Sideshow: Dickinson on her autistic daughter

Dressed to Kill

star

Angie Dickinson

, 78, writes about her daughter's autism in an essay in Los Angeles magazine, excerpted by Newsweek.

Troubles for Nikki Bacharach, Dickinson's daughter with composer Burt Bacharach, began early: She was born three months premature in the summer of 1966, weighing only one pound, 10 ounces. She was placed in a preemie isolette and was not allowed to be touched - a bad move for any baby, Dickinson notes.

"Even the doctors back then didn't know the value of touch," she writes, "that if you never get touched or hear a loving voice or get held in those first months, you won't ever feel real or feel connected to anything."

Nikki, the essay says, didn't speak until she was 3, but "could play piano like a prodigy" at 4. Nikki, who spent more than a decade in a psychiatric treatment center, committed suicide in '07.

Former New York mayor

Rudy Giuliani

's daughter,

Caroline Giuliani

, on Tuesday was given one day of community service stemming from her arrest last month for shoplifting $100.50 worth of cosmetics from a Manhattan store. The New York Daily News says Giuliani will probably be assigned to mop floors and clean toilets at a Sanitation Department garage.

E! News says former Lindsay Lohan friend and lover DJ Samantha Ronson is being investigated by police after an incident Monday in which her bulldog Cadillac killed a 3-pound Maltese named Tiger in her apartment building in West Hollywood.

"I feel incredibly sad and wish I could offer more than condolences," Ronson says in a tweet.

Fox News, which recently criticized actor

John Cusack

for making a joke about the proposed Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan (misnamed the "Ground Zero mosque"), now says, citing the Drudge Report, that the

Say Anything

man-boy wishes death upon them.

Fox quotes the following tweet Cusack sent on Sunday: "I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ." Cusack adds that he wants such cults also at the offices of Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich, "and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS."

Fox quotes some psychiatrist who worries that Cusack fans might attack the cabler's offices. No comment from the actor's reps.

Meghan McCain

, who helped her dad, Sen.

John McCain

, campaign for the White House in '08, says she's ambivalent about her pop's running mate, current TV glamour-puss

Sarah Palin

. Meghan writes in the new memoir

Dirty Sexy Politics

that Palin brought "drama, stress, complications, panic, and loads of uncertainty" to the campaign. Yet Meghan assured

Good Morning America

's

George Stephanopoulos

on Tuesday that she didn't blame Palin for her dad's loss.

OMG!!!

Snooki said no!

Jersey Shore

princess

Snooki

Tuesday tweeted a reply to

Jeff Miranda

's grodily public marriage proposal: "Just want to set the record straight. I'm single and I'm not going to get married!"

Gawker says Calvin Klein's new beau is underwear model Nick Gruber, who is attending Santa Rosa Junior College near San Francisco. At 20, Nick is 47 years the designer's junior.

Bristol Palin

is psyched to compete on

Dancing With the Stars

. "It's right up my alley," she tells Entertainment Weekly. "It's something that is family oriented, it's positive, and it's a good competition." The cast, which was announced Monday night, also includes

Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino

,

Dirty Dancing

's

Jennifer Grey

,

Brady Bunch

mom

Florence Henderson

, and singers

Michael Bolton

and

Brandy

. It premieres Sept. 20.