Barbra Streisand

I am a fan of Cybill Shepherd's "Cybill," and I respect and admire her outspoken support of the human and civil rights of gays and lesbians. However, in her interview with Don Heckman ("Cybill's Moonlight Serenade," Calendar, July 19), Ms. Shepherd made an overstatement, if not an error. She claimed that with the live vocals employed in "At Long Last Love" "Peter [Bogdanovich] reinvented a system that hadn't been used since the '30s." Actually, under the co-direction of Herbert Ross and William Wyler, Barbra Streisand sang "My Man" live for "Funny Girl," her 1968 film debut.

Katie Couric's syndicated talk show isn't scheduled to launch until Sept. 10, but producers of "Katie" on Tuesday announced her upcoming guest lineup. Not surprisingly, given Couric's place in history as the first woman to anchor a nightly network news program on her own, the confirmed guests skew toward alpha females, including Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Lopez and Heidi Klum. According to a news release, the premiere episode will feature a sit-down with tabloid fixture, fashion mogul and occasional TV star Jessica Simpson, who will discuss "some of her most intense challenges, including losing the weight she put on during her pregnancy.” (You knew that was coming, didn't you?

In "The Guilt Trip," Barbra Streisand has her first starring role in 16 years. But the "Funny Girl" celeb won't be laughing at the box office receipts for her new film, which is set to sell far fewer tickets this weekend than a 3-D rerelease of 2001's animated "Monsters, Inc. " Both movies are hitting theaters Wednesday in an effort to build positive word-of-mouth among moviegoers before a crowded weekend at the multiplex. On Friday, the Tom Cruise sniper flick "Jack Reacher," Judd Apatow comedy "This Is 40" and event film "Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away" will join the mix. By Sunday, the "Monsters, Inc. " rerelease is expected to collect about $20 million, according to those who have seen prerelease audience surveys.

Everything is not coming up roses for the proposed big-screen remake of "Gypsy" that would have starred Barbra Streisand. Warner Bros. confirmed Monday that the project was no longer active there. No explanation was offered, but Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book for the original 1959 Broadway musical, told the Hartford Courant that he had withdrawn permission for it. Laurents, 93, who also has directed several Broadway revivals of the show, which features music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, said his decision had nothing to do with Streisand.

For the first time during a boisterous joint interview with Barbra Streisand, who plays his mother in the new comedy "The Guilt Trip," Seth Rogen seemed at a loss for words. The question posed was straightforward: Did he grow as an actor working with veteran Streisand ("Funny Girl," "The Way We Were," "Yentl," "A Star Is Born") in the buddy comedy opening Wednesday? But Rogen hesitated. "I don't know," said Rogen, 30. He looked over at Streisand, one of a relative handful of entertainers who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, sitting next to him on a sofa at a Beverly Hills hotel room.

A segment in the hourlong HBO documentary "Barbra Streisand in 'Putting It Together': The Making of 'The Broadway Album' " shows Streisand rehearsing a track with pals Sydney Pollack and David Geffen. They play record executives who try to discourage her from making an album of show tunes. The overlong sequence establishes the show's theme: how brave Barbra is to make this record.

During the lead-up to last week's Academy Awards show, there were four suggestions, spawned by controversy and fueled with the fresh-squeezed juice of sour grapes, for basic changes in the way certain Oscar categories are handled. Each of those suggestions has validity, and each would markedly improve the overall integrity of the awards. But only one, a call for an overhaul of the rules governing the selection of documentary features, is likely to be given serious consideration.

Hollywood's "cultural elite" is turning out en masse for a Democratic Party fund-raiser, scooping up all the $1,000 and $2,500 tickets--even before invitations were sent out. A chance to glimpse Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton, admits the Hollywood Women's Political Committee, which is organizing the Sept. 16 event, is only part of the draw.

Barbra Streisand told a fanatical crowd of well-heeled Brits on Wednesday night that had she been nicer to Prince Charles when she met him on a film set in 1972, "I might have been the first real Jewish Princess." Streisand opened her six-city tour in jam-packed 12,000-seat Wembley Arena, offering a virtual duplicate of a show she tried out in Las Vegas.

According to the Washington-based media, a Hollywood-Clinton connection threatens to tear apart the very fabric of this Republic. The response has been a barroom assault on the entertainment industry of unprecedented meanness. Film executives, actors and writers who have met with the President have been dismissed as "nitwits" in leading publications. The critics insist that anyone who works in the L.A.