Movie Star

His hair is wet from the shower, he hasn't shaved and the double espresso can't come fast enough. On a Monday morning in the restaurant of his East Side hotel, John Cusack is fresh-out-of-bed tired. "We were working pretty late last night," he says, waking himself up with an egg-white omelette dashed freely with Tabasco - and omitting the information, published later in the New York tabs, that he dined the previous night with Heather Mitts, the Philadelphia Charge soccer star. "Sixty-five interviews in one day . . . and something like that the day before.

Fame is not new to Anne Cappelletti, an 85-year-old Upper Darby grandmother of 12. About 40 years ago, her son John Jr., a star tailback at Penn State, won the Heisman and went on to spend a decade in the NFL. Today, John Jr. remains well known for his 1973 award acceptance speech, in which he dedicated the trophy to his 11-year-old brother Joseph, who was then battling leukemia. The speech was short, simple and heartfelt. It moved the tuxedoed Heisman audience - including then-Vice President Gerald Ford - to tears.

She is Her Serene Highness, Princess Faith of San Sebastian. Formerly, she was a slim, leggy black-haired Hollywood beauty with "the trick . . . of combining flame and ice," according to the slyly titled Amazing Faith by Leslie Waller (Dell, $4.50). Faith sure has amazed the natives of San Sebastian during the years, bringing the once-shabby gambling paradise to its present riches with the shrewd assistance of her wealthy father. Enter the mob, which once had a large piece of that gambling action and now is bidding to reclaim its place.

WOULD EVERYONE in India please stop kissing? First Richard Gere gets burned in effigy for planting a smooch on Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, and now Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai (the Julia Roberts-but-bigger of Indian cinema) has been asked to appear in Muzaffarpur court on May 20 to explain an "obscene" kiss in her new action movie "Dhoom-II. " The "obscene" kiss is one in which Rai is pecked on the cheek. Joining Rai in court will be her co-star, Hrithik Roshan, and the owners of the theater where the movie was shown.

So, who's the top movie star of all time, sweetheart? Let's round up the usual suspects and see. Yep, Humphrey Bogart is right there, followed by Katharine Hepburn in a list of the top 30 in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly. The two, of course, starred together in the classic The African Queen. Others in the top 10 on the magazine's list are Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, James Stewart and Jack Nicholson. Among some of the current big box-office draws on the list are Clint Eastwood, 18th; Dustin Hoffman, 20th; Robert De Niro, 21st; Sean Connery, 25th, and Jodie Foster, 29th.

IT WAS CLOSING on noon yesterday when I drove within a few blocks of Citizens Bank Park. Figuring we had more than enough people there for the Roy Halladay news conference, I made a quick detour to the Turf Club on Packer Avenue where I retrieved the scratches for the card at Parx Racing. I wasn't there long, but I was there long enough to hear some guy mutter under his breath about "lowlifes betting $2 per race. " I wasn't sure if he was talking about himself.   Who knew . . .   That WIP's Howard Eskin had a heart.

Steven Raab is absolutely sure that the first autograph he ever got from a movie star was not signed by some secretary sitting in a Hollywood studio. Raab was 9 and living in Monmouth County, N.J., in 1958, when his parents took him to see the Three Stooges perform at the convention hall in Asbury Park. After the show, he waited in line for 20 minutes with other children until Moe, Larry and Curly Joe signed their names on a slip of paper for him. Thirty-six years later, Raab, a Center City franchise lawyer now living in Havertown, is aiming to preserve the purity of that experience for others who collect movie-star autographs.

Smart, chatty and (yes, here comes that C-word) charming, Notting Hill is a fairy-tale romance about a big-time movie star (think Julia Roberts) and an appealingly dithering, witty Brit (think Hugh Grant) who seem to have true love at hand, if only the paparazzi - not to mention fame and fortune - wouldn't interfere. Scripted by Richard Curtis with the same flair for bon mots and badinage that he brought to Four Weddings and a Funeral, this lightweight love story has its pesky contrivances, but in the end (and almost right up to the end, which is too cornball for its own good)

Meryl Streep, at home in Connecticut, is giving last-minute instructions to her son and three daughters - ages 17, 13, 10 and 5 - before piling them into the car for a Saturday at Imax and the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. "Do you have your clothes ready? Just one change of clothes!" she says, giving a good-natured sigh that sums up her hectic working-mom lifestyle. The two-time Oscar winner, 47, recently had taken the girls to see One Fine Day, about the angst of juggling parenthood and career.

It's a party on the edge of obscurity. Big white balloons float on the surface of a moonlit Central Park pond as dry-ice smoke bubbles up from beneath. On the waterside patio of the Boathouse Cafe, the semi-celebrities and demi-goons belly up to an open bar as they await the magic moment. There's Dennis Miller, the smart-alecky Saturday Night Live anchorman who couldn't fill half of the Theater of Living Arts in his appearances last week. There's long-haired, leather-clad Adam Curry, who acts like a rock star, but is really only an MTV veejay.

THERE'S an actor going around saying that Terrence Howard can be difficult to work with. And it's Terrence Howard. It seems a harsh thing for Howard to say about Howard, given that he's perhaps the most employed actor in Hollywood - in the last three years he's made 12 movies, 16 episodes of "Law and Order L.A. " and one of "Hawaii Five-O," because a guy needs a vacation. To boot, he has an interesting slate of upcoming movies (his thriller "Dead Man Down" opens Friday). He's just wrapped his contribution to "The Butler," directed by Philly native Lee Daniels, the big-buzz story of an African-American butler (Forest Whitaker)

There was thievery this weekend at the box office, with Identity Thief stealing the No. 1 spot. Starring Jason Bateman , Jon Favreau , and Melissa McCarthy , director Seth Gordon 's R-rated road comedy was eviscerated by critics, but it raked in $36.6 mil in its opening weekend, according to studio estimates. The Wackness helmer Jonathan Levine 's Warm Bodies , described as a "paranormal romantic zombie comedy," took No. 2 with $11.5 mil. Steven Soderbergh 's star-studded Side Effects (it stars Jude Law , Ronney Mara , and Catherine Zeta-Jones )

It's almost like Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage , Judd Apatow's This Is 40 . "In fact, before I made the movie I watched Scenes From a Marriage , which actually has a lot of humor in it," says Apatow, whose own chronicles of domestic discord - the stormy to-and-fro between men and women, or man-boys and women - have become a brand unto themselves. The 40-Year-Old Virgin , Knocked Up , and now, This Is 40 . Not exactly fraught with Scandinavian angst, but still . . . . "I love the spirit of Scenes From a Marriage - so much of it is deadpan, and the scenes go on for a REALLY LONG TIME and force you to feel every aspect of these awkward moments.

Fame is not new to Anne Cappelletti, an 85-year-old Upper Darby grandmother of 12. About 40 years ago, her son John Jr., a star tailback at Penn State, won the Heisman and went on to spend a decade in the NFL. Today, John Jr. remains well known for his 1973 award acceptance speech, in which he dedicated the trophy to his 11-year-old brother Joseph, who was then battling leukemia. The speech was short, simple and heartfelt. It moved the tuxedoed Heisman audience - including then-Vice President Gerald Ford - to tears.

At 35, Jessica Chastain finally has achieved bona fide A-list stardom - though it's a mode of being she's not so comfortable embracing. At least that's what the Juilliard grad tells Marie Claire mag. "I never wanted to be a movie star. I wanted to be an actor," says JC, who starred in six films last year, including The Help , Terrence Malick 's The Tree of Life , and Ralph Fiennes ' Coriolanus . Besides, she doesn't have the requisite celeb inclinations.

SEEING A movie star like you've never seen him before - it's an old pitch in movies but decidedly true of Bradley Cooper in "Silver Linings Playbook. " Writer-director David O. Russell said his top priority was to give heartthrob Cooper a significant makeover in the movie, and a fresh start with audiences. "I knew that I wanted to reintroduce him," said Russell, who cast the Abington native as Pat Solatano, an Upper Darby man just sprung from an institution where he received treatment in lieu of a criminal sentence stemming from an assault.

Uggie 's the real thing. Already a movie star - he stars opposite Robert Pattinson in Water for Elephants and steals the show in the glorious The Artist - the Jack Russell terrier is now an author with the release on Tuesday of his memoir, Uggie: My Story . Although he has a surfeit of talent, Uggie hired a writer, Wendy Holden , to pen the tome. ("As barked to" Holden, the cover says.) "There's just something about Uggie," Holden tells USA Today. "He was born to be a star.

A fledgling theater group in Chester County has landed a bit of big-time help from showbiz dynamo Tina Fey. The Upper Darby High grad turned TV and film star filmed a surprise unpaid pitch for Facetime Community Theatre, a Phoenixville nonprofit that offered its first program this summer - a theater camp for children. "Hi, I'm domestic television personality Tina Fey, coming to you from here, the set of 30 Rock in New York City," the former Saturday Night Live star begins.

BEN AFFLECK 'S "ARGO," about the CIA's extraction of six Americans from Tehran, Iran, in 1979, was one of the many anticipated films at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. The film premiered Friday night at the beautiful Roy Thomson Hall, and afterward the cast - Affleck (with wife Jennifer Garner ), John Goodman , Bryan Cranston , Victor Garber and Tate Donovan - celebrated at Terroni. In a that's-what-friends-are-for show of support, Affleck buddy Matt Damon flew in to surprise his longtime pal. * On Saturday, Tattle attended the Sony Pictures Classics dinner with Belgian star on the rise Matthias Schoenaerts ("Rust & Bone")

CAMERA PERSONNEL at Fox 29 voted unanimously last week to authorize a strike if they are unable to reach a contract agreement with the television station. Sources familiar with the bargaining say the company proposed a three-year deal with no wage increase the first year and small upticks in the second and third years of the contract. The camerapeople are represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98. We're told the possible strike is being timed to coincide with the Eagles season, when games are broadcast on Fox. Local 98 business manager John J. Dougherty said, "I can only confirm that negotiations are ongoing and highly frustrating.