A new role for the old buzzard
Keith Richards probably isn’t the first person you would think of as a father figure.
But the Rolling Stones guitarist is lined up to play the swashbuckling dad of Johnny Depp‘s Captain Jack Sparrow in the third installment of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series.
Depp has said he adopted Richards’ body language and mannerisms for Captain Jack.
“We’re all looking forward to the idea of Keith coming in,” he says.
Co-star Orlando Bloom was similarly enthusiastic.
“I can’t wait to see him – well, if he doesn’t kill himself falling out of coconut trees,” Bloom says, adding: “Very rock and roll.”
Richards, 62, had surgery after suffering a head injury in April in Fiji. News reports variously claimed that he fell out of a palm tree or from a Jet Ski.
He’ll join the Stones for their rescheduled European tour beginning Tuesday in Milan.
On the Knightley watch …
Keira Knightley admits she was a bit skeptical at first about appearing in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.
“I was like, ‘Wait a minute, you’re doing a pirate movie – something that hasn’t worked in about 50 years – and it’s based on an amusement park ride?’ ” she says.
The slender 21-year-old also denies having an eating disorder, though she acknowledges that anorexia has run in her family.
“I’m not saying there aren’t people in the film industry that suffer from it, because I am sure that there are,” Knightley says. “But I’m quite sure I don’t have it.”
Judd-mend days
Actress Ashley Judd tells Glamour that she entered a facility in February for treatment of depression and other emotional problems.
Judd, the daughter of country music star Naomi Judd, was visiting her sister, Wynonna, who was being treated for food addictions.
She says counselors told her, ” ‘No one ever does an intervention on people like you. You look too good; you’re too smart and together. But you (and Wynonna) come from the same family – so you come from the same wound.’
“No one had ever validated my pain before. It was so profound.”
McPhee idled
“American Idol” runner-up Katharine McPhee has admitted to battling bulimia, but that’s not the reason she was missing from the opening nights of the “American Idols Live” concert tour on Wednesday and Thursday.
With severe bronchitis and laryngitis, she was under doctor’s orders for “total voice rest.”
A pretty pair
Country star Tim McGraw was back on stage with wife Faith Hill on Wednesday following a bout with bronchitis, doing a New Orleans concert to benefit Hurricane Katrina victims.
Hill, by the way, was just named country music’s most beautiful woman by readers of Country Weekly magazine, topping Sara Evans, Carrie Underwood, Martina McBride and Shania Twain. McGraw was No. 4 on the male list, which was led by Keith Urban.
The birthday bunch
Bandleader Doc Severinsen is 79. Drummer Ringo Starr is 66. Actress Shelley Duvall is 57. Singer-songwriter Vonda Shepard (“Ally McBeal”) is 43. Actress Jorja Fox (“C.S.I.”) is 38. Actor Troy Garity (“Barbershop”) is 33.