To celebs, this cash ain't nothin' but trash

A THOUSAND bucks to you and us (but especially us) approaches the level of real money. To Hollywood biggies' bank accounts, however, that kind of dough isn't even a rounding error . . . it's like spilled change, the kind that we here at Temporary Tattle are not too proud to bend over to pick up when we see it glittering among the discarded gum. And fight you to be the one to pocket it.

According to the scandal scroungers at TMZ, who went digging through records at the California State Controller's Office, a bunch of bold-facers are owed some bucks and haven't found it necessary to ask for it.

Like Justin Timberlake. His attorneys have $3,020.55 they want to give to him. Of course, they'll probably charge him that much in billable hours for the time it takes them to hand it over to him.

Steven Spielberg is owed $10,000 in cashier's checks from Bank of America, while some payroll company is waving a $1,404.38 check at an apparently uninterested Kerry Washington. And George Clooney can pay for part of his wedding with the $928.95 being held for him at an entertainment company

Sometimes the backstory on these unclaimed dollars is more intriguing than the amount. Take Robert Downey Jr.'s check for $497.09, awaiting him at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison. Or Kanye West's $38.71 from Foot Locker. Or Tori Spelling's $1,784.95 credit balance from Tiffany & Co.

And Temp Tattle is owed a dollar by the vending machine that refused to drop its bag of Fritos.

Also in the realm of the famous and their finances: If you haven't been able to find anything that suits you while trying to find just that perfect place in East Passyunk, there are a few listings that might interest you.

Mark David, at Variety, reports that Sean Hayes, once of "Will and Grace," has dropped the asking price on his cute 6,400-square-foot 1920s country English place in always hot Hancock Park by $705,000, to a cozy $8.29 million. There was a time not so long ago that you (and anybody) could have qualified for a mortgage on that.

You just missed Jodie Foster's fire sale of her 6,060-square-foot 1930s Hollywood red-bricker at $4.995 mil after being listed, at one point, at $6.399 million. Hey, pay attention, you've gotta move fast.

Closer to home: In addition to an apparently new face, Renee Zellweger wants new scenery and has the for sale sign flapping in front of her four-bedroom, three-bath shack in East Hampton. At $4.45 million, it's actually considered by some observers to be a bit pricey.

Of course, some properties come with real scandal pedigree, so expect to pay more for that. Writes David, colorfully and with great legal care: "Amid salacious and dead-serious allegations brought about by a leaked and possibly unlawfully recorded confession of repeated pedophilia, Emmy-nominated veteran actor Stephen Collins and his understandably vituperative soon-to-be second ex-wife Faye Grant have, as first reported by the celebrity property gossips at the L.A. Times, put their matching pair of side-by-side houses in L.A.'s Brentwood area up for sale for a total of $5,500,000."

Maybe you can talk them down a little - but do it separately.

In this economic climate, and being the trendy reader you are, you might just want to rent. Yo, you're in luck: Kyle MacLachlan - the once and, apparently, future Agent Dale Cooper of "Twin Peaks" and its reported update - and his wife, Desiree Gruber, exec producer of "Project Runway," are making their two to three bedroom, 2,669-square-foot, fully furnished Sunset Strip pad available at a mere $20,000. A month. A little high, but it has parking.

Joan Rivers' daughter, Melissa, has retained the law firm of Gair, Gair, Conason, Steigman, Mackauf, Bloom & Rubinowitz to file a medical-malpractice and wrongful-death lawsuit against the clinic where Joan died last month and the doctors who were involved, according to TMZ.

Once America's sweetheart - who fell out of grace with the double-standarded American public after a reported affair with co-star Russell Crowe that wrecked her marriage to Dennis Quaid - Meg Ryan, 52, is, according to those in the know, snuggling again with estranged boyfriend of three years, 63-year-old John Mellencamp. "They are back together and it's brand new," said the insider. "They're really happy about it."

And that makes us happy, too.

- Daily News wire services

and other sources

contributed to this report.