On Monday, the actress filed for a temporary restraining order against one Matthew E. Hooker, a stalker who sent her notes and showed up on her doorstep several times, once hoping to take her kids out for ice cream, another time to take her to the ballet.

"You won't find a more wonderful man, a better soulmate, or a better husband," Hooker said in a message posted on his Web site in March. "The fact that you have two lovely children doesn't bother me at all ... I'm ready to be a father to them."

Hooker, who says he's planning a run for POTUS in 2004, and "can only hope that I find and marry my Great Love before being elected," has also posted a Nicole-inspired poem on one of his Web sites: "Oh star eyes / choose me as your goal / look into my eyes / Nicole."

So it scans a little weird. It rhymes, doesn't it?

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Only in her dreams?

"I feel like I'm the Cher of my generation ... without the Bob Mackie gown and headdress."

-- Deborah Gibson, the singer formerly known as Debbie Gibson, on how she sees herself, in USA Today.

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Juicy bits

In case you heard otherwise, Lou Reed is not -- I repeat, not -- dead. Rumors that the singer was ready to recline on velvet, underground, reportedly swept the Web this week. But according to the New York Post, a widely circulated e-mail -- mocked up to look like a Reuters story -- declaring that Reed had "succumbed to addictions" and gone boots up was 100 percent false. And yes, that includes, alas, the part about Madeleine Albright being something of a Lou Reed groupie. In fact, it is not clear if the former secretary of state and the scratchy-voiced singer have even had a single New York conversation ...

Typecasting? John Leguizamo may not be all that much like the man he's playing in the upcoming flick "Moulin Rouge," Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. But he says they do have one very large trait in common. "He was born of two first cousins and had all these deformities," Leguizamo says of the French painter in the upcoming issue of Gear magazine. "He was 4-feet-11 and a gimp. They called him the Tripod because he had a big penis. He also had big lips, a thick tongue, and he spit a lot." So in which way is it they're alike? "Okay," Leguizamo admits, "the Tripod." Guess it's not only his mouth that's mambo.

Oops! Has Britney Spears pissed off officials in her hometown? Despite the Pepsi-promoting pop star's promise to donate childhood toys, drawings and clothing to a museum created in her name in Kentwood, La., Ananova reports that not a single item has yet arrived from Britney to fill the one-room space. Maybe they could rechristen it the Christina Aguilera museum.

Forget all that stuff about absence making the heart grow Fonda. Even after a 10-year break from acting, Jane Fonda says she has absolutely no desire to step into her old spot in front of the cameras. "I'm so glad I'll never have to do it again!" Fonda declared before a group of her fellow screen stars gathered to pay tribute to her in New York this week. "It's one of the most frightening things, all about keeping your most vulnerable parts wide open." Suppose the same could be said of her exercise videos.

Anna Nicole Smith just got a hairbreadth closer to snagging J. Howard Marshall's $475 million estate. On Monday, U.S. District Judge David Carter said he was in favor of awarding the contested moolah to the buxom widow, instead of her late husband's son, but warned that he would not make his final decision until next week. "I can't tell you how foolhardy you would be to take this as a final ruling," Judge Carter told Smith. Honestly! What on earth would make the judge thing Anna Nicole would ever do anything foolhardy?

Woody Harrelson can't seem to get a break from the fuzz. According to the Associated Press, the environmentally concerned actor got pulled over by a San Francisco cop during a bike ride to raise awareness about energy conservation and alternative power sources. His infraction? He ran a stop sign on his bike. "It was so silly," Harrelson said. "The only thing that interfered with us was the cop." But when the officer tried to issue the actor a ticket, he told him to either haul him into jail or let him go -- and peddled away. Who says white men can't jump bail?

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Miss something? Read yesterday's Nothing Personal.

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