· Sensing that there might be a few more dollars to be squeezed from The Terminator franchise, Fox commits to a pilot for The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which will also have "a link" to a possible future big-screen trilogy. Would someone please travel back in time and kill us during the closing credits of Terminator 2? Thanks, we'd really appreciate that. Things were so much less cynical then. [Variety]
· Paramount finally makes a honest man out of unstoppable hugging machine John Lesher, officially announcing his hiring to run Paramount Classics. [THR]
· Universal backs up a dump-truck full of cash for a package of the film rights to Malcolm Gladwell's nonfiction bestseller Blink, a deal for Stephen Gaghan to direct and write, and one for Leonardo DiCaprio to star. The pitch was based on a single chapter from the book involving someone who's good at reading faces and body language, which in a quintessentially Hollywood way inspired Gaghan to exclaim, "That's a movie!" Probably while chomping on a cigar and being serviced by someone from the typing pool. [Variety]
· Those half-dozen letter writers from the Parents Television Council kept themselves very busy in the third quarter, as FCC indecency complaints jumped fourfold in that timeframe. [THR]
· Joey co-creator Shana Goldberg seeks to singlehandedly save the moribund sitcom with a groundbreaking pilot for ABC about two sisters, one raised rich, while the other was poor. Are we expected to believe she developed that concept all by herself? [Variety]

• Now that actor Leonardo DiCaprio and supermodel Gisele Bundchen are no longer an item, gossip column speculation can truly begin. DiCaprio has been connected to Sienna Miller, Bundchen, surfer Kelly Slater. Oh, how we love when our celebrities are free to roam the humpy fields. [Page Six]
• Times columnist Maureen Dowd gets camera shy: She made it about 10 feet down the Glamour Women of the Year awards before being scared off by photographers. At least someone's intimidating her for a change. [Gatecrasher (bottom of page)]
• Lloyd Grove has no idea where Nick Lachey is, and he's starting to get worried. [Lowdown (last item)]
• Marlise Kast is shopping a book proposal, The Tabloid Prodigy, about how she was the Globe's top reporter at 21-years-old. Should she really be calling herself a prodigy? We're pretty sure that rag is written by 12-year-olds. [Page Six]

Odds-obsessed Defamer cousin Oddjack, who we've forgiven since that incident at the Hard Rock when they convinced us to put the last of our gas money on six-the-hard-way, has the bedding-odds on newly-released-into-the- supermodel-wilds Leonardo DiCaprio:

The international black-market trade of pretty-faced, androgynous leading men continues unabated, as reports have surfaced that Leonardo DiCaprio has been put up for sale by longtime girlfriend Giselle Bundchen. Girlie-boy epicure Sienna Miller, who only recently brought in a pretty price for one slightly-used Jude Law, put in a bid immediately:

• Actor Leonardo DiCaprio and supermodel Giselle Bundchen have reportedly ended their relationship — for real this time, and perhaps because of a third party. If this is the case, let's hope Leo cleans himself up a bit before heading back into the singles scene. [Page Six]
• Oh, the horror: Laguna Beach bad girl Kristin Cavalleri is dating poptard Aaron Carter. [Gatecrasher (3rd item)]
• Ted Koppel prays for Good Morning America co-host Charlie Gibson to replace the late Peter Jennings at the ABC evening newsdesk; GMA first lady Diane Sawyer commissions Haitian housemaid to create Koppel voodoo dolls. [Lowdown]
• Notorious fagodrome the Roxy, accused of admitting underage patrons, meets the long arm of the law just in time to wreck their gay ol' Halloween party. And so the war on fun continues. [Page Six]
• PETA narrows its gaze on Prince Charles, who it intends to harass on his forthcoming visit to the states. Apparently the royal guards use real bearskin on their helmets, which has the animal-rights group's knickers in a bunch. [Scoop]

· Creepy Stunt-Casting Alert! Former Demi Moore spouse Bruce Willis will appear on an episode of That 70s Show with current Moore boyfriend/possible impregnator Ashton Kutcher. Self-referential jokes about sharing the same woman will certainly follow (and, we suspect, a surprise Moore cameo). Creepiness-mitigating silver lining: Willis is donating his fee to the Red Cross. [Variety]
· Paramount enables Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese to author a fourth chapter in their cinematic love affair, optioning the rights to the Teddy Roosevelt bio The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Sounds like an Oscar-baiting vehicle in which DiCaprio gets to physically transform himself from an asthmatic, 25 year-old wimp to a "burly," somewhat less wimpy-seeming Rough Rider. We'll do our best not to laugh at Leo in Teddy's signature moustache. [Variety]
· Monster's Ball director Mark Forster will direct the adaptation of the mega-best-selling The Kite Runner for DreamWorks. Or for Universal, or for whatever big studio eventually buys up what's left of Steven Spielberg's dreams. [THR]
· Fox wins Sunday night with football, The Simpsons, and The Family Guy. [THR]
· Ang Lee's gay cowboy yarn, Brokeback Mountain, wins the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion. But American audiences have to wait until December 9th to witness Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal's hot cowpoking action. [Variety]

A Beverly Hills Cheesecake Factory hostess's fortuitous lunchtime seating choice put a Defamer spy in the rare position of dining next to a certain A-list actor and his posse. And while his choice in glamazonian Brazilian girlfriends might have already provided us with a pretty good idea of Leonardo DiCaprio's taste in the opposite sex's physical assets, we now may have an even clearer picture of how much trunk-junk is appealing to the star:

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:

OK, now that we've seen the truly scary picture* of the aftermath, maybe we were wrong. While Leonardo DiCaprio was getting stitched up following the bottle attack, he was probably praying that he'd tortured the public with a suspicious relationship so thoroughly that some pranksters merely humiliated him with a little water from a fake microphone.

· Will someone just please pick a new fucking James Bond already so we don't have to read yet another "Who will be the next Bond?" piece, especially one that cheekily evaluates the supposed candidacies of Bill Murray and Christopher Walken? [sound of self-inflicted gunshot]
· Leonardo DiCaprio may or may not have picked up a touch of the Tubbies from Tobey "The Corpulent Spider" Maguire, but this item features one of the cuter publicist denials we've read in a while.
· Hey, fat Haim!
· Ben Affleck: shepherding a new generation of actors into premature career immolation. [via dude.Man.phat.]

Well, shit, if you're going to light him like that, how can you not give him a lifetime achievement award?

A producer is suing megastars/former Pussy Posse cowboys Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguie for blocking the distribution of a film they did in 1995:

· Bill Clinton was booed after he took the stage at a Willie Nelson concert on Wednesday night. He responded with a comment about "angry Republicans." [Page Six]
· Actor Bill Paxton says he's proud of the gap between his teeth and that a Moroccan once rubbed his shoulder for good luck after seeing it. (Those Moroccan shoulder rubs aren't always for "good luck," Bill.) [Page Six]
· Miss USA Susie Castillo's publicist went nuts when a photographer tried to take a shot of Castillo with anti-war comic/actress Janeane Garofalo. Castillo was scheduled to do several USO tours with troups. [Page Six]
· Stephen Baldwin is scolding brother Daniel Baldwin for threatening to kick Leonardo di Caprio's ass. [NY Daily News]

· Manhattan publicists Steven Hall and Sam Firer, owners of Thatbar, say their paperwork is in place to host five smoke-filled events this year as part of the city's exemption for promotional events. The first is May 11. [Page Six]
· Unik and Kiki, the Haitians who made Serafina so hot on Wednesdays, have taken over the former Chinghalle restaurant on Gansevoort Street and plan to reopen it as a nightclub. [Page Six]
· L.A. plastic surgeons say patients want Liv Tyler's lips, Halle Berry's eyes, Angelina Jolie's body, DiCaprio's cheeks, Russell Crowe's chin. [Cindy Adams]
· Blind item: "What visionary mother is interviewing potential new nannies because she left her partner for the last one?" ("That's too many mommies," one observer said wryly.) [NY Daily News]
· Flashback: Annie Leibovitz leaves Susan Sontag for the nanny. [Page Six]

· Authors Robert Creeley, Michael Chabon, Richard Ford, and Charles Johnson are all part of the State Department's new Charlotte Beers-designed rah-rah-America campaign. [Page Six]
· Tina Brown invites both Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to her send-off for Bill Bratton. [Page Six]
· Creepy "magician" David Blaine is working out at the Duomo gym on East 26th and taping the sessions for later use in a documentary. [Page Six]
· Cardinal Egan tells Mary Higgins Clark that 2002 has been "the worst year of [his] life." [Page Six]
· Celeb overseas ad sites (i.e., Leo DiCaprio hawking Suzuki's Wagon-R: "Go, Wagon-R! Don't give up, my little friend!") threatened with lawsuits; mobbed-up New York ex-club kingpin Chris Paciello's life will be chronicled in a movie directed by Kimberly Peirce; and Pamela Anderson is teaching Sunday School. [NY Daily News

· After baby swallows tab of ecstacy, Jude Law decides it might be a good idea to turn down starring role in upcoming drug-running flick, White Powder [Cindy Adams]
· Tim Robbins whines that hockey opponents at Chelsea Piers are "too rough" [Page Six]
· Dick morris tells Gore he has to "ditch Clinton now" if he wants a shot in '04 [Page Six]
· Leonardo di Caprio caught videotaping his own scenes at Gangs of New York premier at the Ziegfeld [Page Six]
· Anna Wintour headed to Texas for the holidays to do some "writing" [Cindy Adams]
· Courtney Love prescribed Vicodin for a bee-sting by Winona Ryder's pill-pushing doctor [Page Six]
· Supermodel overdoses; Gore has no taste; Robert Downey Jr. is bitchy to the paparazzi at the Flaunt party; Pedro Almodovar's film is snubbed at home; and Weinstein insists he's not fighting with Katzenberg [NY Daily News]