It’s not quite a stairway to heaven, but it’ll do for now
Jimmy Page has taken the first steps on the new British Walk of Fame. The former Led Zeppelin guitarist cast his hand prints in cement Monday as the first music legend to be featured on London’s answer to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
“It’s a real privilege and a great honor to be the first. I’m really chuffed,” said Page, 60. “A Walk of Fame is a fantastic idea, and it’s high time we had one in London.
“If you started putting in all the people I think are deserving, you could cover the whole of London,” he added.
Led Zeppelin – which also included singer Robert Plant, bassist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham, who died in 1980 – produced nine chart-topping albums from 1969 to 1979.
“Stairway to Heaven,” which was never released as a single, became one of the most requested radio songs of all time.
Page frequently is rated as one of the greatest rock guitarists in history. In 2002, a poll conducted by Total Guitar magazine rated him No. 2 to the late Jimi Hendrix.
Oh, God, you’re gay!
Speaking of heaven, Ellen DeGeneres is getting a promotion – to supreme being.
DeGeneres will star as God in a remake of the 1977 comedy “Oh, God!” The original starred George Burns as the creator and John Denver as a supermarket manager tapped as a new prophet.
“Ellen is a strong comedian, and she has always done material about God and questions about God,” said Jerry Weintraub, who produced the original movie and also will oversee the remake.
That’s President Hawkeye, to you
In small-screen casting news, Alan Alda, the Emmy-winning star of the ‘70s comedy-drama series “M.A.S.H.,” will guest star on 10 episodes of the upcoming season of “The West Wing” as a Republican senator with presidential aspirations.
And Julianna Margulies will be back on an NBC hospital show during November sweeps – but it’s not “ER.” The Emmy-winning actress will appear on the sitcom “Scrubs,” as a malpractice attorney.
A meatier movie role for Romano
“Everybody Loves Raymond” star Ray Romano will play a meat salesman in his next movie, “Grilled.”
In the film, due next summer, Romano and co-star Kevin James, of CBS’ “The King of Queens,” are desperately trying to meet a sales quota on the hottest day of the year in the San Fernando Valley.
“There’s a great guy named Sonny who is the best salesman in California,” Romano said. “We had a meat-ology class with him, and I kind of took things from him for my character.”
She’s going to be a pretty big woman
Julia Roberts, who is pregnant with twins, plans to take a break from the movie biz.
“I’m not planning anything. I can’t imagine how big I’m going to get in the next three months, but … you just kind of play it as it comes,” Roberts, 36, tells Newsweek magazine. “I’m allowed to do that, aren’t I?”
The Oscar-winning actress has two films set for release in December: “Closer,” directed by Mike Nichols and also starring Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen, and “Ocean’s 12,” the Steven Soderbergh-directed sequel to 2001’s star-studded heist caper.
The birthday bunch
Game show host Monty Hall is 83. Actor Sean Connery is 74. Talk-show host Regis Philbin is 73. Actor Tom Skerritt is 71. Actor David Canary (“All My Children,” “Bonanza”) is 66. Bassist Gene Simmons (KISS) is 55. Musician Elvis Costello is 50. Director Tim Burton is 46. Country singer Billy Ray Cyrus is 43. Actor Blair Underwood is 40. DJ Terminator X (Public Enemy) is 38. Country singer Jo Dee Messina is 34. Actor Kel Mitchell (“Kenan and Kel”) is 26.