If you’ve caught the trailers for “Now You See Me,” Summit Entertainment’s May 31 release caper-thriller starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Caine and Isla Fisher, you’ve gotten a taste of the thrillingly in-control magician Eisenberg portrays. Surprisingly, the hot 29-year-old star tells us that he hoped to overcome a case of stage fright by playing such a cool character.

“What happened for me was that I was doing a play that I’d written in downtown New York and I was having a lot of stage fright. I was very nervous about the show and about performing on stage every night,” recalls Eisenberg, referring to his The Revisionist with Vanessa Redgrave earlier this year. “And then I read this script and the character they wanted me to play was the most confident performer in the world. So I thought that was exactly what I needed to do to get over my fear of performing. I thought this was such a fun character.”

The Oscar-nominated (“The Social Network”) actor says that when he spoke to director Louis Leterrier about the feature, “He told me his vision for the acting and I thought, ‘Hm, he’s right on.’ He wanted to take it seriously. So even though there is a very complicated plot in the movie, all the acting was treated very realistically. It was kind of a perfect opportunity to do something like this.”

And sure enough, he learned to love performing onstage as his character. “When you force yourself to love doing it, you find that you do,” he says.

Seriously? You can force yourself to love doing something?

“Well, as an actor, I should think so. Once I commit to enjoying something, I typically enjoy it,” answers Eisenberg. “You know, because you try to.” He pauses, thinks, says, “mm” — a typical Eisenberg conversational pattern that lets one know he’s not just fluffing off his answer, then he resumes. “You make a decision to enjoy it and then you find little things about it that are enjoyable. You find ways to enjoy it, like changing your interactions with the audience or with the other performers to keep it fresh each time.”

And things obviously worked out well for The Revisionist — Eisenberg reveals that they’ll be doing the play again next year for “a wider audience,” his low-key way of saying his acclaimed play is on track for a Broadway run.

Eisenberg found mastering sleight of hand to be the most difficult part of the “Now You See Me” job, as did the other actors called upon to do professional-level magic tricks for the film in which they play a band of young prestidigitators who rob from the rich and give to their adoring audiences. “My character has to be perfectly proficient. He’s been practicing this for 20 years, eight hours a day. It was very difficult to do in the short amount of time we had.”

He says he never worried about any cheesiness creeping into their magician-filled story, as some others have talked about. “Not really — mm — because I don’t think I can do that. Not because I’m so great. It’s just I don’t know how to,” he says, of being cheesy. “I knew they planned to hire all these great actors who come from films. I guess I was the first one to sign on and the director told me who he would like to be in each of these roles and I was so excited by the prospect of each of these people doing it. And then, they did. It turned into a really wonderful ensemble.”

It also gave him the chance to reunite with his old “Zombieland” chum, Harrelson, who plays a rather scary hypnotist. “That was ideal,” Eisenberg says. “We have such a great working realtionship. It was kind of nice to explore a different dynamic in this film — more of a competitive dynamic than ‘Zombieland.’ We have such a great rapport, I hope we do more different things together.”

Eisenberg and some of his cast mates will be going city to city this week as they beat the promotional drums for “Now You See Me.” Ahead, he has a lineup of films including “The Double,” in which he plays a man who goes insane when he discovers his doppelganger — and the thriller “Night Moves.”

Asked whether he’s keeping up on his sleight of hand arts, Eisenberg says no. “I would like to; the problem is that after the movie ended I did another movie in England and had to immerse myself in that movie which was very different, so I kind of lost the skills I had been practicing for a few months. That’s the problem with the nature of the work I do.”

But for all that intense work on and off set, Eisenberg says his energy’s good. “I still have my knees,” he dead pans. “I’m trying to work as far as they’ll take me.”

The show business scene is full of famous mom and daughter duos, some who have close, loving relationships and some not.  With Mother’s Day around the corner, it’s only fitting to have a look at some of them.

Though Kate Hudson’s career is booming, there was a time when her mother, Goldie Hawn, did everything she could to keep her from becoming an actress.  After years of begging, Hawn finally allowed Hudson to act and got her an audition for a lead role in a never-produced television show with Howie Mandel. Much to Goldie’s surprise, Hudson won the part but Goldie didn’t tell her, turned it down, and kept the secret until she admitted it a year later.  Kate was eventually allowed to take acting classes and though her family hoped she would attend New YorkUniversity after high school, she opted to get her feet wet in the professional acting world first.  She would go on to wow audiences, and garner an Oscar nomination at age 22, with her performance in Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous.”

With her Tony award-winning mother, Blythe Danner, having maintained a successful acting career for decades, it’s no surprise that her daughter Gwyneth Paltrow chose to follow in her footsteps.  Blythe was more receptive to the idea than Goldie was.  In fact, she confided with shining eyes, back when Gwyneth was a young teen, that she knew her daughter had a remarkable gift.  However, both she and her late husband, director Bruce Paltrow, were adamant that Gwyneth would refrain from turning professional until she was an adult.  Gwyneth did get early acting training from her parents, made her stage debut in the Williamstown Theatre play “Picnic” with her mother, and acted in school and community productions – but they said no when Hollywood agents and producers started to call, to young Gwyneth’s frustration.  Her closeness to her parents didn’t keep Gwyneth from staying out of trouble, either, as she admits to having constantly tested them when it came to breaking curfew.

A very famous mom and daughter story had a grown-up woman dealing with her mother’s controlling ways, her diva moments and cringe-worthy actions like showing too much leg.  It resonated with mothers and daughters (and fathers and sons) around the world.  Along with the laughter, it elicited tears, especially when that aggravating mom showed her vulnerability, tenderness and deep, deep love for the woman who would always be her little girl.

If you guessed Carrie Fisher’s “Postcards From the Edge” – both the book and the movie starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine – you’re correct.   Fisher unabashedly told us a lot about her real-life relationship with mom Debbie Reynolds.  Beneath the glamour, excess, and outsized behavior of two high-flying Hollywood stars was – and is — a genuine indestructible mother-daughter bond with all its emotional complexities.

Jamie Lee Curtis had a very close relationship with her mother, the late screen legend Janet Leigh.  They worked together (“Halloween H2O”) as Hollywood’s only mom-daughter pair of scream queens – Janet having been immortalized in that shower sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.”  Jamie Lee has been candid about her past years of substance abuse, even to admitting that she’d snorted cocaine with her late movie star dad, Tony Curtis.  Janet, however, brought out her best.  “I never said no to my mother. I was the ultimate good girl with a toe in the water of bad girl-ness,” as she put it.  Jamie Lee describes a scenario in which the child – herself – was actually more worldly-wise than the parent, and protective of the parent.  Her mother started out as a simple girl from Merced, California from two very young and poor parents, and for her to become a huge movie star was extraordinary.  “She was green as you can be. I’m about as black as you can be. I’m jaded and time tested and all the things that my mother wasn’t,” Jamie Lee has said.  “She was a wonderful person.”

Judy Garland was one of the most cherished movie stars of all time, gracing the screen as the beloved Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.”  However, behind the beautiful face and voice lurked a dark addiction to amphetamines to keep her weight down and barbiturates to help her sleep.  In 1969, Garland overdosed and died.  Though she discouraged her children from entering show business, pointing out her financial and health problems resulting from the nature of the business, daughters Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft became entertainers.  Liza would go on to become an icon herself with show-stopping performances in “New York, New   York” and “Cabaret.”  Despite inheriting her mother’s talents, she unfortunately also shared in her weakness for drugs and alcohol.

Another actress to grow up in the shadow of her famous mother was Melanie Griffith.  Her mother, Tippi Hedren, shot to stardom after starring in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”  Griffith’s life was anything but normal growing up.  For her sixth birthday,  Hitchcock famously gave her a toy coffin with a replica of her mother in it.

The rags to riches saga of Naomi, Wynonna and Ashley Judd still serves as inspiration to mother-daughter troubadors.  Mamas and the Papas singer-actress Michelle Phillips is real-life mama to Wilson Phillips’ Chynna.  There are Meryl Streep and Mamie Gummer, Sharon and Kelly Osbourne, Joan and Melissa Rivers.  The list of mother-daughter celebrities goes on and on, proving that following in mom’s footsteps can be a very good thing, even in show business.

She has honorary doctorates, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, an Oscar, Emmys and numerous other awards — but she candidly admits that work has not been easy to come by in recent times. Duke, who was a top series star as a teen, has been hankering for another series spot for years. “Glee” just might offer that — her and Meredith Baxter’s roles as a lesbian couple that take Kurt and Blaine (Chris Colfer and Darren Criss) under wing are prospects to recur next season on the show that recently got a two-year renewal.

Duke calls those reports just talk at this point, but makes it clear she’s delighted to be part of the Fox show. She and her husband Mike Pearce have always appreciated how “Glee” has helped kids who are different realize they they have a place in the world, as she put it to the Spokane Spokesman Review near her adopted home town of more than 20 years, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

She says she loves the energy she gets from working — plus, “I’d like to make a few more sheckels, so that when I do retire I can do so with a little bit of comfort and style.” And she does indeed expect to retire someday. “I can’t be Betty White, but I’m so thrilled for her. She is such an inspiration to me.”

Duke is herself an inspiration to many.  Besides acting and personal appearances, she does a fair amount of speaking engagements related to mental health issues. Her story of coming back from the depths of bipolar illness serves as a beacon of hope to others coping with such problems.

“I hope it does,” she said. “What I want to be to them is a glimmer of who they can be if they choose to get balanced.”

Some three decades after her diagnosis, Duke told us, “Every day is not perfect for me. I get sad sometimes, but there’s a reason for it. It’s not that other kind of depression that lurks, waiting to bring you down. I feel ecstasy, but not the kind like when I bought several Mercedes in one day when I didn’t have any money.” She laughed. “But I paid the consequences for it. I paid and moved on.”

HELLO, AGAIN: Talk about reinventing one’s self. How about sassy TV maid-turned-documentarian? Shelley Morrison, fondly remembered by “Will & Grace” fans as Rosario, unveils a 12-year labor of love on May 18, with a benefit showing of “Weaving the Past: Journey of Discovery” at the Linwood Dunn Theater of the Motion Picture Academy’s Pickford Center in Hollywood. Pals including Eric Roberts and Ed Begley, Jr. are expected to attend the screening of the documentary film by Shelley’s husband of 40 years, Walter Dominguez. The couple has worked together on the film through money crises, family illnesses and more.

It all started, she says, when she was still on “Will & Grace,” and her husband’s father was dying. A last wish was for Walter to find the rest of his family in Mexico. “One thing led to another and another and another. He did interviews in Texas — San Antonio — and Mexico. It took on a life of its own. All these incredible stories about his grandfather came out. He was one of these Mexican revolutionaries” whose social sphere was filled with influential writers and activists. “There was so much history involved. …We were very careful with our research.”

The two are already into production of their second documentary, based on “Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of its Mexican Past” by William Deverell. Shelley says that her favorite part of the journey has been “realizing the depth of my husband. For me, he’s Gandhi.”

The “Weaving the Past” event benefits L.A.’s soon-to-open Museum of Social Justice.

Fans of “The Client List,” know Alicia as the very material girl Selena — the spike heels and Corvette-loving, attitude-spewing masseuse who, like Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Riley, makes a bundle specializing in “happy endings.”  She’s also been Riley’s chief antagonist.  But that’s starting to change, as the show team and viewers have cottoned to Selena. 

“What I like about her now is, she more human-like.  Last season was great.  It was fun to play, don’t get me wrong.  But in varying degrees, she was kind of a one-note character,” Alicia reflects.  “This season, I think they’re really showing why Selena is the way she is. And I think people understand her maybe a little bit more now, they’re maybe with her a little bit more.  My character and Riley, we’re a little more — I wouldn’t say ‘friends,’ but in the same boat.  I think she’s less judgmental toward me and I’m less judgmental toward her because, hey, we’re doing the same thing here.  I’m surviving. She’s surviving.”

In fact, viewers can expect both their characters to show some heretofore unseen vulnerability in coming episodes.  Eventually, a time will come when Riley will realize “Selena is the only one she can trust to a point, which we never thought would happen.  It’s a really interesting dynamic.”

Their new-found camaraderie has led to a warmer relationship between her and Hewitt off-camera as well.  According to Alicia, while they’ve always had a good professional rapport, “I think it makes a difference when characters are becoming friendlier as opposed to me always yelling at her and being mean to her like last season.”

Alicia makes her high esteem for Hewitt clear.  “She’s a professional.  She’s a great director,” says the actress.  “I think some of our better episodes have been when she’s directing.  She really knows what she wants, and she’s an actor’s director because she knows both sides. She really gives us our freedom, with guidelines.”  On top of that, she points out that Hewitt “keeps her people working” – hiring her group of crew members and actors from one series to the next.  Her own first turn with Hewitt was on a “Ghost Whisperer” episode.

Now, Alicia is getting ready to marry her boyfriend of 10 years and former boss, Hector Rendon, the manager at the restaurant where Lagano used to work.   They’re having around 100 of their loved ones for a wedding in Agoura, outside Los Angeles, and will follow up with a honeymoon in the Dominican Republic.

Doing the series, “has changed my life.  This whole experience has changed my life,” Alicia says.  .  “You go from cleaning houses and waitressing to being on a series and getting different opportunities.  I’ve been doing this for almost 15 years now.  I’ve had some good years, but I’ve had some really struggling years, working two or three other jobs to keep going.  Sometimes my fiancé and I sit there and stare at each other, and I think we’re still in shock, you know?”

Well, we see his point, but we’re thinking the organic venomous hostility is probably valid.  To recap:  Reports of friction between Mariah and Nicki date back to 2010, when the two were paired in their “Up Out My Face” music video and Minaj was said to have disrespected the superstar, whom she has dubbed “her $#@ing highness.” Exciting video of the two tangling over an “Idol” contestant went viral last fall.

When Nicki complained about Mariah and Randy Jackson making comments about pop musicians, Mariah snapped back with “I’m sorry, it’s just that that’s what I do, Nicki.  So when I’m making comments, I’m trying to help her, as opposed to just talk about her outfit.”

“Let me continue to speak,” Nicki said, to which Mariah responded, “Of course, you always do. Go ahead.”

The exchange got hotter, ending when Minaj tossed her seat behind her and cried “…Maybe I should just get off the $#@!ing panel!…” and Carey sniped back, “That was my move … I was gonna do that the next time she bagged on me.”  And Minaj stormed off the set in a cloud of explitives.

Carey later told Barbara Walters on “The View” that Minaj had made a comment that she’d have shot the $#@! if she’d had a gun.  She hired extra security.  Minaj pointed out on Twitter that no cameras or microphones caught her supposed gun comment — “say no to violence.”

So the idea was to bring back popular judge Jennifer Lopez?  When it comes to pop diva cat fights, J.Lo knows how to deal. Consider her on-again, off-again tiff with Madonna, which dates back to a 1998 Movieline interview.  Lopez soundly dissed Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Winona Ryder, and Salma Hayek.  She called herself a better actress than Madge:  “Do I think she’s a great actress? No. Acting is what I do.”

Madonna got back at Lopez at Donatella Versace’s millennial New Year’s Eve dinner party in Miami. Reportedly, Lopez was shunned by the Material Mom and her posse, which included gal pal Gwyneth Paltrow. Lopez arrived an hour and a half late at the South Beach mansion. As Versace got up to greet Lopez, Madonna purportedly announced, “Dinner’s over now.” Her entourage followed her as she left the room.

More recently, of course, Madonna’s been feuding with Lady Gaga, whom she has accused of excessive emulation, shall we say, calling Gaga’s “Born This Way” “reductive” of her own “Express Yourself” 80′s song.  She performed a mash-up of her and Gaga’s hits in Tel Aviv last year to make her point.  Then Elton John jumped into the mix, complaining on an Australian TV show about Madonna’s “horrible” treatment of Gaga — and adding that Madonna’s career is over and that she looks like a “fairground stripper.”

Now, there’s a guy who knows how to do a verbal slice.

Not that Elton hasn’t been sliced himself.  For instance, there’s his dog fight with fellow rockasaurus Rod Stewart.  Rod unloaded on several of his peers in Britain’s Radio Times magazine a few years back. He called Elton “Sharon” and said he should “lose some timber.”

Rod also complained that he’d been unfairly criticized for dating a younger woman, especially when nobody criticized Paul McCartney for marrying a woman half his age. The difference, he reportedly said, was that McCartney got a knighthood. “I don’t know why I haven’t got any honor. I do my bit for charity.”

He also complained that he’d been passed over for Grammys in favor of Sting. Said Rod, “The sun shines out his arse…Mr. Serious who helps the Indians.”

A few days later, Sting fired back, “I think he deserves [a Grammy], I really do. I’m thinking of sending him one of mine.”

Yep, Steven Tyler is right about the attention-grabbing value of pop stars sniping at each other.  He’s in the mix himself, after all.  Recall he criticized Minaj’s judging ability, saying “If it was Bob Dylan, Nicki Minaj would have had him sent to the cornfield! Whereas, if it was Bob Dylan with us, we would have brought the best of him out, as we did with Phillip Phillips.”

Of course, her answer was to accuse him of racism.  Huh?

She responded on Twitter: “That’s a racist comment. You assume that I wouldn’t have liked Bob Dylan??? why? black? rapper? what?”

Tyler then went on a Canadian talk show and apologized, and added that “I am the last thing on this planet as far as being a racist. I don’t know where she got that out of me saying I’m not sure how she would’ve judged Bob Dylan.”

No word on all this from Bob Dylan.  Yet.

After that, Alda will go back to juggling activities ranging from serving as front man for several functions at next month’s World Science Festival in New York City to preparing for scientific communication workshops at universities across the country to reading entries for his second annual Flame Challenge.

“This year, 20,000 students signed up,” he reports, speaking of the Center for Communicating Science’s competition in which scientists attempt to provide clear answers to questions posed by 11-year-olds. The kids then judge the scientists’ responses. The 11-year-olds also provided this year’s question: “What is time?”

“They’ll be the ones judging scientists’ entries. I haven’t seen any of the entries yet. I’ll be looking at them in a few days,” Alda stresses. “My looking at them is just out of curiosity. It’s the kids who are going to choose the winner. Winners, plural, actually — one in video and one in text.”

Why 11-year-olds?

It’s funny; that just happened. That’s how old I was when I asked my teacher, ‘What is a flame?’” recalls Alda, who will be seen again as Laura Linney’s acerbic oncologist on “The Big C,” returning for its final season April 29. He goes on, “Just looking at how kids present themselves when they judge these entries, they’re very thoughtful and very curious. And they may be going through what I was going through at 11, which is starting to ask deeper questions. And, my God, you can’t ask a deeper question than ‘What is time?’”

Burns has an awful lot to celebrate.  Madison, her daughter with ex-husband Julian McMahon, is a thriving, athletic middle schooler.  She has been able to take acting assignments that fit with her family life – including Lifetime’s April 27 “A Sister’s Revenge.”  And she’s alive to do it all, a fact particularly meaningful to Burns as it will be eight years in November since the diving accident that could have taken her life or left her paralyzed.  It did leave her with a broken neck.  It took a surgically-implanted titanium plate and rod and weeks of recovery for her to overcome her injury.

“I always say scars are a sign of victory not defeat,” she declares.

Burns is thankful for the paradigm shift in perspective brought on by her brush with death.   “I remember coming out of the hospital and thinking, ‘Okay, its time to re-evaluate,” she tells us.  “The first thing that hit me was, ‘Who am I spending my time with?’  I did a total clean out of friends, of people I knew maybe didn’t have the best of intentions, of people who made me wonder, ‘Why am I with this person?’”  It’s easy, she notes, to accumulate such acquaintances in the rush of building and keeping a career going in the industry — of “keeping the plates spinning,” as she puts it.

“I tried to go home more, and be with family more, and spend time with the people who mean the most to me.  In my parenting, it gave me an incredible sense of seizing the day and making every day with Madison count.”

Burns admits, “It’s easy to get away from that thinking, but I’m fortunate to have constant reminders of what’s important in life and to try to keep my eye on the game in that kind of way.  You think about what you want your legacy to be at the end of your life.  So it’s almost like having that deathbed kind of perspective in everyday living.”

What it has meant to her professionally is working in a way that allows her to honor her priorities.  Recent years have seen her in a string of made-for-cable-TV films.

“My fans are like, ‘Okay, you’re here and then you disappear.’  Part of that has been by design.  Having a daughter in middle school is very different from having a young child.  It’s a different kind of balancing act,” she observes.  “I just remember the middle school and high school years being difficult.  As a mother, I want to be fully present for Madison during this time.  That’s been key.  Julian and I have worked very hard to balance, to make sure one of us is in L.A. if the other parent is out of town.  So, these kinds of films, these crazy, insane, really hard hours – but in the big picture, shorter-term schedules – make really great sense for me.  Going to Ottawa for four weeks, six weeks, then having time at home works for my life.”

“A Sister’s Revenge” gave her the chance to play a bad girl like never before.

“I’ve gone from Hallmark to pure evil,” she notes.  Burns has a great laugh like a cascade of bells that rings out as she talks of this character, who is hell-bent on causing pain and suffering in the life of the man she believes responsible for her sister’s death.

“I loved all the complexities of her.  She’s so focused and single-minded about what her mission is, and yet at the same time, to accomplish that mission, she has to play so many different roles.  She is seductive, flirting with this man. She tries to befriend his wife. She has to pull off these different roles. So it kept me on my toes.”

This offers vicarious thrills for women, of course.  It sounds like every man’s nightmare?

“Yes, exactly!  Onscreen payback for everything bad a guy’s ever done to me.”  She laughs that laugh.  Then she demurs.  “No, no.  It’s just a treat to do something so different and step outside the box.  She really steps out of reality – that’s how far gone she is.”

Meanwhile, Burns is awaiting word on “Where Have You Been All My Life?” – described as sort of a “Dating Game” for the social media age.  She’s made two installments for the Game Show Network and will soon see if and when it’s scheduled.

As far as getting back into the series game?  It’s something I would be open to – if it were in L.A.  I know the hours can be tough, but at least being able to come home at night makes a big difference.  But going out of state or out of the country — I would probably have to wait a couple of years before I decided to relocate anywhere, for sure.”

She has a daughter, and soon, a husband to think about.

In fact, though he’s still wearing a boot cast and has to refrain from putting weight on his foot for another 10 weeks or so, he says he “might” even consider attempting to compete again, should the show continue and should he be asked.  “They’ve been so nice to me.  Of course there are no hard feelings,” he notes.

But there has been a lot of pain for his ankle that he says was split in two — pain commensurate with “pulling out your teeth without anesthesia.”

“Chelsea Lately’s” schedule continues to keep him busy, of course.  And now Chuy’s planning a summer comedy tour throughout the U.S. as well, with two other Latin comedians.  He says they’ll be all over the country, and do shows in Spanish and English, and Spanglish.  “We’ll go into a town and do radio shows in the morning to promote our shows at night.  By then, I’ll be walking,” he adds.

Where does he find the energy?

“I learned this from Chelsea.  Chelsea is a very strong woman.  She never says no to anything.  I’m trying to learn from her.”

As far as her way of teasing and tweaking Chuy, he says, “I know she loves me.  And I love every single day of working with her.  She’s opened a lot of doors for me.  It’s incredible.  I feel very blessed.”

REMEMBERING:  Along with countless colleagues, we are heartened by the outpouring of admiration for Roger Ebert in the wake of the beloved critic’s passing last week.  An interesting footnote that’s arisen:  before marrying his beloved Chaz, his wife of more than 20 years, Ebert dated none other than Oprah Winfrey a few times.  In a typically smart and down-to-earth response, when reminded of that, Ebert laughed and said, “Yes, it is true.  I persuaded Oprah to become the most successful and famous woman in the world.” In fact, he served as a mentor to the broadcasting titan.

SEXUALLY SPEAKING: Can you imagine Kevin Spacey as sexual revolution-sparking pop novelist Harold Robbins?  Well, Grace Robbins, who was married to the late writer through his heyday, can.  In
fact, the one-time casting director says Spacey reminds her of her late former mate, the man who penned best sellers including The Carpetbaggers, A Stone for Danny Fisher, The Dream Merchants and Sin City.  Grace has just come out with her memoir, Cinderella & the Carpetbagger: My Life as the Wife of the “World’s Best-Selling Author”—which she will be signing at L.A.’s The Grove Thursday (4/11) and then on to signings in Palm Springs, Vegas, New York and other cities.

The book shows a dark side of the days of free love and open marriage – the Robbins’ open marriage, that is.

“People are saying, ‘How could you stand it?’” she admits. “Well, of course, I loved Harold and I wasn’t going to in any way destroy our marriage.  And this is what it took for him to write books.  And I wanted to be a wonderful support.  What had to be done had to be done and we’d see how it turns out.  But I can tell you – I can really tell you – that no open marriage turns out well.  Jealousy will rear its ugly head.  Even though he wanted it to be open in the respect that he would tell me everything and then I would tell him everything, well, something is lost, and it becomes a wound and a wound that doesn’t heal.  It just gets worse.”

She adds, “At the time that was happening, it was happening everywhere because of the time of the sexual revolution.  I have to admit, Harold was a very lucky man because his books came out at just the right time.  There was no AIDS, no problem of any kind.”

So…if ever there were a movie made of her book, who should play Grace?

“I have had one actress in particular in mind and I think she’s a marvelous actress – Jennifer Love Hewitt.”

Ms. Hewitt, are you listening?

photo/autoguide

Jennifer Lopez’ dust-up with the Indian Premier League doesn’t surprise those who’ve followed the singer’s career as a diva; she knows how to demand. Last month she was dropped from performing before tens of millions of viewers during the massive IPL opening ceremonies event due to her excessive must-haves list — or she had to bow out because of a scheduling conflict, depending upon whom you believe.

Reports have it that organizers balked over her manager’s insistence that they provide Jenny from the Block with a private plane and pay for hotel rooms for her extensive entourage, including stylists and a personal chef.

Let’s just say it fits the profile.

Lopez’ bratty superstar escapades go way back. We recall a little over a decade ago, when she decided to move from one London hotel to another some 100 yards away. Instead of walking the distance, she and her entourage of about 30 piled into six limousines for the journey! Another time, she insisted that a retail area in Sundance be cleared so that she would not be eyeballed by outsiders while shopping. She’s pulled the same thing at other stores, such as Barneys New York.

Her infamous rider for performance commitments, circa 2002, requires a white room, white flowers, white tables, white drapes and white couches; a trailer that had to be a minimum of 40 feet and contain a “hair sink;” a separate make-up area; plus an additional dressing room, painted white, with white curtains, white furniture, white flowers, white candles and a pile of white linen sheets.

It was reported by Perez Hilton that for the 2010 American Music Awards, she demanded a custom-fitted ferry — complete with faux leather seats, a champagne fridge, and a pair of diamond-encrusted headphones — to usher her from Cannes to Monaco.

But she doesn’t like it when people complain that she’s a diva.

Same with Demi Moore. The actress whose greedy ways earned her the nickname “Gimme Moore” at the height of her fame — she had a particular fondness for demanding private jets for herself and her large entourage — has also recently been in the news for demanding spousal support from her ex, Ashton Kutcher.

There are, to be sure, a range of reasons for unhappy former mates to seek alimony and payment of attorney’s fees. Apparently need is not one of them in this instance.

Perhaps it’s a new gauge for economists to employ: A sure sign the Great Recession is behind us is that stars are back to unapologetic conspicuous consumption, as in Charlie Sheen dropping $25,000 for a Barbie doll foosball table, or Justin Bieber treating himself to such goodies as (according to Yahoo) $1,839 box seats at an Atlanta  Falcons game, a $300,000 chartered yacht ride for two and big boy hot wheels including his approximately $200,000 Ferrari F430.

No one seems to enjoy spending big money more than Beyonce and Jay-Z. His collection of cars includes the $2 million Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport with which Beyonce gifted him on his 41st birthday, plus a Rolls-Royce Phantom, a Ferrari F430 Spider, a Maybach 62S, and a Pagani Zonda. Jay-Z has been known to drop $350,000 at one visit to Hermes for gifts for his wife, and to pony up $250,000 on a few bottles of Armand de Brignac champagne. Of course, the luxurious life of their baby, Blue Ivy, is already the stuff of legend — from her $1 million-a-year basement nursery space filled with toys (to amuse her while daddy and mommy watch the Brooklyn Nets games.) at Barclay’s Center, to her $15,000 Swarovski crystal-studded high chair.

The difference is, they’re paying for their own baubles. In fact, the “Watch the Throne” rapper’s list of backstage necessities, as reported by AP, looks fairly reasonable by comparison, including: one love seat, one large couch, two matching end tables, two 48 cases of Fiji Water (24 cold/24 room temperature), six cans of Coca-Cola, six cans of Red Bull, six bottles of Vitamin Water, one jar of  good quality peanut butter, one jar of good quality grape jelly and one hot tea service for four: hot water kettle, ceramic and disposable cups.

That’s good quality peanut butter, mind you. But it need not be larded with gold.

“It’s a very, very good telling of the story, starting with the amazing script Brian wrote,” notes the “Suburgatory” and “Firefly” actor. “He’s obviously a proven writer — ‘L.A. Confidential,’ ‘Mystic River’ and so many things. This is a brilliant, straightforward telling of this story. People who know the history and the trivia of this time are going to like it because it’s an accurate portrayal. A lot of the quotes known from this story are in the movie.

“I certainly wasn’t aware of the extent of the abuse Jackie had to take and how different the country was,” Tudyk admits. “Racism was very openly accepted as a form of humor — blackface, things like that. In that atmosphere, the things that were considered offensive are just completely outrageous. To my ears and my eyes in 2013, it was amazing, what he had to put up with and how he had to meet all the threats against him. He couldn’t react.”

Tudyk’s character, outfielder-turned-Phillies Manager Ben Chapman, was among the biggest thorns in Robinson’s side — opposing integration and instructing his players to bean him with the ball at every good opportunity.

“He goes out on the field and calls Jackie every name in the book. Then he catches grief for it from the press and gets called out for being a racist. Then, in an effort to save face, he asks Jackie — or, that is, he tells Jackie — that he wants to take a publicity picture with him out on the field before they play the next time. So Jackie agrees to go out and take pictures with this guy, who has been such an ass to him. He’s the bigger man. And then, even when he goes out on the field to do this favor for him, Ben Chapman won’t shake his hand! They’re like, ‘Shake his hand.’ And he’s like, ‘I’m not touching his hand.’ There’s a famous picture of the two of them that’s recreated in the movie, when Jackie says, ‘Here, we’ll just both hold this bat so you won’t have to touch my skin.’ That picture — you can find it anywhere.”

Tudyk admits that shooting the scenes in which he berated Boseman with racial epithets left him feeling “awful. I was in a terrible mood. It’s just a lot of hate. You get kind of like a hate hangover for a day or two.” Still, he was required to adopt Chapman’s mindset to play his part in the feature that also stars Christopher Meloni and T.R. Knight.

“Brian Helgeland said, ‘You know, when you read interviews with people who knew Ben Chapman, a lot of the guys said, “Hey, yeah, he had a temper and he was a racist, but beyond that he was really likable,”‘” recounts Tudyk with a rueful laugh. “Brian wanted to capture that person. He’s like, ‘Have you ever met a good ol’ boy — that’s who he was, a good ol’ boy from Alabama — and you’re having a great time with him, and he’s joking and he’s nice and he buys you a beer and everything’s great, and then he says the most racist thing you’ve ever heard in your life and you’re like, “Oh my God. I’ve got to get out of here”?’ I don’t want him to come out like a villain with Darth Vader music. He’s a guy who is trying to make his team laugh half the time.”

As Tudyk puts it, “He has his own thuggish, cruel cham.”

Small wonder Tudyk would like to play a nice character next. “Some sweet fool would be nice — some sweet, affable fool.”

He and the rest of the “Suburgatory” team just wrapped the ABC series for this season. He’s currently doing voice work for an animated feature “I’m not allowed to talk about.” He’ll be seen in the Netflix reboot of “Arrested Development” in May. And he’s bracing himself for the release of “42.”

“There’s so much racism still today,” comments Tudyk, some 66 years after Robinson’s admission into the major leagues. “I think it’s really a great time to tell this story again.”