Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff bring 'Summertime' to Las Vegas

MAYBE WE can put this angry summer behind us.

We have the Taney Dragons.

We also have a shirtless Will Smith riding the pony as he sang "Jump on It" in Las Vegas.

TMZ.com reports that Will showed up unannounced at the Palms on Friday to support his son Trey, who was DJing with some Philly fella named Jazzy Jeff.

Only because it's Will and Jazzy Jeff and because this summer needs some "Summertime," the link is: ph.ly/WillSmith.

* Now that we're getting our happiness groove back, let's keep it going: On Oct. 27 comes the new Taylor Swift album.

Taylor revealed on Yahoo yesterday that "1989," named for her birth year, is her "first documented official pop album."

The first single is the upbeat jam "Shake It Off," released yesterday and debuted during the livestream.

Taylor said the album, her fifth, was mainly inspired by late-'80s pop music and is the "most sonically cohesive album I've ever made."

Wow. She dresses like Audrey Hepburn and talks music like Ben Folds.

"The Giver" star Odeya Rush grew up in North Jersey, so when she swung by Philadelphia to speak with our Gary Thompson, and hit the Cherry Hill Mall, she contacted friends.

"I told my friends, hey, I'm in New Jersey, and they were like yeah, but you're three hours away."

Rush will have to console herself by hanging out with co-star and Aussie hunk Brenton Thwaites ("The Signal," "Oculus"), recently rumored to have been dating another "Giver" co-star, Taylor Swift.

Not true, it turns out. Swift has a very small role in the movie, and spent little time on set.

But Thwaites and Rush soaked up advice from "Giver" stars Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges, who labored for 18 years to bring the popular YA novel to the screen.

"Jeff would say, 'Don't take life too seriously,' " Rush said. " 'Enjoy it, and have fun.' Jeff really enjoys the work, and he kept that sense of joy on the set."

Streep was more of a perfectionist - she'd often note when a line reading was out of step with something that might happen in the script many pages later.

"When you're auditioning a lot you learn to nail a scene. When you're filming, what you do in a scene ripples out to all the other scenes. Meryl is really good at that," Rush said.

And it was a particular problem in "The Giver," about a community whose inhabitants are drained of emotion. Thwaites' character gradually gains access to his, and since movies are shot out of sequence, he had to be very careful about how emotional his character could be in each scene.

"The continuity of emotions was hard," Thwaites said. "In fact, I had a book called 'The Continuity of Emotions,' so I could keep it all straight."

Thwaites will next appear as a surfer alongside Helen Hunt in a family drama she directed called "Ride."

Rush is studying for her SATs, and preparing for senior year.

* J.K. Rowling has posted new details about a minor character from her Harry Potter books on the fan website Pottermore.com.

The author has written a short biography of Celestina Warbeck, a glamorous singing sorceress resembling Shirley Bassey and a favorite of Mrs. Weasley's.

* Producers of the Gloria and Emilio Estefan musical "On Your Feet!" said yesterday that they will offer performers around the world a chance to audition for all the roles in the Broadway-bound cast by submitting audition videos online. There also will be two open casting calls - at Pearl Studios, in New York City, on Sept. 9, and at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, in Miami, on Sept. 21.

* The Screen Actors Guild is honoring 82-year-old Debbie Reynolds for her professional and humanitarian achievements.

The guild announced yesterday that Debbie will receive the 2014 SAG Life Achievement Award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony in January. The award is the union's highest accolade.

* Craig Ferguson is close to a deal to launch an early-evening talk show starting in fall 2015.

The outgoing host of CBS's "The Late Late Show" would introduce his half-hour syndicated series on stations in a slot just before prime time, according to an anonymous source with knowledge of the deal.

Ferguson is expected to bring along his robot skeleton "sidekick," Geoff, as well as executive producer (and Penn alum) Michael Naidus.

* Congrats to Giselle Bundschen, who smoked her modeling competition by earning $47 million over the past year, according to Forbes' latest list of 1-percenters.

Finishing second was Doutzen Kroes and Adriana Lima at $8 million, followed by Kate Moss, Kate Upton, Miranda Kerr and Liu Wenn at $7 million.

And keep in mind, that money goes a lot further when you don't have to buy clothes or food.

- Daily News wire services

contributed to this report.

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