Beck/Smith Hollywood

            In case you haven’t heard, Season 15 of “Dancing With the Stars” will be the show’s first season of returning celebrity contestants.  Well, get ready, because force of nature Cloris Leachman tells us, “Oh, I insist on coming back!”

There is a catch, though.  The 86-year-old performer, already the eldest among the “DWTS” stars when she competed four years ago, reminds us that “When I did it, I had a bad knee, and they would give me a shot in my knee.  I had about three, and it’s not good to have too many of those shots.  So I had a knee replacement after the show was over for me.”  Now, says Cloris, who made it through six out of ten weeks before being eliminated from the show, “My knee is still sensitive and it doesn’t bend all the way as my right knee does.  So I’m sorry about that, but I want to go back and finish the last four!”

She laughs her wild laugh, then archly declares, “I must be there, that’s all there is to it.”

In fact, Cloris — who notes that ABC has a viewer poll concerning which stars should come back — says she is spending part of her time between filming seasons of Fox’s “Raising Hope” working on getting back into her best physical shape.  That way, “I can be ready for anything.”

Does she have a particular regimen?

“I don’t like the word ‘regimen,’ so no,” Cloris replies.  “I like to find out the latest thing in any department, and then I like to try it, no matter what it is.”

She also has parts in two movies coming up to shoot this summer (“The Home” horror flick set in chiller, and a drama that may get a title change) and another couple of films awaiting release (“Gambit,” “Adult World”).

And then there’s the talk of chances that her performance as the outrageous, only occasionally lucid Maw Maw character on “Raising Hope” might get her more Emmy attention.  Cloris already has nine Emmys, the most of any actor, out of more than 20 nominations — but says her excitement about the awards hasn’t diminished at all.  In fact, she feels it “more than ever.”

She also says, “If I have nine, why not ten and make it an even number?  It would be easier for everyone to remember.”  But seriously, “I’d be thrilled out of my mind.”

It looks like Arsenio Hall just might have the career comeback story of the year, what with news of his deal to jump back into the late-night talk show fray this fall in syndication – on the heels of his smart win on “Celebrity Apprentice.”  Considering the time out he took from professional pursuits in order to be a full-time single dad to son Arsenio, Jr., now 12, it’s a comeback story worth an extra smile.  In fact, up until 2007, he told us, dead pan, “My kid thought I was a Jewish doctor.  He didn’t even know I was in show business.”

He recalled, “I was on the road when my son was born.  It’s weird.  I love doing standup and I love going on tour but when you’re doing ‘Yuk, yuk’ in Tibet and you hear your kid over the phone…it’s like they can’t pay me enough…I did the rest of the dates I was legally obligated to do and I brought my a— home.”

After that, his choices in work were based on what he thought was best for him and Arsenio, Jr.. (He shares custody with his ex and former manager, Cheryl Bonacci).    He felt, “I’ve had an incredible life and if I have a legacy, it’s that ‘There was a brother who did some things that succeeded and some things that didn’t always succeed.’ But what better mission to be on than being a great black father?”

Still, he had it in the back of his mind that at some point when the time was right, he might find some way, some day, to get back into the middle of the action in show business.  That day has arrived.

Diane Ladd is delighted to find herself being named by media entities including the Los Angeles Times as one of the actresses whose work merits Emmy consideration this nominating period.  But the Mississippi-born dynamo’s strongest Emmy pitch goes for her “Enlightened” leading lady — daughter Laura Dern.

“Thank God ‘Enlightened’ came along.  Nobody gets killed, nobody gets raped and it’s not a reality show,” she declares.  “The Wall Street Journal called it the best show in 50 years.  And Laura, she’s another Lucille Ball as far as I’m concerned.  Laura’s got more energy than God’s angels.  She never stops working so hard to make this a hit.  And she’s so honest and kind to everybody on the set.  It’s harmonious for the actors to come on and play.”  There’s more, but you get the idea.  The show has already won honors including a Golden Globe for Laura for her portrayal of the “Enlightened” executive who underwent a life-changing philosophical awakening while in rehab.

Considering how happy Ladd is to be aboard the dramedy, playing Laura’s mother, it’s interesting that initially, she expected to stay out of it.

“The absolute truth is, I wasn’t going to do the show because HBO previously had trouble with some mother and daughter show which shall be nameless.  And so — I was told — they were turned off mother-daughter shows.  Even though this was not going to be an equal, fifty-fifty mother-daughter show,” recounts Ladd.  “I thought, ‘Wow, you know, if I end up doing this with Laura — if it’s Jane Fonda or Shirley MacLaine, or

some other actress, and they have a problem, they can go in and scream and kick, you know?  But if I have a problem, in that position, and go in and try to solve it, it’s going to be: ‘Oh, Laura’s mother.’  I really saw that, and I thought ‘No, just let me back off and let Laura go do her thing.’”  That was in spite of the fact they’d successfully worked together before, including their dual Oscar nominations for “Rambling Rose.”

Three months passed, as Ladd tells it, while Dern and her co-executive producer, writer and co-star Mike White talked to other prospects for the part.  “At one point there was an actress they were talking about, who shall be nameless, and I said, ‘Don’t get her, Laura.  She’s not a team player, she doesn’t play the game fair.  She won’t support you all the way.  She will chew you up and spit you out and try to take your show.  That’s not what you want.’  I said, ‘Go get Jane Fonda.  She plays fair.’”  They went to Fonda, says Ladd, but she didn’t want to do TV at the time.  “Then some of my friends started calling me, actresses with star names, and they said, ‘Diane, there’s not a lot of work out there for actresses our age.  Are you going to take this series or not?’”  Then, “Renee Taylor called, and said, ‘By golly, if you’re not going to play your daughter’s mother, I can do it.  You’re a fool not to do it.’”  She laughs.  “Renee is a very dear friend.”

The turn-around came when Diane had a moment of transformative realization of her own — after her husband, Robert Hunter, lost a baby granddaughter to SIDS.  The funeral scene was all too familiar for Diane, who tragically lost a baby daughter herself in 1962, after the 18-month-old fell into a swimming pool.

She recounts that before the service, “My cell phone went off, and it was Mike White.  I went out to take the call — I needed a distraction,” she says.  White, it turned out, was calling to ask her to meet with him about “Enlightened,” saying he’d have a car waiting for her at the airport.  He wanted her to reconsider.

“God knows life is so vulnerable,” she says now.  “Each minute, none of us knows tomorrow what’s going to happen.  Every minute of each day is a gift, an opportunity.  And I thought, ‘What better could I do with the gift of talent that the universe gave me than to share and support my own child?’

“And that,” she says, “is why I did the show.”

Former “Everybody Hates Chris” star Tyler James

Williams shows off an impressive range of capabilities in the Disney Channel Original movie “Let It Shine,” premiering tomorrow (6/15).  But he admits he ran into an unexpected challenge in the high-energy, Cyrano de Bergerac-inspired tale that’s set in the hip hop music realm.  “I lost my voice a few times.  You know, naturally my voice is pretty deep, so my rapping voice was deeper, so I had to push higher to get a younger sound out of the character,” he says.  “It’s tough to do.  At first you think, ‘Oh, this will be fine.’  But then you realize the toll it takes on your voice over time, especially recording essentially a whole album in two weeks.”

The “Let It Shine” soundtrack features Williams on eight of the tracks, a blend of hip hop, gospel and R&B.

“I’d been familiar with the Cyrano story before.  I’d kind of played around with it in my acting class, so I thought this could be interesting,” Williams explains.  “When I went in and I read for it, then I really became attached to it.  I really started to feel a part of the project from, I would say, the screen test, when we started mixing and matching the people together.  This is the first time I’ve ever had a mix-and-match when I wasn’t sure who was going to be cast.”

Coco Jones (Disney’s “Next Big Thing”) plays Roxanne and Trevor Jackson costars.  “I thought it wouldn’t work because of how tall they were, with my average height,” the 5-foot-8 Williams admits.  But he’s happy with the result.  “I’m really proud of how it turned out.  I feel like a proud parent and a kid who’s just graduated from college at once.”

Forget internet rumors that have Victoria Principal making a surprise appearance on the “Dallas” continuation that TNT is offering up tomorrow (6/13).

“I’m not sure where those rumors were generated.  I do know that she’s not part of our first season,” says Brenda Strong, who segued from “Desperate Housewives” to becoming the current Mrs. Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy).  “That doesn’t mean that if we continue on that she won’t be a part in some way.  Our executive producers haven’t denied the possibility of any of the older character coming back”.

As you are likely aware, Larry Hagman and Linda Gray are back, along with Duffy, in addition to brief guest turns by Charlene Tilton and Ken Kercheval.  As far as the new guard, TNT has hit a gusher with the oh-so-watchable Jesse Metcalfe, Josh Hamilton, Jordana Brewster and Julie Gonzalo.

Brenda’s character, Ann, is a perfect fit into theTexasclan.  She and Bobby have been wed seven years as viewers rejoin the action at Southfork Ranch.  “InLos Angeles, that’s a long-term marriage,” she quips.

Brenda says that the new and original cast members bonded so well and spent so much time together while shooting in Dallas, “That long-term friendship of Larry and Linda and Patrick started bleeding over into the rest of us.  We wanted to spend time together, so we did.  I think part of it is that we all got lifted up out of our normal lives and deposited into this magical place half-way across the country.”

Hence, Jesse and Patrick would be out horseback riding together while Brenda and Julie were working on their shotgun skills at the target range.  Cast members went to concerts together, or met to view episodes of the original series.  “Julie had all 14 seasons,” notes Brenda.

As far as whether the zeitgeist is right for Ewings2, she points out, “There are similarities between now and the ’70s.  We’re in an economic crisis, and that’s the climate we had then.  That’s why people love to hate J.R. Ewing — because he’s a man with a lot of money and a lot of immorality.  I think in a lot of ways, it’s a guilty pleasure for those who are struggling to escape to a more rich and decadent environment.  In that respect, we’re right on the money — no pun intended.”

Kimberly Elise plans to spend much of her summer traveling around the country, giving talks and leading workshops to help teen girls.

The four-time NAACP Image Award-winning actress of such films as “Beloved” and “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” participated in Florida’s recent “Choices & Consequences: Why Good Girls Like Bad Boys” conference that was arranged in the wake of the slaying of a young St. Petersburg mother whose boyfriend was a drug dealer. Elise gave a moving talk about a negative relationship out of her own past, before she went to college and was so anxious for validation from a man she “became a shadow of myself…I was so addicted to him.”

Now she says that talk was the beginning of what she hopes to do as she launches her Young Women Rising foundation, “to help young women develop their senses of self-worth, self-love and empowerment.  We’ll be doing all kinds of initiatives in the months ahead,” she reports.  A website, youngwomenrising.com, is planned for debut in a matter of weeks.

Elise’s “Hannah’s Law,” debuting tonight (6/9) happens to dovetail nicely with the cause she has taken on.  In the Hallmark Movie Channel original film, she plays the real-life, larger-than-life Old West character Mary Fields, a.k.a. Stagecoach Mary — the ex-slave who became a legendary cross-country mail carrier.  “I had to use my imagination a lot, because there’s not a whole lot out there to research — and there are tall tales about her that might or might not be true,” notes the actress.

She does know that Mary “was very brave, and she got into fights.  She would break at nose at two and be gardening by four.  She had a very soft side, and was very beloved by her town that she lived in.  She was one of the few women who were allowed to go in the saloon.  Not only was she a woman, but she was a black woman, so to be able to go into the saloon with the men was pretty phenomenal.  There is an old picture of her with the town baseball team — all these white guys and Mary.  She just loved the baseball team.”

In the movie, Mary is best friends with the fictional Hannah Beaumont (Sara Canning), a bounty hunter, and the two have each other’s backs through their dangerous adventure.  Danny Glover and Billy Zane also star.  Elise spent weeks learning to drive a stagecoach — for real — and to shoot antique weapons to play her role.  The biggest challenge, she says, was coping with Mary’s multi-layered wardrobe that included bullets and gun belts, as Mary was known for packing a pair of six-shooters and a ten-gauge shotgun.  “I had to be dressed by like, three people — and a whole team would have to come and undress me just so I could use the bathroom,” she admits. Still, “I loved every minute of playing her.  It was an honor.”

Certainly, Stagecoach Mary serves as example of female empowerment.  “I love that aspect,” says Elise, “and I love the relationship between her and Hannah, taking care of each other.  That’s how it works in real life, too.”

MEANWHILE:  Elise is up for American Black Film Festival Grand Jury Prize honors for her work in the Ghanaian film “Ties that Bind,” to be announced June 23.  She’s also awaiting word on “Bounce.”  The latter is a prospective VH 1 dance drama series for which she recently shot a pilot.

“It’s set in the world of professional sports…basketball.  It’s a really interesting piece,” she says.  “Me and Dean Cain and a lot of brilliant young actors are in it.”

First up: she’s giving the commencement address at the Cicely Tyson Academy in New Jersey come June 15.  Elise and the renowned actress she resembles are good friends and “I am so excited and honored that she asked me.”

LeVar Burton is in a whirlwind of activity as he prepares for the launch of his “Reading Rainbow” app.

“This has been my life for the last few years, every single day along the way,” enthuses the actor, who helped countless kids develop a love for reading as host and executive producer of PBS’s 26 Emmy-winning, 1983-2006 “Reading Rainbow.”

“This has been one of my life goals.  I’ve been wanting to get ahold of the ‘Reading Rainbow’ brand for a long, long time and take it in a direction that would work for today’s kids.  I’m a big technology fan.  What we have today affords a level of engagement that’s tremendous.  We’re all captivated by these tablet devices.”

LeVar tells us his daughter graduated from high school over the weekend and his granddaughter graduates from high school this week.  And after that, he’ll be throwing himself into promotion for the project.

“We’ll be launching the 19th in New York.  The app will be in stores on the 20th.  I’ll be on Jimmy Fallon that day, and do a radio press tour.  I’ll be online with mommy bloggers, talking to reporters.  We’ll really be making a full court press,” says the amiable actor, who rose to fame as Kunta Kinte in the groundbreaking “Roots” mini series.  “I think this might be the first time a celebrity is going on a press tour for an app, not a movie or television show.  It’s a sign of the changing nature of things in this time.”

It doesn’t hurt that Burton is also stepping back into the TV series spotlight come July 9, in TNT’s “Perception,” which has Eric McCormack as an FBI consultant/genius neuroscientist who has a uniquely enhanced view of the world — by way of his barely-controlled schizophrenia.

“Star Trek: The Next Generation” veteran Burton became involved due to his past association with show creators Ken Biller and Mike Sussman.  “They worked on ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ and I was a director on a lot of those.  Ken is one of the smartest writers I know.  I knew that he would handle mental illness and how this man’s brain operates in a really sophisticated and compassionate way — and he has not disappointed.  The episodes have not disappointed,” says Burton, who plays a dean at the university where McCormack’s character works on the show.  “And Eric — he’s one of the most talented actors we have in the business.  I think his fans from ‘Will & Grace’ will be really amazed.”

Brandon Routh’s “Crooked Arrows” begins its release today – with a lot of people pulling for the indie feature that actress Crystal Allen calls “a very spiritual project.”

A tale about a team of Native American lacrosse players who challenge wealthy prep school teams, “it’s one of those underdog sports movies, a beautiful little story – and it’s more than that.  It’s different from any movie I’ve done, because of the Native American aspect of it.  They’re not recognized for lacrosse.  They started the sport.”  Notes Allen, “The people making this film have been working on it for 10 years.  They had it at the studios, and were told, ‘We’ll do it if you change the sport to baseball or football.’”  She learned to play lacrosse for the movie, and found “it’s a tough – tough – sport.”

According to Allen, the five week production in Boston included “hundreds of people – lacrosse players, coaches, people in stands.  It has a lot of heart in it.  Hopefully, people will catch on.”

There is, of course, the attraction of Routh.  “He’s so great, such a cutie, so tall – he’s Superman!’” declares Allen, who points out that “Twilight’s” Gil Birmingham is in the cast, too.  Familiar from the last two “Anaconda” features as well as TV movies and guestings on shows like “NCIS” and “Body of Proof,” Allen plays a teacher – and had to learn some native American dialect for her role.  “I stood there teaching them about their culture,” she says with a laugh.  “It was quite challenging to make it authentic.”