For those who have been patiently anticipating an update to our ongoing, cultural critique series, "Overheard Celebrities," your wait is over: Blogger Johnny Hong Kong happened to be occupying the same sonic sphere as Keanu Reeves at a weekend screening of The Departed, during which the venerated screen thespian was overheard saying he would have taken Jack Nicholson's role of sociopathic mob boss Frank Costello in a different direction. He sent us this capsule report:

This Janus-like actor has long presented two faces for the camera, the jester called Jack and the actor named Nicholson. He has worn both faces for some of his famous roles, but over time he has grown fond of the outsize persona called Jack, with his shades and master-of-ceremonies sneer, and it's hard not to think that the man has become his mask.

When Jack Nicholson absentmindedly fished out a strap-on from the bowl of sex toys by his door on his way to The Departed set with a vague idea he might be able to incorporate it into that day's performance, he never could have imagined that the prosthetic appendage would eventually become the hottest supporting performer in town. The much-hyped sexual aid has again found its way into the gossip sheets, with Rush & Molloy drilling the actor about future projects he might share with his up-and-coming co-star:

• Naomi Campbell sends a judge into a fit when she fails to show for her court date regarding that incident when she chucked her BlackBerry at her maid's head. He was further angered to learn that prosecutors had not sought a bench warrant for the supermodel's arrest, but softened when prosecution explained that it was just because they didn't want to endanger any police officers. [NYDN]
• BREAKING: Jessica Simpson is cranky! Bitchy! Barfy! Human! [Page Six]
• More on Jack Nicholson's dildo. [R&M]
• Stocking up for a long flight from JFK, the Olsen twins buy "a big bag of beef jerky, three large rolls of LifeSavers, two packs of gum and a copy of every tabloid magazine." That plane's poor toilets. [Lowdown]
• American Media Inc. is actually upset that Katie Couric didn't mention that they had an employee die from anthrax. [Page Six]
• We ignored it yesterday, but Avril Lavigne has now made a habit of regularly spitting on photographers. You, young lady, are no Canadian! [TMZ]

• In a LAPD investigation into the robbery of Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis, his pal Paris Hilton tells an officer, "Like I really...I don't remember. I'm not like that smart." But at least you're smart enough to know it, honey! [Page Six]
• Consider this the start of our unofficial campaign against Jack Nicholson: after having to read about him having a three-way, now Rolling Stone has a whole cover story on how sexy the man is. Is anyone actually looking at him when they write these things?! [RS]
• Freelance photog Larry Birkhead, who is supposedly the father of Anna Nicole Smith's newborn child, denies getting paid for doing his recent slew of interviews on infotainment shows. On the contrary, the proverbial insiders say he's making bank. And so what? Isn't this modern family built on exploitation? [Lowdown]
• Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson venture to a public venue, and now OMG THEY'RE TOTALLY IN LOVE AND GETTING MARRIED AWW. [People]
• Basic Instinct and Showgirls screenwriter Joe Eszterhas spreads his dirty-old-man gospel. [R&M]
• Drew Barrymore bounces, disappoints. [TMZ]
• Madonna and Guy Ritchie fight over games of Scrabble. At least she's acting her age. [Sun UK]
• Brent Stirton has been revealed as the "super-secret" photographer who snapped those pricey pics of Brangelina and Shiloh. Nice job, dude. Pity you couldn't come out until your moment had long passed. [PDN]

• Jack Nicholson convinced Martin Scorsese to include a scene in The Departed featuring Nicholson, two women and a strap-on — a scene, conveniently, that Nicholson thought of himself. At what point can everyone stop buying into the Nicholson sex-symbol thing? Those days have passed. His presence in a scene like this does nothing but ruin it. [Page Six]
• Clay Aiken comes out of the closet and confesses he has wild nights of manlove panic attacks. [ABC]
• Paris Hilton gives a $100 bill to a homeless man. Shame on her, exploiting the less fortunate just to make herself a little bit less loathsome. [TMZ]
• Post-rehab, Whitney Houston seems to have her shit together and is, of course, eyeing a comeback. [Page Six]
• Revlon kingpin Ron Perelman admits that he dicked over his own son. [R&M (2nd item)]
• Mischa Barton admits that she was "self-obsessed." Good of her to tell us about it. [IMDb]
• Carl Bernstein defends Bob Woodward; Kate Bosworth starves; Leonardo DiCaprio dodges questions. Slow day. [Lowdown]
• Britney and K-Fed bring home poor baby Sutton, and so the child's nightmare begins. [Us Weekly]

When Jack Nicholson's strap-on first started making gossip sheet appearances last June, we feared that the actor's prosthetic member would burn too brightly too early, exhausting its buzz more than a year before its awards-worthy supporting turn in The Departed could be seen. But with the movie's release approaching, the up-and-coming dildo's publicist has wisely courted the tabloids again, pimping a crucial Rolling Stone mention to Page Six:

As legal wranglings continue to cloud the fate of Marlon Brando's Tahitian estate, the deceased legend's local real estate holdings—i.e. the delapidated, mold-infested Mulholland Drive property friend and neighbor Jack Nicholson snapped up for $6.5 million upon his death—has a firm date with wrecking ball, the NY Daily News reports:

While Hollywood myth has it that Charlie Sheen's insatiable appetite for cheerleaders had him regularly ordering up flatbed truckloads of pep-squad pyramids to his home at a time, Maxim magazine has finally established his rightful place in the he-whore pecking order by releasing a top ten list of "Living Sex Legends." The divorce scandal-embroiled Two and a Half Men star lands at the #2 spot, with 5000 spirited notches on his belt. The only more successful seed-spreader is #1 Umberto Billo, a porter at The Venetian hotel who supposedly earned his tip 8000 times over. Others to make the list are KISS' generously betongued bassist Gene Simmons (#3 with 3600), and beloved Oscars cut-to reaction shot subject, Jack Nicholson (#7 with 2000). The rest of the list is after the jump.

We still have trouble looking at Jack Nicholson without having terrifying flashbacks to the moment he crowned Crash this year's Best Picture, but as he appears to have moved on with his life, so, we suppose, should we. Last night, Jack held up daughter Jennifer's LA fashion week show for nearly an hour, but he eventually showed, avoiding any echoes of missed gradeschool holiday pageant disappointments past:

We all remember how Jack Nicholson's dedication to craft led him to lobby his The Departed director Martin Scorses to juice up the realism of his sex scenes with liberal amounts of dildos and blow. Now Radar reports that Jack was even more hands-on during shooting than previously suspected:

In discussing a story about Jack Nicholson's "rewriting" of a sex scene in The Departed to include a "prosthetic appendage" and the dusting of an actress's posterior with cocaine, we inadequately identified the appendage as a "dildo." These pictures from a Dutch magazine (and posted at Twitch) clearly demonstrate that the appendage might be more accurately described as a "strap-on." We apologize for our failure to fully recognize Mr. Nicholson's inventiveness and dedication to craft.

In an effort to achieve a more acceptable level of Jack Nicholson Sexual Verisimilitude, the actor reportedly "rewrote" some of his sex scenes in Martin Scorsese's The Departed to include some of his tools of the trade. From Rush & Molloy:

Hollywood PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are sent in by our readers. Send yours to tips@defamer.com and make sure you let Bruce Willis know you saw him chew with his mouth open.

· The producer and director of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's upcoming movie, Tough Love got into a shouting match blaming each other after test audiences didn't like it, in an apparent refusal to believe that the movie just plain sucked. Affleck broke them up. [Page Six]
· Hipster celeb fight: Page Six reports that "Sean Lennon came to blows with Brain McPeckthe lead singer of Paul Sevigny's band A.R.E. WeaponsSaturday at Swa. 'Sean walked by and knocked Brain's hat off,' said a witness. An infuriated McPeck called Lennon a 'faggot.' And then fists flew." [Page Six]
· The NY Daily News has padlocked their old smoking room. [Page Six]
· MTV President Van Toffler insists that the network isn't censoring anti-war videos. [Page Six]
· Jack Nicholson: "I don't believe in cosmetic surgery and I have no plugs or tucks. I look at that as mutilation." [Cindy Adams]
· Jogging in France: "Anyone who does anything in Paris that smells of Yankeelike, for instance, joggingis expected to wear a shirt with a logo that's anti-US or anti-Bush or anti-war or anti anything that's anti-Franceor you get cursed upon and/or spat upon." [Cindy Adams]
· Robert Downey Jr's former cellmate, Charles Bell, is suing, Downey, Vanity Fair, and Conde Nast for remarks Downey made about him in a Vanity Fair article two years ago indicating that he was a "recovering pimp" who "talks to satellites." [NY Daily News]

The Smoking Gun produces the recently unsealed minutes from Roman Polanski's 1977 grand jury proceedings for the sexual abuse of a 13-year old girl. The seduction took place in Jack Nicholson's house and began with Polanski photographing the girl naked under the pretense that he was doing taking the shots for French Vogue.
Polanski jury minutes [The Smoking Gun]

· Sandra Bullock starting her own celebrity rehab center because Promises "is full of snitches who sell out big-name celebrities to the tabloids." [Page Six]
· Mark Kostabi: artist, provocateur, and major media slut. [Page Six]
· Jack Nicholson says sexual revolution ended in 1982, Lola Schnabel says boyfriend Viggo Mortensen's aversions to soap and water not a turn-off, and Showtime CEO Matt Blank wants to do nonfiction programming. [NY Daily News]