Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Tori Spelling would like to see the young stars of today doing more positive things with their celebrity status. It certainly wouldn't hurt to see the likes of Lindsay Lohan staying out of trouble.

"I feel like when you're given a huge opportunity and you can make a difference, you gotta just keep going and focus on that. It's a shame to get distracted by things we shouldn't get distracted by," notes Spelling, who does believe these younger stars can get through these ups and downs if they just focus on their work. "It's a learning curve. When you're growing up, it's hard. You never know if you're doing the right thing or the wrong thing," adds the actress, who's certainly done her time in nightclubs and tabloids — but without nearing the abyss of excess into which too many of her younger counterparts have been falling of late.

In spite of everything, she's confident, "They'll figure it out."

Tori, who of course grew up the privileged daughter of late super producer Aaron Spelling and rose to fame on "Beverly Hills 90210," adds, "I didn't really have time to focus on anything besides my career. I just kind of had my eye on the prize. My family was great, but they kind of let me make my own decisions. They weren't so prominent in kind of driving me to stay on the straight and narrow — that was just me. I always had a really strong work ethic."

Spelling's latest enterprise has her, as a freshly ordained online-order minister, marrying a gay couple and taking the opportunity to stress her view that love knows no gender restrictions on her Oxygen reality show "Tori & Dean: Inn Love." The second season premieres Tuesday (8/14). She notes that she and her husband, Dean McDermott, now have their 4-month-old son Liam with them on camera, "So he's going to steal the show, basically. He's quite a character."

MUSICAL JOURNEY: Leading film composer Hans Zimmer reports he and Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas are about to set off on a music expedition into Africa — part of their collaboration for the soundtrack of the November release DreamWorks Animation flick, "Madagascar 2: the Crate Escape." Says Zimmer, "We're going incredibly low tech. We'll take a little recorder with us, travel around for a couple of weeks, meet musicians, listen and see if anything good comes of it." Zimmer's already co-written one song with Will.i.am, "a great guy to hang with and work with."

At the moment, he's savoring the success of "The Simpsons Movie," which he scored.

The composer got to work with longtime friend and collaborator Jim Brooks, as well as "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. "It was great hanging out with Matt and talking about music," he says. "His taste runs from Frank Zappa to Prokofiev to Nino Rota, as does mine. That was my way in."

The dry-witted music maker's next projects are also an exercise in eclecticism. Besides "Madagascar 2," he's doing Jack Black's "Kung Fu Panda," Ron Howard's drama "Frost/Nixon" and Howard's planned "Da Vinci Code" follow-up "Angels & Demons." And then there's "'The Dark Knight Returns.' Everyone thinks the title is about me. When I'm composing for dark films, I get grumpy," Zimmer deadpans. The sequel to Christian Bale's "Batman Begins" is due for July '08 release.

GROWING AND GROWING: "Tom Green Live" — the comic's one-year-old show on the Internet via Mania TV (www.ManiaTV.com/tv/tomgreenlivetv) and his own www.tomgreen.com — is getting bigger. That fact is evidenced by Bud Lite recently coming aboard as a sponsor of the program that's featured guests from Bob Saget to Tony Hawk, by the continuous upgrading of technology on the show, and by plans to expand into areas such as person on the street interviews. Plus, "We weren't doing it five nights a week at the beginning. It was a couple of nights a week. Now it's running more like an organized machine. We even have a talent booker," says Green, who literally has a studio/talk show set in his living room at home. He tells us, "People in the ad community are paying more attention to Internet shows" now than even last year.

RABBIT REDUX: In our recent item about singer Kiely Williams of The Cheetah Girls, we incorrectly referred to the picture she's making for Adam Sandler's Happy Madison production company as "The Bunny House." It's actually "House Bunny," the feature that has Anna Faris playing a former favorite Playmate who lived at the mansion for nine years, until she suddenly got booted out on her birthday for being too old. She then becomes housemother for an unpopular college sorority. Besides Williams, the comedy will feature Katharine McPhee of "American Idol" fame as a free-spirited sorority sister who is way too visibly pregnant.

(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 2007 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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