Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

All eyes were turned toward Barbra Streisand and President George W. Bush when the two adversaries met — and shared their notorious hug and pecks on the cheek — at the recent 31st Kennedy Center Honors. It would seem to have been a nerve-wracking moment for the show's producer, but George Stevens Jr. insists he had no trepidations about that meeting between Streisand and the man she's derided as incompetent and worse.

"My experience with the Kennedy Center Honors is that art trumps politics. That was true when Charlton Heston came to the Clinton White House, and when Robert Redford came to the Bush White House," explains Stevens. "I'm always confident that people will be gracious and on their best behavior. President Bush — his tribute to Barbra at the White House was very full and had touches of humor. He said he had been told that she was very strong-minded and expressed her opinions and that he had a Barbara in his life that did that, too," he adds of Bush's reference to mom Barbara Bush at the event, which will be broadcast on CBS Dec. 30.

Stevens says he found this year's collection of honorees — also including country legend George Jones, Morgan Freeman, The Who's Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, and dance great Twyla Tharp — lent themselves especially well to providing context for the show.

"When you think, with Morgan Freeman, Morgan being from Mississippi and owning a blues club, there's a great opportunity for that music. It's Hollywood and Broadway for Barbra, dance for Twyla, country for George and, of course, rock for Pete and Roger. The intertwining of these is very exciting. I produce the show with my son Michael, who is very smart about rock and country music, so he took those categories," notes Stevens.

The lineup they put together includes Denzel Washington, Clint Eastwood, Queen Latifah, Idina Menzel, Beyonce, Ne-Yo, Rob Thomas, Garth Brooks, Randy Travis, Lily Tomlin, Alan Jackson and Shelby Lynn.

BEAUTY IS AS BEAUTY DOES: Fashion guru Nolé Marin says he can't wait for people to see the lovechild between Ashton Kutcher and Tyra Banks. No, he's not talking about an actual baby, but rather the ABC reality show the two produced, "True Beauty," premiering Jan. 5.

"Tyra described it as if Ashton Kutcher and Tyra Banks had a lovechild between 'Punk'd' and 'Top Model,'" says Marin, who is also a part of the show. "It's a beauty pageant where the people think they're only being judged on their exterior beauty, but there are all of these kind of 'Punk'd' challenges that show their inner beauty as well," he explains.

"There's a show romance, you're going to see some cat fights, but the show is really funny, too. I think people are really going to enjoy the humor of it."

Marin says he's happy to be back in the reality TV world because he owes a lot to the genre, which helped make him a household name. "When I started doing 'Top Model' six years ago or so, no one wanted to do reality TV. People were like, 'Don't do that — it will ruin your career,'" recalls Marin. "Tyra Banks and Jay Manuel asked me to do it, so I did, and it was one of the most incredible career moves I've ever done. The next day after my show aired, I had four girls running out of a McDonald's yelling my name. I was like, 'Is this a joke?' I couldn't believe it. I'd done hundreds of magazines and commercials, and no one ever said, 'Oh, you're Nole Marin,' and I did one of those shows, and everything changed. People could finally pronounce my name."

MUTUAL ADMIRATION: Jorge Garcia of "Lost" is gratified to find that the show — returning Jan. 21 with a clip special and two new back-to-back episodes — is big among the music crowd. "Because we're a very good DVD kind of show, I've run into a lot of musicians who are fans because they watch it on their tour buses and things like that," he says. Those fans include members of Metallica and Anthrax. Garcia says, "One of the biggest things for me was when we were at the Golden Globes. Seal came up to me, Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim and asked to get a picture with us. Holy cow! That's awesome."

YULETIDE CAROLERS: The brilliant Irish singing group Anuna is making the scene on tour and in their new "Christmas Memories" PBS special (check your local listings) and accompanying DVD this month. But group member John McGlynn confesses that they had to be actors as well as singers to put across that festive, snowy holiday feel. "Put it this way, the actual filming was done over a week in Baltimore when it was warm outside," notes the Irishman with a twinkle. He says he doesn't miss the holiday season back home because "we never get white Christmases in Dublin anymore. It starts raining the beginning of December and doesn't stop 'til after the new year." As far as the show, he notes, "We have a few gags and jokes in it the American public will get." The music itself ranges from current Christmas tunes to "music that's over a thousand years old." Christmas, he notes, "actually belongs to everybody, right back to the Greek and Roman traditions and the very early church, the natural symbolism of the famous tannenbaum."

With reports by 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.

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