New York, September 25 – Broadway luminaries gave it up on Sunday, but not just for their audiences. At the 19th annual Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS flea market and auction, the best place for celeb watching was in front of Balzano’s Bar Cucina, where David Hyde Pierce, Joan Allen, Laura Linney, Valerie “Rhoda” Harper and Bebe Neuwirth signed autographs. Rosie O’Donnell brought her son, Parker. Ben Vereen’s necklace with a Superman logo was fitting, because he was a major catalyst for that evening’s massive Broadway benefit for hurricane relief at the Gershwin Theatre.

Many, many of the same stars that spent the afternoon toiling at the BC/EFA event sang late into the night to raise funds for storm victims. Add in Liza Minnelli, Rue McClanahan, plus the entire casts of All Shook Up, Avenue Q, Hairspray, Light in the Piazza, Mamma Mia, Rent, Putnam County Spelling Bee and Wicked. We told you this benefit was massive. We chatted a bit with Bernadette Peters after her number on Sunday evening, and were shocked to hear the next day that her husband, Michael Wittenberg, was tragically killed in a helicopter accident in Europe.

Los Angeles, September 25 – Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, hosted the 2005 Taurus World Stunt Awards, recognizing those behind-the-scenes folks who keep movies exciting with fights, car chases, high-wire acts and other daredevil stuff. The Rock claimed that he does 99% of his own stunts in his films. Sylvester Stallone arrived late at the Paramount Studios location, but in time to pick up his award. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a regular at the Stunt awards, slipped in through a back door. When photographers asked Lost’s Michelle Rodriguez to look back over her shoulder, she quipped, “What, do you guys want to see my ass?” You can see Michelle and all the fabulous stunts October 13 on E!.

New York, September 23 – The New York Film Festival opened with Good Night, and Good Luck, and Lincoln Center was swarming with celebs. Rachel Weisz, who is creating quite a buzz with her film, The Constant Gardener, stopped by, and seemed in good spirits despite her accident with a vat of tie-dye. Teri Hatcher had things just the way she likes them at the premiere; she was the only Desperate Housewife on the red carpet. Sofia Coppola took in the film, as did Ellen Barkin and Ron Perelman. From the cast, only Frank Langella, Patricia Clarkson and George Clooney, who co-wrote, directed and acted in the film, made the trek. But the biggest news about the festival opening night was that there was dapper Clooney, in a tuxedo, on a red carpet on a Friday night, and his only date was a cranky publicist.

September 19-23 – Summer's over, the kids are back in school, so Hollywood’s A-listers are all over the place. We’re relieved to see that Sean Penn seems to still have all his skin, at least what we could see of it, after running around in the toxic Gulf Coast waters. The Oscar winner turned up on Monday when uber-producer Mike Medavoy received a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

Bob Dylan didn’t come to a screening of No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese’s documentary about him, but Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Barkin, Elvis Costello and Diana Krall and director Jim Jarmusch did.

The next day at the same theater, most of the press was uninvited to a screening of another documentary, Peace One Day, because, our sources said, Angelina Jolie had final approval of the media list. We hear Reuters photographers had difficulty obtaining access, because the news agency was deemed “too small and not international enough”. Hmmm…weren’t those Reuters photos of Jolie and Brad Pitt – separately – at Bill Clinton’s World Summit last week, splashed all over New York’s tabloids?

Pitt wasn’t at the Peace One Day screening, but Jolie had a little reunion with her first husband, British actor Johnny Lee Miller.
Wednesday was International Day of Peace, and Michael Douglas celebrated at the U.N., participating in conferences and ringing the Peace Bell.

The nation’s capital saw some megawatt star action this week. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson joined real-life astronauts donning 3-D glasses at the premiere of the documentary, Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D. Hanks said he’d love to fly to the moon, although he figures taxpayers would revolt if they found out he was on a flight.

On Friday, Nicole Kidman, possible James Bond Daniel Craig and Jeremy Northam gathered at the famous Haye-Adams hotel near the White House to announce the start of production on alien sci-fi thriller, The Visiting. Kidman lived in D.C. for three years while her father pursued his studies, but she doesn’t remember much, since she’d just been born. This is her first time back, she said.