Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

With his "CSI: New York" having ended its fifth season with a bang — make that a crash, as in a truck plowing into a restaurant window — last week, Gary Sinise is already looking forward to the start of Season 6 production in July.

"It'll be interesting to see what the writers do now," he says, adding that after five years, there's no end in sight for the series as far as he is concerned.

"I'm feeling very good about it. I love doing the show and we have a great team of writers. I'm involved in so many types of things — the USO, base trips during the year — I especially appreciate the security of having a steady job. As an actor it gives me the opportunity to do other things. Most actors have to look for a job constantly. I'm talking about qualified, very good actors."

Sinise says he's looking forward to some down time now, but will hardly be idle during hiatus. Among other things, he reports that his Lt. Dan Band is "going to do seven or eight shows in Korea and Okinawa in June."

And he'll keep fronting the exceptional Samuel Goldwyn Films documentary he co-executive produced, "Brothers at War," which is being rolled out in different cities in limited release. There has already been much praise for the portrait of a family that included five brothers (one died young, one disagrees with the Iraq War, two are soldiers now in Iraq, and one is the filmmaker who took a camera right into his brothers' units to capture what they're doing). But is it a tough sell now, with war-weary public sentiment?

"I wish we had an advertising budget, that I can say, but I think the movie has gotten great attention. It's made it into theaters and it's continuing to open around the country. It will qualify for Oscar consideration. That's terrific for a documentary to do that," points out Sinise. At some point, he acknowledges, "Brothers at War" will likely have a life on cable, "and I think it will have a good life on DVD as well."

He adds, "It shows the great integrity of the vast majority of those serving in those war zones — this great group of people serving honorably, that people sometimes overlook when some 15 screw-ups get the media attention."

OLD GUYS RULE: Shelley Berman pops up on the May 27 episode of "The Unusuals" in an unusual part.

"They've got me as an old man who doesn't want to just sit in a nursing home waiting to die, he wants to do things," Shelley reports. Criminal things, apparently. "He's already under arrest for trying to hold up a Brinks-type guard … More marvelous than anything, he tries to steal a pizza delivery truck. 'I've never been in a high-speed chase before' — that's a line from the script — and of course he's going about eight miles an hour. I was working with these two young actors, Harold Perrineau and Adam Goldberg. They play it so straight, they're so earnest in what they're doing and they treat the thing with such sincerity — and I'm such a kook — it was just a delight."

The comedian-actor, now in his sixth decade in show business, is having quite a run of old man roles, both serious and comedic. They include his recent "CSI: NY" guesting as a Holocaust survivor, his portrayal of Jeremy Piven's uncle on "Entourage" — and of course, his ongoing part as Larry David's dad on "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

"What's alarming to me, however, is that I always thought in order to play an old man I'd need a lot of makeup, but not now," he says. "They're making me up younger."

To what does he attribute his staying power? "I think it's partly because of our marriage," says Berman, referring to wife Sarah. Awwww.

"I swear — because I can't do anything without her," he goes on. "We were married 62 years this past April."

THE BIG SCREEN SCENE: Though Michigan's certainly feeling the pain of its depressed economic condition, driven by auto industry woes, the state's film office incentives are working to lure moviemakers, as Irish actor Ray Stevenson ("Punisher: War Zone") could tell you. Stevenson is there to start production on "The Irishman," playing real life Irish mafia kingpin Danny Green. Come August, he'll be before the cameras in the Great Lake state again, to make the post-apocalyptic sci-fi crime-action flick, "Tribes of October."

OH, BABY: Oxygen is gathering a group of Hollywood moms for a reality show titled "Celeb-U-Moms." The documentary series, as it's being described, will take us into the worlds of performers who can be glamorous red carpet paparazzi bait and dressed down diaper-changers in the same day — and keep their jobs and senses of humor at the end of it.

With reports by 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 2009 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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