Side show

CELEBRITY VANITY ROUNDUP: This was the scene at the video shoot for a song from Stevie Nicks' new album that features Sheryl Crow, according to MSNBC.com:

Stevie was concerned about her weight (as usual). She thought she was looking particularly heavy standing beside the very thin Sheryl. At one point, Stevie insisted that Sheryl hold her guitar over her body so no one would notice Stevie wasn't as thin.

That didn't work.

Stevie then decided the problem was the lighting. So all the lighting was made harsher, with more shadows, so everyone looked thinner. But that made Sheryl look anorexic. So she complained.

A compromise was reached: Both the original lighting and the "thin" lightning were used, and the set had to be relighted every time the camera focused on either singer.

The shoot went way over schedule.

Stevie's spokeswoman told the Web site she knew nothing about it. Sheryl's rep didn't return calls seeking comment.

Actor Matthew McConaughey, whose movie career has gone from proceeding nicely to receding quickly, appears to have gone from a receding hairline to a proceeding one, MSNBC.com says.

Cellulite is only part of Russell Crowe's body troubles these days. Hollywood powers that be are pressuring the Oscar winner to lose about 50 pounds or be cut out of consideration for leading-man roles, say the British tabloids, which have taken to calling Crowe the Flabiator and the Gladi-eater.

"WING' TIP: Aaron Sorkin's meticulous research for The West Wing included the first-season episodes involving Rob Lowe's character, Sam Seaborn, and a call girl, says a woman who claims Sorkin paid her for sex and companionship for two years.

Dimitra Ekmektsis, 35, tells the New York Daily News she met Sorkin in 1990 when she worked for a New York escort service. She says she visited his apartment "almost weekly."

She says she liked Sorkin because "He treated me like a normal person. It wasn't like, "Take off your clothes.'

"He wasn't always trying to have sex. He was very shy. We'd talk for hours on end. We'd watch movies. Sometimes I'd sit and read a book."

Ekmektsis says she last saw Sorkin in the summer of '92 but maintained what the Daily News described as a "frisky" e-mail correspondence with him.

Ekmektsis says Sorkin told her she was the inspiration for his West Wing prostitute. Sorkin has said he made up the character.

Sorkin's rep had no comment on Ekmektsis' story.

WOW, HERE'S A NOVEL IDEA: Spin magazine, lacking the initiative to report actual music news, resorts to naming its 50 greatest bands in its February edition.

(Spin's rationale: "The band is back" after more than five years in which "rappers, dancing teens and DJs took over the dance charts, MTV and magazines." Whatever.)

No. 1: the Beatles (yawn).

The Ramones are second, Led Zeppelin third, Bob Marley and the Wailers fourth and Nirvana fifth.

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