Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

While soundstages around them lay vacant because of the Hollywood writers' strike, the "ER" troupe continues with work that will help fill a stockpile of shows to keep the series on the air until February.

"Our writers were really cool and worked around the clock to get three episodes of the series written before the strike struck," reveals John Stamos. "They don't like me saying it, but I'm proud of them for doing it. It's important for the audience — people in middle America don't realize what the walk-out is all about. They think it's just rich writers and actors begging for more money. But it's not about that. As far as I'm concerned, the writers are helping out the actors because the SAG contract is coming up in June, and if issues about payments for downloads on the Internet and such aren't straightened out now ... Well, I remember the '88 strike, when many of my friends lost their homes."

The "ER" co-star wants us to know he's willing to do anything he can to help. "If the strike goes on for a while, I'm going to phone my heavyweight friends and put together some concerts to help out these people whose paychecks have been taken away — the craft people and wardrobe people and hair and makeup and so many, many others."

He's also talking about "buying hundreds and hundreds of turkeys" to hand out at Thanksgiving to strike-struck Hollywood workers.

HEALING AND REVEALING: George Lopez admits that before he received his life-saving kidney transplant in 2005 — thanks to his wife Ann's donation of one of her own organs — "I told my doctors, 'I don't want to become the poster boy for kidney disease.' But as I recovered and experienced how it feels to be well, and knowing that other people could be saved, especially through prevention, it seemed the worst thing I could do was not to get involved." That's why George and Ann are actively involved with the National Kidney Foundation of Southern California — he served as celebrity co-host and she served as benefit chair for this past weekend's delicious, celebrity-studded "A Dish and a Dance with the Stars: The Great Chefs of Los Angeles" event.

"My wife works tirelessly" for the cause, says George. Meanwhile, he continues to be busy with his comedy concerts, the latest run including gigs this month in San Jose and Bakersfield, Calif., and next month in Los Angeles.

He's happy with the afterlife being enjoyed by his "George Lopez" sitcom in syndication and on Nickelodeon, the latter of which, he notes pointedly, "has been much kinder to the show than ABC was."

A WELCOME CHANGE OF FACE: "The Wire" semi-regular Shamika Cotton says fans of the gritty HBO drama won't recognize her on tomorrow night's (Nov. 15) episode of "Law & Order: CI," now on the USA Network. "I was so excited to get this role because she's something a lot closer to who I am," says the 2006 "I Wanna Be a Soap Star" semi-finalist, who's been playing a crack-addict mom on "The Wire," which returns for its fifth season in January. "In 'L&O: CI,' I play a writer trapped between two worlds — a gritty, urban life and a lavish circle. She's more youthful and more vibrant than my character on 'The Wire.' Plus, she's got fabulous clothes, and her hair was fierce!" Cotton adds with a laugh that she is occasionally recognized from "The Wire," "but if somebody recognizes me as Michael's mother on the street, I'm like, 'Do I look that bad?'" Fortunately, she says, more people "come up to me and say I saw you on 'Soap Star.'" She adds the reality competition show "was a huge jumpstart for my career." 

HEARTY RESEARCH: Brooke Smith, whose Dr. Erica Hahn character is becoming the new head of cardiothoracics at Seattle Grace Hospital (replacing Isaiah Washington's Dr. Burke), credits Patrick Dempsey for some of the verisimilitude she brings to the show. "The first time I was on, last season, Patrick was the one who convinced me to go see an open-heart surgery. He said, 'I think you'll really dig it,' so I scrubbed in and was right there." Standing next to the patient on the operating table? "It's crazy, isn't it? They'll let actors do anything. The man being operated on knew it was an actor from the show; he'd said OK. It turned out well for him, I'm glad to say." Smith describes herself about as far removed from doctor talk as possible in her real life. "I'm kind of a hippie when it comes to all that stuff. I never take cold medicine; I'm much more comfortable taking a homeopathic kind of remedy. But I'm an open-minded gal. I never say never." Perhaps a cold tablet will be in her future.

With reports by Stephanie DuBois and Emily Fortune 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

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.