Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Legendary Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin is ready for Hollywood to open its doors for her — seriously.

"Tell Hollywood to give a sister some 'Respect,'" says the 18-time-Grammy-winning songstress, quoting the title of one of her biggest hits. "They haven't given me any respect since 'The Blues Brothers' movies." Franklin played a small part in the 1980 and 1998 Dan Aykroyd starrers, but says she's now looking for a role that will showcase her dramatic talents. "I'm looking for a very strong supporting or starring role. I can handle it; just come up with it. That's what I wanted to do all along, but it seems like the parts I've been offered would always require me to sing. I'd like to play a character that was not myself." She adds, "Tell Denzel to give a sister a little play. Denzel has not met his real leading lady yet. Until we do it, you haven't seen it!"

Franklin is also hoping the upcoming Broadway adaptation of her best-selling "From These Roots" autobiography will open other avenues. "This will give me the opportunity to do some scoring," she says. "I've always wanted to do some scoring for Hollywood, but Hollywood has never called." Hello, anybody listening?

Meanwhile, her new CD, "Aretha: A Woman Falling Out of Love" is set to hit record stores late February, early March. "It's a secular album with gospel offerings from Shirley Caesar, Karen-Clark Sheard, the Clark Sisters and Faith Hill," says Franklin. It's the first album to drop from her own nascent label, Aretha's Records.

AWARDS AWARE: Melissa Etheridge, Academy Award-nominated for her "I Need to Wake Up" song from "An Inconvenient Truth," doesn't have to think twice when asked to compare being an Oscar nominee to being a Grammy nominee. "Being an Oscar nominee is a hundred times more intense," she tells us. "It's old school. They have rules, and they do things by the rules. The Grammys are more laid back." 'Course, it could be the fact that she's been nominated for Grammys 14 times (with two wins) that makes those awards seem more relaxed, she concedes.

Etheridge would love to do more song writing for films — "if the right projects come along." In the meantime, she's working on a new studio album, which she says she expects to have done "by the end of the year."

MEANWHILE: Etheridge was one of the many superstar names at Monday's Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon, always a favorite Oscar season event, where we were fortunate enough to be seated next to "Letters From Iwo Jima" Director and Best Picture nominee, Clint Eastwood.

Eastwood skipped the pressroom, but clearly enjoyed being on hand to applaud his fellow "Iwo Jima" nominees, from co-producer Steven Spielberg to Original Screenplay nominee Iris Yamashita.

"With Clint, working is so easy. He's a no nonsense kind of guy. He read my first draft and said, 'I love it, let's go with it,'" Yamashita told us — words that will no doubt spark not just envy, but astonishment among many Hollywood writers. Eastwood confirmed, "She did a great job. It was all there. I didn't have to do anything to it."

Asked about his Best Picture competition, Eastwood graciously noted that he likes all the nominees: "This is a good group." His wrenching WWII saga, from a Japanese point of view, is certainly a favorite.

GETTING REAL: Director Gabor Csupo has been known up 'til now as half the producing team of Klasky Csupo, known for bringing us the wildly successful kids' fare "Rugrats" and "The Wild Thornberrys." With Disney's Feb. 16-opening "Bridge to Terabithia" — a mostly live-action film enhanced with a fairly small amount of computer animation — he's definitely opened up a new chapter in his career.

Getting beguiling, heart-melting performances from his juvenile cast, led by rising young teen stars Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb, was no problem, he tells us. "I enjoyed it so much. I love children that much. I have five of my own, and I feel like I've entertained them the last two decades with my cartoons and have a really good connection with them."

The Budapest-born talent says he read the Newberry Award-winning book on which the movie is based just three years ago, "and it moved me so much I wanted immediately to do it. It's such an amazingly beautiful story." That it is.

(With reports by Stephanie DuBois and Emily Feimster)

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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