Jon Heder
Photo: Gaye Gerard/Getty Images

CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Jon Heder (actor, "Napoleon Dynamite" in Napoleon Dynamite) is 30
Shelley Morrison (actress, "Rosario" on Will & Grace) is 71
Bob Hoskins (actor, "Eddie Valiant" in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) is 65
Pat Sajak (host, Wheel of Fortune) is 61
Jaclyn Smith (actress, Charlie's Angels) is 60
Bootsy Collins (musician, Parliamant/Funkadelic) is 56
James Pickens Jr. (actor, "Dr. Webber" on Grey's Anatomy) is 55
Keith Strickland (guitarist, The B-52's) is 54
Rita Wilson (actress, Tom Hanks' wife) is 49
Dylan McDermott (actor, The Practice) is 46
Cary Elwes (actor, "Westley" in The Princess Bride) is 45
Natalie Merchant (singer, ex-10,000 Maniacs) is 44
Keith Urban (country singer) is 40
Tom Cavanagh (actor, "Ed" on Ed) is 39
Mark Barry (singer, BBMak) is 29

Saturday, October 27th
Nanette Fabray (actress, Love, American Style) is 87
Ruby Dee (actress and co-host, Ossie and Ruby) is 83
John Cleese (actor, Monty Python) is 68
Lee Greenwood (singer, "God Bless the U.S.A.") is 65
Jack Daniels (country singer-guitarist, Highway 101) is 58
Garry Tallent (bassist, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band) is 58
Fran Lebowitz (author, Metropolitan Life) is 51
K.K. Downing (guitarist, Judas Priest) is 56
Roberto Benigni (actor-director, Life Is Beautiful) is 55
Peter Firth (actor, That's Life) is 54
Robert Picardo (actor, "Coach Cutlip" on The Wonder Years) is 52
Simon LeBon (singer, Duran Duran) is 49
J.D. McFadden (keyboardist, Sixpence None The Richer) is 43
Jason Finn (drummer, Presidents of the United States of America) is 40
Scott Weiland (singer, ex-Stone Temple Pilots, Velvet Revolver) is 40
Sheeri Rappaport (actress, "Officer Mary Franco" on NYPD Blue) is 30
Kelly Osbourne (singer) is 23

Sunday, October 28th
Joan Plowright (actress, "Mrs. Frank" in The Diary of Anne Frank) is 78
Charlie Daniels (country musician, "The Devil Went down To Georgia") is 71
Jane Alexander (actress, "Dr. Grasnik" in The Ring) is 68
Curtis Lee (singer, "Pretty Little Angels Eyes") is 65
Dennis Franz (actor, "Detective Andy Sipowicz" on NYPD Blue) is 63
Wayne Fontana (singer, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders) is 62
Telma Hopkins (actress-singer, Tony Orlando and Dawn) is 59
Annie Potts (actress, "Mary Jo" on Designing Women) is 55
Stephen Morris (drummer, New Order) is 50
William Reid (singer-guitarist, The Jesus and Mary Chain) is 49
Daphne Zuniga (actress, "Jo Reynolds" on Melrose Place) is 44
Lauren Holly (actress, "Mary Swanson" in Dumb and Dumber) is 45
Jami Gertz (actress, "Star" in The Lost Boys) is 42
Andy Richter (actor-comedian) is 41
Julia Roberts (actress) is 40
Caitlin Cary (fiddler, Whiskeytown) is 39
Ben Harper (singer, "Burn One Down") is 38
Brad Paisley (country singer, "Love Is Never-Ending") is 35
Joaquin Phoenix (actor, Walk the Line) is 33
Justin Guarini (singer, American Idol runner-up) is 29

THE WEEKEND EVENTS

ON OCTOBER 26th

In 1961...Bob Dylan signed with Columbia Records after attracting the notice of the revered A&R man John Hammond.
In 1962...The Beatles' debut single "Love Me Do" entered the English chart.
In 1962...Bob Dylan recorded with a band for the first time at sessions for his Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album.
In 1963...Bob Dylan performed at New York's Carnegie Hall. His parents were in the audience, and the show was recorded by CBS for a possible live album that was never released.
In 1964...The Beatles spent their last day recording tracks for the album Beatles for Sale. Their rockabilly hero Carl Perkins visited them in the studio.
In 1965...The Beatles were awarded Members of the British Empire medals by Queen Elizabeth II. The band later admitted that they smoked marijuana in a Buckingham Palace bathroom. The Queen asked Ringo how long the band had been together, to which he replied, "40 years."
In 1967...Pink Floyd performed the first of three nights at San Francisco's Fillmore.
In 1970...The mother of Meredith Hunter, the man slain at the ill-fated Altamont Festival, sued The Rolling Stones.
In 1973...John Lennon released his "Mind Games" single in the United States. It peaked at number 18.
In 1975...Elton John performed at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, dressed in a sequined Dodgers uniform. It was the last date on his sold-out American tour.
In 1976...Leonard Lee of the R&B duo Shirley & Lee died in New Orleans.
In 1978...The Police played their first American show at Boston's Rat Club.
In 1980...During a recording session, Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner suffered a stroke. He made a full recovery after spending two weeks in a Los Angeles hospital.
In 1981...David Bowie and Queen recorded "Under Pressure" in Montreux, Switzerland.
In 1992...Pearl Jam sold 950-thousand copies of their album Vs. in its first week of release. It set a sales record that was later broken by Garth Brooks and his Double Live album.
In 1993...The Catholic Church urged residents of San Juan, Puerto Rico to tie black ribbons around trees and keep their front doors open to protest Madonna's performance.
In 1993...Bob Dylan released the album World Gone Wrong.
In 2004...Forbes Magazine named Elvis Presley the highest-earning dead celebrity. Presley's estate pulled in around 40-million dollars each year in merchandise sales. John Lennon, George Harrison and Bob Marley also made the top ten.
In 2004...John Peel, an English DJ whose eclectic taste and patronage was instrumental in launching the careers of T. Rex, Rod Stewart, The Smiths, The Undertones, The Fall and countless others, died of a heart attack in Peru. He was 65.
In 2005...U-K police canceled a London show by rising hip-hop star Kano over fears of gun violence.

ON OCTOBER 27TH...

In 1960...At Atlantic Records, Ben E. King made his first two solo recordings - "Spanish Harlem" and "Stand By Me."
In 1960...Tina Turner gave birth in Los Angeles to her second child, Ronald Renelle.
In 1962...In London, The Rolling Stones made their first recordings at Curly Clayton Studios. The band, which at the time consisted of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, pianist Ian Stewart and drummer Tony Chapman, cut Muddy Waters' "Soon Forgotten," Jimmy Reed's "Close Together" and Bo Diddley's "You Can't Judge a Book (By Looking at the Cover)."
In1964...The Supremes released "Come See About Me." The single became their third number-one record.
In 1969...Ringo Starr began recording his album Sentimental Journey. Following the completion of Abbey Road, he became the first Beatle to formally embark on a solo album.
In 1980...Mark David Chapman purchased the five-shot Charter Arms .38 special he used just more than a month later to kill John Lennon.
In 1995...Gloria Estefan performed for one of her holiest fans - Pope John Paul II. The concert celebrated the 50 years John Paul had spent in the priesthood.
In 1996...Bruce Springsteen performed at a rally in Westwood, California against Proposition 209 to end affirmative action.
In 1999...Michael Jackson revealed that videotapes of him playing with his children Prince and Paris were stolen and that the thief was demanding a ransom of 100-thousand dollars.
In 2003...Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers received the Legend Award at the 2003 Radio Music Awards, despite Petty's album The Last DJ, which slammed the state of the radio industry.
In 2003...Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland was arrested for a DUI in Los Angeles after allegedly driving his BMW into a parked van.
In 2004...Rod Stewart topped the U-S album charts for the first time in 25 years with Stardust: The Great American Songbook, Volume III.
In 2005...Citing an indifferent reception, U-K rockers Alfie split. "A single note of one of our songs holds more worth than ten thousand James Blunt albums," they maintained, bravely.
In 2005 ...Jay-Z and Nas put to rest their long-running feud and performed "Dead Presidents" together on the stage of New Jersey's Continental Airlines Arena.

ON OCTOBER 28TH...

In 1956...Elvis Presley made his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.  He performed "Don't Be Cruel," "Love Me Tender," "Hound Dog" and "Love Me." After the performance, Sullivan gave him a gold record for the sales success of "Love Me Tender."
In 1961...In a Liverpool record shop, a customer asked clerk Brian Epstein for "My Bonnie," a single by The Beatles. Epstein didn't have it, but after a second customer requested the record, he ordered it and tracked the group down to the Cavern Club. Epstein later became the band's manager.
In 1962...The Beatles played their first major gig at the Liverpool Empire after they released their first single "Love Me Do." The bill also included Little Richard.
In 1964...The TAMI Show was filmed in Santa Monica, California. The concert movie featured Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye, Jan & Dean, The Supremes, The Rolling Stones and James Brown.
In 1968...A court ruled in favor of Cynthia Lennon in her divorce settlement case with John Lennon.
In 1972...The Who's "Join Together" became the official theme song of the United States Council for World Affairs.
In 1977...The Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols wasreleased in the U-S.
In 1985...Bob Dylan released Biograph, one of the first box sets.
In 1999...A Kenny Rogers fan was injured after the singer threw a frisbee into the audience during a concert in Dallas. Kevin O'Toole later claimed the accident left him impotent and sued Rogers for two-million dollars.
In 2003...Sting published the first volume of his autobiography, Broken Music. The tome took Gordon Sumner from his childhood in Newcastle, England up to the early days of The Police.
In 2003...At a benefit show in Santa Barbara, California, Pearl Jam were joined on stage by ex-drummer Jack Irons, singer/songwriter Jack Johnson, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante and Chris Cornell for an impromptu Temple of the Dog reunion.
In 2003...Courtney Love turned herself in to the Los Angeles police to face charges of illegally possessing the prescription painkillers hydrocodone and oxycodone.
In 2003...David Bowie and his wife Iman signed with Tommy Hilfiger as the clothing designer's new spokesmodels.
In 2003...Tonight's the Night, a musical based around the songs of Rod Stewart, opened in London's West End.
In 2005 ...The Game was arrested while signing autographs at a North Carolina mall. The Compton rapper, who was wearing a Halloween mask, was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

MOVIE MINUTE: SAW IV
The fourth installment in the Saw franchise makes its way into theaters today and even though he's dead, "Jigsaw" still finds a way to make detectives overcome intricate traps or face deadly consequences.  Tobin Bell plays the murderous mastermind in the series, and he told us about how a character that's dead can star in a film.  "'Jigsaw,' he's a very resilient guy.  Death is only one moment in life.  Because you know how I died, doesn't mean you know the rest of the story."  Scott Patterson plays an FBI agent in Saw IV and explained how this latest film is better than the rest.  "The fourth one is more intricate, it's more bloody, it's more macabre, it's more twisted, it's more rock and roll, it's more in your face, it's more challenging.  You feel like you're in the film, you feel like your participating in the film."  Some familiar faces return in Saw IV, like Shawnee Smith and Donnie Wahlberg.  The film is now torturing audiences in a theater near you. 

CHRISTINA AGUILERA HAS TWO IN THE OVEN? Christina Aguilera hasn't even officially confirmed that she's pregnant, but New York's Daily News has even more gossip about her phantom bun in the oven. A "reliable source" tells Rush & Malloy that the singer is actually expecting twins. We'll keep you posted on if Christina confirms anything about her seemingly growing belly.

EVAN RACHEL WOOD TO SIGN RECORD DEAL? Will Evan Rachel Wood soon be following in the path of her rock star boyfriend Marilyn Manson? Rumor has it that the actress may be close to signing a recording contract with Interscope Records, but as of press time, the label has yet to confirm. Wood stretched her vocal chords in the Beatles inspired musical Across the Universe, which is in theatres now. 

PURPLE RAIN REIGNS! According to Vanity Fair, the Purple Rain soundtrack is the best movie soundtrack ever. The magazine organized the 50 Greatest Movie Soundtracks Ever and after Prince's flick, The Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night came in at number two. Also on the list were the soundtracks for Trainspotting, Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction. The full list will be in a one-time-only Conde Nast magazine called Movies Rock, which will hit stands next month.

HAS KID ROCK RIPPED OFF "SO HOTT?" Is Kid Rock a rip off artist? One man seems to think so. Maurice Foreman is claiming that Rock's track "So Hott" rips off his song "Slow Death." According to RolllingStone.com, Foreman claims that Rock sings "so hott" three times in the chorus, just like his song and says that they have nearly identical guitar riffs. No word on whether a law suit is in the works.

NAS EXPLAINS THE REASONING BEHIND NEW ALBUM. With Nas scheduled to release his new album Nigg** in less than two months, the Queensbridge MC couldn't wait for an official press release. MTV News caught up with God's Son last week to explain the unexpected album. "When you feel like doing a record you can't wait till everybody's ready, I use to wait. Now I have that shit in me where's it's just like, 'It is what it is right now,' and this is what it is. Buy it or don't buy it, it's cool. Whoever like it, gonna like it, whoever don't like it whatever. It's gotta come now." In addition to announcing the release two weeks ago, Nas has also stirred up a lot of controversy with the album's title. But according to the MC the album's concept is bigger than what people are making it.  This Nigg** album is bigger than an album to me. This is for my daughter to say, 'Damn, my pop really was a man.' And when I have more kids, 'They going to say he was a man.' So that inspires them to be real in their life, and that's all I'm trying to pass on." Nigg**, is tentatively set to drop December 11th.

50 FIGHTS LANCE BASS. 50 Cent and former N'Sync'r  Lance Bass both released competing books on Tuesday and they have some fighting words for each other. The New York Daily News reports that 50 said Bass, "doesn't stand a chance," against his book 50x50. Mr. Cent went on to say, "With me, everything's a competition, so I bet you the end of next week, I'll be moving more copies than him. This is the same competition - this is Kanye West and 50 Cent all over again!" Bass defended his memoir Out of Sync saying, "50's going down, that's all I have to say."

SLASH HAD TO DIG DEEP FOR MEMOIRS.  Slash is talking more about his upcoming memoir, appropriately titled Slash.  He revealed to E! Online that the book, "is not a vehicle for me to vent.  It's not to lambaste Axl or talk s**t about anybody else.  It's just telling the story as I knew it."  He also described why he decided to do a book now, "I never wanted to write a book because it would be too final.  The only reason I wrote it is because a lot of the stuff I was reading and seeing about the band got pretty frustrating.  I just had to straighten out some s**t."  The famed guitarist also said that the book reads like a journal, except that he didn't write anything down, which led to some difficulties.  Slash said, "It was a head book to make, because I was pretty f***ed up from 1980 to 2000-something.  I really had to dig deep to try and remember a lot of s**t."  You can read some excerpts from Slash at HarperCollins.com or just hang tight until the memoirs come out on Tuesday.

DA VINCI CODE SEQUEL.  According to E! Online, Columbia Pictures is planning a February start date for Angels & Demons, the sequel to the controversial flick The Da Vinci Code.  Ron Howard will once again direct and Tom Hanks will return to the role of the conspiracy-unraveling professor "Robert Langdon."  The Da Vinci Code took in over 758-million dollars in worldwide ticket sales in 2006.  Angels & Demons should hit theaters sometime in 2009. 

PRISON BREAK SPIN-OFF? Should we be preparing for more Prison Break? According to The Hollywood Reporter, FOX has ordered up a pilot for a spin-off of the thriller. The show would be called Prison Break: Cherry Hill and it would center on a woman named "Molly," who "Michael Scofield" meets in jail this season. Sources tell E! Online that they are searching for an actress to play the part, but have not found the right woman yet, even though shooting is quickly approaching. After "Molly's" appearance on Prison Break, Cherry Hillwould pick up with her own attempt to break free from jail.

LOST STAR ARRESTED. Lost star Daniel Dae Kim, who plays "Jin-Soo Kwon" on the show, has run into some trouble with the law. According to The Honolulu Advertiser, the actor was arrested early yesterday morning on suspicion of drunk driving. Details of his DUI arrest have yet to come out, but you can see video of his release from a police station at HonoluluAdvertiser.com. Former Lost cast members Michelle Rodriguez, who played "Ana Lucia," and Cynthia Watros, who played "Libby," have been booked for DUIs previously.

MARIA SHRIVER WILL NOT RETURN TO TV. According to the Associated Press, Maria Shriver has announced that she will not resume her TV news career. This past week, the California Governor's wife told an audience that she came to her decision in light of the media circus surrounding Anna Nicole Smith's death, "It was then that I knew that the TV news business has changed and so had I. I called NBC News and told them I'm not coming back." Shriver took a leave of absence from her news job when her husband Arnold Schwarzenegger was appointed governor of California.  

NIRVANA'S "UNPLUGGED" FINALLY HEADING TO DVD. Nirvana's 1993, "MTV Unplugged" taping will make its DVD debut November 20. "MTV Unplugged in New York" was released November 1, 1994, on CD, the first Nirvana product to appear following Kurt Cobain's suicide that April. Like the CD, the Universal Music DVD will include the songs "Something in the Way" and "Oh Me," which did not appear on the original MTV broadcast. The DVD also sports four tracks from the band's soundcheck and previously unreleased behind-the-scenes footage.