Heck, they’d have been happy with an autograph
Oprah Winfrey celebrated the premiere of her 19th season by surprising each of her 276 audience members with a new car. “We’re calling this our wildest dream season, because this year on the Oprah show, no dream is too wild, no surprise too impossible to pull off,” Winfrey said on the show that aired Monday.
Winfrey said the audience members were chosen because their friends or family had written about their need for a new car.
She opened the show by calling 11 people onto the stage and giving each of them a car: a Pontiac G6. She then had gift boxes distributed to the rest of the audience and said one contained keys to a 12th car. But when everyone opened the boxes, each had a set of keys.
“Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car!” Winfrey yelled as she jumped up and down on the stage.
The audience screamed, cried and hugged each other – then followed Winfrey out to the parking lot to see their Pontiacs, all decorated with giant red bows. The cars, which retail for $28,000, were donated by Pontiac.
Ken knows the questions, not the answers
“Jeopardy!” whiz Ken Jennings is neither confirming nor denying reports that his record winning streak was snapped last week in a show taped for airing next month.
“Well, I think it was on the Internet and as you know, if there’s something on the Internet, it’s gotta be true,” Jennings joked on Ellen DeGeneres‘ talk show Monday.
Added Jenkins: “You know, nobody thinks I’m Cary Grant, nobody thinks I’m James Bond, you know. You got to embrace your nerdhood, I think.”
From ‘Head in the Clouds’ to neck in a brace
Charlize Theron missed Sunday’s premiere of her World War II romance “Head in the Clouds” at the Toronto International Film Festival because she’s still recuperating from an injury suffered while doing stunts for her upcoming sci-fi thriller “Aeon Flux.”
Theron suffered a herniated disc between her sixth and seventh vertebrae. She is off muscle relaxers now and receiving three hours of physiotherapy every day.
“The slipped disc went almost into the spinal cord,” says her boyfriend and “Clouds” co-star Stuart Townsend. “She’s fine, but could’ve been in a lot of trouble.”
Suppose she’ll be doing ads for Target?
Meawhile, the weirdness continues for Catherine Zeta-Jones. A London tabloid reported Sunday that gunmen tried to force the actress’ limo off the road and kidnap her in Mexico, where she is shooting a film.
Mexican authorities deny any knowledge of an abduction attempt, and the film’s producer said only that there was a small accident in which another vehicle struck the car in which Zeta-Jones was riding.
Then there’s the ongoing case involving a female stalker who was allegedly obsessed with Zeta-Jones’ husband, Michael Douglas. Last Friday, a detective testified that the woman repeatedly called the Amsterdam hotel where Zeta-Jones stayed while filming “Ocean’s 12” in May, once saying she would “blow Catherine’s head off on Sunday in Monte Carlo.”
She wanted more than a Kabbalah hours
A planned Madonna concert special on CBS is kaput.
The Material Girl-turned-Kabbalah-devotee reportedly wanted it to run longer than two hours, commercial-free. Even with ads, CBS wanted to keep the show within two hours – terms Madonna wasn’t willing to accept.
The birthday bunch
Actor Walter Koenig (“Star Trek”) is 68. . Singer-actress Joey Heatherton is 60. Actor Sam Neill is 57. Singer John “Bowser” Baumann (Sha Na Na) is 57. Singer Barry Cowsill (The Cowsills) is 50. Actress Faith Ford is 40. Actor Dan Cortese is 36. Actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley (“According to Jim”) is 33. Rapper Nas is 31. Actor Adam Lamberg (“Lizzie McGuire”) is 20.