Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Multi-Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Rob Thomas — currently in the studio working on a new Matchbox Twenty album with his band mates — says he's already begun work on his sophomore solo CD.

"I've got a record or so written, but you always hope that you'll better yourself," says Thomas, whose 2005 "Something to Be" marked the first time a male artist from a rock or pop group debuted at number one with his first solo album since the Billboard Top 200 was introduced 50 years ago. There is no ETA on the new solo disc because Thomas says his first priority is finishing the band's album. "I feel like if I put too much time on that (solo album) then I'm shortchanging the place I'm in now, but I'm going to be making it the whole time." He adds of the Matchbox Twenty project, "We'll be working the rest of this summer, and then next year we'll be touring."

Thomas says at this point he's not sure which direction his next solo endeavor will take, adding that his muse is unpredictable. "Usually it just pops in my head," he says. "When I started writing songs years ago, I was completely baffled, and I am still baffled by whenever a song pops out of nowhere. And I don't usually write songs about something specific as much as how that thing makes me feel."

For instance, he continues, "I always feel if I'm having a fight with my wife, most people don't care about me having a fight with my wife, but everybody has fights with someone who's important to them, everybody has those moments, so I try to write a song about how that makes me feel because that's something everyone can understand."

ONLY PLAYING WITH HELLFIRE: Repentant bad boy Daniel Baldwin quips he wasn't a victim of typecasting in the "back-to-back devil films" he shot earlier this year. The actor — who's claimed sobriety from the addictions that bedeviled him and is now trying to repair his rep — says that in the upcoming indie film "The Devil's Dominoes," "I'm devilish, but in 'Little Red Devil' I'm playing the devil himself in a three-piece suit. I'm acting, I want you to know, but I play him well."

Baldwin also co-stars with Treat Williams, Charlotte Ross and William Mapother in the fact-based indie film "Moola," which won Best Film Directing at the Newport Beach Film Festival last month. "It's a really cool story about the advent of the glow stick," he says.

"I play one of the guys who own the company that makes them. These cats used to make their money on glow sticks about four times a year, like New Years Day, Fourth of July … But then one day, they get this big order from a dairy farm for ten cases, which hold like 144 each. Then they ordered 20 more cases! Turns out when a cow is ovulating, another cow will mount it, but it was hard to keep track of the cows ovulating so they put the glow sticks on the cows' backs. When they get broken, they know they're ovulating and they take this big turkey-baster thing and (impregnate) the cow. As bizarre as it sounds, they were able to get 99 percent of their cows pregnant like that, and the owners of the glow-stick company ended up making like $50 to $100 million."

FROM THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT: With TBS's "The Bill Engvall Show" having turned in hardy ratings, the series' team is awaiting word on its future — with hopes for returning to production in the fall for another season. "I just got off the phone with Bill, and we could know any time," reports Nancy Travis, who plays the comedian's wife on the series, in which he's playing a family counselor and family man.

"Until I hear about what is happening with the show, I'm going on vacation with my family. We're going to Alaska, joining this group that's doing a backpacking trip," says Travis, the mother of nine and five-year-old children.

Nancy's kids are one of the reasons, she says, that "every time I came close to doing an hour show, I'd always back down. The hours kind of spooked me. I liked the idea of doing a family show like this, playing the mother of older kids."

Her character is based on Engvall's wife, Gail, and she says, "Sometimes I have to remind him that I'm not his wife. He'll say, 'My wife would do it this way.' And I say, 'Yeah, I know, but I'm your TV wife.'"

MEANWHILE: Travis, who portrayed the step-mother-to-be of America Ferrera's character in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," tells us she's not in the sequel feature that's been shooting this summer — a green light she attributes to America's success with "Ugly Betty" — but she's certainly cheering on her young costars. With Blake Lively starring in the CW's fall-debuting "Gossip Girl" series, "Sisterhood" will have the distinction of all of its four young leads starring as title characters in their own television shows. (Alexis Bledel, of course, starred in "Gilmore Girls," and Amber Tamblyn in "Joan of Arcadia.") Travis notes that with the four girls traveling freely between big and small screen, "it really shows that the onus that used to be on doing television is gone."

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

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