SA’s most thoroughly tanned export (and, of course, our only Oscar winner) - dear old Charlize - has a new admirer...

And who should it be but hip-hop high roller and some-time producer, Damon Dash.

(You may remember him as the man responsible for Victoria Beckham’s foray into hip-hop, which then got canned. I say release the album and let the people decide!)

Damon made Jay-Z the huge star he is today, and now heads up the vast Roc-A-Fella empire, which includes a record label, hip-hop mag, film production company (look out for the up-coming ‘Paid in Full’), clothing lines, etc, etc.

“She’s hot. I hope she reads this,” were Dash’s carefully chosen words on Charlize to Glamour magazine. So hot, he’s thinking of getting her to be the spokesmodel for his Rocawear range.

Poor Posh won’t return to punt his clothing again, he says, as she “caused too much of a stir”. Yes, all that pesky publicity for his stuff...

Or could it be that he’s not really cut out for picking the right face to front his togs - I mean, who says ‘hip-hop’ better than Posh and Charlize?

And what says ‘unparalleled disaster’ better than Johnny Depp contemplating marriage? “It’s so perfect and so beautiful," says the ‘Secret Window’ star of his long-time love Vanessa Paradis’s name. “It would be a drag to stick her with Paradis-Depp. It’s like a flat note.”

Though I am shooting myself in the foot, might I suggest someone tell Johnny the glad tidings that Vanessa isn’t morally obliged to have a double-barrelled surname if they get hitched? Then again, maybe he’s just too scared she’ll say no. But what if she popped the question? “She’s the woman of my life. I would do it in a second.”

Okay, perhaps the mere thought of Vanessa’s shamefully good luck on the man front doesn’t set your blood a boiling. Maybe you’re a little more partial to Johnny’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ co-star, Orlando Bloom.

In that case, I’m guessing that you’re not going to be rushing out, notebook in hand, begging for Kate ‘Blue Crush’ Bosworth to give her your autograph.

Nevertheless, strange as it sounds, there are some women who’ve sufficiently forgiven Kate for taking Mr Bloom off the market that they’re queuing up to meet the lively blonde. “It is so cute, actually. The things people say when they meet you always makes me smile,” says Bosworth.

“I signed an autograph for this girl last night and she said: ’I’ve been waiting out here for hours to meet you,’ and I was thinking: ’Wow, that’s really sweet’. Then she just blurted out: ’You have great teeth.’ I thought: ’Did I hear her right?’ so I said: ’Pardon?’ and she repeated: ’You have great teeth.’ I said: ’Well, thank you,’ but I could see her thinking: ’Oh my God! I’ve been waiting for hours and all I said was ’you have great teeth’.”

Aaargh - she can also read minds!

Rebecca Loos would be better off not reading my mind, as I doubt she’d be thrilled with what she found there.

The woman who’s already made well over R10-million hawking her tale of an affair with David Beckham to the media has now taken to upstaging film stars. She pitched up at the London première of ‘Kill Bill: Volume II’ - having been added to the guest list at the last moment - and strode down the red carpet.

Needless to say the actual movie took a back seat to the lithe, photogenic Loos. And star of the film, Uma Thurman, was reportedly less than impressed: “It sounds pretty low. I don’t know the facts though - I wasn’t there. I’m not sure whether she’s trash or a tramp. I’d say tramp, though. She can’t get enough PR.” Cruel, but fair.

No-one’s got a bad word to say about Uma, though - not Ethan Hawke, and certainly not her director in ‘Kill Bill’, Quentin Tarantino.

The speculation that the film-maker is hopelessly devoted to Thurman seems to be true - since he takes just about every available opportunity to gush about the actress. Most recently, he gave his thoughts on her not taking home that little golden statuette: “As far as I’m concerned, the Academy should’ve just walked up to her door, knocked on it, and put the Oscar in her hand. ‘Kill Bill: Volume II’ - there’s a whole other year, a whole other crack at it.” Well, I’m not going to argue.

And nor is ‘Will & Grace’ star Debra Messing’s offspring - though that may change when he becomes a teenager. Debra’s taken almost a fortnight, but she’s finally come up with a name for her brand new baby. The little Messing won’t be sporting mum’s famous surname, though. He’s been given the moniker Roman Walker Zelman. “Sometimes you need to see the baby first,” explains Messing’s publicist.

Little Roman still has a few years before he’ll be watching children’s TV, which is a pity, considering the latest guest star on that kiddies’ institution, ‘Sesame Street’.

The great ‘Buffy’ and ‘Austin Powers’ star, Seth Green, has just made a star turn on the show - but he’s a bit worried that he didn’t quite look the part: “I hope I don’t come off too crazy. I flew to New York to do ‘Sesame Street’ directly from a three-month film shoot in New Zealand. I hadn’t slept. I didn’t shave. I looked insane.” Ah, well, he can’t have looked that much stranger than the usual cast.

The key cast member of the ‘Mission Impossible’ franchise, though, is said by many to be very easy on the eyes, and now Tom Cruise is to be joined by the equally camera-friendly star of the ‘Matrix’, Carrie Moss, for the third instalment. Clearly the woman just can’t stay away from action trilogies... The movie is scheduled to start shooting towards the end of this year.

And, if you dream of one day joining Tom and Carrie in the upper echelons of Hollywood, you could do worse than snapping up the two-hour master class with Kenneth Branagh that he’s auctioning off for the Paul Bevan Cancer Foundation.

The Shakespeare-loving actor is offering a personal session on how best to act a scene of your choice from any of the great bard’s plays. “The winner will get a two-hour one-to-one lesson with him,” explains a foundation spokesperson. “They will discuss and act a scene from a Shakespeare play of their choice: either a soliloquy or a two-hander with Kenneth. He’ll then explain what makes the scene work and how one can get the most out of the writing.”

Hey, who knows, you might get to follow in Mel Gibson’s footsteps and forever immortalise yourself as Hamlet.

Of course, even if you do hit the big time, there’ll still be a few ordinary human troubles for you to deal with - like the horror of quitting smoking.

"I had to quit smoking. I’m now happy about it because these things were killing me. But at first I was really missing my cigarettes,” says Brad Pitt of the agonising but necessary experience. It was his very physically demanding role in the upcoming ‘Troy’ that finally got him on the wagon. “The withdrawal was so hard that I was ready to kill, which was actually helpful for the role I was playing.”

But Brad’s not naturally a non-smoking, run-up-a-mountain-before-breakfast kind of guy: “Against my nature, I had to invest a lot of time and sweat on the physical aspect of my work. I didn’t like that at all. The trainer warned me that every day would be unpleasant. He was right.” Okay, I am fairly sympathetic, but people like us have got to do this keep-fit thing all on our own, without any personal trainer dragging us through it - and, not to mention, without those millions in payment at the end of it all.

While Rebecca Loos seems set up for life with all her millions, she certainly doesn’t have a patch on J. Lo when it comes to wealth. But the two of them do seem to have similarly unfortunate scene-stealing habits.

Jennifer Lopez turned up to support new boyfriend Marc Anthony at the première of his flick ‘Man on Fire’. But, of course, he and the film’s actual star, Denzel Washington, got pushed waaaaay into the background as the press fell over themselves to snap Lopez. So intent was Jen from the block on not upstaging her Marc that she arrived a whole five minutes after him, wearing a skimpy flesh-toned dress. Classy.

Even classier - she and Marc reportedly spent most of the screening making out in the back row. “People were looking at them as much as they were watching the film,” claims an audience member. “The audience was quite surprised about how open they were being. There was no doubt that they are definitely a couple and she looked really happy. She was glowing.” Keep a sharp eye on that ring finger folks!

But while the reticent Jennifer may only be prepared to go so far as to wear a flesh-coloured dress, Angelina Jolie is more than happy to strip off for the cameras - the recently-released ‘Taking Lives’ being a fine example of her work.

And it’ll be a while before she covers up: “I think I’m okay until my son’s a teenager. I’ll have to handle it then. But I don’t get funny about nudity - it’s not something I am overly shy about. I reveal more of myself when I’m extremely open emotionally than when I’ve got my shirt off.”

Now Colin Farrell, as we (and more than a few young women out there) know, is not really a wallflower when it comes to whipping his shirt off - to say the least. But, let’s not forget, young Colin was once a married man...

And fellow actress Amelia Warner recently opened up about her time with the Irish star: “I loved him so much and I had the most amazing times of my life with him.

“He was a fantastic partner. We were together just over a year, and we spent two days apart that whole time. He didn’t do anything wrong - we were just too young. I had stuff to do, and it just didn’t work out, which was really sad.

“The Colin I knew was very different from the Colin I see now,” said Warner of her ex, with whom she’s no longer in touch. “That’s why I feel I can’t talk about our relationship, because it’s as if I’m talking about a different person. It kind of upsets me to see how he’s being represented now, or how he chooses to represent himself. I don’t think he’s blameless; he chooses to play that part.”

But he’s settled down once - who knows, he may just do it again!