Emmy weekend is a veritable smorgasbord of TV scoop! At yesterday's pre-Emmy gift lounges and parties, including the Entertainment Weekly/Revlon party at the Beverly Hills Post Office building, the HBO Luxury Lounge at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, and the L.A. Confidential magazine bash at Les Deux in Hollywood, I talked to some of our favorite stars and caught up on their lives and on what's to come on their shows

(EXCERPTS)

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: The ragtag fleet reassembles! According to Grace Park (love her!) at the EW party, several Battlestar Galactica castmembers—including Park herself, her real-life husband and her onscreen BSG husband, Tahmoh Penikett--are living at Jamie Bamber's house in Studio City while Family Bamber is in London for Bamber's gig on Law & Order: UK. And over at the L.A. Confidential pre-Emmy party sponsored by Sapporo beer and Belvedere vodka, Tricia Helfer spilled, "We will find out who the fifth Cylon is a lot earlier than the series finale—it comes up early in the last 10 episodes."

WEEDS: The woman of the hour at the L.A. Confidential party was Mary-Louise Parker—she's their September cover girl—and when I asked about the possibility of a Nancy-Andy romance on Weeds, she said that she didn't feel it was "inappropriate." Yay. I love the chemistry between Mary-Louise and Justin Kirk.

PRIVATE PRACTICE: According to Audra McDonald at the L.A. Confidential party, the practice is in major financial trouble this season. She says, "We are on episode 11, and we still don't know if the Oceanside Wellness Center is going to make it."

11. 90210: At the L.A. Confidential bash, Ian Ziering, aka the original 90210's Steve Saunders, says of Kelly's son, "The kid may be Dylan's, but he looks like me!" Hmmm...

So much more to come, but have to run now and get ready for the red carpet! Post your reaction to this dish in the comments!

Ondrea Barbe for LA Confidential Magazine

Someone get Selma Blair a Hooters baby tee and a pair of Daisy Dukes!

Believe it or not, the Hellboy II: The Golden Army star once dreamed of straying for a moment from acting to show off some T&A in a music video.

"I wanted to be the cheesy pretty girl in a video," Blair says in the new issue of Los Angeles Confidential magazine, adding, "I want to be the air-brushed girl, like in an Aerosmith video. Glamorous, sweet, pretty, sexy...Everything I'm not seen as."

While that's debatable, her new sitcom role will probably increase the indulgence factor.

Selma stars as Molly Shannon's self-absorbed spoiled daughter in the upcoming Kath and Kim. "I was in Budapest for six months shooting Hellboy II, getting tired of being away on location so much," she remembers. "My life seemed really fragmented. I wanted to stay in one place longer. So I thought it might be nice to go and do a TV show."

Even so, Blair opines that producers and the network may have regretted her casting after watching her recently promote the series to potential advertisers. "You're selling soap!" she explains, with a laugh. "I'm not a good soap salesman. I'm not a good anything salesman...So it's like, 'Oh, God, they might not be happy that I'm on their team.' I'm not good with the forced smile."

Courteney Cox has some bad news for her best buddy, Jennifer Aniston, arguably one of the paparazzi's most sought-after targets.

Cox predicts that the pesky shutterbug craze won't be dying down anytime soon."I can't imagine it not continuing to be as salacious and addictive as it is now," Cox says in the new issue of Los Angeles Confidential magazine, adding, "I don't think it's going to stop."

The Dirt star also tells the mag that the secret to her successful marriage to David Arquette is alone time-from each other!

Earlier in the year, Arquette asked Cox if she wanted to go to Sundance with him. "I asked, 'Do you want me to come,' " Cox explained. "And he said, 'Well, I mean, it'll be a different trip if you do,'which means, 'Please don't come.' We just kind of know where I'm going to add to the fun, and where I'll be the one saying,'Oh, boy, what are we doing?'"

Sounds like that was the case last night. Arquette was spotted at Bank nightclub at the Bellagio in Las Vegas with five friends. Cox was nowhere in sight.

No word yet if she'll be joining him on Wednesday at the Hollywood premiere of celebrity photographer Jeff Vespa's writing and directorial debut, Nosebleed. The short film stars Arquette as a man who suffers from uncontrollable nosebleeds after he breaks up with a girl.

For anyone who thinks Hollywood's skinny-minnie starlets don't eat?especially right before the Oscars? You should have lunch with Kate Beckinsale.

"I'm starving," Beckinsale said when she sat down at this afternoon's Los Angeles Confidential magazine luncheon in her honor, at the Mondrian hotel's Asia de Cuba restaurant. "I'm just gonna shove it all in!"

And that she did. The British beauty didn't hold back, enjoying? ready?? tuna tartar, calamari salad and black bean and chickpea dumplings, hearty pieces of Alaskan butterfish and chicken palomilla and even some helpings of side dishes like plantain fried rice with avocado salad.

Calories aside, she showed off her stunningly in-shape physique in a Michael Kors minidress. She did the same last night in a vintage YSL (above) at the Art of Elysium benefit at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

No word, however, on what she and Paula Abdul had to chat about. But by the time lunch was over, Abdul had slipped her number to Beckinsale. Maybe she's hoping to score American Idol tickets?

Meanwhile, Beckinsale tells Los Angeles Confidential that her celebrity status in Hollywood?she recently moved to the West Coast from London?"occupies quite a small part of my life.

"I'm in complete denial about being a celebrity," she says. "I spend 80 percent of my time in my kitchen, and occasionally I'm wheeled out to pretend to be Kate Beckinsale for awards shows. I'm not at nightclubs every night, but I'll take my kid hiking, and several paparazzi will show up, and it's like, 'What? I'm not shaving my head in public. You need to leave me alone.'"

Rebecca Romijn had two things to celebrate at a luncheon Wednesday: her L.A. Confidential cover and her B-day, which was actually the day before. The kitchen gurus over at NineThirty restaurant at the W hotel in Westwood even whipped up a cake with Rebecca's pic on it. Too sweet.

R.R. said she'd already started partying last weekend, when her hub-unit Jerry O'Connell threw a brunch for his babe with her friends and Ugly Betty castmates, natch. So, what'd Jerry give his gal? "He bought me some beautiful jewelry, and then he also bought something so unromantic," Rebecca dished. "An electric, wireless fence for one of my dogs that has a runaway problem. As a responsible dog owner, I've gotta keep that little guy in the yard!"

Oh, as long as we're on hairy sitches—and as the lunch was cosponsored by the SPCA—we so wanted to get R2's take on the whole Iggy and Ellen sitch. "I got involved with them [the SPCA] this year when they helped me out of a bind that also had to do with a certain rescue facility," R2 stated. "And I think it was really sad what the rescue group did to that family."

Excuse us? What the rescue folks did to the fam? Uh, do believe the blame was on the other paw, what with Ellen's viewers phoning up and threatening the rescue outfit (Mutts and Moms) with death, among other unseemly calling cards. Regardless, Ms. R continued:

"Ellen wasn't gonna give that dog to just anyone...she's a dog lover. The family would have been very responsible with that dog." Agreed, Becky darling. It's just that you're setting a bad precedent, encouraging the handing off of an adopted animal you've committed to raise. Back to the rescue is always the way to go.

Otherwise, some poor critter’s gonna eventually get dumped with somebody who doesn’t have the animal’s best interest at heart. Sorta like Ellen.

HUSH JOB: David Hasselhoff hosts Los Angeles Confidential magazine's preview of Arden B.'s winter 2008 collection tomorrow at the Cooper Building in downtown L.A.

The Planet Gossip satellites see everything, and I give you the best sightings from around the world—and occasionally even beyond it

GREY MATTERS: Eric Dane and wife Rebecca Gayheart, hitting the Los Angeles Confidential magazine party at One Sunset for current covergal Ellen Pompeo.

FUTURE FORECAST
ANATOMY LESSON: Ellen Pompeo will be feted for her new Los Angeles Confidential magazine cover during a pre-Emmy party at One Sunset on Sept. 11 with guests including Eric Mabius, Mary J. Blige and Milo Ventimiglia.

POLITICAL PARTYING: Kerry Washington, Tim Daly, Wendie Malick and Oscar de la Hoya, hitting Los Angeles Confidential magazine’s soiree for the Creative Coalition at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s new Bar Nineteen12.

Candy Spelling just can’t shut up. And I love it.

Spelling, mommy to Tori and Randy and widow of late television maestro Aaron, is now a magazine columnist.

I have the exclusive first look at Spelling’s debut column in the upcoming issue of Los Angeles Confidential, on stands Aug. 15. In the piece, titled “Flashbulb Forward,” the matriarch takes on the paparazzi. But if you're thinking it's an attack on overzealous shutterbugs, think again.

Instead, she offers the photogs advice on how to improve their reputation.

Her suggestions include using hybrid cars to chase down celebs, donating some of their profits to charity and even hiring a publicist. “It’s time for an image makeover and maybe a new job title, too,” Spelling writes.

Spelling also pens that she’s well suited to be talking to the paparazzi. “I hope you’ll take some advice from someone who’s famous because her husband was famous and now because she has famous children,” she writes. “I see you outside my house when I come and go, shooting (and judging) the groceries I buy, the movies I see, the clothes I wear and various other subjects I can’t imagine are of any interest to anyone outside my family.”

Wait a minute—Candy Spelling does her own grocery shopping?

Lindsay Lohandoesn't think she's perfect.

"The thing is, people do things and mess up," she says in the new issue of Los Angeles Confidential magazine, hitting stands next Friday. "No one's perfect. I'm human."

How true that is. About two weeks after the interview took place, the 20-year-old starlet checked herself into rehab after a nasty weekend featuring some very public displays of partying.

Lohan admitted that Hollywood isn't always so kind to her. "The real hard thing about L.A. is that it's all about one thing," she says. "Everyone always wants something. This industry is very lonely; I tend to get very lonely."

She may have used that sadness while shooting I Know Who Killed Me, her upcoming thriller in which she plays a stripper abducted by a serial killer. "I do a lot of crying in scenes," Lohan says. "At one point, [my character] takes a bunch of pills. I didn't know how to approach the challenge, so I just dove in."

And yes, she does do some stripping in the movie. "Leading up to it, I was a little shaky, but I had some friends on set and in the end I wasn't nervous," Lohan remembers. "Once I was in costume and really 'in it,' the scene went great. It doesn't come across as cheesy or gross, like, Oh, she just wanted to take her clothes off."

http://www.eonline.com/gossip/planetgossip/detail/index.jsp?uuid=70ec69ab-25b9-42dd-b100-e49bf60503de

RSVPs: Forest Whitaker, Naomi Campbell, Lance Bass…
When: Feb. 22-25
Where: Mondrian, East West, the Abbey

When most people hear Oscars, they think awards, presenters and speeches. But in Hollywood, it’s all about the parties. In the days leading up to the big show, stars pile on borrowed bling for a new bash night after night. Tonight, Los Angeles Confidential magazine is toasting its cover man—and as we all now know, Best Actor winner—Forest Whitaker, but before I encounter the Oscar-worthy one, I feel the need to beautify.

Rockin' the Hair Chairmusic icon
Following the trail of Cheryl Hines, I step into Haven House, an Oscar suite in Beverly Hills. Different singers are performing throughout the day, and I have the luck of hearing Katherine Heigl’s fiancé Josh Kelley’s mesmerizing vocals when I walk in. What a voice! Staying on point for prettiness, I take it to the next level of the mansion, where Frances Fisher is getting a shagadellic haircut from the stylists of the Warren-Tricomi Salon. She looks supercute, so I slide into a chair next to Mrs. Sean Patrick Thomas, Aonika Laurent, to get my hair done, too.

Man of the Hour
After getting sucked into a relaxing facial and glamtastic makeup application (okay, this Hollywood Party Girl doesn’t have it that tough), I brave the light rain (winter, L.A. style) and drive over to the Mondrian hotel for Los Angeles Confidential's Pre-Oscar Bash. "I love Forest Whitaker," music honcho Russell Simmons says of tonight’s honoree. "He’s the man." Unfortunately, "the man" is fashionably late, so I mingle with "the girls" and "the boys" under the tent in Skybar, where things are already under way.

While socialite Brittny Gastineau giggles in a corner, Fifth Avenue mommy Kathy Hilton takes hubby Rick to the VIP section. With Paris off celebrating her birthday again (the first honoring of her 26th annum was in Vegas), the parents finally hold the spotlight for a moment—until Mary J. Blige shows up in a look-at-me leopard coat. Seems like the Grammy winner took my advice and kept her curls from the GM show.

Downstairs, Vanessa Williams looks as stunning as ever, but the beauty star of the night is model Milla Jovovich. And as if her stunning looks aren’t enough, she draws more attention with her loud voice. "Who are we here for tonight?" the deejay asks. "Forest Whitaker!!!" Milla screams, causing guests to turn their heads toward her instead of the entering Oscar nom.

Bows and Wows
After accepting his applause with wife Keisha at his side, Whitaker remains modest, trying to keep his mind off of Sunday’s expected acceptance speech. "I was just so overwhelmed with emotion," he tells me of last month’s Golden Globes win. "I feel that there’s a number of people I could have applauded." As for the Oscars, if he wins (and we all know the outcome of that), Forest has one man to thank. "I definitely will remember God, and if that moment comes it will make me feel really special," he says. Amen.Whitaker should feel special tonight, though, because he’s already somebody’s idol. "He’s my inspiration," Bow Wow says. "I respect him as an individual, and I’m praying one day I’ll get where he is." And why not? Three 6 Mafia won an Oscar last year, so the li'l rapper has a chance.

Pit Stops and Exit Strategies
Just before things wind down, Terrence Howard strolls in with Naomi Campbell. Five minutes later, Naomi is stomping her mile-long legs outside. I don’t know what happened, but I’m thankful there’s no phone around for her to fling. Marcia Gay Harden also makes a short appearance, before exiting to grab a bite with one of Los Angeles Confidential’s editors. With so many people leaving, the alfresco space is getting cold, so I wait for my car behind Isaiah Washington and his wife, Jenisa. Gotta get my beauty rest for the big night.

And...It's Showtime!
While Ellen hosts the 79th Academy Awards at the Kodak Theater, I'm at West Hollywood’s East/West Lounge in a cozy VIP room for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s Jai Rodriguez's viewing party. He has invited a bunch of close friends, and it seems like everyone is rooting for Jennifer Hudson. "She’s the ultimate dream story," an adorable little man tells me. (And again, as we now know, she's a Dreamgirl come true.)

About halfway through the show, Sara Ramirez’s commercial as the new Dove spokeswoman plays, and the entire VIP bunch starts clapping for their fellow Oscars viewer. "It’s so embarrassing," the Grey’s Anatomy starlet says, as she turns away from the screen. Hey, there’s nothing to be shy about, considering she looks stunning. But she doesn’t have to worry for long, because Jai quickly grabs everyone’s attention. "Shhh!!! Celine’s on!" he exclaims. His gays sit and listen, and I take that as my cue to sneak over to the Abbey for The Envelope Please 6th Annual Oscar Party.

Acting Faves and Fashionistas
I arrive just as Haylie Duff is leaving with her new boyfriend, Jamie-Lynn Sigler ex A.J. DiScala. Boo. I didn’t get to tell her all about A.J.’s crazy Miami moves. Oh, well. I’d much prefer to talk to the Gucci'd out Lance Bass. "Beyoncé looked freakin’ good tonight," the new fashion vixen tells me of his Oscar style pick. "She worked it." Well, she had to make up for not getting nominated, right? A few tables over, Entourage cutie assistant Rex Lee is boasting about his scorecard. "This year, everyone I’m rooting for are the people who are favored to win," he says, referring to Whitaker, Hudson and Helen Mirren. Sure enough, the three take home gold. Forest even remembers to thank God, just like he said he would: "I want to thank my mom and my dad...and God, who believes in us all and who has given me this moment in this lifetime that I will hopefully carry to the end of my lifetime into the next lifetime." Amen again.

Marty's the Man, Party's the Plan
After seeing Martin Scorsese grab his first little gold man, revelers leave the tented tables to sip Little Miss Lemondrop martinis by the bar. Lauren Conrad prances in to say hi to Bass, while Niecy Nash raves about Best Actor Whitaker. "He has been turning in phenomenal work for such a long time," she tells me. I hear you, sister.

I bump into Girls Gone Wild honcho Joe Francis just as I'm about to change venues and then follow Ken Davitian to Us Weekly’s post-Oscar fete. The Borat star is quite the charmer, even complimenting me on my dress. "You better take care of this one," he tells my pal. "Or I will have to." I wonder how his wife would feel about adopting a Hollywood Party Girl?

Oops, Wrong Magazine
The Us Weekly gala is at an awesome mansion up in the hills. Unfortunately, most celebrities are toasting at Vanity Fair’s annual bash. After grabbing a cupcake and saying hello to Hills honey Heidi Montag, I decide not to even try to weasel my way in to talk to Tom Cruise at the VF fete. I'm almost always on this list—sadly, tonight is where that pesky almost comes in. Plus, with Al Gore added to the A-list throng, tried-and-true tricks like flirting up the bouncer or piggybacking with C-list pals just ain't gonna cut it tonight. But be sure you check out the Party Pics to see what my photog minions uncovered beyond the velvet ropes at all the post-Oscar festivities.

The Simple Meal: While Nicole Richie had dinner at Asia De Cuba at the Mondrian in Los Angeles, an L.A. Confidential magazine party for cover guy Forest Whitaker raged on a few feet away at the hotel's Skybar. Whitaker's wife, Keisha, swooned over her hubby's pics in the mag, even declaring that he was the one "bringing sexy back!"