Sideshow |

Hugh Hefner

, venerated wise man and founder of the Playboy empire, will honor

Anna Nicole Smith

with no fewer than three - three! - Playboy tributes. Smith, who died of an overdose in February, was the March '92 cover girl and Playmate of the Year in '93.

All three will be classy, natch, and consist of a 10-page pictorial in the May magazine, an hourlong retrospective on Playboy TV, and an online memorial at Playboy.com.

So sang rock icon Eric Clapton in his beloved "Layla." But was it? Was his love for Layla - or, as she's called in real life, Pattie Boyd - meaningless?

Pattie, who was George Harrison's first wife when Eric fell for her, has written an autobiography, Wonderful Tonight, in which she tells how Eric, so besotted by her, conspired to steal her away from the mystical Beatle.

In an excerpt obtained by the New York Post, Pattie says that one day she received a totally unexpected letter from Eric. "I have always loved you and this is breaking my heart," it read. Says Pattie: "So I showed it to George" - !?! - who "just dismissed it."

Before long, Pattie was sighing in Eric's arms, and the couple launched a nine-year marriage in '79. Eric and George remained friends throughout.

Why is there so much hatred in the cosmos? Such animosity even in that rarified atmosphere that is

Martha Stewart

Country? According to the New York Post, neighbors of the ex-con are still peeved over Martha's attempt to trademark the name of Katonah, which she calls her "hometown," so she could sell product under its name. The newspaper says the bad blood is so bad - even though Martha has stopped her campaign - that one of her opposers, freelance writer

William Tisherman

, quit his job at the Katonah Village Improvement Society to start Marthometer, a parody newsletter devoted entirely to Martha content. Now

that

is commitment.

. . . is where,

Marilyn Manson

says, his voice is coming from in

Eat Me, Drink Me

, his latest CD, due in June. In an interview with Revolver mag, the gothic man-girl opens up about his feelings, and those are feelings of heartbrokenness: His wife,

Dita Von Teese

, has left him.

"As many dark places that I've gone in my life and in my music this past year," says MM, "it's a real wonder that I'm alive."

Yet art heals all. Asked to describe his record, he's chipper: "It's got a cannibal, consumption, obsessive, violent-sex, romance angle - but with an upbeat swing to it."

Having reached a no doubt transcendental insight,

Kate Beckinsale

concludes that the female ideal constructed by Hollywood is irreconcilable with the actual female form. "I don't think you can aspire to it, nor can I," says the killer vampire of

Underworld

who dons black leather and latex. (She's representin' normal women.) "Everybody is retouched, stretched, lengthened, slimmed and trimmed."

No one on earth could possibly disagree that

Jennifer Lopez

is hot. So why does even J.Lo feel the need to defend her body size?

She tells British Vogue, "I couldn't ever be a size zero. . . . I just don't see how I could get down to that size and still be healthy." And she's tired of the pressure on girls. "It's got to the point where models are dropping dead. . . . It's insane," she says, citing Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston, who died in November at 21.

Naomi Watts

and

Liev Schreiber

, whose first baby is due in late summer, have reconsidered holding off marriage. The Post says the couple will wed before the birth so the child is not illegitimate. No word from Naomi's reps.