• Only one man in Hollywood would dare step on the toes of Steven Spielberg in the venerable American historical Ken Burnsy territory and that man is Robert Redford, who set into motion his own Abraham Lincoln bio-pic, competing with the Jurassic Park helmer's long announced, long gestating Lincoln film. [Variety]

• Fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut was the big news in Toronto last night. His film A Single Man received generally favorable reviews, with Hitfix calling it a near home run. [Hitfix]

• The LA Times reports that Carl Icahn's shareholder agitation against Lion's Gate appears to have been quieted by the company's rising share price. With the company's board meeting scheduled for today, Icahn seems not to have followed through with his threat to nominate a competing slate of directors. [LA Times]

• Helen Hunt will take the lead of Parenthood, a sitcom based on Ron Howard's 1989 film. Maura Tierney had played the role in the pilot but pulled out due to breast cancer treatments. [Hollywood Reporter]

• One more thing that hasn't changed about the new Jay Leno — his role as punching bag for America's critics. [The Wrap]

• Betty White will receive the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award when at the Guild's big trophy show in January. [The Wrap]

1.) Paris Hilton's My New BFF
Love. On the premiere episode this week, Paris eliminated a girl because Wayne Newton's tiger didn't like her. I miss her already. She was fun to watch.

Gif via FourFour

And she did good drawings.

2.) Paris was on The View, and Babs wasn't buying her whole "it's Pilates" act.

3.) Babs seems to to think that Paris Hilton and Paris Is Burning are one and the same. To be fair, it's an unsurpising mistake for some to make.

4.) Digging for gold, picking a winner.
A two-year old little boy purported to be an expert pool player was invited on The Yenta Hour of Today, where he picked his nose and ate his boogers.

5.) Why did she deliver her baby alone? Why is her baby not related to her? How did her baby die? Why is her baby alive? Why didn't she question anything!?

6.) "Betty White is a raging bitch."

7.) The magic behind Bridget's Sexiest Beaches is that watching Bridget Marquardt is like watching the joy of a toddler discovering the world, like how doorknobs work, or how food on a spoon is sometimes like an airplane flying into your mouth.

8.) That, and the cultural learning experience that comes with shopping abroad.

9.) Heidi Pratt is very much into Christianity. She strives to be like Mother Teresa, and thinks that material possessions are not important.

Unless, of course, it's dry shampoo.

10.) "I don't play well with others."

Her striking frame, raspy voice, and taste for one-liners made her a natural subject for female impersonators. Told of her drag following, Arthur said, "I'm flattered." Her roles as Yente in Fiddler on the Roof, the outspoken Maude Finley of All in the Family and Maude, and most famously, the caustic Dorothy Zbornak of Golden Girls, gained her an avid gay audience. No funeral is planned. In wigs and wisecracks, she will live forever.

Of the four Golden Girls, Arthur is survived by Betty White and Rue McClanahan. None of the three attended costar Estelle Getty's funeral last year. White told Entertainment Tonight:

I knew it would hurt, I just didn't know it would hurt this much.. I'm so happy that she received her Lifetime Achievement Award while she was still with us, so she could appreciate that. She was such a big part of my life.

Update: The cult of Saint Beatrice has begun. Gays are posting this blasphemous Virgin Dorothy mashup in her holy memory:

(Photo by AP/Wally Fong)

And—much like the gay-cowboy motif into its third month of YouTube mashups—just when you think you've snorted out your last nose-chuckle at the congenial flautist's antics, along comes one more to tickle your funny places. We offer as evidence the recent (OK, fine, it ran a week ago, but we're having trouble staying up past 9 p.m. lately) appearance of Betty White on Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, in which she affected the guise of a speech writer for superannuated candidate John McCain. The money shot, of course, is her succinct assessment of his running mate—"That is one crazy bitch!"—before segueing into a lip-smacking meditation on the Democratic challenger that almost makes us wonder if the former Golden Girl hasn't been lingering in the far corners of Craigslist lately.

• Late Late Show [CBS]

I was at Rue McClanahan's book signing the other night (05/02) at Book Soup, an event which was truly gayer than a picnic basket. I thought I had a bizarre fixation on The Golden Girls until I was waiting in line next to a man who has vanity plates and an actual Jello mold from the show's set. Right as McClanahan began to sign books and pose for pictures with fans, Betty White showed up, which you can imagine put all the fags and hags over the edge.

Two lucky fans got to pose with both Golden Girls before White ran off to buy four copies of McClanahan's book, My First Five Husbands...And the Ones Who Got Away. What a thrill! Too bad I left before marveling at the woman who wanted McClanahan to pose with a nude painting of Bea Arthur.

For anyone wondering how that last chapter played out, our friends at The WOW Report have all the entertaining details, with photos of the naked Bea Arthur portrait in question. (Warning: Not safe for anyone.) As for Betty White's surprise appearance, a single Golden Girl sighting has been known to rouse the deadened spirits of even the most jaded of Gays. Two, we imagine, would launch them into Beatles-on-Ed-Sullivan-levels of ear-piercing hysterics.

• Rue de St. James [WOW Report]