Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

If superstar designer Donna Karan's efforts to bring together Eastern and Western medicine fail to jell, it certainly won't be due to a lack of celebrity support.

Michael J. Fox is set to speak at her Urban Zen company's huge, two-week Well-Being Forum that launches Monday (5/14) in New York. "He'll be part of a panel; he himself is going through his doctor, Susan Bressman," Karan tells us. "Susan Sarandon will be there, hopefully. She's been a friend of mine for many, many years …

"Ashton Kutcher designed our 'the Path' logo. We were looking for a quick, hip way to get across what we're doing, and Ashton, with that amazing mind of his, came up with this as a code name for putting patients on 'the Path' (Patient's Awareness Toward Healing)."

Hillary Rodham Clinton is an honorary chair for the event, Christy Turlington is a co-chair. Patti LaBelle is singing at a private appreciation dinner Monday night (5/14), and names from Vanessa Redgrave to Richard Gere, Marianne Williamson and Tony Robbins to Katie Couric are involved. That is in addition to a long list of physicians, researchers and experts in disciplines from yoga to Tai Chi, Qui Gong and Zen.

Karan, who lost her husband, sculptor-turned-business partner Stephan Weiss, to lung cancer in 2001, says Weiss began his seven-year cancer battle as a staunch Western traditionalist. However, eventually, she says, he found relief through yoga, acupuncture and the use of Chinese herbs. He was aware of the mission she was formulating even then, and, she recalls, "'He said, 'Donna, don't forget the nurses.' That's most important — the compassion, the care."

"The world of medicine is, for me, inclusive — not 'either/or.' It's 'and,'" she stresses. For those who cannot attend the workshops, cameras will be on the scene throughout — and plans are to eventually make various parts available on the Internet. Adds Karan, "All the information is available at urbanzen.org."

CROSSING OVER?: It's a big week for "Crossing Jordan's" Ravi Kapoor — who's in the same boat as many other series actors as they await their fates at the hands of the networks in next week's fall season announcements. In Kapoor's case, he might be coming back in more "Jordans" if the six-year-old NBC show goes another year. Or, he might be debuting in a new NBC sitcom, "Area 57," in which Paul Reubens plays an alien who's been secretly kept at an Air Force base for decades.

"I'd be happy to come back and do another season of 'Crossing Jordan,' but if not, I'm also excited about new possibilities and new things to do," he says. "It's been a really good six-year run with a lovely group of people."

The "Crossing Jordan" finale airs Wednesday (5/16). It has Jill Hennessy and team in a plane crash that leaves them stranded on a mountainside. Says Kapoor, "It's a great episode in that big things happen, but also smaller emotional things between the characters as they take stock of what they value most" — including Jordan's (Hennessy) realization of the depth of her feelings for Woody (Jerry O'Connell). "It was strange in that we still don't know if it's our final final episode," he adds. "Are we going to be rescued or not be rescued, by the helicopter — and by the network."

ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: "I had to hit a bottom. It's like when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing." So says Ashley Judd, discussing the 47-day stay she spent in a Texas treatment facility last year to recover from a longtime bout of depression. The actress looks back on that healing time in the issue of Entertainment Weekly that hits stands tomorrow (5/11) — in which she also says that one way she copes with the negatives of fame is to steer clear of the tabloids. "I have a really firm slogan that it's none of my business what people think of me."

What people are thinking of Judd's raw performance in William Friedkin's May 25 release psycho-thriller, "Bug," is that she's daring, to say the least. She worked sans makeup in the movie, in which she's a cocktail waitress who becomes involved with a disturbed Gulf War vet (Michael Shannon) who thinks he sees insects everywhere. "It's very sick," she says, "but it is an extreme love story."

VROOM-VROOM: Former pro wrestler Bill Goldberg, whose latest project was hosting the car rally reality show "Bullrun," tells us he plans on spending his summer learning how to fix cars. "I am learning, but as far as being extremely knowledgeable about what goes into a car, I don't know much about it," says Goldberg, who has an impressive collection of 21 automobiles. "My mechanic is an ex-high school shop teacher of 30 years. He and I are going to take upon ourselves the task of restoring one of my cars just so I can learn more about them."

(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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