Her harrowing wrong-way-on-the-freeway DUI arrest last month doesn't seem to have slowed Nicole Richie down too much. She's been out making the scene — as the widely seen photos of her kissing Good Charlotte's Joel Madden at the Ghostbar nightclub in Las Vegas on New Year's Eve attest. And, according to Paris Hilton, they expect to go into production on "The Simple Life 5" in March.

Will it happen? The fifth season of the show was already delayed from its anticipated start in November, when troubled party girl Nicole entered treatment, this time reportedly to gain weight, even as she denied having an eating disorder. When it comes to whether the March production start is considered firm — or anything having to do with the potential for Richie's latest legal woes to cause "The Simple Life 5" to be tabled — the production company's issuing flat no comments.

Producer/creator Jonathan Murray does, however, say he's glad Nicole and Paris are friends again. They filmed their segments separately last season because of their former feud, you'll recall. "One season of working with them separately was an interesting challenge, but I'm glad we won't face that challenge at least," he says. This time — if plans go through — Hilton and Richie are to be seen working as camp counselors. "It's not children," says Murray. "They will be adult campers."

Whew!

THE BIG SCREEN SCENE: Grateful Dead fans have been debating the question of who should play the group's legendary frontman in a biopic about the late Jerry Garcia — with names from Paul Giamatti to Jack Black to Charlize Theron (!) popping up on Entertainment Weekly's site, for instance. But it may be a moot argument. Producer Justin Berfield says he's already got his man in mind.

As a matter of fact, "We've gone out to our top choice, and fortunately they're interested in it and want to do it," reports the 20-year-old former "Malcolm in the Middle" costar. But he's not ready to make the name public. "There's no script yet so that will take a little longer."

Life after "Malcolm" has found Berfield busy — very busy — behind the camera. He has not only the Garcia biopic in the works, but Jessica Simpson's "Blonde Ambition" filming. Now he's focusing on his next movie, based on Doris Payne. "She's the 75-year-old jewel thief who was just caught three years ago. Her career spanned over five decades across four different countries," he reminds. "We have a script, and now we're just working on getting a director."

ON A PERSONAL NOTE: Jonathan Silverman reports he and fiancee Jennifer Finnegan "don't have a specific date yet" for their wedding — but he knows it won't be before summer. "Jen's shooting 'Close to Home' until late spring," notes the actor whose ABC "In Case of Emergency" midseason replacement series launched last week.

"I'm a little uncomfortable with my mom watching it," admits Silverman, who appears in steamy, scantily clad action with Jane Seymour on the show that also stars David Arquette, Kelly Hu and Lori Loughlin. However, "We have some lovely network standards and practices people on the set a lot, being very helpful in letting us know what we can say and how we can say it."

SOUR NOTES?: Creative differences are brewing between "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell and Il Divo, the hot pop operatic group he created a couple of years ago.

Tenor David Miller and his compadres Sebastian Izambard, Urs Buhler and Carlos Marin did the first leg of the group's first world tour last year with a 20-piece orchestra and a full rock band. "We found by trying to spice up what we do on the albums for our live shows that the rock band adds different elements, and we're trying to incorporate them on the albums," says Miller. Unfortunately, he adds, "Simon likes what we've been doing and doesn't want to change. But we feel like we want to grow a little bit. We don't want to keep repeating ourselves and become a one-trick pony."

Miller admits Cowell has allowed the group to be pretty autonomous lately, but says, "He's still the executive producer. When we put it all together and he says, 'Don't like that, tweak that, change that … we do it." And he says the group understands Cowell's concerns. "You can't change things too quickly. There are all the people who couldn't make it to the (live) shows. If we add all these other elements (to their recordings), the fans will be saying, 'Il Divo changed.'"

The gorgeous quartet is now gearing up for the next leg of its first world tour. "We interrupted it to go on tour with Barbra Streisand and do an album," says Miller. "Next we're going to go to Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia, South Africa, South America, Central America, back to Europe, then Canada — and that's all between January and April."

(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.