Starlet

Most people who write fiction have day jobs mainly because writing fiction tends to pay poorly and sporadically. But James Franco, who has written a collection of short stories entitled "Palo Alto" (Scribners) is a movie star. So when he landed one of those stories in Esquire this spring, it was part of a package that included a dapper cover-shot. Obviously, this doesn't happen to most newbie fiction writers, or even award-winning fiction writers unless you are Jonathan Franzen. And perhaps Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult can stop being so mad at Franzen and start being mad at Franco ?

Video game heroine Lara Croft is an adrenaline junkie unafraid of getting bloody. But in Germany, the buxom starlet of the "Tomb Raider" series doesn't bleed -- even if she's being mauled by a tiger. Although the $25-billion video game industry is global, the games themselves aren't. They reflect the distinct cultures and traditions of different markets, and game publishers carefully tweak their titles to tone down offensive material.

Strong winds scour the dunes, which hide a curious history. Nails and fragments of concrete are scattered everywhere. Steel cables, carved pieces of wood and slabs of painted plaster poke out of the ground, ghosts rising from the grave. In 1923, Cecil B. DeMille came to the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes on California's Central Coast and built a movie set that still captures the imagination -- a colossal Egyptian dreamscape for the silent movie version of "The Ten Commandments." Under the direction of French artist Paul Iribe, a founder of the Art Deco movement, 1,600 craftsmen built a temple 800 feet wide and 120 feet tall flanked by four 40-ton statues of the Pharaoh Ramses II. Twenty-one giant plaster sphinxes lined a path to the temple's gates.

Not far from Santa Claus Lane in Carpinteria lies an indoor pool that would make any sultan feel at home. Designated Santa Barbara County Landmark No. 28, this 20-by-60-foot Moorish-style natatorium was designed in 1927 by California architect George Washington Smith for millionaire playboy Albert K. Isham. The pavilion, unscathed by a Pacific storm that destroyed Isham's residence decades ago, has recently been restored.

HER name is Sherrie Lea Laird. She is the lead singer of a Canadian rock band called Pandamonia and the divorced mother of a 21-year-old daughter. But throughout her life, the 43-year-old Laird contends, she has also been someone else: Marilyn Monroe. Laird's assertion that she is the reincarnation of the late Hollywood icon is sure to be dismissed by skeptics.

Kim Kardashian is pregnant -- perhaps you've heard -- and though she's not due until July, the tabloids are already having a field day with her weight gain. On Thursday on “The Tonight Show,” Jay Leno asked the reality starlet and outspoken proponent of uncomfortable maternity fashion whether the media were being a little unfair to her. “I think it's a little bully-ish to call a pregnant woman fat. I mean what do you expect?” she replied. Kardashian said that she's put on about 25 pounds but is unfazed by the weight gain.

Stevie Wonderboy, the Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner and soon to be 2-year-old champion, is not the only talented youngster in trainer Doug O'Neill's stable. Meetmeinthewoods, a 2-year-old daughter of General Meeting, is not as accomplished as her stablemate, but she has potential. Where Meetmeinthewoods will make the second start of her career is an indicator of how much O'Neill thinks of the chestnut filly.

If jockey Alex Solis isto win the $200,000 Hollywood Starlet for a second consecutive year, he will have to do it with a longshot. Renaissance Woman will be the fourth choice in a field of five in the Grade I, but Solis took the race last year with another outsider, I Believe In You, the 5-1 third choice. Realistically, however, the Starlet figures to be dominated by You and Habibti.

If Composure doesn't win the $200,000 Hollywood Starlet today, it would be one of the biggest surprises of the year. A game second to the unbeaten Storm Flag Flying in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies while beating the rest of the field by almost 10 lengths at Arlington Park on Oct. 26, the daughter of Touch Gold is facing no such monsters in the 1 1/16-mile Starlet.

Laragh led all the way in winning the $438,500 Hollywood Starlet at Hollywood Park by one length over Wynning Ride on Saturday. Laragh, the 17-10 favorite ridden by Edgar Prado, covered 1 1/16 miles in 1:41.96 and paid $5.40, $3.80 and $3.40. The win was the third in six lifetime starts for Laragh, who was coming off a third-place finish in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. It was worth $263,100, raising the career earnings of the 2-year-old Kentucky-bred daughter of Tapit to $509,465.