Sideshow | In early ratings, viewers flee 'Idol'

American Idol

, the biggest ratings monster since

The Epic of Gilgamesh

, had flaccid numbers for Wednesday's sixth season finale, which drew only 29.5 mil citizens.

Compare that with last year, when 36.4 mil watched Taylor Hicks' winning show. This amounts to a disturbing 19 percent drop.

But take heart, brethren: The numbers for the episode came from a prelim report by Nielsen Media Research. The final count will be higher, since the prelim numbers account for only the two-hour special's 8 to 9 p.m. half. It's the second half, which climaxed with Jordin's win that really counts. We'll see . . .

Terrific

V for Vendetta

star

Natalie Portman

, 25, appears as a "futurist electronic ghost" in

Paul McCartney

's "Dance Tonight" vid. Nat is buds with Sir Paul's daughter,

Stella

, who designs her vegan (non-leather) shoes.

Us Weekly says the lovely

Nat

is seeing the funny neo-geek

Andy Samberg

, 28. Maybe it's just me, but it feels weird to think of Nat as a sexualized being, especially since her breakout sex role in

Closer

, as a stripper who gives

Clive Owen

the show of his life, felt so awkward.

No one has gone on record to confirm the Nat-Andy hypothesis.

"I just had a birthday, and I'm going to treat myself to new boobs." (Know anyone who actually says things like this?)

Birthday Girl is none other than the late Anna Nicole Smith's half-sister, Donna Hogan, who says she has a plan to become famous.

Speaking to Steppin' Out (via the New York Post), the fortysomething Texas hausfrau says once enhanced, she'll ask Hugh Hefner to reify and objectify her Gaia-female-goddess-essence in Playboy.

Donna does have talent for slagging off anyone (other than Donna?) vying to vulturize her sister's fame. "He's a creepy little weasel-looking thing," she says of her sis' lover, Howard K. Stern. "He was just Anna's gofer, like a little girlfriend."

Did

Clueless

and

Sin City

youngster

Brittany Murphy

marry screenwriter

Simon Monjack

(

Factory Girl

) in a semisecret wedding last month only to help the Brit escape deportation?

There's buzz in various tabs, including the National Enquirer, that Simon was busted by the authorities about his expired visa and faces a July hearing - and a possible free plane ride.

An anon source tells the New York Post that "Brittany knew nothing about any of that."

A Brit rep refused to comment.

Life isn't just about fun and games (and big-money movie deals and drinking and sex and . . .) at the Cannes Film Festival; it's also about star-studded extravagant fund-raising soirees where the needy will be invoked and comforted.

Wednesday night saw one of the biggest annual charity rites, an auction for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). Hosted by Sharon Stone, who played auctioneer in a very clingy silver dress, the do featured George Clooney, who helped Sharon auction off two yacht vacations for a total of $700,000; supermodels Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell, who aided Stone in palming off a package of fashion-show tickets for $175,000; and Ivana Trump, who bid for and won a Francesco Vezzoli portrait of a teary-eyed Bette Davis for $200,000.

Retro burlesque babe Dita Von Teese did a classic striptease, and Harvey Weinstein persuaded Kylie Minogue to sing "The Loco-Motion" and "Can't Get You Out of My Head," which raised $300,000.

The stars give back with an online auction to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation, now through June 14 at

» READ MORE: www.wish.org/auction

.

Items feature celebs giving of their time, including a personalized outgoing phone message recorded by Reese Witherspoon, a ride-along with NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., and golf with nice-guy shocker dude Alice Cooper.

It was mocked by some critics when it opened in America, but it seems

Lars von Trier

's 2000 musical tragedy

Dancer in the Dark

has stood the test of time. Denmark's Royal Theater has commissioned one of the nation's foremost composers,

Poul Ruders

, to transform the film into an opera.

The piece, which is slated for the theater's 2010-11 season, will have an English-language libretto and will feature Swedish soprano Ylva Kihlberg as the protagonist, Selma, a Czech immigrant factory worker who is going blind. The unforgettable, the lovely Björk played that part in the film, which is set in the Pacific Northwest.