Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Former NBA star-cum-superhot jazz bassist Wayman Tisdale happily reports he's back on track after recovering from bone cancer last year.

"I'm feeling great," says Tisdale, whose new Rendezvous Entertainment CD is appropriately titled "Rebound." "I'm still going through minor chemo and all that, but other than that I feel fine."

Tisdale says February to September of last year was the worst period for him, but the music "was therapeutic for me. On tough days I stayed in bed, but between family, loved ones and my music, that's what kept me going." He adds, "I wrote about the whole experience in the song 'Grateful' — it says it all in the lyrics. And I got (gospel legend) Marvin Sapp to sing that."

An unexpected treat on Tisdale's eighth CD, being released tomorrow (6/3), is country superstar Toby Keith singing the late, great Barry White's classic hit "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up." "That was Toby's idea," says Tisdale. "We're good friends and had talked about doing something together for a while. We were supposed to do an original song, but he hit me with the Barry White tune, and I fell off the couch. He just nailed it. We were like, ‘Wow.' It just floored everybody."

TEEN SCENE: The Jonas Brothers' "Camp Rock" leading lady Demi Lovato says the collective young hotties are definitely an oxymoron in her book. "You don't find three good, humble, classic gentleman rock stars ... there's no such thing, you know what I mean?" says Lovato, who plays the love interest of Joe Jonas's character in the Disney Channel movie debuting June 20. "They're rock stars, but yet, when they get off stage, they're nerds and gentlemen, and they're, like, humble — just great guys."

Lovato has had to put recording of her solo debut album temporarily on a back burner to make a Disney Channel Original Movie, "Princess Protection Program," with longtime pal Selena Gomez — then go out on tour as the opening act with The Jonas Brothers. Their Burning Up concert trek launches July 4. The 15-year-old Dallas-born beauty adds, "I write my own songs, and I've been co-writing with the Jonas Brothers, too. They're producing it," she says of the album.

Demi displays some powerhouse vocals in "Camp Rock" but says her off-screen style is much different. "My personal sound is more rock than pop. I love listening to rock music, so to be able to record it and go crazy on stage. I can't wait … "

FUNNY GUY: Lil' JJ — the 17-year-old comic/rapper/actor/musician and rising star of Nickelodeon's "Just Jordan" series — reports he's now set to go before the cameras mid-month playing Ice Cube's son in "Janky Promoters." That's the Dimension Films caper comedy about concert promoters who find themselves in a heap of complications trying to book a rapper to do a show.

"I've seen different people promote different shows and seen how it works. I don't think people know how much drama everyone goes through behind the scenes to get that done," notes the energetic multi-talent, born James Charles Lewis.

As a fan of the rap-giant-cum-film director, producer and star ("Are We There Yet?"), Lil' JJ has been hoping to work with Ice Cube for years. "I'd always see him in different places. I'd say, 'We're going to work together soon.' And he'd say, 'All right. Just let me know.' When I auditioned, I just gave it my all. This is going to be hot!"

Lil' JJ will go from shooting the film into touring with his stand-up — and working on his next music album at the same time. "We try to fill the whole summer up. We try to fill the rest of the year up, the rest of '08, to work every day and not slow down,'" he lets us know. Right now, he's busy launching his "Almost Grown" comedy DVD — "a family show that's clean, you know?" It drops tomorrow (6/3). "I'm going to all 50 states, everywhere, every city" to do comedy and promotion, he says. "I need to go to England (where "Just Jordan" is now airing) and go holler at some people and find out what's going on there. I'm hoping the DVD will be in stores in England, too. I'm going to the moon. I want do a show on the moon."

Gee, we weren't sure he was exaggerating until that moon part.

LOOK OUT WORLD: The upcoming indie film "American Inquisition" stars Alfre Woodard, Tim Blake Nelson, Will Patton and Xzibit — but it's a young actress named Nicole Behaire who steals the show, reports Michael O'Keefe. "She plays the lead in the film," says O'Keefe of the movie about a young woman unlawfully arrested in East Texas. "She just graduated from Juilliard, and she's only done two films, but I really think she's special. It's a real opportunity for Nicole to break out as a star. For lack of a better image, she strikes me as a black Audrey Hepburn. She's diminutive in size, but she's got this gigantic personality." The film, he says, is "a true story. The D.A. in a town in east Texas decided he was going to do a sweep of his annual drug busts in the projects and arrested 28 people. Twenty pled to a lesser charge, and seven pled guilty. But this one woman, Dee Roberts, decided to plead innocent and fight the charges. She sat in jail for two months without going to trial. The ACLU heard about her case, took it and got the charges dismissed. Then they sued the district attorney and the drug task force, and they won. I play the corrupt district attorney — or as I like to refer to him, 'the racist b—-h! That's how I was introducing myself to everyone on the set."

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 2008 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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