There was a time when Nicollette Sheridan's court battle against "Desperate Housewives" creator Marc Cherry and ABC would have meant career suicide. The blond bombshell has branded herself as a troublemaker. She's shown an edgy, prickly side on the witness stand. She's invited scrutiny from the public and the media — the kind of scrutiny that involves repeated references to her 48 years of age and to her career having faded before being revitalized in 2004 by her "Desperate Housewives" role of Edie Britt.

Yes, there was a time when we would have expected her to be expelled by the industry over this fight, relegated to the dinner theater circuit like Suzanne Somers decades ago when she fell from network grace after tiffing with "Three's Company" over her demand for a 500 percent pay raise and a piece of the show. There would be no win for Sheridan's career, whether or not she wins some or all of the $20 million she's aiming to get following her claims of assault against Cherry and subsequent wrongful termination. (Cherry's jovial quips eliciting laughter from the jury this week are not a good sign.)

However, this is 2012, when good things happen to bad boys and girls. Charlie Sheen's wanton carryings on, his beating up of women, his drug use, his arrests, his widely booed Violent Torpedo of Truth stage show and all his Internet strangeness got him a much-anticipated new FX TV series, "Anger Management." Recent morgue worker Lindsay Lohan's "Saturday Night Live" guest-hosting stint last weekend garnered the show its second highest ratings of the season. Also in the news is "Jersey Shore" low-life Snooki, famous for stumbling around intoxicated in public and so forth. As reports of her pregnancy swirl through the media, she sports a half-million-dollar engagement ring.

Nicollette, in fact, might not be bad enough. She's going to need to step up her game and do more than show exasperation. She did slap her attorney, but only as a demonstration of what she says Cherry did to her. Maybe she should slap him for real and get rid of those sedate courtroom clothes. Show cleavage. Show disrespect. Show up drunk. Have a wardrobe malfunction on the courtroom steps. Take a tip from Lindsay, who cleverly painted "f—- you" on one of her fingernails knowing the cameras would follow her every move as a defendant. It might not be too late for a "Marc Cherry Sucks" tattoo in an eye-catching spot, for example.

If Nicollette and/or her handlers are clever enough to use all this attention to burnish her brand as a still-hot-looking diva cougar, maybe it could actually help her career. Maybe there will be a new show in it for her. At the very least, surely Donald Trump would save a seat for her in his "Celebrity Apprentice" boardroom.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: The Los Angeles Zoo's new LAIR attraction is due to open today (March 8), heralded by the first of several commercials starring the legendary 90-year-old Betty White and Guns N' Roses guitar god Slash. The eye-catching twosome has actually been pals for years. As Slash tells the tale, he's been a huge animal lover since childhood, "snakes in particular," and collected the slithery critters as a boy in England and in California. By the time his first son came along, Slash had a rock star-sized collection of some 60 to 80 pythons and boas — including snakes eight feet long and bigger. "My wife and I looked at each other, and, well, I didn't want to chance having a precocious little boy getting into the snake containers. I got rid of them all — and a lot of them went to the L.A. Zoo."

Thank God.

That led to Slash becoming a zoo trustee, which of course put him in proximity to longtime zoo booster and trustee Betty White. "Betty and I were introduced and got along great," according to Slash. Talk about strange bedfellows! Not as he sees it: "Hey, if the ages were closer, it wouldn't have seemed that strange. Betty and I could tear it up."

REMEMBERING: The death this week of Disney songwriter Robert Sherman marks the end of an era. Sherman, with his brother, Richard, gifted the world with memorable tunes from "Mary Poppins," "The Jungle Book" and many more films and stage shows.

There is a poignant story behind those feel-good songs, as shown in the well worth seeing 2010 documentary "The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story," made by their sons, Jeffrey and Gregory. The brothers were extremely different personalities and did not get along. They suffered such a deep schism that their families didn't even speak to one another for decades.

Robert, the older brother, was literally scarred for life by his WWII experiences — and was the introspective, sardonic half of the team. Richard was the more outgoing. "It's kind of touching, you know," he told us, "two brothers who didn't quite jell as buddy-buddies, but we certainly stuck together. We didn't double-cross each other or anything like that." And, somehow, they made magic.

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 2012 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM