Party on, Liz

Los Angeles  Elizabeth Taylor, who became a 12-year-old star in “National Velvet,” is 70.

“I had a party last night,” Taylor, who turned 70 on Wednesday, said Tuesday night. “I’m having one tomorrow. And I think I’ll have one over the weekend.”

Taylor has gone through eight marriages and seven divorces, one widowhood and several life-threatening illnesses.

“I feel like 45,” she said. “I don’t look too bad for someone my age, with my history of illnesses and operations and all those anesthetics. When they knock you out, it gives you time to catch up on your beauty sleep.”

The accidental director

New York  He’s nominated for an Oscar for best director, but Robert Altman says some of the best moments in his films happened by accident.

“The best six, seven moments in any film that I’ve ever done have come from left field, or someplace that I had nothing to do with them,” the 77-year-old director said. “Suddenly it was just, ‘Wow, what was that?”‘

Altman, a native of Kansas City, Mo., is nominated for “Gosford Park.”

If he gives actors tips on how to play a scene, it ruins the spontaneity, Altman told reporters.

“That’s why I don’t talk to actors very much. I don’t give direction. What I’m looking for is something I’ve never seen before, so how can I tell them what that is? So I just lay back and wait for the accidents to happen.”

Back to the island

New York  Maybe it was the return to a tropical setting, but “Survivor” host Jeff Probst says the CBS show’s fourth edition was more fun than its third, set in a dusty African game reserve.

“All I know is from Day One I was laughing,” Probst said Tuesday.

The fourth “Survivor,” which premieres tonight, is set on the South Pacific island of Marquesas.

Celebrity cabinet expands

Washington  The Red Cross is being touched by an angel  and a TV doctor, too.

Roma Downey (“Touched by an Angel”) and Jane Seymour (“Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”) are two members of the new Red Cross National Celebrity Cabinet.

Seymour’s job will be to encourage children in the United States to donate money to help vaccinate children in Africa against measles. Downey will be urging families to make sure at least one person knows cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

The National Celebrity Cabinet was announced Feb. 21. Members, also including Jennifer Love Hewitt, Mandy Moore and Hector Elizondo, serve one-year terms.