrup, 71.

They were no good... but she couldn't resist!

SHIRLEY MacLaine tells The Mirror, in England, that she has "always been attracted to my male co-stars... I fell in love with someone on every picture I made for the first 30 years."

Also: "I had... a lot of awful lovers."

So does that include some of the leading men? She's not saying.

She's 78.

Half of Brangelina is a unicorn?

HEALTH magazine asked Julie Bowen, of the sitcom Modern Family, if celebs get starstruck by other celebs. Here's how she answered:

"If I see Angelina Jolie, I have to look away. I just feel like maybe she's not real. She's like a unicorn. It's like, 'There's Angelina Jolie. We're not going to seriously stand here and pretend it's not like seeing a yeti, right?'"

Twiggy wasn't really happy being Twiggy

ANYBODY remember a famous model called Lesley Hornby?

No? Hint: She was known around the world as Twiggy. Big deal in the 1960s. With Jean Shrimpton, the first of the really skinny models.

Now she tells The Guardian that back then "I didn't understand the fuss over me. I was being whisked around the world, put in beautiful clothes, told I was gorgeous and earning lots of money. I just remember thinking: "God, they're all mad!" I hated being skinny and funny looking and desperately wanted a bosom."

She's still modelling, a little, and has released a couple of albums, and tells the paper she's happily married.

Anna Nicole Smith biopic on the way

BACK in the '90s, Anna Nicole Smith was a regular in gossip columns. Remember? Va-va-voom talent-free Playboy model/starlet/stripper who married, in 1994 an antique, quintillionaire oilman. He died 14 months later (happy, people said). She fought his kinfolk all the way to the Supreme Court over his money, but died of an overdose in 2007.

Now there will be a made-for-TV biopic, on Lifetime. Christina Hendricks and Jenny McCarthy are being mentioned to star.

(There was a biopic already, in 2007, but it had a budget of about $22.60 and starred Willa Ford.)

Christina and Jenny are "neck and neck" Don't Usemyname told the Sunday Express, decorously avoiding other possible finish-line images.

Who plays dirty old man J. Howard Marshall? Probably James Cromwell, who was in The Actor, Babe, etc.)

Taylor, Burton and lots of Yahtzee!

THINK of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. Great acting, tempestuous love, wild parties, big fights, much hurling of empty liquor bottles... and lots and lots of Yahtzee. Who knew?

Yahtzee is a 1950s table game, with dice. Dull as dishwater. But the Telegraph says the Welsh actor's diaries, finally about to be published, tell how the couple got into the game in Gstaad, in 1965. They played almost six hours that day, and regularly afterwards. The diaries are due next month, from Yale University Press.

-- Postmedia News

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 23, 2012 ??65526