The nutty musical

Las Vegas – Jerry Lewis, who starred in 1963’s “The Nutty Professor,” has a wacky new scheme: staging the film as a Broadway musical.

The first show is planned for January at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, where the 80-year-old comedian has a houseboat, he said. Lewis will direct the show, which he aims to have on Broadway by October 2008.

The show will be produced by The Michael Andrew Company. Andrew, a 41-year-old crooner and comedian who fronts The Atomic Big Band, is set to play the lead, the bucktoothed Julius Kelp, who invents a potion that transforms him into the suave Buddy Love.

Lewis has battled pulmonary fibrosis, a crippling lung ailment, in recent years, keeping him off the stage. He plans to return for four shows in Las Vegas in July.

De Niro donates collection

Austin, Texas – Robert De Niro made an offer the University of Texas could not refuse.

The 62-year-old actor is donating his collection of film-related materials – scripts, costumes and correspondence – to the cultural archive at the university’s Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, it was announced Wednesday.

There are more than 3,000 costume items and props from De Niro’s films, including some from his Oscar-winning roles in “The Godfather: Part II” and “Raging Bull.”

Several items will be on display in the building lobby until June 18: De Niro’s military dog tags and a script with his notes from “The Deer Hunter,” his real New York City taxi license from his days driving the streets to research “Taxi Driver,” and photographs as makeup artists tested different broken noses for his role as boxer Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull.”

The collection will then be housed for research, although a few costumes may be rotated into the Ransom Center gallery.

Jolie, Pitt deny wedding plan

Swakopmund, Namibia – Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have denied wedding bells are in the air, saying they want to concentrate on their newborn daughter and two older children.

“There is nothing in the air. The focus is the kids, and we are obviously extremely committed to the children and as parents together,” Jolie, 30, told a news conference for local journalists Wednesday at a hotel in the Namibian coastal town of Swakopmund. “So that kind of says it for us, and to have a ceremony on top of it is nothing.”

It was the Hollywood couple’s first public appearance since Jolie gave birth to Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt on May 27 at a private clinic in Walvis Bay. Delivered by Caesarean section, the baby weighed 7 pounds.

Jolie’s older children, 16-month-old Zahara, adopted from Ethiopia, and 4-year-old Maddox, adopted from Cambodia, have had their surnames legally changed to Jolie-Pitt after Pitt announced his intention to adopt them as well.