Look out, Angelina Jolie: you’re not the only celeb moonlighting for the UN. Madonna is taking on a role for the world peacekeeping organization.
The one-time Material Girl — who increasingly has been showing interest in world matters — will co-host a gala for the United Nations Association in Pasadena later this week.
Madonna is listed as a committee member for a United Nations 60th anniversary celebration in Pasadena on Oct. 22, according to the group’s Web site; Actor Morgan Freeman is the honorary Chairman of the event, which is being billed as “supporting the UN vision” including “keeping peace throughout the world” and “developing friendly relations among nations.”
“Madonna’s not just the ambitious blonde with the cone bra anymore,” says a source. “She’s evolved and really cares about world issues.”
Teasing Tom CruiseDame Edna had some fun at Tom Cruise’s expense.
“Poor Tom,” the cross-dressing Aussie comedian told a reporter for the Toronto Star, joking that Cruise had proposed to him/her before popping the question to Katie Holmes. “The dear boy was so into me, but he was, errr, lacking in certain things I find necessary in a partner.” Scientology was also grist for the humor mill. “I have my own cult, Tom,’ I told him ‘and it’s bigger than yours,’” said the actor, whose real name is Barry Humphries. “That shut him up and the needy little beggar left me alone.”
Paris Hilton also didn’t escape Edna’s jabs: “I’ve been asked to do a new reality show with Paris Hilton, but frankly, I find her just the tiniest bit c-o-m-m-o-n, don't you?” Edna joked. “Besides, I like shows that are enduring and nothing that Hilton girl does lasts much longer than one night, does it?"
Notes from all overLindsay Lohan’s managers have told her to clean up her act or get new managers, reports the upcoming issue of Life & Style Weekly. . . .Robert Downey Jr. had a tough time on the set of “Good Night and Good Luck.” The actor had just quit smoking and several characters in the flick were puffing away at cigarettes almost constantly. “It was set in the '50s, when people smoked on TV and they were trying to be realistic,” says a source. “But it was hard on Robert.” . . . J. K. Simmons, who plays the assistant police chief in “Closer,” tried to spend some time with the LAPD to study how people on the force work — just like he hung out with staffers at the New York Post when he played an editor in Spider-Man. But the cops nixed the idea. “I made several attempts, but the LAPD is notoriously inhospitable to those kinds of attempts,” Simmons told the Sydney Daily Telegraph. “There are hundreds of cop shows shot in LA, and if they opened their doors to one then they would be a full-time research facility instead of a police department.”
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