Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Cloris Leachman Enticed by Greg Garcia To Play Mad Maw Maw/What Unites Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen and Lou Dobbs?

Eight-time Emmy winner Cloris Leachman says she wasn't looking to return to the TV series scene when Fox's "Raising Hope" came her way. "I had nothing to do with it. It's all his doing," she says, referring to show creator Greg Garcia ("My Name is Earl"). And now, "I'm madly in love. I've been laughing so hard. I don't know when I've been so excited."

Leachman was taken right away with the role of Maw Maw, who goes around in her bra and orange stretch pants, and whose first response to her infant great-granddaughter is "Get that dog off my couch!"

Fox has scheduled "Raising Hope" to follow its hottest hit, "Glee," this fall — what you could call an excellent in-house review. Two cast members were replaced from the original pilot, but Leachman feels that "shows what faith the network has in this show. It's very costly to add to this thing," she says of the first episode.

The "Raising Hope" cast — including Lucas Neff, Martha Plimpton and Garrett Dillahunt — begins shooting episodes next month. Leachman is not sitting idly waiting to go to work until then, however. Fresh from serving as grand marshal of this year's Pride parade in San Diego, she's doing her one-woman show Aug. 6-8 in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., and looking forward to promotional chores for the big-screen horror thriller "The Fields" with Tara Reid. In it, the Oscar winner ("The Last Picture Show") plays the grandmother of an eight-year-old boy being terrorized by unseen forces.

Eighty-four-year-old force of nature Leachman attributes her energy level to the vegetarian lifestyle she's embraced for decades. Indeed, we can't help but remember her announcing that she only eats brightly colored food during a luncheon meeting at least 20 years ago. (She also told us she loves to eat salad with her fingers, which she demonstrated right there in the Disney commissary.) Now articles about nutrient-rich brightly colored foods are common.

"I was ahead of my time," she says happily. "And Joanne Woodward and I were the only women who nursed our babies back when we were new mothers. After that, nursing became popular, and a lot of babies were much happier because of that." She adds, "You have to teach yourself child-raising. It's not ever taught in school, and it should be. They teach how to kick a ball, or throw it or hit it — it's all about balls.

And there you have it.

TALL IN THE SADDLE: The celebrity sightings will be uber-intense at the Hampton Classic horse show in Bridgehampton, N.Y., at summer's end — what insiders on the equestrian scene tell us is "the end of summer horsy hurrah!" Indeed. The 41st Annual Lake Placid Horse Show this month boasted proud pops including Steven Spielberg, cheering on daughter Destry, Bruce Springsteen rooting for daughter Jessica, and former CNN anchor-turned-aspiring politico Lou Dobbs out in support of daughter Hillary. They each hung in there for two hot weeks to behold the riding of their serious equestrian offspring, we're told, and all are likely to be at the Hampton Classic. While teens Darcy and Jessica competed in the junior rings, Hillary, who sang the national anthem twice at Lake Placid, competed against Mayor Michael Bloomberg's daughter, Georgina, and a number of Olympic veterans. Now a member of the United States Equestrian Team's Samsung Super League, the impressive young horsewoman is continuing to compete elsewhere this summer as well.

THAT'S SPOOKY: Guess this isn't your grandma's CIA anymore. The formerly clandestine organization is preparing to shoot a recruiting commercial and looking for just the right actors to play agents. The female should be 27-33, according to casting notices. Ability to speak French, Russian or an Eastern European language a plus. She should be in shape and beautiful, with an intelligent, brooding air about her — a vivid presence. The "prototype is Valerie Plame to Angelina Jolie." Yes, it really does say that. As for the male agent — they're asking casting forces to "think James Bond" with actors that are in shape, tall, dark and handsome.

ON THE ROAD AT LAST: With the Aug. 1 start date looming for the long-in-the-works big-screen adaptation of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," casting is being wrapped up with the role of Ma Paradise, the mother of Sam Paradise — Kerouac's alter-ego in the work, being played by Sam Riley. They're looking for an actress who can speak in a French-Canadian dialect to play the working-class woman who's been through her share of hardship, but loves her son deeply and dearly. Brazilian director Walter Salles ("Motorcycle Diaries") has a cast including "Twilight's" Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst and Garrett Hedlund with Francis Ford Coppola (who bought rights to the work for $95,000 in 1980) as executive producer.

The famous book has gone through previous abortive attempts to get it to screen, including a planned version by Gus Van Sant that would have leaned heavily on the homoerotic subtext. Salles is so intent on his version, he reportedly retraced Kerouac's original route. The film will be shot in Montreal, Mexico and New Orleans.

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.

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