• Maybe all those hysterical parents were right about Marilyn Manson. In his latest video he violently beats a woman who looks like his ex-girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood, then leaves her bloody, dead body in a bathtub.

• You can check out the video for "Running To The Edge Of The World" here, if you must: [Perez Hilton]
• Sharon Osbourne said of Susan Boyle: "I like everybody to do well. Even somebody that looks like a slapped arse. God bless her. It's like, ‘You go girl'. She does look like a hairy arsehole... [God] gave her the talent. Yes he did. [And] he hit her with a fucking ugly stick." [BlackBook Magazine]
• Kate Gosselin has the kids for Thanksgiving so Jon Gosselin will be eating with Hailey Glassman. "My family and I would never let him eat Thanksgiving dinner alone in an apartment," said Hailey. "He's coming to our house for Thanksgiving. I don't care." Then she bickered with Jon and informed him that he's "not doing my family any favors," by coming. [Us]
• TLC is planning on calling some bombshell witnesses in their case against Jon Gosselin. The court has allowed the network's lawyer to depose Hailey Glassman, Jon's bodyguard, Jon's former lawyer Mark Heller, and Michael Lohan. [Radar Online]
• Stripper Nicole Forrester says she and Josh Duhamel "had lots of sex" at a hotel after he came into her strip club while he was married to Fergie. Her lawyer adds, "They fell asleep together, and he kept waking her up to have more sex." [Us]
• Josh Duhamel has issued a statement about the cheating allegations saying, "This is not the first nor will it be the last time that a stripper was paid a large amount of money to sell a false story about a celebrity. This story is absolutely ridiculous. It is unfortunate that we have to respond to a story that was created because money was exchanged between a tabloid and this woman." [ET]
• Fergie says: "These allegations are nonsense." [ET]
• Fergie had to gain a little weight for Nine and she says Josh Duhamel, "was excited. He enjoys having both: the extra meat to grab when it's there and the tight stomatch when that's there." [Us]
• Beyonce will perform in Egypt for the first time on Friday, but Islamic conservatives are calling her show an "insolent sex party" that threatens the Muslim nation's "social peace and stability." [USA Today]
• Authorities in Malawi threatened to arrest protesters blocking the construction of Madonna's girls school. The 140 villagers are demanding more money for the land the government leased to her charity Raising Malawi. [Reuters]
• Adidas has ended their $3 million sponsorship deal with the University of Central Florida because Michael Jordan's son, Marcus Jordan, wore his father's brand of Nike shoes to an exhibition game last night. [ABC News]
• The jury in the John Travolta extortion trial had enough votes to convict Pleasant Bridgewater and Tarino Lightbourne before the judge declared a mistrial. [Radar Online]
• Keith Lewis, executive director of the Miss California USA organization, is writing a Carrie Prejean tell-all book titled Pageant Bitch. [Perez Hilton]
• Sources say when Miss California USA officials started playing Carrie Prejean's X-rated tape she said, "that's disgusting," then insisted it wasn't her... until the camera panned up to her face. [TMZ]
• U2 is performing in Berlin to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but people are upset because a two meter wall barrier was built around the venue to keep those without tickets out. [BBC]
• Rue McClanahan has been hospitalised after suffering from acute cardiac illness. A tribute to Rue that was planned for November 14 had to be cancelled. "My darlings, I'm just devastated that I am going to have to miss my own tribute at the Castro Theatre," she said. "Unfortunately, my doctor has laid down the law, and I'm currently having some maintenance on the old ticker. Trust me, I'd much rather be in San Francisco having fun and being adored by all of you." [ONTD]
• Adam Lambert just broke up with Drake LaBry and he already has a new boyfriend: singer/songwriter Ferras Alqaisi, who worked with him on his new album. [Star]
• Emmy Rossum Tweeted: "Just saw the first half of the interview of Diane Sawyer speaking to Rihanna about domestic violence. She speaks honestly, bravely... So many of my friends have experienced this, it's very close to my heart. I urge young women - & really women of any age - to watch it... If someone is hurting you, or has hurt you, I urge you to tell someone. Do not be afraid to come forward,tell your friends, tell your family." [Perez Hilton]
• Sources say Debbie Rowe is headed back to court because in the four months since Michael Jackson died she hasn't seen their kids. [Showbiz 411]
• ANTM's Sundai declared winning the competition was "more important than living" so naturally people were worried about her when she was elminated last night. She says, "I'm OK now. It's funny how many people called me and said, "Oh my god, it was so sad...are you OK?" [E!]
• Could Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami be fake?! Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian claimed NBA star Rashad McCants cheated on Khloe after they hacked into his voice mail and found messages left by a female fan. But McCants said they "made the whole thing up" because they didn't have his phone number and had "already called it quits" when the segment was taped in January. [Us]
• Levi Johnston is demanding a retraction from NBC because he claims the Tweets that William Shatner read last night on the Tonight Show were fake and that he did not write "anybody know where I can get some good weed?" [TMZ]
• Elton John has left the hospital after being treated for the flu and a "serious case" of e. coli infection. [People]
• Demi Lovato Tweets: "There's been a lot of rumors lately that I'm dating one of my best friends Joe [Jonas]. I can promise my entire career that I am not. It's unfortunate that some people out there are so desperate for attention that they have to make up gossip to keep their site alive." [People]
• Uma Thurman says she's excited about training again for the third Kill Bill movie. She says: "They train you so hard that when you come to shooting, it's actually quite comfortable. It's not the same as real kung-fu, and I could not defend myself now if someone picked a fight! It was a transforming experience; I was part of a fight team for almost nine months, and that changed my life. They taught me to work harder than I had ever done before, physically, and it's an incredible thing to discover that your breaking point is actually much higher than you think. It's a great gift." [Daily Express]
• "I thought I was going to be one of those easy-going brides," says Jenna Fisher. "I never really thought about it. Whatever … a piece of paper, words – send it out." But then she went to the store to buy wedding invitations. "Three hours I sat there with the all the books," she says. "I turned into a crazy person. My fiancé was like, 'What about the slap it on the piece of paper with crayon and send it out?' But now I'm pouring over the paper quality!" [People]
• Will Smith's first marriage in 1992 ended in divorce and he says it's "Probably the most painful loss of my life. I quit. I could have fixed it. It really was not that bad. With Jada, I stood up in front of God and my family and friends and said, 'Till death do us part.' So there are two possible outcomes: we are going to be together till death or I am dead." [Daily Express]
• Chiwetel Ejifor, who stars in 2012 says, "When I started reading the script it was impossible to put it down. The film is incredibly fast-paced but doesn't sacrifice any of the moral or characteristic drama that is necessary to work in conjunction with all the epic destruction and CGI stuff." [The Telegraph]
• Bret McKenzie says he's not sure if Flight of the Conchords will come back for a third season, "and if we do it will take a while because we need to write a lot of material," he said, explaining that it could take "ten years," and not for the whole season. "That's for one episode. So to do a season of say six episodes, would take 60 years. We could be getting very old." [The Independent]
• Patricia Clarkson says of her new film Cairo Time, "I've always been the secondary, the tertiary character. And now here I am, playing not just a wife, but the Wife. You know, move aside, boys. And if I can be vain about it, it's a real treat to play a lovely, enticing, sexual woman. But it required so much of me. It was kind of brave of Ruba to really write this part for an actress of my age, 49." [N.Y. Magazine]
• Were you aware that Mariah Carey had to make herself look uglier in Precious? "I had to lose all vanity," Carey said. "I had to change my demeanor, my inside, layers of who I am, to become that woman." [L.A.T.]
• Vincent Kartheiser says Mad Men co-star Elisabeth Moss' wedding to Fred Armisen was, "Not a lot of hoopla and waiting around. Really simple and beautiful. Elisabeth said stuff that made me cry... They were really just speaking to each other and the people they loved." Christina Hendricks' wedding to Geoffrey Arend "was much smaller" he says, "Everyone seemed to know each other. I also cried in that wedding!" [Us]

Hendricks talked about her wedding, and Joan's vase-smashing-over-the-head moment. Then Martha said: "I must say… I thought you were much older." Awkward!

Next, Martha talked about her days as a model and how she was asked to wear a bikini for no reason.

After that, Martha made a mixed drink, but asked Christina to shake it — at which point the camera focused on Christina's cleavage. Someone in the audience coughed. As I said, the whole thing was strange.

[New York, October 11. Image via INF]

• Lady Gaga, Gay Activist! She "was the highest-wattage celebrity to attend both the Human Rights Campaign dinner Saturday night and the National Equality March on Sunday." Reporter Dan Zak writes:

"Nearby rally-goers screeched her name. She had marched with the crowds from her hotel after shrugging off security concerns, and had just finished a short speech to an enraptured throng of tens of thousands on the West Lawn. Glittery signs reading 'Gay for Gaga' and 'Lady Gaga {heart} Equality, U Should 2' poked up from the rainbowed masses." "I will never turn my back on my friends," said Lady Gaga, before disappearing from the rally. "Today is not a one-off performance."She also said: "In the music industry there's still a tremendous amount of accommodation of homophobia," she said. "So I'm taking a stand… I'm not going to play one of my songs tonight because tonight is not about me. It's about you." She sang John Lennon's "Imagine," but changed some of the lyrics. [WaPo]

• Miley Cyrus and her sister Brandi ate $70 worth of meat and mac 'n cheese at the Outback Steakhouse in Burbank last week. Miley paid with a $100 bill… and kept the change. Her spokesperson explains: She didn't know she was supposed to tip unless she was eating inside." Pardon? When has that ever been the case? [Rush & Molloy]
• Christina Hendricks married Geoffrey Arend — he was hilarious in 500 Days Of Summer! — at Il Buco restaurant in New York on Sunday. Congrats! [People]
• Jon Gosselin says that he wasn't the only one who took cash out of the joint account; Jon filed papers claiming Kate withdrew over $60,000 from their joint account between July and September 2009. But a source says Kate's transactions were legal; Jon didn't have permission. [TMZ]
• Jon Gosselin believes that Kate has control of more than one million dollars and that if she doesn't have a job, it's not his fault. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Jon Gosselin will light a menorah this year, partly because of gf Hailey Glassman. "This is the first year I will celebrate Chanukah. Everyone in my life is Jewish now, my attorney. I love it. I'm now half Jewish and half Korean. The family values are great… They gave her a free tummy tuck, worth $20 grand." I'm sure I'm not alone here when I say: Oy. [Rush & Molloy]
• Dina Lohan says that Lindsay's brother Michael is on academic scholarship at Ithaca (college)… and "He's also is doing a movie!" This paper reacts with the headline, "Oh no! Not another one!" [The Sun]
• Katie Holmes wants to send Suri to Catholic School, and noted Scientologist Tom Cruise is okay with it. Suri is already enrolled in Catholic Charities Yawkey Centre For Early Education And Learning in Boston, where Tom is filming the movie Wichita. [Daily Mail]
• Angelina Jolie is in talks to replace Charlize Theron in the thriller The Tourist. [JustJared]
• Prince Harry and Chelsy Davy: So on. [People]
• Nick Cannon is married to Mariah Carey. He's also a stand-up comic, a rapper, an actor, a D.J., a screenwriter and a television host and the chairman Nickelodeon's TeenNick division. [NY Times]
• At the BET Hip-Hop awards on Saturday, T.I. won, though he is in prison; Jay-Z was honored as MVP of the year; the late DJ AM won "DJ of the Year." Kanye West did not attend. The show airs October 27. [AP]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Kourtney Kardashian is expecting a baby boy. [NY Daily News]
• Mad Men's John Slattery doesn't want a garbage trucks garage in his New York neighborhood. [AP]
• "Fergie is Condoleezza Rice - if Condi knew how to execute a booty shake…" claims this profile of the singer, in which she talks about ecstasy; crystal meth ("it ruins you"); dating Mexican gang members and being a child star. The reporter also writes: "There is some speculation that Fergie is older than she lets on (seems unlikely; she grew up on TV), as her unquestionably sexy features can look a touch - how can I put this? - ravaged." [Times Of London]
• Kelly Bensimon was doing man-on-the-street interviews for Gotham magazine yesterday… and her efforts were taped for Real Housewives. [NY Post]
• Debi Mazar helped Maksim Chmerkovskiy get over ex-fiancée Karina Smirnoff with home cooked meals. Heartache doesn't mean stomachache. [People]
• Remember when Michael Jackson played a character on The Simpsons? The folks of The Simpsons were freaked out by him. [NY Post]
• Speaking of Michael Jackson, a snippet of his song "This Is It" has hit the interwebs; listen at the link. [TMZ]
• By the by the illuminated white glove Michael Jackson wore on his 1984 Victory tour sold for almost $70, 000 at auction. [The Sun]
• Katherine Jackson will not inherit 40% of her son's estate. [Carey Hart are HOT in this photo shoot for his tattoo shop's clothing line. [Daily Mail]
• Amy Winehouse "looked frail and unsteady" singing backup for her goddaughter on the TV show Strictly Come Dancing. [Mirror]
• Couples Retreat raked in $35 million at the box office; this column suggests the film "offers a lesson in moviegoing: add one beautiful location to a comedy that is not very funny, add to it actors who aren't really very famous, and you can make a movie that opens to reviews that aren't very good, yet still make cash hand over fist." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader has a new baby and says of fatherhood: "I think it's going to be awesome." [Celebrity Baby Scoop]
• In a poll of 100 New Yorkers, 26 women and 27 men think David Letterman is a "hypocrite for making jokes about the affairs of Bill Clinton and other politicians." 22 women and 31 men have worked at a place where the boss was having an affair with an underling. [NY Mag]
• Singer Stephen Gately, of Irish group Boyzone died Saturday while vacationing on the Spanish island of Majorca. [CNN]
• Stephen Gately may have chocked on his own vomit after a "drinking session." [Daily Mail]
• "Matt Lucas will not return to his stage role following the death of his ex-partner, it has been announced." [The Star]
• Mickey Rourke talks about using the word "faggot." Sorta. [TMZ]
• Dannii Minogue was judging X Factor when this guy Danyl Johnson sang "And I'm Telling You" from Dreamgirls. Danni insinuated that he was gay by telling him he didn't need to change the gender references in the song. Simon Cowell was pissed about that. [Daily Mail]
• Arnold Schwarzenegger is on Twitter now, posting pictures of the happy face in his morning oatmeal and so on. [NY Post]
• Sigourney Weaver is trying to promote a Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education, (GRACE) in the Congo, which will rescue and rehabilitate orphaned gorillas, saying: "These little gorillas just steal your heart. They're very sensitive creatures. So it's no surprise that this is a very demanding and ambitious project, the GRACE Center, but we need it. We have to have it." [AP]
• "Pierce Brosnan almost turned down the chance to star in his upcoming flick, The Greatest, about two parents struggling to move on after their son dies in a car accident — because his own son Sean survived a similar crash in 2000. "When I first got the script, I looked it over and put it under my bed for a week," he says. "I eventually decided to do it because I liked it, but it was hard to go to those deeper places in my heart." [Gatecrasher]
• Director Mike Nichols has been selected to receive the American Film Institute's 38th AFI Life Achievement Award. Nichols won an Oscar for directing The Graduate; was nominated for a best picture award as a producer for The Remains of the Day and his credits include Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge, Silkwood, Working Girl, Primary Colors, Angels in America, Closer and Charlie Wilson's War. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Horn Lake, Mississippi's Circle G Ranch — also known as the Elvis Ranch, is up for sale, if you have $6.5 million. [UPI]
• High-brow PBS soap opera Upstairs Downstairs is being remade. [NY Post]
• Blind item! "What Oscar-winning actress and her Oscar-winning husband are said to be close to splitting? She's telling friends, 'We've grown apart.'" [Rush & Molloy]
• "I get why chicks dig him. He's extremely kind, incredibly intelligent, thoughtful, creative and respectful. I don't discuss my love life because it's always misinterpreted or put under the microscope. It's especially annoying when you're dating someone else who's well-known, which is why I normally would never go out with a famous guy. Let's put it this way… I'd be flattered if someone hit on me tonight, but I really can't say if I'm available or not." — Emmy Rossum on Adam Duritz. She also says: "I used to be an artsy, quiet, kind of chubby kid — which no one believes. But now I'm really comfortable with my body and my sexuality. I can be naked with the lights on." [People]00
• "My hair has never been that great. I had a Jheri curl at one point in my life. I had to go to rehab and confess, 'I'm Chris, I have a curl.' But, I don't think men are into their hair that much. Guys are concentrating on other things. When I was younger, I had a complex, and probably still do, about just not being buff and big. I think that's what guys are into. There are some right here in Hollywood, men on television right now, with fake pecs and stuff." — Chris Rock made Good Hair, but he doesn't think about his own that much. [Parade]
• "I think if she were playing something that was going to be really hard for her psychologically or damaging, I'd be more concerned, but she had a really good time with the sex thing, She plays a woman who, as far as I can tell, is really in charge of her life and is not a victim. So it sounded to me like it would be a blast. I've already seen little bits and pieces of some of the nudity and she looks beautiful. If you have it, why not?" — Susan Sarandon, on her daughter playing a student by day and a stripper by night in Californication. [Gatecrasher]
• "I've been corresponding with Anya Camilleri [the director] and we've been looking at historical paintings where the concept 'cougar' was depicted to try and see where it came from. I think 'cougar' is a way to make it appear as women are looking at their men as prey, and gaining something from it. Like when men are enhancing their own virility by going out with younger women. Why is there not a term for older men with younger women? I don't think Mrs. Robinson was a cougar — I think she was a woman having a breakdown, and it was played wonderfully." — Sharon Stone, who will play a woman who hires a much-younger gigolo in upcoming flick Satisfaction. [Gatecrasher]
• "I had dairy a few weeks ago by accident and I knew because the next day I was all phlegmy. And I was farting and it was gross. And then I knew. It was dairy. Plus it makes you fat. Instantly. [There] was a time in my life where I was not interested in health at all; health was a dirty word. And when I look at pictures now, I see that I looked tired and puffy and stressed." — Alicia Silverstone, whom this paper calls "the most non-annoying vegan on the planet." [NY Post]
• "I guess everyone has their wild side, and mine was halfway between being really shy and kind of a goofy spazoid. I never bit anyone, like Max, but I slapped a lot of butts. I don't know if you've seen kids do that-butt-slapping. Like, slapping the butts of my grandparents and babysitters. When I wasn't shy, I overcompensated." — Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who did the soundtrack for Where the Wild Things Are. [NY Mag]
• "In an interview, Lars said he thought he reminded me of my father… and now, of course, I could make that link. He's very sincere with his questions and fears. He's a real artist in that way. He never censors himself... It was a weird relationship. The moments when it was just the two of us were pretty awkward… [Still] I had the feeling that he was inside me. He understood every blink, every detail. I felt as if I were portraying him, even though we were dealing with female sexuality. The anxiety and fear in my character was pretty much him." — Charlotte Gainsbourg, on Antichrist director Lars von Trier, whom this article notes has been called "Misanthrope. Misogynist. Pornographer. Xenophobe. Enfant terrible. Child." [BlackBook]
• "President Obama seems very authentic… I wonder if there's a white man inside of him." — Lars von Trier. [BlackBook]

We see our heros and heroines in odd situations: Betty sensual, Peggy naked in bed with an unknown man, and Don face-down on a hotel floor.


Back at the office, Don tries to impress Conrad Hilton by ordering his secretary to hold his calls. The look on her face is priceless.


Betty's fellow Junior Leaguers have read the recent blockbuster environmental book Silent Spring, and invoke it in their fight against an ugly water tower in their neighborhood. Also: "It's not adorable to pretend like you're not adorable," apparently.


Betty sneaks a call in Don's office with Henry Francis, her new father-surrogate. Notice at the end, she pulls on the Don's always-locked Bluebeard drawer to see if he left it unlocked, and then gives up.


"Can I keep it?" Duck tries to woo Peggy to his new firm with the lure of an ugly Hermes scarf.


A Melba Toast box! A callback to Betty's complaining that all the Melba Toast was gone.


Betty's all over herself in that sundress — about to cheat on the vibrating clothesdryer, perhaps?


Betty tells crush Henry Francis "We all have skills we don't use."


Sally's teacher thinks she's so hot, and tries the "hitting on you by pretending you're hitting on me" trick, but Don blocks her advances by telling her "I'm not bored."


Roger Sterling: the Kramer of this show.


Don, seeming to forget that she knows where the bodies are buried, is a total dick to Peggy. "Every time I turn around you've got your hand in my pocket. There's not one thing that you've done here that I couldn't live without. You're good, get better, stop asking for things." Funny how Cooper could say the same thing to Don!


New email signature: "I wanna take you in that bedroom, lock the door, take your clothes off with my teeth, throw you on the bed, and give you a go around like you've never had."


Betty knows Don's contract with Sterling Cooper is a proxy for his contract with her. "Where do you think you'll be in three years?"


Don meets wholesome draft-dodgers Doug and Sandy, and takes the red pill(s).


Oops, the red pill means Don has to watch his father tell a dirty joke about hillbillies. Worst Matrix ever!


The hippie robbers called Don "Cadillac." So his ensuing injuries are, of course, a "fender bender."


Betty gets the fainting couch of her sex dreams.


Cooper reminds Don that he's in no position to fight the contract, because of what Cooper knows. You might even say he's lucky to even get to sign a contract like that, when plenty of full grown men who are who they say they are would be happy to sign away three years of their lives to Sterling Cooper.

Though it may be true that Hendricks' "red hair and curvy figure are as integral to the stylish '60s-based drama as bullet bras and scotch," we didn't need a reminder that she, "does not simply walk across a room; she sashays. Her hips pivot and sway while the rest of her body comes along for the ride." It would have been nice to see Hendricks portrayed as just a beautiful woman frolicking in a wedding gown, rather than dwelling on her body shape as if she's the only woman with boobs and hips to ever get married.

Could the media's fixation on Hendricks' body be why she's reportedly on a diet? "She already looks amazing, but you know, before you get married you want to look the absolute best. I don't know what she's doing," co-star January Jones told People last night, adding, "I think she looks beautiful. Her body is amazing... My only advice is to not go too far, because if she loses her curves it will be a very sad day." So true! And when Betty Draper is telling you not to watch your figure, you'd better listen.

We didn't get to see Joan's wedding on Mad Men, which may be for the best, since knowing she was marrying a rapist would have marred our enjoyment of the ceremony.

In real life, Hendricks is marrying the delightful Geoffrey Arend, who appeared in 500 Days of Summer (and voiced Charles "Upchuck" Ruttheimer III on Daria). They met through a mutual friend, Mad Men's Vincent Kartheiser. Let's hope Hendricks doesn't fall victim to "The Curse of the InStyle Wedding" like so many previous cover subjects.

Arend proposed in their apartment under a newly-installed chandelier Hendricks had been trying to buy from the owner of her favorite New York restaurant for years. They'll be getting married at the restaurant, which she says is "small and romantic and rustic and intimate, like it's in someone's home in Italy," and hiring a gypsy band. None of those details really fit the mag's description of a "retro" wedding. Though the rest of are obsessed with Mad Men, we imagine that for Hendricks that would be like having an office-themed wedding.

Hendricks admission that "before I met Geoffrey marriage just wasn't that important to me," seems to confuse the InStyle Weddings interviewer who marvels, "does that mean you never dreamt about being a bride?" She explains that though she is a lady, she actually hasn't spent the past 34 years obsessively planning her wedding. "At one point, probably in my Goth days, I thought I would throw a big costume ball, something dramatic," she says, "Now I'm like 'Eh... they just did that on Gossip Girl.'"

The rest of Hendricks' interview is in the current issue of InStyle Weddings.

January Jones Hopes Christina Hendricks Doesn't Lose Her Curves [People]
Earlier: Something Blue

Rose Byrne's "Glinda" special is straight-up beautiful.


Also in the fairy princess camp: a radiant Drew Barrymore.


I don't remember the last time Jennifer Love Hewitt looked so simply pretty on the red carpet.


Lovely to see Christina Hendricks showcasing her bombshell figure in something simple.


Kate Walsh departs from her usual sleek lines with a gorgeous, subtle Grecian number.


Seriously digging Alex Borstein's fun deco ensemble.


Leighton Meester's is definitely one of the top 3 looks of the evening.
[Images via Getty]


Maybe not my favorite look of the evening, but Kim Kardashian is still glam, and gorgeous.


It's always nice to see someone do sleeves on the red carpet - especially when the results are as elegant as Elizabeth Perkins'.


Lindsay Price took a gamble on a basically safe red carpet; I think it paid off.


The tricky gowns are the ones that aren't hideous or gorgeous, but kind of on the fence. I'd put this Jessica McClintock-y number in a "Meh" category if there was one - but the fit and Vanessa's elan take it into positive territory.


Loving Holly Hunter's juxtaposition of geometric and soft.


Speaking of geometric: I'm guessing January Jones' bold gown will be somewhat polarizing; I love it.


Jennifer Carpenter's old-Hollywood exercise in intricacy is one of the few cases when you don't wince to think of so much handwork going into something disappointing.


Alicia Witt's feathered friend is slightly surreal - but not over-the-top.


If anyone can do straight-up 80's power red, it's Sigourney Weaver.


Chloe Sevigny's dress may well be my favorite of the entire evening. Also, decade.


Jane Krakowski's was one of the best of the many disco-inflected numbers.


As was Kaley Cooco's human Oscar.


Cherry Jones has the height for these statuesque lines.


Kourtney Kardashian looks more elegant and naturally beautiful in maternity than I've ever seen her.


Heidi Klum, of course, wrote the book.


Kat Deeley's natural (which, yes, obvioulsy took 4 hours) hair and makeup are a stunning counterpoint to her goddessy gown.


Sure she's been more glam, but I dig how low-key Sally Field kept it.


While I've yet to see a red-carpet look that adequately conveys Mindy Kaling's awesome, I'd say this playful, pretty frock is a definite "good." Even if it looks painful.


If you have to do "Reagan-era," Debra Messing shows how.


Elisabeth Moss' regal situation is almost too busy - I think it's the rich, subtle color that keeps it in bounds.


Sandra Oh overcomes this unfortunate belt by the skin of her sequins.


As you can see, the metallics were totally out of control - but Mariska's not Jayne Mansfield's daughter for nothin'.


Tina Fey nails it. That is all.


I like Mila Kunis' slightly unexpected wine tasting: you?


And why was Mary-Louise Parker the only one with the cajones for a mini?


Jennifer Westfeldt flirts with dowdiness - it's her radiant smile that saves her.


Amy Poehler: adorable.


Ginnifer Goodwin's gown: youthful, gorgeous, apparently magic.


Julia Louis-Dreyfus knows what works for her and doesn't deviate.

• Two weeks after adding Nicolas Cage's home to his sheaf of L.A. properties, Ed Hardy designer Christian Audigier has announced he's moving into Michael Jackson's last residence. Audigier will rent the $38 million home from his C.E.O., Hubert Guez. [E!]

• The glove the late King of Pop wore to marry Debbie Rowe has sold at auction for $49,000. [TMZ]
• "I love Japan. I love the people, the shopping, the fashion. I think they have so much fun with fashion...they don't take it too seriously," says Nicky Hilton. Don't take fashion seriously? Because insanely awesome and carefully cultivated street fashion just happens. [WWD]
  
• Mad Men's Christina Hendricks tells InStyle Weddings about her planned wedding to actor Geoffrey Arend, and specifies the designer (Carolina Herrera) and the look (Sophia Loren) of her wedding dress, but doesn't let it be photographed. [People]
• Lily Cole is a model, who is also (very) smart. The Daily Mail took a break from publishing finger-wagging paparazzi photos of her and scurrilous scuttlebutt about her to notice these facts. [Daily Mail]
• Nanette Lepore would like you to remember Labor Day by saving New York's Garment District from rapacious commercial exploitation. [NYTimes]
• Juicy Couture co-founder Gela Nash-Taylor doesn't drink out of common Starbucks cups. She has her own paper cups, because "I'm so into monogramming. I'm doing it on everything right now." [ToL]
• More than 800 stores across all five boroughs are involved in Thursday's shopping-with-fun event, Fashion's Night Out in New York City. Other regional and international events are also planned. [BrandWeek]
• Karl Lagerfeld will be tending the Chanel store with Carine Roitfeld in Paris, for example. [WWD]
• R.J. Cutler's documentary, The September Issue took in more than a quarter of a million dollars over Labor Day weekend. The $40,000 per-screen average makes it the fifth-highest-grossing documentary ever made. [AdAge]
• Meanwhile, Studio 360's Kurt Anderson says that based on the film, the fashion world is "amazingly old-fashioned, like some royal artifact from the 18th Century." [Studio360]
• The Los Angeles Times says the film "charts the intersection of art and commerce with a perhaps inadvertent eye for an excess that wasn't to last." (I am quoted in this article, proving that if you write long enough and, well, long enough on the Internet, someday someone will mistake you for an expert in something.) [LATimes]
• Anna Wintour, for her part, says that complaining about the sea change in the fashion industry that has taken place since the filming of that documentary is "like talking about that house you could've bought for nothing on the beach in Southhampton. Forget it. It's gone. The amazing golden years that everyone in the industry was enjoying were fantastic from a business point of view but also maybe a little unseemly. Every celebrity thought she could be a designer, and how many handbags? How many shoes? How much of a thing does everyone really need?" Then Wintour goes to the Macy's in Queens where she will be — on Mayor Bloomberg's orders that the event not smack of elitism — kicking off Fashion's Night Out, and upon surveying the scene, asks in a horrified voice, "Can we...enhance?" [NYMag]
• Sixteen months of declining same-store sales at the department store chain might make the budget for those "enhancements" leaner, however. [BW]
• And retailers in general, after an apocalyptic fall and winter, and a barely-improved spring and summer, are hungry for the fall sales boost that events like Fashion's Night Out are aiming to provide. [WWD]
• WWD has a beautiful, subscription-only, series of photographs of various New York designers as they prepare for fashion week. Alex Wang looks radiant and un-stressed, but the same can't be said of the male models snapped lining up for a casting at Yigal Azrouël. [WWD]
• Naomi Campbell would like to point out, for all those who called her hypocritical for modeling fur in Dennis Basso's fall campaign, that she actually quit PETA years ago. So her hypocrisy has weathered a few seasons now — like a vintage mink. [SB]
• More bad news for Annie Leibovitz: the practically-bankrupt photographer is being sued by an Italian photographer, Paolo Pizzetti, who claims that Leibovitz used his pictures without consent — or payment — for a Lavazza coffee campaign. Since Leibovitz could not travel to Italy to complete the shoot, which features images of models in romantic poses in front of Italian landmarks like the Trevi fountain and the Piazza San Marco, she had Pizzetti scout locations and take snapshots for her. Then Leibovitz shot the models in a New York studio, and digitally stitched the fore- and backgrounds together. Pizzetti says he was never paid for the rights to his contributions. [AW]
• Lady Gaga is reportedly set to perform during New York Fashion Week at an after-party for Givenchy hosted by Out magazine and to be held at The Box. [WWD]
• On the night of the 13th in New York, a short teaser film for Spring '10 by Gareth Pugh will be screened at Milk studios' M.A.C.-sponsored fashion shows in Chelsea. Although the first screening will be invitation-only, the second is open to members of the public who register on M.A.C.'s Facebook page. [Style.com]
• And newly-minted director Christian Louboutin just wrapped filming on an advertisement for Piper-Heidseick champagne starring model Elisa Sednaoui. [WWD]
• Manolo Blahnik says he never wanted to be a celebrity designer, and blames Sex And The City for his unwilling transformation. "If people talk to me about Sex And The City, I get sick," he told the Telegraph. "The taxi drivers recognize me now. It becomes too much and I don't feel comfortable." [PC]
• Sojin Lee's new online fashion venture, Fashionair, has launched. Lee last worked for Net-A-Porter, and her backer is Simon Fuller's company. [Forbes]
• Giorgio Armani designed a custom costume for a Spanish matador. It's grey and spangled. [Telegraph]
• Despite growing sales, profits for 2008 at Armani shrank by 41.4%, to $188.3 million. [WWD]
• Harold Tillman, a British fashion businessman who already owns Jaeger, has apparently acquired the bankrupt house Acquascutum. [ElleUK]
• Tom Binns for Disney might seem like a weird combination, because, well, it's a weird combination. [WWD]
• The Ebony Fashion Fair, an important industry event for black designers and models, is canceling its fall tour. The largest traveling fashion show in the world, Ebony helped launch the careers of talents like Kevan Hall and Tracey Reese, and raised money for various local and national charities including the NAACP and the Urban League. The economy is the culprit. [Examiner]
• Milan Fashion Week has been thrown into "chaos" by a series of re-schedulings to avoid schedule conflicts, which begat new conflicts and new re-schedulings, and then yet more conflicts and re-schedulings. [WWD]

• There's a rumor going around that Lady Gaga is intersex. Supposedly she said, "It's not something that I'm ashamed of, just isn't something that I go around telling everyone. Yes. I have both male and female genitalia..."

"But I consider myself a female. It's just a little bit of a penis and really doesn't interfere much with my life. The reason I haven't talked about it is that its not a big deal to me. Like, come on. It's not like we all go around talking about our [genitalia]. I think this is a great opportunity to make other multiple-gendered people feel more comfortable with their bodies. I'm sexy, I'm hot. I have both. Big fucking deal." There's no link to where the quote came from, but there is also an upskirt video from one of her concerts that shows a bulge in her underwear (that may just be bunched up underwear). [Chicago Now, MTV]

• Lady Gaga's manager says, "This is completely ridiculous." [ABC News]
• Gawker has the video in question here. They think it's a publicity stunt started by Lady Gaga. [Gawker]
• Samantha Ronson celebrated her 32nd birthday last night at a restaurant with Lindsay Lohan. As they were leaving, one of the paparazzi says, "No more fighting right? and Linds replies, "Tell her that, not me." [TMZ]
• Jon Gosselin went out to a bar last night with Hailey Glassman. He brought along a bodyguard who eyewitnesses say was a "total dick to everyone." [Perez Hilton]
• Jon and Hailey were openly hugging and kissing at the bar and kept ducking out for smoke breaks. At one point Jon yelled, "Shots for everyone!" [Radar Online]
• An autopsy shows that cocaine use contributed to the heart disease that killed Billy Mays in June. The report says he last used cocaine days before his death, and though he died of heart disease, the drug was a contributing factor. [WDSU]
• Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore's plane was force to make an emergency landing in Las Vegas yesterday. Ashton Tweeted: "My plane just had to do an emergency landing. Engine over heated. Fire engines everywhere - good times. Happy to be alive." [The Sun]
• Kristen Stewart's boyfriend Michael Angarano and a girl who was not Kristen were seen chatting at a bar, then going home together. [Perez Hilton]
• Meanwhile, Kristen Stewart may have been having a rendez-vous with Robert Pattinson in Hollywood, if you believe this blurry picture of two people getting into a taxi is really them. [Perez Hilton]
• Willy DeVille, Oscar-nominated songwriter and founder of the punk group Mink DeVille died yesterday of pancreatic cancer at the age of 58. [Associated Press]
• Renee Zellweger has been sneaking into Bradley Cooper's NYC hotel. [N.Y. Magazine]
• Michael Jackson's insurance policy, which was supposed to cover tens of millions of dollars in losses if he died, is probably worthless because it did not cover death related to illegal drug use. [TMZ]
• Law enforcement sources say the toxicology report on Michael Jackson shows he had a lethal amount of Propofol in his system, as well as Xanax. [TMZ]
• Another law enforcement source says Dr. Conrad Murray gave Michael Jackson multiple sedatives and an anesthetic MJ used to sleep. The sedatives were benzodiazepines, which are used to calm patients before surgery. [Associated Press]
• On Wednesday in New York, Kanye West rapped about his confrontation with TMZ phototgraphers at LAX last year, for which he has been charged with criminal battery, vandalism, and grand theft. He said, "Who doesn't think it's illegal, TMZ? And I have to pay $100,000 to the photographer that said I broke his arm, but I was just breaking your fucking camera, I wasn't tryin' do you no harm." TMZ says they have not received 100K from Kanye. [TMZ]
• Kanye West declared recently that he won't be giving interviews anymore, and he kept his word after Wednesday's performance. When a reporter tried to ask him questions he just changed the topic to his model girlfriend Amber Rose saying, "she just did her first shoot for Ford." [Perez Hilton]
• Just so you know, Sherri Shepherd won't be getting a breast reduction. "I don't care how old they get and how long they get, I'm going to love my boobs. I'd never get rid of them." [People]
• Ashley Judd has enrolled in Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government for a master's degree in in public administration. [E!]
• Donna Quinter, wife of Monkees singer Micky Dolenz, was arrested today on charges that she defrauded and affordable housing program in New York by illegally taking $136,866 in government rental subsidies that was intended for middle-income families in danger of being forced out of their homes due to gentrification. [Associated Press]
• Whitney Port went sunbathing in Central Park in her bra (which is probably actually a bathing suit) and had a nipple slip, which this website thinks people should see. [Egotastic]
• Naomi Campbell went out to dinner last night in what looks like a Native American Halloween costume, complete with a feather headband. [TMZ]
• Gerri Halliwell celebrated her 37th brithday last night by bar hopping with fellow former Spice Girl Emma Bunton. [Perez Hilton]
• The NTSB has released photos and a log of the intra-cockpit communication from their investigation into the plane crash involving DJ AM and Travis Barker. Pilots heard strange noises before the crash, but the agency is still months away from releasing the final report on the cause of the crash. [TMZ]
• No one at American Idol has talked to Paula Abdul since she Tweeted her farewell, but sources say she'll come back if the show gives her $10 million a year. Auditions start next week. [TMZ]
• Katy Perry will guest judge an episode of American Idol this season. [The Daily Mail]
• Victoria Beckham says of Simon Cowell, "I like that fact that's he's honest. I think he's very funny... He has a very tongue-in-cheek British sense of humor, which I have too. I'm looking forward to a bit of banter [guest judging American Idol]. I hope he does give me a little bit of a hard time. I love that. I feed off of that." [People]
• Tori Spelling's husband Dean McDermott says, "I'd love to be on Dancing with the Stars. It looks like the scariest thing in the world.... I'm a huge fan of the show and it looks like a lot of hard work. I tend to gravitate towards anything that's a challenge." [People]
• Daniel Baldwin and his wife Joanne welcomed their second child on Friday, a girl named Finley Rae Martineau Baldwin. [People]
• Cindy Crawford and Sting ran into each other while vacationing in St. Tropez. An onlooker said, "They looked very pleased to see each other and happily posed for pictures. They both said they didn't realise the other was also on holiday in the area." [The Sun]
• Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan got matching tattoos that spell out "side by side" in Balinese on their honeymoon. "It was a joint decision," said Tatum, "We always wanted to get a tattoo of something together." [People]
• Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry says he doesn't know if the band will keep their tour going because Steven Tyler injured himself when he fell offstage at a concert on Wednesday. Perry didn't say anything specific about Tyler's condition, but said, "We still don't know if we're going to keep the tour up or what. It's breaking my heart." [Associated Press]
• The planned Broadway musical of Spiderman is on hiatus because the production is out of money. It's currently budgeted at $45 million. Supposedly U2, which is scoring the show, is mad at director Julie Taymor for driving up the costs. [N.Y. Magazine]
• Taiwanese actor and pop star Jay Chou has been cast as Kato in Seth Rogen's Green Hornet movie. [N.Y. Magazine]
• Here's the trailer for It's Complicated, which thankfully isn't a film about Denise Richards. The romantic comedy abotu 50-something divorcees stars Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin. [N.Y. Magazine]
• "I love my success... I love that people know me and say hello. Tell me the downside. When people talk about the burdens of success, you want to spit in their fucking face." — Joan Rivers[N.Y. Magazine]
• "I'm a big coward and I'm really afraid of live audiences. I used to really want to do stage one day and then the last couple of years I've done some presenting at awards show. I was so nervous I thought I was going to be sick, so I don't think me on stage for any length of time would work because I would inevitably throw up, and that would be embarrassing." — Katherine Heigl [N.Y. Magazine]
• "Looking good to me has always been because of the amount of sex I'm getting! I've hardly ever been a member of a gym and I can't follow diets," says Pamela Anderson. "When I'm not in a relationship and not — hypothetically speaking of course - having lots of sex how do I keep fit? Oh I don¹t know. I can't remember!... Oh I know... I jump up and down a lot!" [The Sun]
• "Matt Weiner, the creator, had thought of Joan as pinched and tightly wound, but she's more of a sort of sexual character. I just went in and did the character as I had read her, which was bossy, brassy, everyone-listen-to-me. And then when wardrobe got involved, doing the pilot, I put on this dress, and all of the sudden I had a different walk than I normally had, and Matt turned to me and said, 'That's Joan.' I have my hair brought up a couple inches, and I have heels. I look like an Amazon." — Christina Hendricks [Esquire]

• Paula Abdul will not return to American Idol. This announcement comes via her Twitter. She wrote:

"With sadness in my heart, I've decided not to return to #IDOL. I'll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all I'll miss being a part of a show that I helped from day1 become an international phenomenon. What I want to say most, is how much I appreciate the undying support and enormous love that you have showered upon me… It truly has been breathtaking, especially over the past month… I do without any doubt have the BEST fans in the entire world and I love you all." She was reportedly looking for as much as $20 million to continue with the show, but producers were recently heard talking up new host Kara DioGuardi (who has already signed on for another season, along with Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest). [Variety]

• First we heard that Penelope Cruz might be knocked up, then we heard she quit smoking, and now a source says: "Penelope is about four months pregnant." Congrats to Penny and lover Javier Bardem! [Just Jared]
• Thank Zeus: Jennifer Aniston has signed on for a movie we can actually get behind: Goree Girls is about an all-female country band in a Texas prison in the 1940s. [Variety]
• Presented without comment: "A park bench featuring a sculpture of a nude Angelina Jolie with her infant twins is to be unveiled in Oklahoma to promote World Breastfeeding Week." [UPI]
• Madonna's old love letters "borrowed heavily" from Anne Sexton poems. [Page Six]
• Childhood stardom can be tough. Ashley Olsen tells Marie Claire: "[Growing up,] it was almost like I was in the Army. School, work, homework, fly to New York, get in at 2 in the morning, do a morning show at 5 a.m., then another one at 7, then a radio interview at 10." She adds: "I look at Britney, and I'm surprised I didn't end up like her." [Gatecrasher]
• When Jon and Kate Gosselin announced their split, they got great ratings; the new episode's ratings? Crappy. Hence the headline, "Viewers Break Up With 'Jon and Kate.'" [AdAdge]
• More on this in Midweek Madness, but Jon Gosselin is on the cover of In Touch, saying "I'm tired of being blamed." He says his marriage fell apart in October 2008. "Many people think that everything moved too fast, that I was out partying too quickly. But Kate gave up on the marriage last October, and the divorce will be finalized by Sept. 30." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Robert Pattinson has been voted the sexiest man in the world in a Glamour mag poll in which many of the women were obviously Twihards. [The Star]
• Spotted: Kelly Bensimon and Damages actress Rose Byrne vying for Gerard Butler's attention. "Kelly blocked Gerard from speaking to Rose and was flirting up a storm - but he couldn't have seemed less interested." Gerard found Rose later and took her to a "private corner" to talk. [Gatecrasher]
• Gerard Butler says he got involved in his new romcom because he was always cracking jokes: "I was doing an action movie with the guys who made this and at night we would go to dinner and I would be like 'did you hear the one about this?' and they were like The Ugly Truth." [Mirror]
• Chris Brown will be sentenced for assault today. [AP]
• Elisabeth Moss says she and Mad Men costar Christina Hendricks — who are both getting married soon — are having their cakes made by the same people.
  "We've been exchanging flower information a little bit," she says. "Our weddings are sort of different, but we love talking about it." [People]
• CW programming chief Dawn Ostroff says Mischa Barton is at work on her new show The Beautiful Life and has been "great" and there have been "no issues." Everything is FINE okay? [USA Today]
• According to this report, it's not Mischa the CW producers are worried about, it's Elle Macpherson, her TBL costar, who has a large role, but can't act. [Gatecrasher]
• Jamie-Lynn Sigler gets kinda Sopranos-esque in this video, "The Real Housewives of New Jersey with Jamie-Lynn Sigler." Bonus points for "buh-bies." [Funny Or Die]
• The Michael Jackson concert rehearsal footage will be a full-length motion picture… if a probate judge approves the deal by Monday. [AP]
• Joe Jackson, thank you for saying the following: "I do visit the family residence from time to time and will continue to do so, however I will not be involved in raising the children." [AP]
• Administrators of Michael Jackson's estate expect to earn cash from merchandising Jackson-related stuff, which would be good for the kids. [TMZ]
• David and Victoria Beckham MIGHT be moving to a £10million home in Chelsea, London, and here are pictures of the house they COULD live in someday. [Daily Mail]
• Check out Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel in this music video shot to promote (500) Days Of Summer. It's got a '60s look and DANCING! [USA Today, USA Today]
• John Slattery, aka Mad Men's Roger Sterling, may direct an upcoming episode of the AMC show. [LA Times]
• Candy Spelling is still using the media to talk to daughter Tori Spelling. Last week she accused Tori of using her kids as "reality show props"; today she's telling Tori: "I love you, and I always will." [USA Today]
• Daniel Baldwin says of the woman who claims he left her a "hostile" message: "Either she's delusional, can't remember what's going on, or she's psychotic." The woman fired his niece, who is a nanny, and allegedly threatened the niece, saying she would never work in Malibu again. Baldwin says he texted back: "Please don't threaten my niece" and that's it. [E!]
• Former U.S. President Bill Clinton will present filmmaker Steven Spielberg with the 2009 Liberty Medal at a ceremony in Philadelphia. [UPI]
• Jay Leno's new show will have "correspondents" — Brian Williams, Mikey Day, Rachael Harris, D.L. Hughley and Jim Norton. [Page Six]
• Josh Duhamel is in talks to star with Katherine Heigl in Life As We Know It, a romance about two people "whose worlds are turned upside down when their mutual best friends die in an accident and name them as caregivers of their orphaned daughter." Cue parenting goofs, falling in love. [Variety]
• Bam Margera is working it out with his wife, with the help of marriage counseling and meds. [TMZ]
• Johnny Hallyday, the "French Elvis," fell while boarding a yacht on the Riviera last month and dislocated his hip. [Page Six]
• This picture of Whatshername face down getting her ass squeezed while getting a massage is one of the reasons I can't bear to be interested in her. In any case, Whatshisname is hoping for a quickie divorce. [The Sun]
• Blind item! "Which wacky celeb is certainly no angel when it comes to her hobbies? This hostess holds drawing parties for her gal pals - complete with a nude model and lots of alcohol." [Gatecrasher]
• "Silence is a powerful weapon in drama, "What you don't say and what you don't reveal can be as powerful as what you do say. My intention is to make [the performance] as real as possible but never forgetting that it's actually drama." — Gabriel Byrne, on In Treatment. [LA Times]
• "She comes to L.A. from the Midwest to find her mother [who turns out to be one of the original show's characters, Sydney Andrews, played by Laura Leighton], and all of a sudden she's thrown in with the sharks." — Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, on her Melrose Place character. [WWD]
• "In the music business in the Seventies, girls were beautiful. You were a performer, or you could be a girlfriend or groupie, but you still had to look good. I didn't have the face or the body that opens doors... Not being beautiful was an education. My achievements are down to my looks, or lack of them... I'm not putting myself down, that's the truth." — Sharon Osbourne, who says being "short, fat and hairy" meant she had to "develop a brain and personality and be fun and smart and learn to get on with people and make deals." [Daily Mail]
• "I'm not going to confirm or deny that. It might jump forward, it might not." -Jon Hamm, on whether the third season of Mad Men takes place two years after the last season ended. [NY Mag, via ESPN podcast]
• "A lot of his chickens came home to roost, so to speak. He had a lot of balls in the air, and they all kinda came crashing down as the season progressed. A lot more happens in season three, and there's a lot of change coming his way. Not only in his life, but a lot happens in the culture as well. So far, it's been an amazing season and I can't wait for people to see it." -Jon Hamm, on Don Draper's meltdown last season and how Don recovers (or doesn't). [NY Mag, via ESPN podcast]
• "They're fucking nuts. You have to either accept that or you do like me: You get married four times."— James Caan, on women. [Page Six via Men's Journal]
• "My music is a little more edgy so that inspired me to be adventurous. I've never dyed my hair before so this was a pretty drastic change. I've always been known as a brunette but I've been thinking about it for a long time and it kind of just fit with all of the searching with the music and experimenting that I would do the same thing with my look. The look has affected the way I dress, it's inspired me to be more adventurous with what I decide to wear. It's silly that something so simple as changing your hair could have such a big effect. I'm just having fun with it." — Katharine McPhee, on dying her hair blonde. [People]
• "I'm not great [at romance in real life] actually — my husband [musician Josh Kelley] and I have had this argument, I can be but generally I am a little, like, squeamish about being too romantic. I do love a good snuggle, but I don't want to, have to, get all verbally gooey." — Katherine Heigl. [Mirror]
• "I probably seem like not a particularly nice person, not a girl's girl. I think if you put a camera in anyone's life and document it daily for six years, from the age of 21 to 27, there are going to be things that aren't always pretty. Those are the rebellious years, the years of self discovery. I've never been someone who has conformed, and I think my response to that level of attention was to pretend it didn't exist." — Sienna Miller. [Daily Mail]
• "I'm disgusted by him. Here's a guy with eight kids who runs off to 'find himself' — well, he should have found himself a condom." — Joan Rivers on Jon Gosselin. [Page Six]

[New York, August 3. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

Oh. My. God. Everyone's girl-crush Christina Hendricks' bizarre, inventive, sinister dress is a bright spot of awesome in a world of styled safety!


Vincent Kartheiser looks like a guilty little boy, but maybe that's the Pete Campbell hair; it's gotta be rough keeping it early-60s long all the time.


I was all about Betsy Brandt's cruisewear special until I reached the bizarre tribe-of-Tory-Burch yoke.


Backing...away...slowly from Aaron Paul.


Even given my distaste for purple in all its iterations, gotta give Anne Dudek full marks for her lovely, delicate accessories and dash of sass.


The main question is: did Jared Gilmore choose his own outfit, or did his mom dress him like a miniature Sky Masterson?


Aww, Kiernan Shipka looks Sally Draper sweet! And best casting in the world: how much does she look like January Jones?


See? Not exactly loving January's mix of soft and sharp here from the waist up, but how 'tast is the skirt? (I just invented that. It's the new "fetch." Or "rufus," if you prefer.)


Elisabeth Moss looks lovely and loving the sea green. Fiance Fred Armisen is one of those comedians who always seems to be in character - like now he's just playing someone serious. Maybe an inevitable consequence of SNL?


Robert Morse will always have a place in my heart for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. And how sweet is it that he brought his grandson as his plus 1?


Ok, corset-style breast-framers have been among my betes noires for the past 20 years, but will say that Melinda McGraw's looking delightfully Casino: a nice nod to the show.


I think it's the combination of "relaxed" fit, loosened tie and three-piece that makes Aaron Staton's getup look kind of absurd. Like, dude, you're obviously trying really hard.


Dana Delany also nods to the show's rad costuming. I'll admit it: as a nerd, I'd have loved to see a vaguely-60's closed-toe, but I get the impulse to mix it up.


At first glance, found Alison Brie's party frock overly fussy. Being fickle, now I love it. What say you, gang?


I'm just gonna say it: what's going on with Jon "Perfection" Hamm's crotch?


[Images via Getty]

The Mad Men publicity frenzy isn't quite tiresome yet — I like how they seem to be rolling out the interview subjects for mini-blitzes so we're left wanting more. Today there are two new interviews with Christina Hendricks, who of course plays Sterling Cooper's alpha-female Joan Holloway. In both, she comes across as sweeter and more reflective than her character. (As anyone would, I guess.) And though both articles seem to have buried last season's Big Question for all female Mad Men characters — about how the show's creator Matthew Weiner won't let them work out so their bodies will look historically appropriate, they still can't stop talking about Christina's body. I'd love to read an interview that didn't mention it at all!

Esquire:

On her body:

"This is the way I'm built, and I feel beautiful. It's funny, because I don't feel like I look that different from anybody. Everyone's always like, "You're so much smaller in person!""

On bacon and deep-frying:

CH: Oh, my gosh, you've had chocolate-covered bacon, right? It's so perfect."

ESQ: "Do you like to cook?"

CH: "I love to cook. I just got a deep fryer, and it's amazing. The first night we got it, we made homemade poppers. I mean, what's the best deep-fried thing ever? Cheese poppers."

On boning:

ESQ: "Do you wear the undergarments of the day?"

CH: "Oh, yeah, they're all the authentic girdles, and we wear the longline bras, with boning."

ESQ: "Boning?"

CH: "It's like what's in a corset - it has these long strips of plastic or metal that keep everything [pauses], you know. Oh, yeah - it's supercomfortable. And then the authentic stockings, with the garters, and then a slip and then our dress. From my girdle and my garters last night, I have two bruises on the top of my legs. From being in it for seventeen hours. Women did that."

In her New York Magazine profile, Hendricks talks more about her character.

On Joan's voice (which can often be babyish):

"I'm a lot more girly than Joan. When I'm her, the register of my voice drops significantly"

On her curves, the attention to which New York Mag calls "bewildering"...in an article titled "Dangerous Curves" (Ha!):

""I've been on TV shows for years and no one said a word about it. All of a sudden everyone says, ‘Oh, it must be so great to be on a show from the sixties, because now you can be on TV.' It's strange how astounded people are that I have breasts."

Funny how the monkey on Christina's back in interviews used to be her body, and now it's the attention paid to it by the media, as if that's a higher subject. We're still just talking about her body — and we should expect even more of the same after the Season 3 premiere airs, as Joan is portrayed as even curvier in the new season (that's not a spoiler!)

And here's a treat: way back in the '90s, Christina Hendricks (with a red bob) starred in an Everclear video. Personally, I preferred to watch with the sound off:

Christina Hendricks Isn't All That Fussy [Esquire]
Dangerous Curves [NY Mag]

Don will hear a familiar canine whimper during a smoke break. Is it— could it be— Chauncey?


Betty will stand by her (super) Man.


The Sterling Cooper gang will prepare for their network-synergy dance-off with the cast of Breaking Bad.


These men will be old.


Peggy will be smug.


Betty will become disillusioned with material possessions.


Really disillusioned.


Like, "Who am I, really, inside?" disillusioned.


Joan will wonder why all the good-looking men are either married or rapists.


Sal will wish he could just find the right lady to settle down with.


The guys will prepare for their skill-matched dance-off with the cast of The Big Bang Theory.


And, finally, an actual spoilery-type-thing: Don and Sal will have dinner with stewardesses (for Don) and a pilot (for Sal)!

We actually can't make sense of the two-page chart below (Figs. 1 - 3), showing the length of David and Victoria Beckham's hair versus the Dow, but none of us have a degree in economics. The only pattern we can spot is that for the past two decades the Beckhams' have had hair on their heads and the stock market hasn't completely and utterly crashed. Therefore, we must conclude that, like modern day Sampsons, if they go bald, the country will suffer a complete meltdown. The bizarre hair theme continues in the fall fashion spread, in which one model poses as a hot pink wookie wielding a lightsaber (Fig. 4). Later, Amy Adams reveals she's actually a blonde, not a redhead, and Allure's editors punish her for this deception by giving her a Bride of Frankenstein hairdo and putting her in unflattering magenta eyeshadow. The only one who escapes Allure's wrath is Mad Men's Christina Hendricks (another blonde turned redhead) who explains how to look more like Joan on Mad Men (Fig. 5), which is pretty much the only beauty secret we were ever interested in. Below, we untangle the cover lies in this month's Allure.

Fig. 1


Fig. 2 (Detail)


Fig. 3 (Detail)


Fig. 4


Fig. 5

I tried to be as self-appraising as possible, and it does actually look like me! Except I dress like Juno and I recently quit smoking (but the smoking-lips choice looked so much, you know, cooler.) At the end, the application lets you choose from a variety of settings and unceremoniously plops you into them.


If I ever had the chance to toast with Don Draper, you'd better bet I'd be levitating and staring off into the middle distance.


I call this one "Lonely Picnic."


"Let's just stare at that drunk new girl until she goes away."


"Fuck you and your tea, Birdy. I need the hard stuff."


I call this one "Lonely Bedroom."


Wait a second, I thought I chose the "Joan Holloway" body. Why does she get to be so much thinner? Is that in her contract? No fair.


Here I am giving a presentation about to get an intervention.


Andrew Wyeth's little-known masterpiece, "The Drunk Avatar's World."

[These avatars are based on the brilliant illustrations of the artist Dyna Moe.]

• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been checking out a gorgeous building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Will they move the brood to New York? [Rush & Molloy]

• Madonna and Guy Ritchie have been spending time together, and Jesus Luz is unhappy. [Daily Mail]
• GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios says of a scene in Brüno showing an infant and two naked men involved in a sex act "doesn't help America understand the hundreds of thousands of gay families who get up every day, do the carpool then rush home to make dinner and be with their children." [USA Today]
• Another lawsuit for Brüno: A woman who got into a physical altercation with Sacha Baron Cohen at a bingo game (in a scene that didn't make the film) first sued for getting injured; now she is suing for "emotional distress." [E!]
• Please take a moment to read this interview between Daniel Radcliffe and an 11-year-old reporter. It is so very intensely awesome. [NY Mag]
• By the by, Daniel Radcliffe is worth £30 million; Emma Watson is worth £12 million; and Rupert Grint is worth £7 million. Buys a lot of treats in Diagon Alley! [Mirror]
• Emma Watson on former Harry Potter costar Robert Pattinson: "We're just friends." [Gatecrasher]
• Oh, and Robert Pattinson's ex-girlfriend is spilling that the sparkle vamp was "always amazing in bed." [ONTD]
• Wha?? Jon Gosselin and new girlfriend Hailey Glassman are in St. Tropez? And Shes the daughter of the doctor who did his wife's tummy tuck? And they've been hanging out on on fashion designer Christian Audigier's yacht?!?! [NY Daily News]
• Members of Parliament have received an apology from Mia Farrow after a "rogue fan" spent weeks flooding their fax machines with human rights and save Darfur information from Farrow's website. [Guardian]
• Gwyneth Paltrow hearts Spain! She and husband Chris Martin may build a home there, and there's now a Spanish version of Goop. [Daily Mail]
• Victoria Beckham wants a Sex And The City sequel cameo? Party like it's 1999! [NY Daily News, Elle UK]
• Aw: Step Up's Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan got married in Mailbu on Saturday! No doubt that the dancing at the reception was intense. [UPI]
• "At 38 (she turns 39 in September), [Padma] Lakshmi has a beauty that is not, perhaps, as bewitching as reports would have had me believe…" [Times of London]
• Ryan Reynolds is the first choice to play Green Lantern, beating out Bradley Cooper, Jared Leto and Justin Timberlake. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Michael Jackson-related magazines are flying off the newsstands; experts are calling it the biggest newsstand push since the election. [Folio]
• A&E had commissioned a one-hour special, The Jackson Family, which followed Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Randy. They finished shooting before Michael died, and the question is: Now what? [Reuters]
• The LAPD and the coroner are both targeting Dr. Conrad Murray, finding evidence linking him to the drug that may have killed Michael Jackson. [TMZ]
• La Toya Jackson believes Michael was murdered. [NY Post]
• This report claims that Katherine Jackson will have custody of Michael Jackson's kids; Debbie Rowe will have regular access and Joe Jackson will be kept away from them. [Mirror]
• "Debbie Rowe frequently injected Michael Jackson with drugs while she worked for Jackson's dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein." [TMZ]
• More pill/drug allegations. [TMZ, TMZ, The Daily Beast]
• Here's a claim that Joe Jackson wants to take Michael's kids on a world tour as the Jackson 3. [The Sun]
• Debbie Rowe will attend a custody hearing on July 20. [UPI]
• Michael Jackson's former nanny Grace Rwaramba was obsessed with Michael Jackson in high school, with references to him in hew yearbook. [TMZ]
• "Michael Jackson had a way of picking doctors who became such close friends with him that the doctor-patient distinction became blurred." [TMZ]
• "Jackson Targeted Dentists to Fuel Addiction." [TMZ]
• Some guy named Jack Wishna, who was orchestrating a deal with Michael Jackson to set up a Las Vegas residency, says that MJ was "thin and weak" and could not have put on shows. Wishna also says MJ "never never, never" wanted to go back to Neverland. "My thought is if someone buries him in Neverland he will come up out of the ground like in Thriller and strangle them," Wishna says. [E!]
• At the link, Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt discuss love, relationships and their new flick, 500 Days Of Summer, which is getting great buzz. [USA Today]
• Is Amy Winehouse finally growing tired of St. Lucia? How can you get weary of living in paradise? Should we fly there and conduct an experiment? [Daily Express]
• Oh: Amy Winehouse arrived in London from St. Lucia and promptly burst into tears. [Daily Mail]
• CNN: You were involved in the season finale of [the NBC program] 30 Rock. Are you a fan?
  Moby: Yeah. I got a call asking if I wanted to be a part of the season finale. And I didn't have to think. ... If they had said, "Would you like to come and clean the toilets on set?" I would've said yes. [CNN]
• Barbra Streisand talks global warming and environmental urgency. [Politico]
• Kim Cattrall found out that her grandfather was a bigamist and feels "terribly sad" and can't forgive him. [Daily Mail]
• Bethenny Frankel on The Real Housewives Of New Jersey' s "Lost Footage" episode: "Just really enjoyable and fun to watch!" [E!]
• Michelle Williams from Destiny's Child: Playing Roxie Hart in Chicago in London. [Independent]
• Mad Men's Christina Hendricks has picked a dress for her October wedding: "I'm wearing Carolina Herrera. It was the first dress I tried on and it was magnificent." But don't expect the nuptials to be Mad Men-filled — t will be mostly friends and family. [People]
• Remember Anna Chlumsky from My Girl? After dabbling in politics, writing and editing, she's back to acting. [WWD]
• More drama for Whatshername and Whatshis name. [The Sun]
• Al Pacino, Susan Sarandon and John Goodman will star in HBO Films' biopic about Dr. Jack Kevorkian. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Blind item! "Which lazy actor hired someone to do his college homework? Learning apparently does not do a body good." [Gatecrasher]
• "She's been public as well about her extensive plastic surgery-her breast implants, her Botox injections, and her liposuction-and wears wigs so luxurious they are more landscaped than styled. Her own past drug addiction has been some of the richest fodder for her books and radio show." — from a profile on Wendy Williams. [The Daily Beast]
• In this charming interview, Paul Giamatti describes what people's souls would look like: "I'd like to try Willie Nelson's soul for a day. It would be like an ear of roasted corn. And I go to Dolly Parton, for some reason-her soul would be light and airy, like a hummingbird. Yes, I like the idea of having a country singer's soul. But not Merle Haggard's-it'd be an engine block. Powerful, but kind of rusty, with lots of buildup." His own soul? "I'm seeing a hand-painted ceramic toad." [The New Yorker]
• "Everyone says, 'Oh, it's fake, it's fake. But I can tell you from personal experience that it's not. Some of the things, maybe they will produce it a certain way or whatever, but what actually goes down with all the people that I film with is real." — Brody Jenner's girlfriend, Jayde Nicole, on The Hills [E!]
• "When I got my breast cancer diagnosis [in 2004] and realized that my body was out of balance, I started to look at what it needed to be in balance: good food, whole food. I started looking at the environment around me - and I realized we need similar ingredients to make our earth bodies run. We have neglected what it takes to make the earth run. When I got involved in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, I really began to educate myself. I realized I couldn't keep walking down the path of, 'I can put anything I want into my stomach, and I'm going to live forever.' That's not going to work, nor will it for the Earth." — Melissa Etheridge. [Politico]
• "The reason I joined [Twitter] is because Rob Thomas found my wife on Twitter and they started talking. I didn't really appreciate that so much. So I called Rob. I was like, 'Dude, I hear you're tweeting my wife. So now I'm joining just so I can monitor your conversations.' It was all in good fun." — Chris Daughtry. [newsweek]
• I'm thinking Season 6: "Rescue Me 3-D." Why not? What show is going to be better for 3-D? A show where you're running through a fire, you're up on a giant ladder, you're racing through a fire… You get the regular viewers plus people who are going, 'What? 3-D fires?' You feel like your own living room is on fire! I don't know if that's a good way to sell it." — Denis Leary. [LA Times]
• "It's unprofessional in my eyes. In every soccer player's eyes throughout the world it would be unprofessional to speak out about a teammate especially in the press and not to your face. But I'm going to turn it on a positive spin because that's what this needs. But in 17 years, I have played with the biggest teams in the world and the biggest players and not once have I been criticized for my professionalism. It's important to get this cleared up and I will be speaking to Landon either this evening or over the next couple of days." — David Beckham, who is miffed that his L.A. Galaxy teammate Landon Donovan who called him a bad captain and portrayed him as stingy in upcoming book The Beckham Experiment, written by Grant Wahl. [AP]
• "I trim, but I don't shave. I think it could get pretty gruesome after a while - I mean, my beard is pretty nasty. I happen to be one of those men - uh, I like to bring it in a little closer to the body." — Kelsey Grammer, on manscaping. [NY Mag]
• "Confessions of a Shopaholic was fun, but it was bloody hard work. In Adam, the script was solid; Confessions literally changed day by day, line by line. It was a Disney–Jerry Bruckheimer film, and there were a lot of cooks, which became incredibly frustrating… I had to do detailed and specific work about [my character in Adam] so he didn't end up being a series of quirks. When I initially read that first bit of script, I thought, Jesus, I hope this isn't one of those scripts where it turns out he's just a little off, but he's kind of wonderful and is going to teach us how to be better and more simple people. Because I kind of hate that." — Hugh Dancy, who plays a man with Asperger's in new movie Adam. [NY Mag]
• "I'm high and clean and tight, man. It's good to feel hungry. If you keep filling your tank when it's three-quarters empty, you're gonna run on old fuel. So you gotta drive it down to empty and let it work. I came here to press a little reset and then head back down the road." — Matthew McConaughey, on his 10-day fast. [Times of London]
• "'Was I terrified [of becoming stepmother to three children]? Not at all. Actors are the biggest babies on the planet, and I would rather be in a kindergarten than a room full of actors." — Sandra Bullock. [Daily Mail]

The Good:
The ageless Florence Henderson does chic basics to a T.

Whit Haydn is obviously a magician. His mustache is obviously awesome.

Neil Patrick Harris is a consistent red carpet class act.

I couldn't decide how I felt about Becky Baeling's getup for a long time; ultimately, I think she pulls it off.

as Erin Murphy shows, there's something to be said for a classic Marilyn silhouette.

The Bad:
I think the gorgeous Christina Hendricks can look more amazing in clothes than almost anyone else...so why does she consistently choose these unflattering frocks?!

Zachary Quinto does two things I always take issue with: Sky Masterson costume and chucks with a suit.


What Say You?
When it comes to Farah Segal's meta-bandage: call the photographers - or the Red Cross?

[Images via Getty]