Publicist (and new mom) Lizzie Grubman turns 38 today. Dick Cheney turns 68. Christian Bale is 35. Gene Hackman is 79. Wilmer Valderrama turns 29. Vanessa Redgrave is 72. Phil Collins is turning 58. Theater impresarios Harold Prince and Bernard Gersten are 81 and 86, respectively. NHL star Chris Simon is 37. Singer/songwriter Josh Kelley is 29. Weekend birthdays—including that of Andre Balazs—after the jump.
Hugh Jackman carrying daughter Ava across the street ... Katie Lee Joel leaving Pastis in the back of an SUV ... Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw buying pretzels on the corner of East 61st Street ... Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer leaving the Olive Tree Cafe on MacDougal Street ... Lauren Conrad leaving Butter with Holly Montag ... Leona Lewis filming her new music video in Brooklyn ... Katie Holmes and Suri shopping at J. Crew ... and Audrina Patridge catching a flight back to LA at JFK.
A frequent viewer of The Hills once explained it to us as "Professional wrestling, but for women. You know it's fake, but you want to keep up with the storylines anyway." Perhaps that's why MTV continues to ignore the actual, tabloid-documented reality of what has happened to its successful stars in favor of an increasingly more laughable alternate universe where all four women are still struggling 9-to-5ers. Today brought two more examples of their tomfoolery:
♦ Guy Ritchie met up with sons David and Rocco in London yesterday for the first time since October, but only after agreeing to follow a list of rules issued by Madonna, which included no new friends, no fast food, no newspapers, and no TV. [Us, Mirror]
♦ Back in the US, Madonna supposedly threw an "intimate dinner party" at her apartment so she could introduce Alex Rodriguez to a group of her friends. [Mirror]
♦ One week after Tim Robbins experienced a few problems trying to cast his vote in the presidential election, officials now say they pinpointed the issue: Robbins turned up at the wrong polling location, which he might have known if he'd bothered to vote in the mid-term elections. [NYDN, P6]
♦ Madonna's neighbors in her Central Park West building aren't happy that she has turned her seventh-floor apartment into a music studio. (It was originally supposed to be an office for Guy Ritchie.) Now she stays up all night blaring music and practicing for her shows. [NYDN]
♦ Alex Rodriguez is thinking of following Madonna on tour next month when she plans to make stops in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. [R&M]
♦ Is Jennifer Aniston secretly leaking pregnancy and marriage rumors about herself to the tabloids as a way to steal attention away from Brangelina? [MSNBC]
♦ Friends of Padma Lakshmi want everyone to know she is not a gold digger. She's a "hard-working, self-made woman" who just happens to only date extremely wealthy, older men. [P6]
♦ Peaches Geldof and Max Drummey's 97-day-old marriage may already be on the rocks. [The Sun]
We're as excited as anyone about Whitney Port's forthcoming reality show The City, but we don't want the poor thing overdoing it in order to satisfy the voracious demands of the cameras. Port tells the Daily News: "There are times when I'm working so much that I just think, 'What am I going to do?' But I just have to roll with the punches and take it day by day—that's something that Lauren taught me to do."
♦ Madonna and Alex Rodriguez were able to fly out to the Hamptons for a "quick and cozy rendezvous" without anyone knowing, but only because Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld picked the couple up (separately) from the East Hampton airport and let them hang out for several hours at their waterfront manse. [P6, The Sun]
♦ With her husband Rossano Rubicondi filming a reality show in Italy, Ivana Trump has been hanging out with a 23-year-old Belgian model named Marius Rusovici. [P6]
♦ Tina Brown and Cathie Black are enemies, apparently, since they "disagreed on just about everything" and "wouldn't even look at each other," at a conference this week. [R&M]
♦ Is John McCain making an Saturday Night Live appearance this weekend? Does anyone care? [MSNBC]
On The Hills, Lauren Conrad can usually end an awkward situation by staring into the middle distance as the Black-Eyed Peas take us to commercial, but on last night's Late Show, she had to simply sit there and take it as David Letterman suggested an alternate take on all the friend drama Conrad's been through. "Maybe you're the problem," he said.Letterman then launched into a story about his own realization that he was a destructive "idiot," a story that prompted the well-compensated reality novelist opposite him to complain, "Does that make me an idiot, though?" Watch it, Dave — Lo may be back in the green room sucking on her dinner Jolly Rancher, but she's not afraid to defend Mama Bear. Fight!
What is The Hills even about anymore? It's certainly not about Lauren, our straight-haired heroine who now exists in some grimace-filled corner of the swooshy Californian reality show. It's been fully ceded at this point to the Feivel-esque Audrina, who with her metaphorical big floppy hat sings a plaintive "Somewhere Out There," hoping to find the yin to her yang, the burl to her tree trunk. And it's also about the Hieronymus Bosch-like coterie of damned souls that surround Fleshbeard and his mortal bride Heidi. The show has gone from fantasy to Fangoria in a few short weeks. But because it still exists, we soldier on with the business of sifting through it. And so we shall after the jump. Audrina continued to muddle her way through her relationship with the sweet and maybe-a-little-dim Cory, an Australian lad of genuine kindness but none of the dangerous joie de vivre exhibited by her badboy beloved Justin Bobby. But because none of these people are allowed to listen to their hearts until the producers tell them it's OK to do so, Audy kept poor Cory flopping around on the dock before she whacked him with her mallet, sending his brains squirting and sluicing out onto the planks. O bringer of life Audrina, O taker awayer. At least she wasn't willing to jeep on both of 'em and date them at the same time. No, only one fellow at a time can ride the ghostly Victorian carousel that turns unendingly inside her skull. In a litter box across town, Spencerina was diddling around with Cameron, a whiny little elf of a gent who had plans to have words with Brody, the tormentor and cry-maker of Spencerina's nightmares. So they were all at the clurrb, Spencerina & Cameron, Lo & her potato-ish unnamed boyfriend, Lauren & the quiet sadness of her singledom. Oh, and then Brodes todes showeds up, and Cameron played a scaredy cat game of Link while his beak-nosed Zelda shifted awkwardly in the leather banquette. It was a sad scene of people breaking softly under the weariness of living, like that part in Half Nelson where the girl walks into the party to sell crack for her cousin and there's Ryan Gosling on the floor all fucked up and waiting for his drugs and she looks at him and he looks at her and this expression of every minute of his life finally catching up to him—and of every sad story of drugs in America choosing him as their conduit—crosses his face and it just ruins you. That was sort of like the Hills scene last night. I mean. Sort of. Spencerina went bungling off to Fleshbeard and Gumby. They henpecked and nagged and needled and basically continued their sad cannibal work of stripping the very flesh of vitality from Spencerina's bones, sucking the marrow out of her life. It's how they survive, these two end of days vultures. And, I dunno, call me crazy but I'm sort of starting to enjoy Fleshbeard's sour little scenes. It's become like clockwork, as reliable and ornately silly as the Glockenspiel. I mean it's awful, yes, but it's also respectably audacious of Spence and the crew to serve us the same bitter gazpacho every week and expect us to take it. We take it! We take it! And we, eventually, choke on it, I think. Audrina continued to poke at the flopping, briney soon-to-be corpse of Cory, her shallow puddle eyes glinting not with recognition, but only with empty reflection. She went to "work" at a recording studio with Brandy. No not the drink! The singer lady who used to be famous for such hits as "The Boy Is Mine" and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. She was recording a song and choosing a photo for her album cover and desperately trying to forget 1) that she used to be like the biggest star in R&B like 10 years ago and now she's reduced to meekly peddling her wares on The Hills and 2) her brother Ray J sexed Kim Kardashian on camera. Anyway, Justin Bobby called and like the good employee she is, Audrina ran outside to talk with him. "I want you to be with me," muttered JB. Audrina didn't know what the eff to say other than that she didn't know. We'd have to see. We'd all have to see. And then WHACK! SQUISH! BLECHHH! she dashed out Cory's frippering life at a restaurant shortly after. And he'd just given the meowing sheila a little koala bear toy. "Ohhh, I'll keep this forever," she said, immediately before breaking up with him. Sadly he'd also invited her to visit him in Australia. But nay, she loved the coffee and Jack Daniels-marinated Justin Bobby just too much. She longed for his leathery arms and gruff purr of a voice at that very moment. Off with you Cory, into the chum bucket with you! Back to the sharks of Bondi Beach! And that was that. Lauren didn't do nothin' all episode except have a tired conversation with Spencerina. Maybe she's figured out how to live her life and she's decided this whole reality game is for the birds. Let Audrina squirrel her way through a series of dainty men, let Spencerina be constantly emotionally abused by her brother and his girlfriend, let Brody call people "homie" even though he is the whitest whitey to ever be white. Lauren's gotten so good at this game she doesn't even need to play it to win it. And that, I must say with a phrase I never thought I'd used in one of these recaps, I can respect. I can. Sigh. I can.
Sienna Miller and Balthazar Getty making out on the sidewalk in the West Village ... Jessica Alba and Cash Warren walking in Brooklyn with baby Honor ... Michelle Williams taking daughter Matilda to the doctor's office, then getting in a car with Spike Jonze ... Eva Mendes on the set of her new film ... Daniel Radcliffe jogging on the sidewalk ... Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes leaving the American Felt building with Suri ... Dina and Ali Lohan attending a Halloween charity event ... America Ferrera on the set of Ugly Betty in Gramercy Park ... Lauren Conrad posing for photos outside the Letterman show, and later going out with her new boyfriend Kyle Howard ... and Pink leaving the Alexander McQueen store on West 14th.
There are certain guests Late Show host David Letterman just has to have on, by dint of popularity or importance, and you got the feeling he was getting the worst out of the way all at once last night. Letterman's lineup started with humor-challenged Fox News shouting head Bill O'Reilly before moving on to empty-vessel Hills star Lauren Conrad. There were plenty of painful moments. But then there were also delightful interludes in which Letterman couldn't help but slice into his guests. Click the video icon to watch the attached clip, in which Letterman basically calls Conrad an idiot before backing off in a fit of giggles and self deprecation.
♦ Now that Madonna and Guy Ritchie have officially split, the focus is now on her relationship with Alex Rodriguez: Some say he knew that the separation announcement was coming, which is why he's been "lying low" in a five-star Beverly Hills hotel for the past few days. [Us, NYP, E!]
♦ How's Guy doing? Don't worry about him: He could walk away with as much as $250 mil. in a settlement since he and Madonna never had a prenup. [NYP]
♦ A sex tape starring Peter Cook and Diana Bianchi may be out there, although Cook's lawyers are still saying he has "no knowledge" it exists. [P6]
♦ David Duchovny and Tea Leoni have officially split up. We're as shocked as you are [E!]
♦ Raffaello Follieri didn't just swindle adults. He also tricked a 15-year-old girl by promising to get her Anne Hathaway's autograph and then never coming though. Now she's suing him. [NYDN]
♦ Are Madonna and Guy Ritchie really divorcing? It might be another rumor or really a Sun exclusive, but the British tabloid says they plan to announce the split as soon as today. [The Sun]
♦ Christie Brinkley is suing Peter Cook for violating the couple's confidentiality agreement by talking about their relationship on 20/20. [NYP]
♦ The "mystery illness" that's caused Janet Jackson to cancel tour dates is supposedly a vestibular migraine, which "induces the sensation of vertigo." The good news is that now she's apparently cured. [ET]
♦ Raffaello Follieri's lawyers yesterday asked a judge to "go easy" on Raffaello in exchange for his quick return to Italy where he'll "never be heard from again." Ha! [NYDN]
♦ The 40-year-old CEO of a company called Future Tech Enterprise on Long Island is actually paying $20,000 to box Michael Lohan. And Stephen Baldwin is now planning to serve as the match judge. [Newsday via NYO]
