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SQUARE KNOT: Alec Baldwin: Emmy nominee. Golden Globe nominee. The movies' original Jack Ryan. Political activist. Former People beautiful person. Soap Opera Digest Award winner.

And now, Hollywood Squares center square.

Baldwin has signed on to be one of the celebrities who fills the middle spot now that Whoopi Goldberg has cut her ties to the syndicated show.

"Alec is smart, unpredictable and has a wild sense of humor that is perfect for our new vision of the show," new executive producer Henry Winkler (a.k.a the Fonz) says in a press release.

It's always good to see celebrities have a sense of humor about their place in the world -- and Baldwin has never lacked that -- but many eyebrows have shot up at this news. To some, it has "my career is on life support" stamped all over it. Baldwin hasn't had a movie hit in years (one could argue that the last one was 1990's The Hunt for Red October), and his most critically noticed work over the past three years has been in supporting roles in TV miniseries.

Few details were given about Baldwin's Squares stay, other than it will be in the new season after Ellen DeGeneres starts it off in the middle -- and he will donate all the money he gets from it to the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund, a charity named after his mother, a breast cancer survivor.

IT BETTER BE GOOD: Baldwin does do a good amount of charity work. He was involved with a fundraiser last weekend for a theater company in Sag Harbor, N.Y., the New York Post says, and someone bid $3,500 for a meal of Baldwin's special Macadamia Nut Chicken Salad.

THE CORPSE LOVED KIDS: The Parents Television Council, a watchdog group out to keep TV wholesome for kids, is big on best and worst lists. Its recent list of the 10 most family-friendly cable shows of last season includes Nero Wolfe, A&E's classy adaptation of Rex Stout's books about a food- and orchid-loving 1930s-'40s-'50s detective who doesn't like to leave his house.

The show's cast is good. The acting is consistently strong, the writing smart. The production sets and costumes are first-rate. And in each show, the plot revolves around murder. Who would have thought there was such a thing as family-friendly murder.

A LITTLE TOO MUCH JELLY: Take a good look at those Beyonce Knowles photos in the August issue of hip, chic and trendy men's magazine Maxim. Then imagine her a few inches bigger in the hips and thighs. The magazine had those body parts airbrushed to make them smaller, London's Sun says, because the bosses thought there was too much of her for its readers.

IF THIS DOESN'T BRING ELVIS OUT OF HIDING, NOTHING WILL: Priscilla Presley is creating a theatrical musical based on her life with the hunka, hunka burnin' love, and she will conduct nationwide auditions to cast the main roles. She will pick herself and the next Elvis (or revive the old Elvis' career?) with some kind of audience help in an American Idol format that could end up on TV, the Hollywood Reporter says.

Because Presley is developing the show, called Elvis and Priscilla, don't expect much, if anything, on the couple's divorce and his drug-related death. E&P will end on a positive note, the Reporter says, highlighting Elvis' contributions to music and society.

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