Ellen DeGeneres hosts show from hospital bed

New York – The talk show must go on. Ellen DeGeneres, who injured her back over the weekend, is hosting her syndicated talk show from a hospital bed on the set.

“No, I’m not being lazy,” DeGeneres, 49, told her TV audience on Tuesday. “I’m forced to bed rest right now. … And, let me just start by saying I’m on pills.”

DeGeneres said she “tore a ligament and did something to something else” on Sunday when leaning over to pick up her dog in her kitchen, and, as a result, isn’t able to “sit, to move or to do anything.”

“This is not a sweeps stunt. … This is not like what Regis (Philbin) did – that whole bypass surgery,” she joked.

All guests sat upright in separate adjustable beds on Tuesday’s show.

The first guest was Ryan Seacrest, who was wheeled out onstage. “This is a first for me to be in bed with you,” the “American Idol” host told DeGeneres, who said she’d like to find him a girlfriend.

Crystal chosen for Twain prize

Washington – Billy Crystal will be awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

He’s the 10th recipient of the award, given annually by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It’ll be presented Oct. 11 at a tribute performance that will be televised by PBS.

“The work he has created for stage, film and television has made an indelible impression,” Kennedy Center Chairman Stephen Schwarzman said Tuesday. “It is the work of not just a humorist but also a humanist.”

An eight-time host of the Academy Awards ceremony, Crystal has starred in the movies “When Harry Met Sally …” and “City Slickers.” He won the Tony for his 2004 autobiographical one-man play “700 Sundays,” which broke box-office records and became the highest grossing nonmusical in Broadway’s history.

In the ’70s, Crystal played one of the first gay characters on a network TV series as a regular on “Soap.” He later won acclaim on “Saturday Night Live,” particularly with his Fernando character and catchphrase “You look mahvelous.”

Birkhead, baby leave Bahamas

Louisville, Ky. – Anna Nicole Smith’s ex-boyfriend arrived Tuesday in Kentucky from the Bahamas with their infant daughter and said he is looking forward to introducing the baby to his family.

“It just feels good to be home,” Larry Birkhead said after stepping off a private jet and walking up to a fence where more than a dozen photographers and a handful of reporters were gathered.

Birkhead said he plans to show off 7-month-old Dannielynn to his family in Louisville and “relax and horse around.”

He said his plans include attending the Barnstable Brown party on Friday, an exclusive celebrity-packed gala on the eve of the Kentucky Derby. The event is where he and Smith first met when he was working as a freelance photographer.

Birkhead, a 34-year-old photographer based in Los Angeles, said he’s unsure whether he will stay in Louisville with his daughter.

“This is one pit stop,” Birkhead said.