As grades go, give him that C
Yes, that’s really Hugh Grant‘s voice you hear in “Music and Lyrics,” his new movie.
“Of all the people in the world to be a pop star, I’m terribly miscast in this film,” Grant insists. “That’s me singing, but that’s very cheatable. They have amazing machines now. You don’t have to be able to sing.”
Counters Michael Rafter, who gave Grant vocal lessons: “You can’t make something out of nothing.”
Grant’s character, a has-been ‘80s pop star, belts out a half-dozen tunes in the film, which co-stars Drew Barrymore as his lyricist.
Barrymore, Rafter says, “was so frightened at first. But she surprised herself and went for it. She sounds amazing.”
Actually, Grant had some music experience when they started working together.
“He had taken piano lessons when he was, I believe, 7, and his teacher in school was Mrs. Andrew Lloyd Webber,” Rafter says.
“He didn’t recall a whole lot of piano. I asked him where middle C was, and he played an F.”
‘Brokeback Mountain’ molehills?
Country star Kenny Chesney is going on “60 Minutes” Sunday night to deny rumors that he’s gay in the wake of his brief marriage to Renee Zellweger.
In her petition seeking an annulment after four months, Zellweger listed “fraud” as the reason – sparking speculation that Chesney had misled her about his sexuality.
Says Chesney: “The only fraud that was committed was me thinking that I knew what it was like … that I really understood what it was like to be married, and I really didn’t.”
Frankness and Jesse James
Before she got to know him, Sandra Bullock says she tagged her husband, mechanic and “Monster Garage” reality TV star Jesse James, as a brutish lout.
“I assumed he was a homophobic chauvinist, a bigot who killed people,” Bullock says. “And later I felt saddened by my assumptions because I wondered how many times had I written off people who truly were real.”
Now that’s truly shocking
Shock jock Howard Stern, who had vowed to never remarry, is taking the plunge again.
He announced on his satellite radio show Wednesday that he had proposed the evening before to his girlfriend, model Beth Ostrosky.
Stern bragged about his marital fidelity while entertaining scores of strippers and porn stars on the air before splitting from his wife of 21 years, Alison Berns, in 1999.
Howard will be so bummed
People shouldn’t expect too much from the much-anticipated kiss between former “Friends” stars Courteney Cox and Jennifer Aniston on the season finale of FX’s “Dirt.”
“There is no tongue, and it is really not a big deal to kiss,” says Cox, the new show’s star and co-executive producer.
“I am not saying, ‘Don’t tune in to watch Jennifer on the show,’ because she is fantastic and you get to see us together again,” she adds. “But if you think it is just about a major make-out session, you will be disappointed.”
The birthday bunch
Actor William Katt is 56. Actor LeVar Burton is 50. Rapper-actor Ice-T is 49. Actress Lisa Loring (“The Addams Family”) is 49. Drummer Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters) is 35. R&B singer Sam Salter is 29.