Alley puts weight in perspective

New York — Kirstie Alley has pulled a switch-a-roo on the tabloids. After many photographs splashed in different celebrity magazines documented her noticeable weight gain, the former “Cheers” actress is going on the offensive.

With her new Showtime show, “Fat Actress,” to begin filming this fall, Alley is by no means shirking the attention to her weight problem. But that’s not to say she’s happy with her appearance.

Alley told People magazine: “The weird things is, I don’t like the way I look — and I like who I am. I like who I am better than I’ve ever liked myself.”

The 53-year-old actress says her weight is 203 pounds, not the frequently cited 300 pounds.

Alley can’t stand the media’s or Hollywood’s perspective on weight. “My weight in the rags in being treated like a tragedy,” she said. “Tragedies in my mind would be like AIDS, starvation, illiteracy, child abuse.”

Tattoos commemorate courtship

New York — Paris Hilton and Nick Carter have permanent reminders of each other after getting tattoos together three weeks before their July 22 breakup.

Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, 24, got “Paris” tattooed on his wrist, People magazine reports. Carter says he’s has no regrets about the untimely ink “because I love her. She’ll have a place in my heart, always.”

He wouldn’t say what Hilton had tattooed.

On Thursday, Hilton, 23, was photographed with what appeared to be cuts and bruises on her arm and face as she passed through the Los Angeles airport. Hilton spokeswoman Tracy Schaeffer would not comment.

Just give him that countryside

Karlstad, Minn. — After years of living in bustling cities, actor Ned Beatty said he and his wife, Sandy, wanted to spend the rest of their lives in smaller towns like Karlstad, population less than 800.

Beatty said the couple were finishing a home in the northwest Minnesota town where Sandy Beatty was born.

“The interesting thing about people, I think, is the more of them congregate in one place, the less value they have for each other,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to spend most of my time in small places.”

Beatty is famous for his roles in movies such as “Deliverance,” “Superman” and “Silver Streak,” and television’s “Homicide: Life on the Street.”

Move over, ‘Jaws,’ for real sharks

New York — Old Jaws is looking more fake all the time.

In the new thriller “Open Water,” a couple scuba diving far off the Bahamas surface and find themselves abandoned by their dive boat and surrounded by sharks.

The sharks are real.

The cinema-verite style of “Open Water,” which opens in theaters nationwide Aug. 20, makes it a kind of “The Blair Witch Project” on water.

Careful measures were taken for the actors’ safety. Daniel Travis and Blanchard Ryan wore protective chain mail under their wet suits, and bloody chunks of tuna were tossed into the water to manipulate the sharks’ movement.