Let's Get This Party Started: Top Stories for Monday 06/26/06
One of celebdom's abiding mysteries – why have we not seen a picture of Suri Cruise? – may have at least one, plainly financial, explanation: None of the big glossies was willing to pay enough for pictures of the newborn.
According to a report this morning by Fox News' Roger Friedman, the photo agency WireImage was offered a chance to take pictures of the infant child of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes just after birth. And, as eventually happened with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's child Shiloh, the agency conducted an auction with PEOPLE, Us Weekly, Star, and other celebrity magazines to decide who would have the privilege of running the exclusive snaps.
Unlike Shiloh, however, whose pictures garnered a reported $4 million from PEOPLE, the bidding for little Suri topped out at $3 million, which her parents decided wasn't enough to go ahead with the shoot. And now, according to a source at one of the magazines, Suri's price – despite the speculation and curiosity – has gone down, now that she's all of three months old.
"Shiloh was the whole deal," the source tells Friedman, referring to the Jolie-Pitt offspring. "We won't see a baby like that for a while."
Demi Unabashed About Plastic Surgery
Demi Moore doesn't look like a 43-year-old woman – and she intends to keep it that way. The actress and wife of 28-year-old Ashton Kutcher tells the London Mirror (via MSNBC) that she doesn't have any qualms about getting the odd nip or tuck – or both – to keep her looking, oh, about her husband's age.
"It's been a challenging few years, being the age I am, with so much focus on how I look," says Moore. "I'm not 20. Not 30. But I'm certainly different from what most people feel someone in her 40s should be." What's more, she says, "I have no problem with enhancing one's looks or fixing something that's changed." Demi also tells the Mirror she may have gone a little far a few years back when she started going for the super-buff look.
On a more romantic note, Moore says that Kutcher is her "soul mate" and that when they met, she "didn't just come with baggage – I had trunks!"
Costello and Krall Expecting
Musicians Elvis Costello and Diana Krall announced Sunday that they are expecting their first child in December, according to a spokesman for the rock-jazz romantic duo. The baby's birth should come just about as the Grammy-winning couple celebrates its third wedding anniversary.
Costello, 51, is on tour with New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint, with whom he recently recorded an album, "The River in Reverse." The 41-year-old Krall is planning to release a new album in September. 
Pellicano Case In Question
The federal investigation of Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano is stalling, and with a dearth of new indictments and overall progress on the case, there are signs that the big targets that investigators hoped to nab might not be forthcoming.
According to a detailed report in this morning's Los Angeles Times, government code-breakers have been slow in decrypting audio files belonging to Pellicano that are an important part of the investigation because agencies are occupied with other matters like counter-terrorism. What's more, uncertainty about the strength of the case is being fuelled by the fact that prosecutors have not yet sought an indictment against entertainment lawyer Bert Fields, the highest-profile Hollywood figure to acknowledge that he is a subject of the investigation, and other major players.
Federal authorities say that the investigation is "continuing" and that, as the FBI Assistant Director who runs the LA division puts it, "it's not for us to puff up or deflate something." 
Eisner Gets Back Into Kids' Market
As befits a man who spent the best years of his professional life running the studio best known for Mickey Mouse and Ariel the Mermaid, former Disney chief Michael Eisner is returning to the children's sector by buying a company that teaches kids math and spelling using college athletics.
Confused? Imagine the kids: Team Baby Entertainment makes DVDs that use official footage of a given university's sports teams – Michigan, Texas, and Notre Dame among them – to help children learn basic educational concepts. Eisner, who recently made an investment in Internet TV broadcaster Veoh Networks, is using his Tornante Company to buy stakes in various businesses, and Team Baby is just the latest.
Eisner is certainly hoping that his business decisions fare somewhat better than his CNBC talk show: the latest episode attracted only 70,000 viewers overall, according to Nielsen ratings.
Dan Abrams "Close To Figuring Out" What He Wants to Do at MSNBC
The announcement that Dan Abrams would be made the general manager of MSNBC was greeted with "shock and awe," according to a colleague. "People were just stunned."
A couple weeks on, according to a look inside the network and its choice by Bill Carter in today's New York Times, the selection of Abrams and Phil Griffin to replace Rick Kaplan represents less a shocking, but still significant, change in the network's approach. While Abrams denied that an overhaul was coming, he does want more breaking news coverage during the channel's daytime hours and less talking heads during primetime. As the president of NBC News, Steve Capus, puts it, "Prime time is the focus. That's where the money is."
According to Abrams, the network will try to build on the momentum that Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews have brought to the network, while making the daytime programming on the channel "more urgent" and less "newscasty."
Filed under: Tom & Katie, Let's Get This Party Started
