Danny Devito

Once upon a slime, as some Hollywood stories begin, a short, sleazeball, pool-hall punk from the Jersey shore went west with way-out dreams: to marry an actress and make himself a star. Not without confidence, our lovable loser straightened to his full height of 5 feet, sucked in his ample gut and combed his receding hairline just so. In front of his mirror he saw a leading man, a lean, WASPish Jimmy Stewart riding off into the sunset with Jane Wyman. What are dreams for? In Hollywood they saw a short, fat, balding punk from Asbury Park with few credits and a face pushed in like a happy dog's.

Near the outset of Jack the Bear, a mawkish coming-of-age drama about a 12- year-old, his little brother and their widower dad, a road crew begins tearing up the street outside their Oakland, Calif., home. As the father and his sons struggle with their recent loss and the emotional unsteadiness brought on by a new town, a new school, a new job - not to mention the debilitating consequences of Dad's alcoholism - the street remains a dug-up mess. It's a none-too-subtle metaphor for the emotional upheaval in the Leary household, and if you have any doubt about the condition of the road by movie's end, then you don't know Hollywood.

"You know, Danny's very sick," said Kathleen Turner, an atypical conspiratorial hush in her husky voice. She'd just finished a scene for Danny DeVito, her "Romancing the Stone" and "Jewel of the Nile" co-star, who was directing his second feature film, "The War of the Roses. " "He never pulled us back," she went on. "He continually pushed us to see how far we'd go. " "He's a dark son of a bitch," confirmed Michael Douglas, the producer- actor who roomed with DeVito in the late 1960s and has used the compact actor-director in his productions of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Stone/Jewel.

The phones at the Actors Center in Center City began ringing at 7 a.m. Thursday and kept on going all day, through the night and into the next day. Close to 3,000 parents calling - or trying to get through the jammed phone lines - so that their adorable children could audition for a new movie, Jack the Bear, starring Danny DeVito and directed by Philadelphian Marshall Herskovitz (thirtysomething). Such madness is taking place in 15 states as Twentieth Century Fox conducts a search for potential child stars to play DeVito's sons and neighbors.

There are many theories about what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. Some say the longtime president of the Teamsters union, a man with myriad enemies, was fitted with cement boots and dumped into the Atlantic. Others say he was cut into tiny bits, put into a drum, and then dumped into the Atlantic. And then there's the Sudden Death theory, which has it that Hoffa was buried at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. "Yeah," says director Danny DeVito, whose Hoffa, which opens tomorrow, tackles all these myths and more.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Taylor Swift (right) has joined the voice cast of " Dr. Seuss ' The Lorax. " Swift joins Danny DeVito , Ed Helms , Zac Efron , Rob Riggle and Betty White in the tale of a boy (Efron) who searches for a way to win the affection of the girl of his dreams (Swift). He comes across the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world.  

Q AND A Question - Can dogs communicate with each other? - Samantha Paul, Highland Elementary, Abington Answer - Dogs communicate by pricking up their ears, wagging their tails, sniffing and, some experts say, by barking. Lowered ears signal fear. Pricked ears mean they're paying attention. Ears held forward mean alarm. A raised and wagging tail means joy, and a rigid tail means uneasiness. If the dog's tail is lowered, it's insecure, and if it snarls, it feels intimidated.

David Mamet Lite, The Big Kahuna is a stagy drama set in a killingly anonymous Midwestern conventioneers hotel where three fellow industrial-lubricant salesmen angst about their lots in life - and about hooking up with a very important client (the kahuna of the title). Kevin Spacey stars as Larry, the cynic of the bunch; Danny DeVito plays Phil, the divorced veteran who faces his future with weary resignation; and Peter Facinelli is Bob, the young go-getter who thinks he has all the answers - and who has a zealot's faith in Christ.

Urbane literary comedies don't come along very often, so when they do, you wish they were a lot better than "Living Out Loud. " The movie stars Holly Hunter as Judith Nelson, a middle-aged Manhattan divorcee trying to figure out where her life went wrong, and in the process, dreaming about how things might have been different. Daydreaming, to be precise. Judith has frequent lapses into wishful or vengeful fantasies, presented without introduction or visual cue, so they are impossible to separate from the movie's ordinary narrative.

THE MATTER is set to be decided on Wednesday at trial in Texas. Our hearts died a little bit when we heard that Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman were splitting after 30 years of marriage. Not many details were released when the divorce was announced earlier this month, so we hoped with all of our broken hearts that a reconcilliation might be on the way, but RadarOnline.com has dashed them once more. The couple, who met on the set of "Taxi," simply couldn't sustain DeVito's wandering eye. "He may not appear to be a ladies' man, but Danny certainly gets a lot of female attention," a source told Radar.

KIM DELANEY joins a long line of Hollywood celebrities who have embarrassed themselves in public. An (extremely abridged) look back: LADY GAGA: She celebrated the New York Giants' win last week by pouring champagne into the stands. Into the handicapped section. KANYE WEST: "I'mma let you finish," he famously told Taylor Swift after drunkenly stumbling into her MTV Video Music Award acceptance speech in 2009. PAULA ABDUL: She had to tell the world about a neurological disorder to dodge allegations that she was drugged up while on "American Idol.

Jeff Conaway, 60, who starred in the sitcom Taxi , played the swaggering character of Kenickie in the movie musical Grease , and publicly battled his drug and alcohol addiction on Celebrity Rehab , died Friday. The actor was taken off life support Thursday and died Friday morning at Encino Tarzana Medical Center in Encino, Calif., according to one of his managers, Kathryn Boole. He was taken there unconscious May 11 and placed in a medically induced coma. He had been treating himself with pain pills and cold medicine while in weakened health, said Phil Brock, Boole's business partner.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Taylor Swift (right) has joined the voice cast of " Dr. Seuss ' The Lorax. " Swift joins Danny DeVito , Ed Helms , Zac Efron , Rob Riggle and Betty White in the tale of a boy (Efron) who searches for a way to win the affection of the girl of his dreams (Swift). He comes across the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world.  

MTV HAS LONG been a network brimming with bad taste. Now it may be a network for child pornography - at least what Tattle's good friends at the Parents Television Council consider child pornography. The folks at the PTC have refused the advice of Daily News TV critic Ellen Gray (who, in reviewing MTV's raunchy "Skins," said the PTC should keep quiet and not draw attention to the show) and yesterday called on the chairmen of the U.S. Senate and House Judiciary Committees and the Department of Justice to immediately open an investigation regarding child pornography and exploitation on the show.

SO MUCH television, so little time: _ This time last year, you'd have had to pay to see a legal copy of "A Very Sunny Christmas," the video release in which the cast of FX's "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" introduced fans to that quaint South Philly custom, stealing the neighbors' Christmas presents. So, OK, maybe it's not so much an actual custom as a felony. And maybe not so prevalent as we were led to believe. But if you preferred not to spring for the DVD/Blu-ray holiday special just for a glimpse of a naked elf - or more than a glimpse of a naked Danny DeVito - FX will show "A Very Sunny Christmas" in two back-to-back installments beginning at 10 p.m. tomorrow.

President Donald Trump ? Oh, the horror. The horror! The Donald has taken another step in his diabolical plan to turn the globe into a vast, cruel Apprentice set: He's going after the White House. The beloved Comb-Over made the morning-show rounds Tuesday to proclaim his own excellent-ness. He told Fox & Friends he is "actually thinking about" running for president so he can heal us. The state of the nation, he says "has never been worse. " The Donald, who admits he has several business ventures with China, lays into the communist nation, saying it is "ripping this country like no one has ever ripped it before.

Inquirer television critic Jonathan Storm is reporting this week from the television critics' press tour in Beverly Hills. These items are taken from his blog, "Eye of the Storm," at . Weather forecast: Sunny. No chance you're raining on my parade. Danny DeVito laid a big "score" on me at the Television Critics Association summer press tour when I asked the crew of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia if they were getting near the end and sometimes got stuck thinking: "I've got to think up another ridiculously horrible thing that I can do to make myself debased even further"?

One of the main plot points on the forthcoming sixth season of the FX comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia will be the pregnancy of Sweet Dee, played by Kaitlin Olson . Olson, due with a boy in August, was in town last week to shoot scenes with her husband/costar/show creator, Rob McElhenney , a St. Joseph's Prep grad who grew up in South Philly and Delaware County. They avoided showing the unattached barmaid's tummy in the early episodes, but had to address the issue.

What do Neil Patrick Harris, Oprah Winfrey, Buddy Holly and the Muppets have in common? They're all getting stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame next year. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced the list of celebrities to be honored. The stars include a rare family dedication, when three stars will be placed during the same ceremony for actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd and their daughter Laura Dern. On the motion picture side, Penelope Cruz, Ed Harris, the Muppets, Kenny Ortega, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ridley Scott, Sissy Spacek, Donald Sutherland and Reese Witherspoon will also receive honors.