Without Paris to smooch with for the past year, Nicole Richie puckered up for her personal stylist Rachel Zoe at Charlotte Ronson’s cocktail party at a private home in Hollywood Hills during Los Angeles Fashion Week.

I'm sure she's grateful to Zoe who has turned her, Lindsay Lohan and Mischa Barton into Hollywood's red carpet trendsetters.

But maybe this is just a warm-up.

Now that Paris and Nic have smoothed things over and are BFF again, perhaps they'll be back to their old public puckers and tongue wrestling matches.

Photo Credits: Girls will be girls.  Nicole Richie plants a wet one on her uber-stylist Rachel Zoe at a Fashion Week party. Mmmmmwwwwahh!
Wire Image/ Maury Phillips

All those in favor of Cameron Diaz's dark new do, raise your hands.

C'mom, higher.

What, nobody?

Okay, I guess it's unanimous.

Photo Credits: Cameron Diaz goes over to the dark side at William Rast’s “Street Sexy” Spring '07 fashion show at Social Hollywood, where her sweetie Justin Timberlake performed with JC Chasez, Lance Bass, Adam Levine from Maroon 5 and will.i.am of the Black-Eyed Peas.
Wire Image/Matthew D. Simmons

Why was Mischa Barton at the the Bebe Spring 2007 runway show at  Smashbox? And why was she smiling?

Because she's currently the face of the U.S. fashion label, that's why. So basically, she's gotta be there, wearing a Bebe B/W silk dress.

In fact, if Keds has a runway show, she'll be there too.  She also appears in their ads.

But other than  Miss Mischa, there were very few (okay, none) of the young  actresses featured in fashion magazines as cutting-edge trend-setters at the Mercedes-Benz Spring '07 Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios. No Nicole Richie. No Mary-Kate and Ashley. No Kate Bosworth. No Scarlett Johansson. No Kirsten Dunst. No Charlize Theron, who attended last year.

And there was certainly no one shopping for an Awards Season '07 wardrobe.

Rock and Republic's show at Area, unlike last year's event which featured Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders and a real runway show (not just video of their NY event) and stars like Posh Spice and Katie Holmes, didn't even attract the promised guests like Paris and Nicky Hilton.

But it did draw Nick Cannon, Frankie Muniz, Kelly Hu, Jeremy Piven, Eric Benet, Brittany Snow, Dominique Swain, Jonathan Silverman, Elisha Cuthbert, and Paris’s party pal Kim Kardashian.

Paris, Nicky, Justin Timberlake, Cameron Diaz, and Eddie Murphy did turn up at Social Hollywood for the William Rast show and party. Justin, JC Chasez, Lance Bass, Maroon 5’s Adam Levine and will.i.am from the Black-Eyed Peas even performed for the packed house. It was so hot, fire marshalls even closed it down. Woo-hoo! Good times.

The Dressed to Kilt show on Saturday boasted Patricia Arquette, Thomas Jane, Linda Hamilton, Natasha Henstridge, and Kimberley Stewart. Sofia Milos was one of Sue Wong’s front row faces on Sunday night. Louis Verdad's overcrowded show also drew Alexis Bledel, Randy Jackson, and Garcelle Beauvais. Diana Ross turned up at Meghan’s collection and Angela Bassett was watching Dina Bar-El’s show.  And Daniella Clarke’s Frankie B runway show was watched by… Taryn Manning.

Kevin Hall's Thursday night show was attended by Joely Fisher, Milos and the Oscar-nominated "Sideways" babe, Virginia Madsen and Sinbad.

Sinbad?

Photo Credit: Mischa models Bebe. Why? Because she has a darn good contract with the company, that's why.
Amy Graves/WireImage

Penelope Cruz is getting raves for her touching role in Pedro Almodovar’s “Volver,” Spain’s official selection for the 79th Oscar Best Foreign Film category.

She’s already won Best Actress award for "Volver" (pronounced Vol-Vair) at the Cannes Film Festival. The Spanish-born actress is getting her Best Actress Oscar campaign off to a great start with several high profile events in Los Angeles over the next few weeks.

Tomorrow night, Penelope will co-host a lavish reception celebrating L.A. Fashion Week, benefitting The Art of Elysium, a charity for children with serious illnesses, at the Esquire House 360, the mens’ magazine’s 17,000 sq. foot Italian villa billed as  the “ultimate bachelor pad.’

Her co-hosts are a couple of other Latina hotties, Salma Hayek and Eva Mendes. The guest list includes Casey and Summer Affleck (and probably Ben and Jen too), Hugh Jackman, Brett Ratner, Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor and Lord knows who else. 

Want to check it out? Go to the magazine’s interactive website to see the stars and get a virtual tour of the house, which will also host several upcoming star-studded charity affairs;  an Oxfam benefit with Colin Firth, Kristen Davis, Mark Ruffalo and Minnie Driver, a City of Hope reception hosted by Clive Davis, the 4th Annual Oceana Awards Gala honoring Pierce Brosnan, VH1’s Save the Music bash and an event for the Hollywood Entertainment Museum.

On Monday night, Cruz will be getting more kudos: The Hollywood Actress of the Year Award at the 10th Annual Hollywood Film Festivals awards gala at the Beverly Hilton. She’ll be in good company with other award recipients and presenters such as  Robin Williams, Christian Slater, Sandra Bullock, Lindsay Lohan, Clint Eastwood, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Sharon Stone, Robert DeNiro, Ben Affleck, Derek Luke and Forest Whitaker. 

Finally, on Nov. 2, Cruz will be honored with an AFI special tribute at the ArcLight Cineramadome, and will be accompanied by her friend and “Volver” director Almodovar.

The big question is what will Penelope will wear to these three lavish events? I’m gonna go out on a limb and predict there will be some magnificent Cruz cleavage on display.

Hey, have you seen the film yet? You have? Then I rest my case.

Photo Credits: Penelope looks luscious at the New York Film Festival screening of "Volver."  Keep an eye out for more lowcut gowns!
Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage

What's the connection between the African diamond trade and the seat of political power in Great Britain?

Michael Sheen, who plays a spot-on Tony Blair to Helen Mirren's amazing Queen Elizabeth in "The Queen," and an unscrupulous diamond dealer in the controversial "Blood Diamond."

In "Diamond," Sheen's character works with a powerful diamond cartel called Van Der Kaap and buys conflict stones from mercenaries, helping fuel the bloody civil war in Sierra Leone in the late '90s.

According to a movie blog, Sheen is grateful to be in a film that is drawing attention to "this part of the diamond trade."

This isn't the first unscrupulous role he's played. He was, after all, the fiddling nutso emperor Nero in "Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire," a British TV production.

The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts graduate has certainly had time to perfect his Blair mannerisms. He first played the grinning Prime Minister in a BBC TV show, "The Deal," in 2003, also directed by "Queen" director Stephen Frears.

At a recent LA screening of "Queen," he revealed his advice to a nervous Mirren: Get the accent nailed down straight off. And he gave her his voice/dialect coach's phone number. According to Mirren, that made all the difference in the world in her ability to portray the reigning Queen.

With Mirren seemingly a lock for an Oscar nod, and the film being talked about as a Best Picture,  could Sheen be a Best or Best Supporting contender? Stranger things have happened.

The classically trained stage actor has a daughter, Lily, with former longtime girlfriend Kate Beckinsale. And the Wales-born actor will brush up his Welsh accent for a new film, "Caitlin," in which he plays poet Dylan Thomas to Miranda Richardson's Caitlin Thomas.

Photo Credits: Michael Sheen, who also played David Frost, at the 2006 party for "Frost/Nixon" in London. Frost, Blair, Nero, now Dylan Thomas. Is there anyone this guy can't become?
Dan Wooller/WireImage

If you’re a fervent fan of the 2006 Emmy-snubbed “Desperate Housewives,” you’re about to be robbed. Again.

According to James Denton (Mike the plumber), ABC got cold tootsies about an upcoming steamy sex scene between him and Nicollette Sheridan.

“Nicollette is so darn sexy that they have to spend hours digitalizing out her sexiness,” Denton told the Hollywood Style Awards audience before he presented the Hollywood Siren Award to his DH co-star.

“I just found out in post that our scene, I think it airs next week so set your Tivos, was just too sexy.” Denton explained. “I asked them why they had to cut. I mean, we didn’t do anything that crazy. They said, ‘Well, she flipped her hair and the look on her face was just too hot.”

“Aww, ABC! C’mon! That’s so stupid!," Sheridan shouted from her seat. Hopping up onstage to accept the  award, the small screen siren joked, "My publicist said to be brief. So thanks for having such good taste.”

Photo Credits: If we can't see the uncut hair-flipping love scene, here's a shot of Nic getting cuddly with a baby tiger at the  2006 Safari Brunch Fundraiser for the Wildlife Waystation at the Playboy Mansion. Be careful how you toss that hair, Nic. You might drive those big cats wild.
Greg DeGuire/WireImage

Fame is a funny thing.

Just ask Emmy-nominated actress Teri Hatcher.

One night the "Desperate Housewives" star is co-hosting Manhattan's Women’s World Awards, posing with WWA president Mikhail Gorbachev, or what looks suspiciously like a cardboard cutout of the former head of the Soviet Union.

And the very next night, the Golden Globe (2005) winner is back in LA, turning up at the Hollywood Style Awards to collect a Hollywood Soul Award. Which is for ...?

“This award means a lot to me because it’s for all the charity work I do,” admitted Hatcher before the show in the Pacific Design Center, not looking the slightest bit jet-lagged in a Valentino ruffled blouse and tuxedo slacks.

But she may have wished she could have snuck out before the other endless awards that included:

Rebecca Romijn getting a Hollywood Glamazon Award.

Did you know that the "X-Men" star wears a red-white-and-blue bikini and her man Jerry O’Connell wears a Mark Spitz-style Speedo to rattle their weekend volleyball opponents? But she still loses to designer Cynthia Rowley’s team. How is that possible?

Brent Bolthouse getting a Hollywood Stylemaker award after a videotape gigglefest/intro from fans Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore, who confessed she snuck into his clubs at age 13. Busted!

Jessica Biel holding up the sweat pants she would have worn to the event without the advice of Star Stylists Extraordinaire award-winners Estee Stanley and Cristina Ehrlich.

But it was worth sitting through it all to hear DH's hunky plumber James Denton rave about one of his on-screen love interests:

"After a long day on the set, I was home, sitting on the couch, having a beer and the phone rings and it's Teri. I can hear loud noise in the background and she says, 'I'm at a charity event and someone just bid $10 grand for a dinner with me and I can get it up another $10 grand if you’ll come too.' That’s just one example of what she does all the time. While the rest of us are just so exhausted from our difficult, difficult lives, she’s out there busting her butt for someone else."

“Teri works miracles on a daily basis," Denton said, adding, "And Marc Cherry worked a miracle by making America believe that Teri would actually date me.”

“I would date you ... if you weren’t married!,” Teri retorted, desperately trying to make Jamie feel better but probably making him feel a lot worse.

Photo Credits: Teri Hatcher and what looks like former Soviet Union biggie Mikhail Gorbachev. Hey, isn't his birthmark on the other side?
Theo Wargo/WireImage

Photo Credits: Jamie and Teri, sitting in a tree ... actually, they're hanging at the afterparty for the Hollywood Life magazine Hollywood Style Awards.Rebecca Sapp/WireImage

Photo Credits: Jessica, no! Please don't wear those things in public, we beg you. Keep those award-winning stylists on your speed dial.
John Shearer/WireImage

And the winner of the "Best Impersonation of a Whale Swallowing Plankton" contest is...

Julia Roberts!

Better luck next time, George.

Photo Credits: Julia and George Clooney's backstage big mouth match at Friday's 21st American Cinematheque Award honoring the Oscar-winning actor (and director and producer and activist and pot-bellied pig-owner).
Steve Granitz/WireImage

Atten-shun! At ease, soldiers.

It was a gathering of all the young dudes and all the old dads at the premiere of “Flags of Our Fathers” at AMPAS in Beverly Hills.

Producer/director Clint Eastwood, producer Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Paul Haggis stood at attention with Paramount honcho Sumner Redstone on the red carpet. Better watch out, guys, he’s tough. If your box office body count isn't high enough, he might toss you off the lot.

Despite not-so-flag-waving reviews of Eastwood’s first film in his patriotic WWII epic two-parter, Monday's audience response to the potential Oscar-running film was loudly enthusiastic and quietly respectful. But maybe nobody really wanted to “make his day.”

Two “Flags” stars Neal McDonough and Barry Pepper, who served in Spielberg’s other war epics, “Band of Brothers” and “Saving Private Ryan,” did  their red carpet duty. Also showing up for inspection: Joseph Cross, Timothy Olyphant, Paul Walker, Adam Beach and Eastwood’s son, Kyle Eastwood.

But Ryan Phillippe was MIA. Maybe he didn’t want to battle the rumors about his troubled marriage to Reese Witherspoon. Nyah,I’m sure he had a really good excuse to miss the big night.

He could have been on location in Morocco or Texas shooting “Stop Loss” (also known as the Untitled Kimberly Pierce Project). Phillippe stars in the modern-day war drama about an American soldier who returns from Iraq and refuses to return when ordered to go back.

Now there’s a war movie whose time has come.

Photo Credits: Two old war horses, Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg band together at the LA  premiere of  "Flags of Our Fathers. "
Lester Cohen/WireImage

Even sleepy Sunday mornings can be star-spotting exercises in West Hollywood.

Hardly anyone recognized Ryan Seacrest, looking all incognito in a baseball cap, camo-shorts and urban Nikes, working out with his trainer at the Fitness Factory.

But the "American Idol" emcee's bright shiny Bentley parked in the lot gave him away. Ego-mobiles outside usually mean overpaid celebs inside.

Another dead Seacrest giveaway: the buxom blonde  beard, er, babe that Seacrest always brings to the gym to make him look oh-so hetero.

Jewel was also pumping iron at the double F, looking way less crunchy granola than she used to, in sleek black leggings and a crop top, with her long blond hair pulled back.

The most disturbing celeb sighting at the trendy WeHo gym?

Top Hollywood personal stylist Jessica Paster, stuffed into a gangreen tank and low-slung crop sweats that kept sliding down to reveal her ass-crack as she worked up a lather on the treadmill.

To make matters worse, she was undie-less so every step gave an El Grande Boo-Tocks show to other gym dandies.

"Dude, that's enough to make me lose my Sunday breakfast," said a horrified onlooker.

Told that the bare-bottomed babe gets major moola for dressing stars like Ellen Pompeo, Jewel, Angie Harmon, Thandie Newton, Diane Lane and Jessica Simpson for Hollywood awards shows and movie premieres, the observer was stunned.

"You've gotta be kidding," he said. "I wouldn't let her dress my dog."

Let this be a lesson: Always wear underwear -- even to the gym. You just never know who's watching your back.

Photo Credits: Top Hollywood stylist Jessica Paster shows an unsuspecting young girl how to wear jeans (tighter!) at a Levi's fall fashion event in Miami.
Rodrigo Varela/WireImage