According to Page Six, the former Miss Teen USA and possible Hollywood madam, walked right up to Chambers (who plays Dr. Alex Karev) at a party in L.A. Problem is, even after all the kerfuffle, he had no clue who she was. Harsh. And this was on Tuesday, the day after the hot tub adventure went public.

Damn, we give it a month before she's somewhere in Hollywood knocking over tables and screaming, "Don't you know who I am? I was the other girl in the McSteamy tape!"

Speaking of McSteamy, he was snapped by the paparazzi yesterday, reportedly leaving the doctor's office. What could he be doing there? Probably research for his role. Yeah, that's it. No checkup needed.

The New York Post's gossip column didn't have much to base its conclusion that Ritchie had given the sleuthing tale a homoerotic backstory except for Downey's quote in the News of the World earlier this year that his Holmes and Law's Watson are "two men who happen to be roommates, wrestle a lot and share a bed. It's bad-ass."

That was apparently enough to put conservative radio host and family-friendly movie critic Michael Medved into a full-blown gay panic. "There's not a seething, bubbling hunger to see straight stars impersonating homosexuals. ... Who is going to want to see Downey Jr. and Law make out? I don't think it would be appealing to women. Straight men don't want to see it."

Well, we got a hold of a copy of a script to see just how gay it is, and to Medved's relief (or secret disappointment?) there're no scenes of Holmes and Watson going Brokeback. Our version is dated March 18, 2008, so it may not be the final, final revision. But the only explicit sex mentioned is a half-naked post-coital shot of Downey and Rachel McAdams in bed. That doesn't mean, of course, that Ritchie didn't direct his actors to give the Holmes-Watson dynamic some sexual tension. Here's the script's gayest moment — a scene that comes early in the movie when Watson tells Holmes that he's getting married. I could see how it could be played gay, but be your own judge.

Click images for a larger, more legible version

LEE Majors likes to play Good Samaritan. TV's "Six Million Dollar Man" was leaving a post office in Beverly Hills recently when he spotted a woman struggling with an armload of dry cleaning at her car. "Lee immediately grabbed the clothes and put them neatly on the back seat, telling her, 'Don't hang them from the hooks. They block your vision,' " reports Hollywood p.r. man Hal Lifson. "Then, while walking back to his Jaguar, he spotted a homeless man in front of the BeverLiz Cafe, went up to him and said, 'Breakfast's on me, pal!' He ordered the gent a California omelet with turkey bacon and OJ."

Agog at the blatant P.R. planting and absurdity of the item, we knew we had to find out more about our favorite flack. Then we stumbled upon this wonderful page on Lifson's website, which gathers all of his credited and uncredited New York Post scoops. Let's take a look, shall we?

· Which is harder to believe: that Hollywood would be ready to fast-track a 2008 sequel to the Billy Zane superhero flop The Phantom, that Catherine Zeta-Jones would be eager to reprise a Phantom role that she has all but expunged from her resume, or that Lifson could convince Liz Smith to report it with a straight face?

· "Ellen DeGeneres Plans to Marry at the Riverside Resort and Spa at Palm Springs!" crowed Page Six in June. One problem? She famously married at home. Another? The resort is one of Lifson's PR clients.

· What about this Smith item, in which Lohan purportedly spilled all about her career plans to a total stranger... who turned out to be "former Hollywood p.r. maven Hal Lifson"! Lohan didn't know him then, but apparently she did a year later, when Lifson told Page Six that Lohan would not be doing Playboy. This time, though, Lifson credited himself as "Playboy's creative consultant," though there is no online record of Lifson having anything to do with Playboy outside of planting this item.

The hits keep on coming (Jennifer Aniston found love letters from Jessica Simpson, and they were well-written), though most of the egregious mentions — involving Page Six's crack reporting on upcoming Archie comic storylines (!), or a whole Liz Smith item on coin purses — are merely head-scratching advancements of Lifson's own PR clients. Hey, Page Sixers, just let us know next time you need to fill up space with some crazy PR fluffery! We hear there were some dashing Defamer editors fending off phone numbers at Akbar this week...

[Photo Credit: Hollywood Investigator]

• WORTH A MILLION [Page Six]

One group, Defend Our Marines, states on its Web site that British-born Broomfield claimed he'd show the world the "unflinching truth" about Haditha, but instead had actors improvise phony, obscenity-filled dialogue as they shot innocent civilians. One scene in which an Iraqi is gunned down as he flees through a field is said to be completely fictional. Charges against five of eight Marines involved have been dropped so far.

Sure, perhaps it's business as usual at the Post, but still: Kind of a strong gossip-page reaction for such a low-profile underdog, right? Not only strong, Broomfield told us when asked about it Tuesday, but also inaccurate.

"That scene was totally based on interviews that I did with the three Marines who shot that guy," Broomfield said. "I talked to them separately; they went into the scene in great detail about what happened. And I recreated it as honestly and accurately as I possibly could. So my reaction to that is that it's written by people who don't know and aren't seeing the bigger picture: We aren't criticizing the Marines. It's about understanding what went through their heads on that day. We're looking at their training — these 17-year-old guys who've never been out of the United States before, who don't know anything about Arab culture or the war they're fighting. It's not a black and white film about good and evil; it's about what happens in a war."

We also caught up with the film's star Elliot Ruiz, himself a former Marine whose Iraq tour ended was wounded in 2003. He was a little angrier. "People look at this film and right away just throw it off to the side because they see the military killing Iraqis," he said. "Right away they think it's an anti-American or anti-military film." Ruiz sighed. "We're trying to show what might have happened that day. We're not trying to blame the Marines. Who is to blame for all this? Who put us there? We're kids thrown into this country, and we're fighting for our lives. Who should be on trial for those murders?"

Hell, we don't know. But now that Iraq is gossip-worthy, maybe Page Six has an opinion? Anyone over there care to comment?

• Massacre Flick Called Fake [NYP]

So, are readers finally tiring of the torrent of shallow news about no-name celebrities, as Salon believes? The reasons for the abrupt decision are more prosaic, and depressing. Pagesix.com experienced its first day with more than 1m pageviews, last week, when the site published a gallery of photographs of Eliot Spitzer's hooker, Ashley Alexandra Dupré. But it was not making sufficiently rapid inroads into a market dominated by Time Warner's TMZ, and gossip blogs such as Perez Hilton. But the decision to shutter the spinoff gossip site likely owes even more to the Australian media mogul's pessimism about the US economy, and advertising spending.

Murdoch, disclosing a slowdown in ad revenue at his Fox television stations and newspapers, has predicted a "temporary downturn for a year or so." Other media companies, such as the New York Times, are also suffering from the advertising downturn, and have cut costs by making piecemeal layoffs.

The News Corporation boss, who has funded a decade of losses at his tabloid, the New York Post, is typically a patient investor. But he can also be decisive. He will be wary of overstretching the company, particularly after stretching to acquire the Wall Street Journal. During the last big advertising downturn, Murdoch nearly lost control of his company.

Anyway, before competitors gloat at News Corporation's reverse, they should remember this: if advertising spending has indeed turned down, the downturn will not spare web sites. The web's boosters hope that newly cost-conscious marketers will simply redirect their budgets from print and television to the web; that was the hope during the last recession, and it was wishful thinking, then and now. Murdoch will be embarrassed for a day; other media groups will be subsidizing loss-making websites for months before they come to the same conclusion.

boomp3.com

Being an actor is just such a tough job. Finding and reading the right scripts, then working on the project for a couple of months. Then there's the long hours and stretches away from your family. But then it's followed a month and half long vacation to Mexico. Whereas the writer, the lucky one, sits hunched over a laptop racking his or her brain to come up with the next great American catchphrase (let's be honest, will anyone ever top "Your eggo is preggo"?) and then coming home with his or her clothes smelling like Starbucks. And if one is lucky enough to sell the script, there are the endless rounds of notes and rewrites and notes on the rewrite and another round of rewrites. Man, it's so tough to be an actor.

[Photo Credit: Page Six]

There's also something to be said for the ingeniousness of its editorial-advertising department synergy: in one six-page (ooh, see what we did there?) feature, "Fall Fashion Picks from the Pros," the magazine actually enlists executives at five major department stores to assemble seasonal "looks" from clothes, accessories and cosmetics all entirely available at their respective employers. (Also intriguingly, the stylist on the feature appears to have been paid by the department stores themselves?) But where the magazine exercises editorial independence it falls flat: its warmed-over list of the 25 best-dressed ladies at New York Fashion Week included Teen Vogue editor Amy Astley, whom we've pictured here so you can ogle all that personal style she is exuding. Its columnists, too, are still clearly finding their voices: an item by "Socializer" columnist Kelly Killoren Bensimon contains the puzzling rumination: "You can't afford cigarettes or taxis anymore. Might as well walk outside. Might as well walk outside and inhale the toxic fumes. I look at it as the new nicotine." Huh. However, as with any middling celebrity tabloid, P6TM serves up a few little nuggets of gold blissfully un-couched by editorial commentary. Like for instance here's author Jonathan Safran Foer complaining about the movie Liev Schrieber made from his book:

"There's an old saying. Don't f—- a pig in the a— and then bitch and moan when your d—- smells like s—- the next day."

*And also, to be sure, if we hadn't been writing a miniscule item for the magazine earlier, because we have a lot of friends who work there, at least we did before we wrote this review.

WHEN Ellen Barkin called into Bravo's live online show "Watch What Happens" Wednesday night, host Andy Cohen asked Barkin whether she "did it" with George Clooney on the set of "Ocean's 13." "Have you done it with George Clooney?" she asked back.

Cohen then told her, "I'd like to quiz you on everyone you've ever done it with," to which Barkin responded, "I know you would. But you don't have enough time." The conversation eventually cooled off and focused on Barkin's favorite piece of furniture - her $60,000 leather coffee table.

The exchange—a little too heavy on interrogation and light on hard, cold, Clooney-screwing facts—nonetheless gives off the illusion of juiciness, and has therefore more than earned its inevitable two-page gatefold entry in Cohen's meticulously tended "Andy Cohen: Superstar!!!" scrapbook. And in a telling clue that Cohen himself is becoming much savvier playing the media game, his blog today contains nary a pantsless Clooney musing nor reference to $60,000 leather coffee tables, focusing instead on Valerie Bertinelli having publicly declared war on her weight. Or, as Andy puts it, "V-Bert's a size 14....And I love her for it!"

• MUM'S THE WORD [NY Post]

I just wanna clear some things up for u who read the article on page six in the New York post. ITS NOT TRUE!!! hahahaa!!!! I am very happy in my life and I love Hef with all my heart.

Holly, Bridget and I are perfectly fine and there is nothing wrong!!! I do not have a contract to live here like the article said, I am here because i want to be here and cuz Hef wants me to be here. There was one thing in that article that they got right and that was the spelling of my name hahaha!!! So like i said before, don't believe every stupid article u see cuz most of them are coming from very jealous, evil people! Anyways, I love u all and i wish u all the best in 2007!!!

Maybe you should start a rumor about the Post? since that seems to be what they did to you?

Well consider the source.... it was the media! They love to mess with people's lives.

MODEST MARIAH [NYP]
page 6 article in new york post [Kendra Wilkinson MySpace]

[Photo: Getty]

So what can you expect in this Sixtacular foray into items longer than 100 words? Jossip was blessed (or cursed?) with an advance copy:

Flip, flip, flip, and we get a hotsheet of the hot eateries (Four Seasons! Nobu 57! Michael's! Cipriani!) you already knew about; a fashion accessories spread to rationalize not returning those Louis Vuitton earrings; Amy Sacco pouring drinks; Stephen Starr's Manhattan restaurant takeover; Keith McNally vs. Graydon Carter in a half-page item aptly titled "Food Fight" about their upcoming foodie endeavors; a roundup of posh nightclubs opening this spring (G-Spa at Gansevoort, Pink Elephant at Crobar); photos of stars making movies in town; Page Six nearly taking credit for nicknaming Owen Wilson "Butterscotch Stallion"...

OK, stop right there. We were going to be all supportive of Richard Johnson's new hobby, but Butterscotch Stallion is very near and dear to our hearts. The phrase is not a creation of any News Corp entity; it's a distinct property of our sun-spotted brother, and even he didn't coin the term. A reader is responsible — a reader of both brilliance and modesty, as to this day she has not allowed anyone to reveal her name. She doesn't need credit or fame; just seeing the Stallion in the flesh was thanks enough.

You could learn something from her, Page Six.

Page Six The Magazine: What's Black and White and Glossy All Over? [Jossip]
Hollywood PrivacyWatch: Birth of a Butterscotch Stallion [Defamer]