Scene and Heard

Here's video of Will Smith in Dallas for the premiere of his new movie, Seven Pounds.

This week's local appearance of Gwyneth Paltrow was nothing new. We've been on a steady Gwyneth diet ever since she dated homegrown actor Luke Wilson.
Following the tragedy of 9/11, Gwyneth escaped the chaos near her downtown New York home by spending a lot of time with Luke in Dallas where she popped up regularly doing lots of Dallasy things like shoe shopping at the NorthPark Neiman's.
One of the first clues we had that she was dating Coldplay front man Chris Martin was when she showed up for a Coldplay concert at Nokia Theatre (then called NextStage).
Now married with two kids, Gwyneth and Chris hit Dallas a couple of days early for Coldplay's Wednesday show at American Airlines Center.
Monday night, the couple drove their own rental car over to Al Biernat's steakhouse and grabbed a hideaway booth in the back.

There are certain circumstances under which Bob Sambol will let a patron stay at his Bob's Steak & Chop House after everyone has left, the lights are on and the vacuum cleaners are running.
Those circumstances arose Thursday night when the guest was Archie Manning, the former NFL and Ole Miss quarterback and father of two Super Bowl MVP-winning quarterbacks, Peyton and Eli Manning.
Archie wanted to stay and watch the end of the New York Jets-New England Patriots game. Bob was more than happy to accommodate him.
Archie was in town to speak to the Dallas chapter of the National Football Foundation.

The Museum of Nature & Science formally announced its new Tom Hunt Energy Hall on Thursday morning at the Rosewood Crescent Hotel, where the keynote speaker was, of course, Tom Hunt. Until recently, Mr. Hunt was chairman of the board of Hunt Petroleum Corp. At 85, he's still quite spry and tells a good story. He left the ballroom crowd with something to ponder: "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed," he said. "It can only be transformed." He said he hoped young minds would be inspired by what they see at the new Perot Museum of Nature & Science, which will occupy a 4.7-acre parcel at the northwest corner of Woodall Rodgers Freeway and Field Street, adjacent to Victory Park. Tom Hunt Energy Hall is being named in honor of Mr. Hunt, in recognition of the $10 million "early leadership gift" that Hunt Petroleum made to the museum in 2005 to move its expansion project forward. (Please click below to read on.)

Photo: Tom Hunt

ETonilne.com reports:

Jessica Simpson performed a pre-race concert and sang the national anthem at the NASCAR Bank of America 500 on Saturday in North Carolina, but before she crooned for car race fans, she spoke to ET about love with NFL beau Tony Romo!

Jessica dished about her budding romance with Tony -- and debunked some crazy rumors in the process!

It was Sunday evening, and James Earl Jones was home, trying to keep a secret. He would fly to Dallas on Tuesday to serve as keynote speaker for the Center for Performing Arts. Its grand opening would be announced for Oct. 12, 2009, and Mr. Jones would come to help celebrate. But his appearance at the Belo Mansion was meant to be a surprise. "Just watching the Cowboy game," he said. Me, too, I confessed, telling him, "I just now hit the pause button on Tivo." "I haven't learned how to do that yet," he said. And that gave him an opening. He intended to share with the crowd on Tuesday his passion for theater. "We can Tivo things off TV," he said. "We get DVDs of movies, but the theater experience is unique. It's happening right in front of you. It opens up a very large world that's enclosed in that proscenium. There's nothing quite like it. There's an immediacy in theater, and that immediacy is what draws an audience in and allows them to examine the world being presented to them by the playwright and the director." (Please click below to read on!)

Photo: James Earl Jones

So were Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson really shopping for engagement rings at the downtown Neiman Marcus? On the record, Neiman's officials will not comment on who does or does not shop there. Off the record, they're all simultaneously scratching their heads at the Wednesday report by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker.
He wrote: "One of my best Dallas snoops just happened to be in the original Neiman Marcus in Big D, shortly after Jessica Simpson and main man and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo were in the store checking out big sparklers--the kind women wear on their left-hand ring finger."
"The original Neiman Marcus" is the downtown store and if Tony and Jessica were there, nobody, and I mean nobody, saw them.
It's the same story at the NorthPark Neiman's. No one has seen them.
Staffers at Neiman Marcus Willow Bend are equally unaware of this epic sighting.
In fact, neither the Neiman's top brass nor the sales people working the floor seem to know anythying about it.
Tuesday evening, Jessica was in L.A. for her live performance on Dancing With The Stars. On Monday evening, Tony was solo at a surprise birthday dinner for teammate Marc Colombo.

A story in the Chicago Sun Times reports:

Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo are checking out sparklers in Big D, and may tie the knot after season.

Columnist Bill Zwecker writes:

One of my best Dallas snoops just happened to be in the original Neiman Marcus in Big D, shortly after Jessica Simpson and main man and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo were in the store checking out big sparklers -- the kind women wear on their left-hand ring finger.

For those, like me, who grew up in Dallas, the Cotton Bowl is a special place, one that inspires a lot of emotion. And in many respects, that's the problem. As you may have read, the Cotton Bowl recently underwent a $57-million renovation. I had a chance to look at it on Tuesday during a tour of the Fair Park stadium. And I left ... with mixed feelings. I grew up going to Dallas Cowboys games in the Cotton Bowl with my dad. I bought the season tickets with my paper-route money. On one hand, I'm sad that the city rejected Jerry Jones' wish to build Jerry World in place of the Cotton Bowl, causing Fair Park to miss out on hosting a Super Bowl. On the other, I'm happy that the stadium remains, for the most part, as it was. But architecturally, it's different and the results are not altogether pleasing. For one, expansion is usually a mistake when it comes to maintaining architectural integrity, and the Cotton Bowl is no exception. It's now completely enclosed, creating a feeling of claustrophia. (Click below to read on)

Photo: The newly renovated Cotton Bowl, which just got a $57-million facelift

At Friday night's black-tie grand opening of The Joule, the hotel's billionaire owner Tim Headington welcomed his movie pals Martin Scorsese, Graham King (producer of The Departed) and Sarah, Duchess of York (producer of The Young Victoria) to the pre-gala VIP party in the penthouse. But the presence of a couple of Academy Award-winning legends was meaningless to the 75 or so teen and tween girls who crowded Main Street across from the Joule entrance. All they knew was that the Jonas Brothers were inside. The girls screamed for them to come down. It's doubtful that the brothers heard them as they listened intently when Marty Scorsese made his way over to chat with them. Joe Jonas was the only band member missing. But Nick and Kevin Jonas were in fine form mixing in the crowd with their dad, former pastor Kevin Jonas Sr. Other celebs on hand--Joey Fatone, Stacey Keibler, et al--all angled for face time with the Jonases.

Ah, to be young and in love with a $67.5 million contract and to be the first Cowboys quarterback to beat the Packers at Lambeau Field. Such is the life of Tony Romo. On Tuesday, Tony was spotted lunching not only with his comely blonde girlfriend, Jessica Simpson, but also with her soon-to-deliver sister, Ashlee Simpson-Wentz. They were all seen together at the Cafe on the Green at the Four Seasons Hotel & Resort where Tony is a member of the private golf club.

Def Jam Recordings founder Russell Simmons will be in Dallas next week to promote the Diamond Empowerment Fund, a non-profit he created for education initiatives in Africa.
Next Wednesday night at Trece on Travis Street, Mr. Simmons will co-host a party to introduce the fund with beverage distributor Blake Andrews (ViB), sports entrepreneur Kirby Schlegel and former UT backup quarterback Matt Nordgren.

As the old song goes, "The days grow short when you reach September." And the days are growing short for Texas Stadium, the hole-in-the-roof temple which hosted its final Monday Night Football game this week.
As the last games tick away before the Cowboys move to Arlington, team owner Jerry Jones and his wife, Gene, can expect very few declines when they issue invitations to sit in the stadium's 50-yard-line owner's box.
During Monday night's Cowboys-Eagles game, Jamie Foxx and Jessica Simpson were both in the stadium, but the camera kept zooming in to see who was with the Joneses.
Ross Perot and his wife, Margot, were there as was oilman Edwin L. Cox with Kerbey Clark; art collectors Cindy and Howard Rachofsky; oilwoman and Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek founder Caroline Rose Hunt with Fort Worth oilman Charles Simmons; philanthropist Nancy Dedman; social mover Mary Watson; and Texarkana petroleum baron Truman Arnold.

Jessica Simpson says heck yeah, she will be attending Cowboys games this season to watch her man, Tony Romo. You just might not recognize her under the fake nose.
This week, Jessica phoned into the XM Satellite show "Yo on E!" to promote her album Do You Know. She was happy to address the superstition that she is a jinx to America's Team. "That was absolutely ridiculous," she says. "At first I was really upset by it, and you kind of gotta throw it off and ignore it, but when the president starts talking about it... wow, really, um..."
"I don't really feel like I've been a jinx to Tony or the Cowboys at all," she adds.
So she will be at games this year?
"Of course, I will," she says. "I might be wearing prosthetics."

Just who are the many loves of Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine? Refreshingly, he's one rockstar who won't say, but the rumored list includes Tony Romo's own Jessica Simpson as well as Paris Hilton, Kirsten Dunst and the pre-Ronson Lindsay Lohan.
But he was just one of the guys as he hung around Dallas for a couple of days following Maroon 5's Saturday night show at Fair Park with Counting Crows.
Before pulling out of town for Albuquerque, Maroon 5 showed up at N9NE Steakhouse in Victory Park Monday night. It was an all-guy crew except for one very striking brunette.
Rib-eyes, New York strips and Kobe burgers were washed back with an ample supply of Silver Oak cabernet.
The band was amazingly engaging with fans in the restaurant, stopping to chat with admirers. After the meal, Mr. Levine led his bandmates into the kitchen to greet the kitchen staff and sign chef Chris Conlon's office door.

Mogul-in-the-making Kirby Schlegel is launching a new sports magazine with the help of veteran Dallas broadcaster Timm Matthews. Kirby is the son of Pavestone centi-millionaire Bob Schlegel. The father and son own the Dallas Stars minor league affiliate, the Iowa Stars. Kirby and Timm are co-publishers of Replay Sport Monthly, a glossy mag set to debut in November. Last Thursday, the big sports names flocked to Kirby's sleek pad in the W residences for a party for potential advertisers. Timm and Kirby welcomed Dallas Stars goaltender Marty Turco, team captain Brenden Morrow and Stars head coach Dave Tippett. Dallas Mavericks president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson made the party as did Olympic runner Michael Johnson and Dallas Cowboys receiver Isaiah Stanback.
Expect a blow-out launch party prior to the release of the first issue.

Dallas event planner Steve Kemble weighs in on whether or not Corpus Christi native Eva Longoria Parker is on the nest. He thinks not. The blogosphere--a notorious factually challenged zone--has been buzzing that the Desperate Housewives star is pregnant by her San Antonio Spur husband Tony Parker ever since paparazzi pictures appeared of her in a bikini in Portofino, Italy. The bloggers saw a baby bump. To me, it looks like she had a grilled cheese for lunch instead of celery. Eva is attending Fashion Week at Bryant Park in New York and Sunday, she was at launch party for the new M&M's Premium candy. Steve Kemble was there covering Fashion Week for CBS 11 and KVIL-FM (103.7). "Eva looked fabulous," he enthuses. "She was in a skin-tight, mocha-colored dress and definitely did not look pregnant to me."

Apparently ready for their GQ closeup, Stars goalie Marty Turco and his basketball playing pal, Michigan-born European league player Travis Conlan, were both wearing the requisite off-season stubble when they showed up for dinner Friday night at Central 214 in Hotel Palomar. That's Garrett and Sylvia McGrath in the middle of the sports star sandwich.

A-Rod's New York tabloid tales are coming to Grand Prairie.

Wednesday will be "A-Rod & Madonna Night" when Grand Prairie's minor league baseball team, the Airhogs, take on the Shreveport Sports.

Fans who wear an Alex Rodriguez jersey (Texas Rangers or New York Yankees) or dress like Madonna (steel bra cones, Marilyn bleach-blonde, or any other era) will get into Quik Trip Park for a buck.

Couples who claim to "share an agent" will also be admitted for a dollar each.

Read more.