Turn On:
Wednesday night brings a flurry of season finales: "Smallville" (WB, 8 p.m. EDT), "America's Next Top Model" (UPN, 8 p.m. EDT), "That 70s Show" (Fox, 8:30 p.m. EDT), "Law & Order" (NBC, 10 p.m. EDT), "Kevin Hill" (UPN, 9 p.m. EDT), and the first hour of the two-part "Lost" season ender (ABC, 8 p.m. EDT).
Morning Briefing:
Jackson trial update: On Tuesday, a social worker for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services testified that she met with Michael Jackson's young accuser and his family at their home during the time the family claims to have been held hostage at Neverland Ranch and that the boy denied that Jackson had behaved inappropriately with him. She also said the family praised Jackson's treatment of them, saying he was like a father to the children and crediting him with helping the son overcome cancer. "I asked him if he had ever been sexually abused by Michael Jackson and he became upset," the social worker testified. "He said, 'Everybody thinks Michael Jackson sexually abused me. He never touched me.'" Meanwhile, Jackson's 16-year-old cousin, Simone Jackson, told the court that she once found the accuser and his brother stealing wine from Jackson's kitchen. "I saw them take wine ... They each had a bottle," the teen testified, adding that when she confronted them, "They told me to be quiet and not to say anything." (Associated Press, Reuters, N.Y. Post)
Photo finish: Sad news for those of you nursing secret hopes of seeing those much-trumpeted nude photos of Jamie Foxx in various curious poses: They're back in the hands of their rightful owner, Foxx himself. Agent David Hans Schmidt, who had been exploring sales options for a construction worker who claimed to have found the photos in a dumpster outside Foxx's Las Vegas home, said he handed the photos over to Foxx's lawyer because "My own investigation determined the photos were the rightful property of Jamie Foxx." Foxx, though grateful for the photos' return, is suing the construction worker who claims to have found them. (Rush & Molloy)
The consequences of kissing and blogging? Robert Steinbuch, a staff attorney for Sen. Michael DeWine, has filed suit against infamous Washington blogger Jessica Cutler, aka Washingtonienne, for disclosing intimate details about their relationship, one of several she detailed in her Web postings. Cutler, who referred to Steinbuch primarily as "RS" in her blog but didn't disguise certain telling facts about him (his occupation, his place of residence, the fact that he is a twin), tattled to the world that Steinbuch was into spanking, hair-pulling, submissive women, dirty talk and handcuffs, though Steinbuch says she took his alleged predilections out of context. "It is one thing to be manipulated and used by a lover, it is another thing to be cruelly exposed to the world," he contends in his (truly fascinating) suit, posted here. (The Smoking Gun)
He's no Kendra: Kelly Perdew, the winner of last season's "Apprentice," is being accused of bad behavior by another first-class passenger on a cross-country flight he took from Seattle to Newark on Sunday night. "He was very arrogant and disrespectful of other passengers," the woman told Page Six. "I kept telling him to keep it down. He was acting like he was on a flight to Cancun!" She claims Perdew drank countless Jack and Cokes before the crew cut him off, and then he went to the pantry area and began rummaging around in search of more, ultimately asking those around him, "Do you know who I am?" Perdew says he had maybe three drinks and denies both the pantry raid and the self-important query. (Page Six)
Also: A movie theater in Kentucky is refusing to show the Jane Fonda/J.Lo movie "Monster-in-Law" -- as it has refused to show many Fonda films -- in protest of the veteran actress's 1972 photo session with a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft crew. (Associated Press) ... Robert Altman is set to direct a movie version of Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion," about the end of a long-running radio program and starring Meryl Streep, Lindsay Lohan, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Lily Tomlin and Keillor himself, who also wrote the film's script. (Minneapolis Star Tribune via Associated Press) ... Kenny Chesney won the Academy of Country Music Award for entertainer of the year on Tuesday night, but his new wife, Renée Zellweger, was not on hand to watch him accept it; she was away filming her next movie. (IndyStar.com) ... Lindsay Lohan is hoping to star alongside Tom Cruise in the third "Mission Impossible" film, saying, "I'm so excited. I just can't wait to do stunts and get all into it." ("Access Hollywood" via ABC News) ... Warren Beatty is suing Tribune Media Services for the rights to the comic-book character Dick Tracy, on which he based his 1990 film "Dick Tracy." (BBC News) ... The British celeb magazine Hello! will not have to pay its rival OK! a million pounds in damages for publishing unauthorized photos of the wedding of Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas after all. An appeals court found that the magazine did not breach the commercial rights of OK!, which paid the couple a million pounds for exclusive photos of their nuptials. (Reuters) ... Paul Simon was honored as an icon at the BMI Pop Music Awards on Tuesday night. (Associated Press) ... More than 32 million people tuned in to watch the series finale of CBS' "Everybody Loves Raymond" on Monday night. (Hollywood Reporter)
Money Quotes:
Edie Falco, mulling over the possibility that her "Sopranos" character, Carmela, could be killed off in the upcoming season: "That would be unlikely. Who would cook?" (Associated Press)
Ron Wood on the Rolling Stones' most "Spinal Tap" moment: "We were doing drugs in the dressing room [at a concert in the early '80s]. Suddenly the tour manager stuck his head around the door and said, 'The police are here!' We all panicked and threw our drugs in the toilet. Then Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland walked in." (Guitar World magazine via Rush & Molloy)
-- Amy Reiter
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