‘Book smarts’ trump ‘street smarts’ on ‘Apprentice’

New York – Donald Trump selected Kendra Todd as his first female “Apprentice,” handing her a job with The Trump Organization and a $250,000 salary during the NBC reality show’s live finale Thursday night.

Todd, the 26-year-old “book smarts” real estate broker from Boynton Beach, Fla., bested entrepreneur and mother of two Tana Goertz from Des Moines, during the final boardroom battle.

In episodes leading up to the live finale, Todd organized the Best Buy Video Game Championship during her final task, pleasing both corporate sponsors and her misfit team of firees. Todd, originally a member of “book smarts” Magna team, has an undergraduate degree in linguistics from the University of Florida.

In the previous two “Apprentice” finales, Trump chose cigar business owner Bill Rancic to oversee the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago and software executive Kelly Perdew to work on the Trump Place real estate development and Trump Ice bottled water projects in New York.

Trump is already in search of another “Apprentice.” The fourth season and a spin-off starring Martha Stewart are in production.

Cruise ‘smitten’ with Holmes

New York – Tom Cruise is smitten with the charms of Katie Holmes.

“I love this woman,” Cruise says in an interview to air Monday on “Access Hollywood.” “She’s magnificent.”

The couple were photographed together in Rome last month, where Cruise received a lifetime achievement award at the David di Donatello Awards, the Italian equivalent of the Oscars.

When asked why he appears to be less inhibited about showing his affection for Holmes in public than in his past relationships, Cruise tells “Access Hollywood” co-anchor Billy Bush: “I am so happy and I am not going to pretend or hide it or be shy.”

Cruise’s marriages to Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman ended in divorce. Holmes and actor Chris Klein recently called off their engagement, after dating for five years.

Lohan says slim physique product of exercise regimen

New York – Recent photos show Lindsay Lohan looking startlingly thin.

The 18-year-old actress attributes her slimmer figure to a new exercise regimen.

“I’m working out. I just got a trainer,” she tells People magazine in its upcoming issue.

Pilates? Yoga?

“No, none of that stuff, though I’d like to try it sometime. Just old-school working out,” said Lohan, who stars in the new movie “Herbie: Fully Loaded,” which opens next month.

Her screen credits also include “Freaky Friday,” “Mean Girls” and the upcoming “A Prairie Home Companion,” directed by Robert Altman.

She will host the season finale of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” this weekend, with Coldplay as the musical guest.

On Tuesday, Lohan told “Access Hollywood” she doesn’t pay attention to reports that she’s lost too much weight, but acknowledged there is a lot of pressure in Hollywood to stay slim.

“Especially when you lose a lot of weight and then people are telling you, ‘You look great!’ You are like, ‘So … did I look fat before?”‘

Emmy winner bikes across deserts after beating cancer

Jerusalem – A year after undergoing surgery for prostate cancer, Mandy Patinkin literally biked across deserts.

Patinkin completed a 264-mile charity bike ride this week from the Old City of Jerusalem to the Red Sea resort of Eilat. He joined more than 130 riders, including his 23-year-old son, Isaac, in the six-day charity event.

“It was the single hardest physical challenge I’ve asked my body and mind to engage in,” said Patinkin, 52, who trained for the event by riding laps around New York’s Central Park. The ride included a stop in Mitzpe Ramon, a town overlooking a scenic canyon in Israel’s Negev Desert. That was last Saturday – the first anniversary of his surgery.

“A year ago, I never thought I’d be in Israel riding through the desert, talking to my loved ones and friends, being inspired by the memories of my ancestors,” he said. “It was beyond thrilling.”

Patinkin, who won an Emmy for his role in “Chicago Hope,” will star in the new CBS thriller, “Criminal Minds,” about FBI profilers who try to stop criminals.

Witness: Accuser’s mom wanted time with Jackson

Santa Maria, Calif. – The mother of Michael Jackson’s accuser complained that she and her children were being kept away from the pop star during the time period prosecutors say one of her sons was being molested, a witness testified Thursday.

Azja Pryor, a Hollywood casting assistant and the girlfriend of movie star Chris Tucker, said the mother complained to her in early March 2003 that two German associates of Jackson had stepped in to keep her family away.

“I asked, ‘Does Michael know anything about this?’ She said, ‘They won’t let us around him because they know the children tug at his heart strings,”‘ Pryor testified.

The time period she cited is critical because prosecutors allege Jackson molested the then-13-year-old accuser between Feb. 20 and March 12, 2003.

When the accuser’s mother testified in the trial, she bitterly spoke out against “the Germans” and claimed they were conspiring with Jackson to hold her family captive.

Birthdays

Singer-actress Cher is 59. Singer Joe Cocker is 61. Ron Reagan is 47. Rock musician Jane Wiedlin (The Go-Go’s) is 47. Actor Bronson Pinchot is 46. Singer Susan Cowsill is 46. Rapper Busta Rhymes is 33.