Brad gives up his metal rug, Liona makes more headlines and Harland goes ape for gorillas

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Bad news was, Ben Heppner had to cancel his appearance at the Canadian Opera Company’s 60th anniversary

HEPPNER: concert-to-come

concert earlier this month due to the viral infection he caught in October while singing at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Good news is, Heppner will perform a special solo recital with piano, on stage of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, at a date to be announced soon. And, his songfest will be free for all ticket purchasers of the Nov. 7 COC Diamond Anniversary concert … the Stratford festival memorial celebration of stage lion Douglas Campbell is set for this Monday at 3 pm on the Festival Stage and is open to the public … National Ballet chief Karen Kain has wooed and won dancer Jirí Jelinek, who will join her merry NBOC band as a Principal Dancer in January. Previously a Principal Dancer for both the National Theatre in Prague and the Stuttgart Ballet, Jelinek has blazed a trail dancing through Europe, and was most recently invited by the

WILLIAMS: going ape?

Hamburg Ballet to dance the role of Stanley Kowalski in John Neumeier’s version of Tennessee Williams‘ A Streetcar Named Desire … and guess who went on an African Gorilla safari, following in the footsteps of Dian Fossey? Would it surprise you to learn that I’m talking about Canuck ex-pat Harland Williams? Oh sure, it can get a bit dicey on The Jay Leno Show, but go to Rwanda, man — it’s a jungle out there. To see Harland and the Gorillas he almost Mist, uuuh, missed, click here.

SHARPS ‘N’ FLATS: As indicated in that extravagant recent photo spread in Hello magazine, Liona Boyd continues to live a fascinating life. From  her eight-

BOYD: it's her year

year romance with Pierre Trudeau — “Pierre asked me to come and live with him and have a child by him” — to her ongoing relationship with HRH Prince Philip (“He’s still my best pen pal”) to her hush-hush performance for the sequestered jurors in the O.J. Simpson trial, the world’s first female guitar virtuoso has blazed her own unique trail in show business. This fall she has two, count ’em, two new albums — Liona Boyd Sings Songs of Love, a collection of duets with Croatian singer-guitarist Srdjan Givoje, and Seven Journeys , a CD of new-age, atmospheric music. And as if that wasn’t enough, her back catalogue is also

JOLIE: no sharp edges

being reissued by Universal on iTunes. Which by my reckoning has gotta make 2009 the Year Of The Lion(a.)

OH, STOP GRIPING: Wonder why my hero, Manhattan gossip girl Liz Smith, can always make me laugh? Here’s an item from one of her recent, eminently readable columns on the frankly fabulous femme website, wowOwow.com.

“Brad and Angie spent a recent weekend personally baby-proofing their French chateau. (Oh, stop griping. They have a chateau, that’s just the way life is. I’m sure you have something they don’t have.) Not only did the parents of six toddlers put plugs over the electrical outlets and all that, they even moved out some of Brad’s art pieces and furniture, objects too sharp, too hard, too high, too appealing to curious tykes. So, for the time being, interesting stuff like Brad’s metal woven rug are in the chateau’s garage. Which is probably a smaller chateau. Life isn’t fair, deal with it.”

Funny lady, our Liz. Truthful, too.

DOUBLE OR NOTHING: Vladimir Putin puttin’ out a rap song? Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton meeting for a cup of coffee at Starbucks? Michael Ignatieff introducing the new Liberal theme song? And Quebec’s favourite game show is “Le Whack Job”? Yes, Linda Cullen & Bob Robertson have gone AWOL again. For another crazy episode of Double Exposure Radio. click here — but do so at your own risk!

AND NOW, MY FAVOURITE POSTER-OF-THE-WEEK:

9th JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL: This poster makes me smile.

Happy weekend!

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Summer movie sneak previews, The Perez strikes back, and going ga-ga over Lady You-Know-Who

SHARPS ‘N’ FLATS: Okay, now I get it. Last week I still couldn’t figure out why America has gone ga-ga for Lady GaGa. Then I saw her on the Much Music Video Awards.  Not only does she have all of Madonna’s moves and more, she

GaGa: She's a Lady

also has a big, bold, beautiful voice, slyly obscured by her sexy special FX. Even surrounded by thousands of Sunday night street screamers, this Lady’s megaTalent still came shining through …  my spies tell me that Pam Hyatt, who sparked many a musical revue here, regularly slips into Statler’s on Thursdays to sing a few standards with popular piano man Ken Lindsay. Count me in … good news for Babs Believers: She’s back, with all new tunes. Love Is The Answer, Barbara Streisand’s much-anticipated collaboration with producer Diana Krall (yes, you read that right) is her first new studio album in four years and should be in stores here by the end of September.

THE LAST TIME I SAW PEREZ: Now wouldn’cha know that Perez Hilton would get clocked in Toronto? Maybe the real mystery is howcum nobody took

FERGIE: slagged

a shot at him before now. He certainly sparkled on the MMVAs in his bit with the Jonas Brothers. Meanwhile, in his 10-minute invective-laced apologia on his own website, he vehemently denies that it just a publicity stunt (“I have 10 million-plus people who visit my website every day! I don’t need press! I don’t need publicity!”) takes time to repeatedly slag Fergie and Will.I.Am, and tearfully decries violence (especially violence enacted upon him) as a solution to anything. “I like writing about other people’s drama,” he admits, but adds, “I don’t want drama in my own life.”

Yup. This from a guy who proudly promotes his feet-of-clay cyber-column as Hollywood’s Most-Hated Web Site.

Still curious? To see/hear his full rant – which truthfully gets pretty ugly at times – click here.

AND YOU THINK YOU HAD A BUSY WEEK? Since Celebrity Apprentice ended last month Joan Rivers says she’s been “busier than Angelina Jolie’s adoption agency.” In the last few weeks Z Rock started its second season on IFC

RIVERS: on the run

featuring Joan in her recurring role as Aunt Joan (“a name I’m not used to hearing unless ‘can you loan me…’ follows”), she’s been to San Francisco and Reno doing standup, she’s been traveling the country taping her new series How’d You Get So Rich for TV Land (it premieres in the U.S. on August 6th), she’s performed five sold out shows in London at the Southbank Center’s Underbelly Festival— “inside an upside-down inflated purple cow”  —  she finished her big June shows on QVC, she flew off to London for a week (including dinner with HRH Prince Charles & Camilla at Buckingham Palace,) then flew to Toronto (“Air Canada from London was soooo good!” she purrs) to spend last weekend on The Shopping Channel.

She’s also keeping a few other airlines in business. This Thursday she starts a four-night run of stand-up gigs in New York, Mississippi, Colorado and Arizona. And today she’s on The View.

And yes, she’s 75.

So what’s your excuse?

COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU: Summer movies are coming fast and furious, but some of the best bets aren’t always the most obvious ones. Dream cast of the summer has gotta be Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina

FEY: Disney darling

Fey, Cloris Leachman, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin and Betty White — among others — on deck for Oscar-winner Hayao Miyazaki’s new Disney animation, Ponyo. And speaking of star power,  Leonardo Di Caprio’s fourth outing with director Martin Scorsese appears to be like any of their earlier efforts. Shutter Island is a thriller that evokes the spectre of The Snake Pit, with Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow as the possible (we can’t be sure) bad guys. Entourage Emmy-sweeper Jeremy Piven, a mercurial hit on Broadway last season, is taking another crack at big-screen fame with The Goods, a go-for-it over-the-top comedy with Ving Rhames and James Brolin. And remember the quirky Spike Jonze offering Being John Malkovich, in which John Cusack found a portal into the actor’s head? Sideways star Paul Giamatti goes him one better. In Cold Souls he plays an actor named Paul Giamatti (uh-huh) who has trouble getting his soul back after he agrees to deep freeze it for storage. And no, I’m not making this up.

To sneak preview Ponyo, click here. To sneak preview Shutter Island, click here. To sneak preview The Goods, click here. And to check out soul man Giamatti, click here. And enjoy!

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In praise of older stage & screen sirens

Oscar winner Marsha Mason remembers future Oscar winner Shirley MacLaine telling her, “In order to keep working, it’s important to move into character work early because they don’t know what to do with you.”

JOLIE, KILMER, FARRELL: just one big happy family (not)

It’s a key point in Forget the Ingénues; Cue the Grown-Ups, Patricia Cohen’s excellent piece in last weekend’s New York Times. “Unless a script calls for a bitter woman to be dumped by her husband,” she notes, “filmgoers have come to expect the kind of nature-defying casting decisions that had a then 28-year-old Angelina Jolie playing the mother of Colin Farrell, then 27, in the 2004 film Alexander. (Val Kilmer, then 45, was the father.) Such couplings are familiar: At 36, Anne Bancroft played the predatory Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967) [to Dustin Hoffman] although she was a mere six years older than Mr. Hoffman; in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) Angela Lansbury, just three years older than Laurence Harvey, played his mother.”

ADAMS: "Sooo thrilling!"

On Broadway, however, “women can still be rock stars. Among the big-name talents from film and television who have appeared behind Broadway marquees this season are Joan Allen, Jane Fonda, Allison Janney, Susan Sarandon and Kristin Scott Thomas.” For more of Ms. Cohen’s story on women who rule the Great White Way, click here.

Meanwhile, let me give the last word to the hottest young actress in Hollywood, Amy Adams, who co-starred with Meryl Streep in Doubt and does it again in the upcoming Julia & Julia.

“Sooo thrilling,” says Amy, with just a hint of sarcasm, “that every now and then, the world rediscovers that there’s a female audience. Oh, my God! Women go to the movies!”

And do they ever.

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GOING WHERE HE’S NEVER GONE BEFORE: Big-screen favourite Bruce Greenwood’s role of Captain Pike in the new Star Trek prequel was originally played in the pilot episodes of the original series by

GREENWOOD: Beresford-bound

Jeffrey Hunter. ) After screening the vintage episodes, Greenwood says he realized pretty quickly that the dilemma that Jeffrey Hunter’s Pike faced is very different from what his Pike faces. Hunter’s Pike, he explains, is conflicted over whether or not he will remain with Starfleet. “And, the Pike that I play has no such dilemma. My Pike’s dilemma is more about whether or not to trust the young Kirk.” In a Sharp magazine interview with writer Cliff Ford, Greenwood confirms he’s signed for director Bruce Beresford’s next opus, Mao’s Last Dancer. Based on dancer Li Cunxin’s autobiography, the film shows how a poor, 11-year-old Li was taken from his tiny Chinese village to Beijing to study ballet. Years later, during a visit to Texas, Li falls for an American woman, defects and becomes a principal dancer for the Houston and Australian Ballet. Greenwood portrays Ben Stevenson, the Houston Ballet’s artistic director, who was instrumental in Li’s successful career. And you can read more of the Sharp interview with Canuck crowd-pleaser Greenwood right here.

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THE MOTHER OF THEM ALL?: She killed her own children in a jealous rage as Medea. She played mom to Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs in a hostile white neighborhood in the much-lauded revival of A Raisin In the Sun.

RASHAD: maternal?

She juggled a law practice, five children and Bill Cosby on the megahit Cosby Show. Tonight on Broadway, following in the footsteps of Deanna Dunagan and her successor followed by Estelle Parsons, Phylicia Rashad takes over the role of Violet Weston, the brittle, uncensored drug-abusing matriarch of an Oklahoma family in the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama August: Osage Country. In a remarkable display of “nontraditional” casting, Ms. Rashad’s stage persona must attempt to cope with a white stage family of three daughters, a husband, a sister and other relatives. Should be a fabulous night.

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