Sorting the Males
Virginia Madsen, who played a murderous senator's wife on the first two episodes of The Practice this season, now adds Dylan McDermott to the list of dreamy guys she has worked with, including Alec Baldwin (Ghosts of Mississippi) and Matt Damon (The Rainmaker). Off-screen Madsen, 40, hasn't done so badly either: She has a son Jack, 7, from her former two-year relationship with soap star Antonio Sabato Jr. Now single, Madsen offers several qualifications for potential suitors. "I like the manly men, the big, towering, burly men," says Madsen, "not these wimpy boys with fuzz on their face, with a little bit of fur as their goatee." What about a heartthrob like Leonardo DiCaprio? "He's like my son—nothing against him," she says. "It just seems like [the new actors] are 2 years old. They seem so young and frail, although I have to say that Brad Pitt is growing up nicely."
A Noteworthy Pal
Last year, while costarring with Don Johnson in CBS's Nash Bridges, Cheech Marin juggled that job with a role in the sleeper hit Spy Kids. On the set Marin caught up with frequent visitor Melanie Griffith, wife of Spy star Antonio Banderas and the ex-wife (twice) of Johnson, with whom she is on good terms. "It was funny because I've known Don for 20 years. I met Melanie when she was 17," says Marin, 55, who begins shooting Spy Kids II: The Island of Lost Dreams this month. "The crazy part of doing the series and the movie was that Don and Melanie would pass messages to each other through me: Tell Don he has the kids tomorrow'; 'Tell Melanie it's okay.' Their kids were on each set, and they kept saying, 'Cheech, why are you everyplace we go?' "
Do-Lander
In his new comedy Zoolander, Ben Stiller stars as a bubbleheaded male supermodel with a penchant for kooky clothes. Some stars are known to keep their wardrobe when filming is complete, but not Stiller, 35. "The clothes were so ridiculous," he says, "where would I wear any of them in real life?" Besides, Stiller is more concerned about his tresses than how he dresses. "I'm very much about whatever I can do to get my hair to not feel totally horrible that day."
House Music
Being a new dad at 57 has taught Michael Douglas a thing or two. "I'm up on Barney and all his songs," says Douglas, who, with wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, celebrated son Dylan's first birthday in August. (The baby's half brother Cameron, from Douglas's first marriage to Diandra Douglas, is 22.) "Dylan is well into solids," says Douglas, who stars in the new thriller Don't Say a Word, "so the diapering is tricky." Although the actor shares changing duties, he leaves the lullabies to Zeta-Jones. "She has a great voice. I'll walk in the nursery late at night, and my wife will be singing softly and sweetly to our little boy. It just takes my breath away, especially since I can't carry a tune."
Kiss Me, Kate
Two days after Kate Beckinsale finished shooting Pearl Harbor in Hollywood last year, she flew to New York City to film the romantic comedy Serendipity. "I was kissing a lot of boys in one week," says Beckinsale, 28, of a roster that included Pearl Harbor's Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett and her Serendipity costar John Cusack. "These guys were totally gorgeous and burnished." Beckinsale managed to soldier on despite being a bit intimidated. "Somehow it's easier to do love scenes at the beginning of a movie. By the time I had to kiss Ben, I was so friendly with him that it was kind of embarrassing. My poor child [Lily, 2] will go to school totally disappointed because all the boys she'll meet won't look like that."
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