Celebrities

What Roberta Romero, Britney Spears' personal hairdresser, has heard and seen over the last year would probably fill a book, but when she stepped her black platform pumps into a Superior Court witness box Wednesday there was only one subject on the table: Osama "Sam" Lutfi, the pop star's former confidant. Lutfi was banished from Spears' life 13 months ago when her father, who accused him of filling her body with drugs and her mind with lies, assumed control of her affairs.

Scan any list of the Dems' biggest givers and money-raisers and you'll find the names of Haim and Cheryl Saban, but their most recent cause is a decidedly local one with deep roots in their hometown: restoration of the landmark Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills. The media mogul and his wife have agreed to donate $5 million to restore the historic theater's proscenium and orchestra area as well as to refurbish the marquee, which will soon display the name "Saban Theatre."

If Brian Quintana, an events planner who bills himself as "the billionaire's Hollywood go-to guy," is to be believed, the last decade and a half of his life has been marked by a series of startlingly abusive relationships with celebrities. If he is to be believed, actress Stefanie Powers sexually assaulted him, socialite Paris Hilton tried to wreck him professionally and movie producer Jon Peters solicited him to commit murder.

The tribe has spoken. Sort of. Well, stay tuned. Whether it's from the privileged enclaves of Southern California or the bug-infested jungles of Costa Rica, reality show superstars Heidi and Spencer Pratt continue to rattle pop culture's cage with their well-publicized on-again, off-again antics. On Wednesday, the Pratts pleaded on live television to be allowed to rejoin NBC's "I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!," despite having abruptly quit the newly launched show Tuesday night.

Will Heidi and Spencer stay or go? For the last week, that has been the soap opera rocking NBC's reality show "I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!" In some ways, the off-screen antics -- which include a weekend hospitalization for "The Hills" star Heidi Montag Pratt, allegations that the pair endured "torture" at the hands of producers, feverish Twitter updates from relatives and her husband Spencer Pratt's reported intention to sue the network -- really are the show.

Since the explosion of gossip blogs and the resurgence of celebrity magazines, L.A.'s courthouses have grown used to accommodating throngs of paparazzi, videographers, camera crews and reporters who trail the famous to their dates with infamy. But the crowd expected at this afternoon's preliminary hearing for R&B singer Chris Brown will be on a different order.

With the death of pop star Michael Jackson, TMZ gave the most potent demonstration yet of its ability to stir the pot of entertainment news. The gossip site once again left TV networks and other traditional media outlets scrambling in its wake, even as they attempted to distance themselves from a source widely regarded as salacious, if not disreputable. Just after noon on Thursday, paramedics responded to a 911 call at Jackson's Holmby Hills mansion.

Janice Min, editor in chief of US Weekly magazine, was on vacation in Colorado when news of the biggest celebrity death since, well, Farrah Fawcett's a few hours earlier, started her cellphone ringing. And ringing and ringing and ringing. Min, who was driving, didn't pick up, but she glanced at her incoming e-mails. "Oh my God, I got like 40 e-mails in 60 seconds," said Min, whose holiday evaporated with news of Michael Jackson's death this week. "I haven't been out of my hotel room since."

For most of the 1960s, Hollywood was the last place you'd go to find the pulse of the pop culture. Movie attendance had reached all-time lows. The studios were crumbling -- most film lots were either up for sale, being rented out or looked like decaying junkyards.