Dear Steve
Three-time Oscars host
Steve Martin is giving some free advice on his website to
Eddie Murphy about hosting the Academy Awards.
"Whatever you do, don't have a co-host," Martin wrote. He most recently hosted the Oscar show in 2010 with Alec Baldwin. He also advised Murphy to "start slimming down now."
"You looked kind of paunchy in 'Norbit,' " Martin said.
"If you feel tired midway through," Martin continued, "give Neil Patrick Harris a Red Bull and throw some sheet music at him."
Lastly, "remember to relax and have a good time while 12,000 livebloggers rip you to shreds."
TATTBITS
* Richard Gere will collect an
honorary acting award at the Rome Film Festival opening at the end of next month.
During the festival, the star of "American Gigolo" and "Pretty Woman" will meet with movie buffs to discuss his career. The festival will also screen a restored version of Terrence Malick's 1978 "Days of Heaven," which starred a young Gere.
Due to an extremely large body of water, Tattle will not be driving to the Rome Film Festival in a car from Gary Barbera.
We also will not be attending next week's Zurich Film Festival, at which Roman Polanski will accept the lifetime-achievement award he was unable to pick up two years ago after being arrested for the 1977 sex-crime case involving a 13-year-old girl.
The Polish-French director of "Rosemary's Baby" was detained on arrival at Zurich airport in 2009 and subsequently spent months in prison and under chalet arrest before avoiding extradition to the U.S. Now able to travel unhindered to Switzerland, Polanski, 78, will be presented with the award at a Sept. 27 ceremony.
Sean Penn will also be there, to receive Zurich's Golden Icon Award on Sept. 28.
The festival in Switzerland's biggest city started in 2005 with a budget of about $500,000. That has now grown tenfold, and more than 45,000 visitors are expected to attend the seventh installment, which includes 10 world premieres and runs through Oct. 2.
Tattbit lightning round
* The Los Angeles Unified school board on Tuesday renamed the San Fernando Valley's Valley Region Elementary School No. 12 as "
Carlos Santana Arts Academy." . . . Norristown's
Maria Bello ("Prime Suspect") says she has been invited to join a Haiti advisory panel that is to help develop the quake-damaged country's economy. . . . Reuters reports that a 1965
Beatles California concert contract has sold for $23,033. The contract reveals that the Fab Four refused to play before a segregated audience.
The concert was part of the Beatles' third major U.S. tour, and their guaranteed pay was a whopping $40,000.
That would be a payday of about $280,000, today so the Beatles were quite a bargain.
- Daily News wire services
contributed to this report.
Email gensleh@phillynews.com
