OMG it’s Fabian!! … plus Katie & the Kennedys, Hoffert’s next gig, Spielberg’s next flick and Harrington’s nuptials

SHARPS ‘N’ FLATS: Veteran crowd-pleasers Fabian and Bobby Vee headline the Original Stars From American Bandstand show at Fallsview Casino July 1&2 … Irish

FABIAN: taking the Falls

sensations Celtic Women are set to make their only area appearance July 16 at Casino Rama. Apparenty they couldn’t find a big enough venue in T.O. …  gardenia-voiced thrush Judy Marshak is set to headline the Friday night Jazz Vocalist Series at The Old Mill this week with Bruce Harvey on piano and George Kozub on bass. M’lady’s repertoire will include some favourite standards by Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Dave Frishberg, Blossom Dearie and Cole Porter. For more info, just click here … and magical media music man Paul Hoffert was in Singapore last month, teaching a course on how to compose music for videogames, websites, iPads, & such, using his own textbook, Music For New Media. When he’s not on stage celebrating the current revival of his superBand Lighthouse

HARRINGTON: engagement(s)

he’s on stage playing jazz, either as part of the Paul Hoffert Trio or the Jim Gelcer Trio, and admits he’s already having far too much fun. Next gig for Hoffert and his trio is a stint this weekend, also at the Old Mill. Hmmmm ….

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS DEPT. I: What do Girl Guides Of Canada and the Art Gallery Of Ontario have in common?  Next week’s official launch of Canadian Girls Say, the photography exhibition opening Wednesday in Walker Court.

BALLET HIGH: National Ballet of Canada stars Guillaume Côté and Zdenek Konvalina will dance their new creative collaboration Impermanence when it premieres later this month at the 73rd annual Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence … ballet icon Rex Harrington and fiancé Robert Hope, who have been together for six years, got officially engaged in March – in France, no less — and will wed next summer. Meanwhile, much to the delight of his fans, Harrington will return to the stage in the

KINNEAR: JFK?

role of Prince Gremin in the newly designed Onegin, June 19 – 25 at the Four Seasons Centre … and speaking of Onegin, the National Ballet website currently features two dazzling behind-the-scenes videos of the remaking, restoring and refurbishing of Santo Loquasto’s spectacular designs for this extravagant Russian melodrama. To see them, just click here.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS DEPT. II: What do Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes have in common? The Kennedy dynasty, apparently. Kinnear will play the USA’s most admired commander in chief, with Holmes as the future Jackie O., in a big-budget mini-series shooting here in June. Barry Pepper is set to play Robert Kennedy, Kenneth Welsh will play J. Edgar Hoover and Tom Wilkinson will play poppa Joe Kennedy Sr.  Who will play Marilyn? Not Lindsay Lohan — she’s already committed to bringing Linda Lovelace‘s sad story to the screen. But wouldn’t she be terrific in the role? (I’m just sayin’ … )

FLICKERS: Director David Frankel, now shooting the screen version of The Big Year, is juggling a wonderfully eclectic cast including Anthony Anderson, Jack Black, Brian Dennehy, Anjelica Huston, Steve Martin, Dianne Wiest, Owen Wilson and JoBeth Williams … this year’s Toronto Jewish Film Festival was the most successful TJFF ever. Which is why they’ve already set the dates for next year’s movie marathon: May 7-15, 2011. Now that’s planning ahead  … and Steven Spielberg will direct the film version of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse, the saga of a friendship between a boy and a horse whose fates continue to intertwine over the course of World War I. The stage version is currently a major crowd-pleaser at the National Theatre in London.

TOMORROW:

Peter Appleyard, Natalie Cole, Sean Cullen,

Hugh Hefner & Doris Day (yes, Doris Day!)

From Daniel to Norah, from Ricky to Rick, we’re back on track with more stars in our eyes (SEND)

Now, where was I?

Oh yeah, now I remember. I was about to tell you that I was going on hiatus for two weeks, and then I did That Thing We All Do But Swear We Won’t Ever Do Again,

I forgot to press SEND.

(sigh)

Actually, more often than not, The Thing I Do That I Wish I Didn’t Do is press SEND too soon, before I’ve finished typing whatever breathtaking prose I’m trying on at the time.

So — unless I press SEND too soon, or forget to press it at all — I’m back.

Did’ja miss me?

* * *

OUR TOWN: Filmmakers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher are set to attend tonight’s Doc Soup screenings of their family saga October Country

JONES: here next month

tonight at the Bloor Cinema … the Toronto premiere of Displacement, the multi-media dance art piece created by choreographer Robert Glumbek, visual artist Vessna Perunovich and composer Christos Hatzis, opens tonight at Fleck Dance Theatre as part of Harbourfront Centre’s NextSteps Dance Series. The show, performed by seven dancers, also features the Penderecki String Quartet … Whodunit 2009, this year much-anticipated annual Ontario College Of Art & Design fund-raiser, previews today, tomorrow and Friday before the Mystery Art by the famous and soon-to-be-famous goes on

RADCLIFFE: Greenwich Village

sale Saturday. For more info, collectors, just click here …. p.s. to Radio City Music Hall aficionados: this is the last night to see the justifiably legendary Rockettes kick up their heels at the Air Canada Centre … and the CHUM Christmas Wish, this year in partnership with CP24, yesterday launched its 43rd Christmas season for raising money and collecting toys for families in need across the Greater Toronto Area.

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Did you know that Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) was personally tutored by the Coutts Bank when he turned 18 and learned how to best invest his earnings, currently estimated at $15-20 million? Me neither. But that could explain how the young Mr. R. acquired his new $6 million Greenwich Village townhouse, which will be his home base when

APATOW: on line today

he returns to Broadway to fill the Robert Morse/Matthew Broderick song-and-dance shoes in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying … riding high on the love-letter reviews for her new album The Fall, Norah Jones is set to guest on The Colbert Report tonight. Expect to hear and see her next month with Jian on Q and Strombo on The Hour … artist Natalka Husar opens her new show, Burden Of Innocence, tomorrow in Hamilton. Advance word on Husar’s new exhibition hints at taking her lifelong obsession with painting and with the Ukraine, her ancestral home, into new territory. For more details, click here … and new comedy zillionaire Judd Apatow is taking questions today at the Funny Or Die writers’ room at 12:30 pm pst (3:30 pm our time.) To quiz him, or to just submit your question, click here.

HOSTS WITH THE MOST:  It’s official — Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are Oscar’s newest Odd Couple. They are now set to co-host next year’s Academy

KARPLUK & MERCER: Gemini twins (photo: CP)

Awards telecast on Sunday March 7 … meanwhile, Office creator Ricky Gervais has been tagged to host the Golden Globes on Sunday Jan. 17 … and yes, I agree, Ron James did a dandy job of hosting last Saturday night’s Gemini Awards. Among the happiest winners: Rick Mercer, not just because his weekly Rick Mercer Report won Best Comedy Series, but also because he got to hang out with people he watches on TV, like Erin (Being Erica) Karpluk and Cory (Glee) Monteith — who, according to my spies, were even more excited to be hanging out with him.

Ain’t show biz grand?

TOMORROW:

Star-crossed reunion: Patti Lupone & Mandy Patinkin.

Carmela moves to the E.R., Pacino plays doctor, Courtney in Short order, Harrison & Calista blue-sky it, and why Denzel won’t play Obama

Okay, she’s a nurse with a drug habit. We’ve seen that before. And her boyfriend, a pharmacist, is also her dealer. Which is sort of a twist. What makes this story so interesting? Jackie – or Nurse Jackie, as per the new dramatic series about her – is played by award-laden Sopranos star Edie Falco, and her pharmacist

FALCO: addicted

boyfriend is played by Paul Schulze, who played Father Intintola, the neighborhood priest with whom Edie/Carmela was totally infatuated. And making the drama behind this drama even more, well, dramatic, is the fact that both the star and the series writers Liz Brixius and Linda Wallem are card-carrying members of AA. Falco, who has sober for almost two decades, says she was determined not to take a holier-than-thou approach to Jackie. ““It was sort of endlessly fascinating and deeply saddening when I was struggling myself,” she told New York Times writer Kathryn Shattuck. “I know what it’s like to be lost in addiction.” For more of Ms. Shattuck’s excellent Rx on Nurse Jackie, click here.

AND SPEAKING OF ANGELS OF MERCY:  It’s official. Al Pacino will play suicide specialist Dr. Jack Kevorkian in the upcoming HBO biopic.

MACNEIL: wedding belle

COMMON GROUND: What do John Travolta and Harrison Ford have in common? For one thing, they’re both licensed pilots. Which is how Ford celebrated the Memorial Day weekend by flyng his bride Calista Flockhart, her son Liam and his grandson Ethan to the Monterey Aquarium, which opened early so the family could watch some sleepy penguins wake up … what do Laura Dern, Eric Stolz, and Courtney Cox have in common? They’re among the celebrated on-screen players in the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival, set for June 16-21 at a theatre near you … what do CBC EVP Richard Stursberg and comely CBC news anchor Carole MacNeil have in common? Wedding bells. According to Carole’s CBC News: Sunday co-host Evan Solomon, they’re planning to tie the knot later this month.

BOYLE: " ...next?"

ON THE BOYLE: A sometime-collaborator of Steve Martin‘s, actor Ricky Jay is also a sleight-of-hand artist and author. Earlier this week he contributed an op-ed piece to the New York Times about the apparent worldwide obsession with Britain’s Got Talent ‘loser’ Susan Boyle.

 “Should we have expected anything more, or less?” he asks. “Our first look at Ms. Boyle generated not only expectation but surprise. But as she became overexposed, our surprise diminished. The extraordinary became commonplace.”

Because of her presence on youtube, he notes,  “A performing cycle that once could have taken years is herein reduced to days. She’s unknown, we’re surprised. She’s embraced, we’re disenchanted. She’s the runner-up … next?”

To see Jay’s column, cleverly and appropriately headlined Desperately Seeking Susan, click here.

WASHINGTON: remake

QUOTABLE QUOTES: “When Barack Obama’s story is ready to be told, I’ll be too old to do it. And if it were made right now, he has too much to do to have me hanging around asking for tips on how to play him.”

The speaker? John Travolta’s co-star in The Taking Of Pelham 123, Denzel Washington, in an interview with Reader’s Digest.

For a sneak preview of this remake – believe it or not, it was villainous Robert Shaw versus lawman Walter Matthau (yes, Walter Matthau) in the 1973 original – just click here.