Katie Holmes heads to Broadway

New York – Katie Holmes is looking to bounce back from a box-office flop with her Broadway debut.

The “Dawson’s Creek” star and wife of Tom Cruise, who most recently starred in this year’s “Mad Money” alongside Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah, will hit the stage in a revival of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” this fall.

Fellow castmembers include John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest and Patrick Wilson. Exact dates and theater will be announced, producer Eric Falkenstein said Monday.

The play, first seen on Broadway in 1947, was Miller’s first Broadway hit. It concerns businessman Joe Keller (Lithgow), whose factory supplied defective cylinder parts to the military, resulting in the deaths of 21 pilots during World War II. Yet it was his business partner who went to jail for the mistake.

Wiest will play Keller’s wife; Wilson, his idealistic son; and Holmes, the son’s fiancee and daughter of Keller’s disgraced partner.

Author urges grads to speak properly

Newton, Mass. – Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough has a suggestion for what young people can do for their country.

“Please, please do what you can to cure the verbal virus that seems increasingly rampant among your generation,” McCullough implored Boston College’s class of 2008 at commencement ceremonies Monday.

He said he’s particularly troubled by the “relentless, wearisome use of words” such as like, awesome and actually.

“Just imagine if in his inaugural address John F. Kennedy had said, ‘Ask not what your country can, you know, do for you, but what you can, like, do for your country actually,” he said.

Graduates apparently thought his speech was, like, awesome. They gave him a standing ovation.

Kiefer Sutherland officially divorced

Los Angeles – Stop the marriage clock: Kiefer Sutherland is officially divorced.

A divorce judgment was filed Friday for the “24” actor and wife Elizabeth Kelly Winn, according to court documents. Sutherland, 41, filed for divorce from his wife of nearly eight years in 2004, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple have no children together.

Last January, Sutherland was released from a Glendale jail after serving 48 days on a drunken driving charge. Sutherland pleaded no contest in October to driving with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit of 0.08 percent. He was sentenced to 30 days, as well as 18 days for violating probation stemming from a 2004 drunken-driving arrest.

Bateman discusses family dynamics

New York – Child stars have it rough with their folks. Just ask Jason Bateman, who says his mom and dad are more like friends than parents.

“I’m not a great brother or uncle or son for that matter,” Bateman, who co-stars in the upcoming Will Smith movie “Hancock,” says in the cover story of the new issue of Best Life magazine. “I don’t have this obligatory ‘I have to call Mom once a week,’ because we’re just buddies.”

Bateman says he and sister, Justine, supported the family with their paychecks from “Little House on the Prairie,” “Family Ties,” “Silver Spoons” and other shows. He fired his father as his manager when he was 20.

Since then, he’s had an off-and-on relationship with both his father and mother.

“I don’t think there are many people who would say that was a healthy situation,” Bateman said.

There were some slow years after child stardom for Bateman, now 39, before he starred in the critically acclaimed sitcom “Arrested Development.”

“I got down to a nine (golf) handicap,” said the actor, who appeared in the hit film “Juno” last year. “The day I became a single-digit, I called my agent and said, ‘You have to look harder. I shouldn’t be this good at golf.”

Hope memorabilia to be auctioned

Los Angeles – A foot-high cowboy hat from the movie “Paleface.” An autographed photo of Lucille Ball with some teeth blackened out. A money clip from Jack Benny. These were a few of Bob Hope’s favorite things.

Nearly 800 items of Hope history, from foolishness to fine art, will be sold to fans and dealers alike at a mid-October charity auction in Los Angeles commissioned by the family of the famed comedian, who died in 2003 at age 100. The auction will be televised live and online by the Auction Network, allowing viewers worldwide to participate in real time.

The sale, which will benefit charities and causes that were important to Hope, is being organized by Darren Julien, president of Julien’s Auctions.

Julien devised the idea of sending some of the auction items to Hope’s native England on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, departing New York for London on Sept. 4, so passengers – and prospective bidders – can get an advance look.

The items will then be shown in London and Ireland, one of Hope’s favorite countries to visit. All items will be returned to Los Angeles for the actual auction in October.

For those who can’t travel abroad, the collection will be displayed online and proxy bids taken beginning Sept. 1 at www.juliensauctions.com.