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f. ■iflf V Q, What has * happened L to actress A Dana Delany? Nancy Hamrick UlSi Sparks, Xev. Delany, 51, 8 becomes a * housewife, a Tony Bennett, Emmy- and Grammy winning crooner, has another talent painting. 'As long as I can remember, I have wanted to do two things: sing and paint” he tells us via e-mail. In a new book, Tony Bennett in the Studio: A Life of Art and Music, his artwork is used to illustrate reflections on life. It has been quite a life, with friends like Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington. One of Bennett's favorites is a portrait of Ellington. “I painted pink roses behind Duke's image because every time he wrote a new song, he would send me roses to let me know he had composed something new." Q. What are the newest movies starring ’ Gerard Butler, the handsome Scot from 300 and The Phantom of the Opera"! Irene Foster, Glendale, Calif We talked to his people, and Butler has four movies coming. On Dec. 21, W he has PS. I Love You, co-starring ■ Hilary Swank. Butler, 37, plays a de- wtf * ceased man who has left a series of love . : letters for his widow. Gerry (as he pi-efers to be called) also just wrapped his lead role in Guy Ritchie's Rockvßolla. He's in production on Situ '.s Is- V land, with Jodie Foster and Abigail Breslin, which is due in April. And he has just begun an other stalling role in a thriller called Game. 2 USA WEEKEND • Nov. 2-4,2007 By LORRIE LYNCH Walk the red carpet at Wednesday's CMA ceremony with my Who's News Blog at blogs.usaweekend.com. Weil be live with the stars in Nashville at 7 p.m. ET. The show begins at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. She’s the newest desperate house- wife, and she plans a lengthy stay on Wisteria Lane; she 'V signed a six-year contract. A \ yeai- ago, as you know, we J talked with Delany about I her role in the drama Kid s napped, which, unfortunately, 1 didn’t last. But that won’t be I a problem on ABC’s Desper- I ate Housewives, which is going I strong in its fourth season. I BENNETT | Butler has no dearth of jobs^ News To ask a question, e-mail whosnews@usaweekend.com or click on “Contact Columnists' at our website. Include name, city, state. Just imagine what would happen if Jan . walked into The Office look ing like Melora Hardin, right, who plays her. Hardin, 40, has been one of jv Hollywood's hard fj workers for decades, p She began perform- J ing at 6 and made * about a dozen pilots before The Office. In this season, her char- acter, a former execu- I tive, "is trying to see ' her homemaker side." How did she handle liv- ing among the also-rans of showbiz for so long? "I was lucky," Hardin says. "I was a cute kid, an attractive teen- ager and an inter esting adult. So I al- ways worked and enjoyed i I myself even when things weren't really flying." A married mom of two, she is also a dancer and singer; A \ her third album is slated for next year. \ ’X When singer-songwriter An i DiFrancogave birth to herfirst 1 child, Petah Lucia (9 months), she decided she'd compile her first retrospective album. Canon, which came out Sept. 11. "I never had time to stop and reflect and look back and put together something like a 'career retrospective,' because I was always plowing forward," says DiFranco, 37. "The baby interjected a little pause in my life." She tackled another project long on her back burner: a book of her poetry m called Verses. "These are poems I wrote with the inten- is! tion of them being spoken word, because that's my job I travel around and put on shows so that's the context I write for. To print them was disconcerting." n Vj Contributing: Baht Mills, Nancy Mills, Kathy Rowings, Jennifer Straus, Jon Tollestrup I S ' ”1 Q, Does heartthrob * Joaquin Phoenix have a girlfriend? Also, where has he been since 2005's Walk the Line! Peggy Cook, Long Beach, Calif Phoenix, who doesn’t have a gill friend, has been making movies, and he’s all over big screens now, playing two more tortured men. In We Own the Night, he manages a nightclub fi-equented by the Russian mafia. In Reser vation Road, he plays a father whose son is killed by a hit-and- run driver, and he hunts down the driver. “I can’t enjoy things unless they’re intense,” says Phoenix, 33, explaining why he seeks emotionally difficult roles. “Otherwise, I’m bored to death. If you -were a surfer, would you want to surf 2-foot waves or 10-foot waves?” HARDIN CELEB GOSSIP onYOURCELLPHONE As a talk-show host, Charles Grodin got stars to spill per sonal details. Now he has them sharing mistakes. His new book, If I Only Knew Then, is a collection of essays by ac tors such as Goldie Hawn and Robert Redford, in which they reveal a lesson learned the hard way. Not everyone approached was eager to share. "One good friend, a very famous person, and I were having a nice, cordial dinner. I brought up the subject, and he said, 'Out of the question,'" says Grodin, 72. How did he get more than 80 to agree? "They knew that I wasn't making any money on this," he says. All proceeds go toward Help USA, a non-profit that aids the homeless and other people in need. TEXT 44«6(41NF0) WITH SUBJECT BUZZ PHOENIX THIS WEEK'S BIRTHDAYS 11.4.07 Sean Combs 38 Matthew McConaughey 38 11.5.07 Tatum O'Neal 44 11.6.07 Ethan Hawke 37 Sally Field 61 11.7.07 Joni Mitchell 64 11.8.07 Courtney Thorne-Smith 40 Bonnie Raitt 58 11.9.07 Vanessa Minnillo 27 NickLachey 34 11.10.07 Brittany Murphy 30 Ellen Pompeo 38 DiFranco takes a look back. DELANY: JACKSON LEE. STARMAXINC; BENNETT: DAVID LONGENDYKE. GLOBE PHOTOS; BUTLER: JEN LOWERY. STAHTRAKSPHOTO. HARDIN: BARRY TALE SNICK, IPOL/GLOBE PHOTOS; PHOENIX Al LSTAR/GLOBE PHOTOS DIFRANCO. ANDREW GOETZ, CORBIS