Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Sounds like Barbara Walters and her "View" could be finding competition in wowOwow. WowOwow was created last year by a group of notables that include Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Liz Smith, Whoopi Goldberg, Mary Wells, Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin and Marlo Thomas to offer an exchange of thoughts by and for women of, well, let's say middle age. Thus far it consists of a free daily interactive Web site, but it could evolve into a television offering. As Stahl notes, "We are concentrating on the internet now. However, the show is evolving and changing. The audience will tell us where to go."

They nearly went into questionable areas at first — at least in title.

"We had named our site Women on the Web, and then found out that was a porn site. We changed it to wowOwow," says Lesley.

WowOwow could be used to describe the past season of "60 Minutes" for Stahl. As she puts it, "I think it was a very good year for me. The season started out with Alan Greenspan that was a big get for me and ended with Justice Scalia, another big get. And then there was that wonderful story about a man named John Kanncius with leukemia who got the idea of using radio waves to kill cancer cells. This was not a doctor, this was not even a man with a college degree. But what he came up with turned out to be so important that M.D. Anderson [cancer center] in Houston is using it and the University of Pittsburgh is pouring money into the project."

Lesley says that science pieces are among her favorites for "60 Minutes," and reveals she'll be doing one this fall on brain functions.

Among her least favorite interview subjects: General Norman Schwarzkopf. "I interviewed him over a TV line during the first Mideastern war. He's the only one I can think of who intimidated me. And over the air waves yet!"

Forthright and candid, there seems to be just one subject she'd rather avoid during an interview. Asked about reports that CBS asked her to take a $500,000 cut in salary when the network hired Katie Couric for its evening news, Lesley responds simply, "No comment."

THE CELEB 'NET: Justine Bateman has joined the burgeoning crowd of celebs making their own niche on the Internet with the help of such friends as Judd Nelson and Beverly D'Angelo. "We're getting ready to shoot our first internet series called 'Candy,'" says Bateman. "It takes place in a candy factory and it's about this woman named CJ, played by me. Her family has this candy company, but she's never wanted to have anything to do with it ….

She's reckless the way a 4-year-old is, not really meaning any harm, and a continuous series of mishaps and misunderstandings have given her a little bit of a police record."

Meanwhile, Bateman — who's shooting an upcoming guest spot on Showtime's "Californication" this week — proudly reports she just wrote her first script for the Disney Channel sitcom, "Wizards of Waverly Place." "Peter Murrietta, the head writer, is a friend of mine and one of my partners in our Internet company, FM78.TV and I got to know all the writers from 'Wizards' during the writers' strike. He asked me to write a script and I was in the writers' room for about a month beforehand helping to pitch story ideas and getting storylines together."

LADIES WHO LUNCH: Also on the new media bandwagon — Heather Thomas, who's turned to YouTube to promo her "Trophies" novel, with a comedic short that should be posted by the time you read this. "I don't like re-enactments when they put a face to the character, so we did it with dolls. It's pretty bawdy," says the one-time "Fall Guy" actress, whose new novel is set in the world of ultra-rich trophy wives who have turf wars over charitable functions. It's a world she knows well as an inveterate fundraiser, Democratic Party personage and wife of industry mover 'n' shaker attorney Skip Brittenham. The bit has the characters at a table at the tony Michael's restaurant, discussing their use of "vaginal weight training eggs. One of them is saying 'You're supposed to use it one minute a day, not walk around town with it! I do an Alfred Hitchcock; when the egg falls out, it rolls over and touches my shoe." The bit is narrated by Gore Vidal, and features cameos with the likes of Phyllis Diller.

For the very funny Thomas, one of the inducements for writing "Trophy" was to speak up for "a much-maligned demographic … I want to debunk the theory of trophy wives. You know, close to 80 percent of donated money in this country is controlled by second wives of wealthy men," she claims. "Second wives want to establish themselves socially, and what's the fastest way? Charity."

Thomas will head out on a book tour next month, hitting cities known to be well populated by such women — including New York, Miami and Dallas. And yes, she's thinking movie. "We already have some suitors," she says.

MAKING BOOK: Although David Carradine has been busy going from one indie film and cable movie production to the next for the last few years, has managed to find the time to "do the great American novel thing," he says. He's close to wrapping up the book. David, the author, has already completed a number of nonfiction tomes, including his "Endless Highway" autobiography and martial arts workout manuals.

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 2008 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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