Janice Dickinson is about as outspoken as they come, so it's no shock when she comes roaring to the defense of her old acquaintance Christopher Ciccone — whose recently released "Life With My Sister Madonna" tell-all memoir has been called scorching and mean.

"This is a woman who turned her back on her brother, and I think this is from his perspective. He's an American. It's a free country. Let him write about whatever he wants to write about," declares the supermodel-turned-reality TV queen.

Dickinson shows off Christopher's interior design work on the just-launched new season of her Oxygen TV series, "The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency." She's grateful for his help on the show in which she has all of her models living with her in a Hollywood Hills mansion. "Madonna's brother came in because we had no money and he owed me a favor, so he churned out my bedroom, which has a surveillance system so I could keep watch over the models 24/7," she explains.

Dickinson says it's imperative she knows what her models are up to at all times because she doesn't want them making the same mistakes she did. "I'm always knocking martini glasses out of the kids' hands. They should not be drinking before they go on a big job. It's really stupid. I don't want what happened to me to happen to them. I had a big problem with alcohol and drugs," she reminds.

"I moved them into the house because this was an experience that happened to me when I was living in Paris when I first started modeling, and I think that this is the way it should be, where you can keep an eye on them. Don't forget three weeks ago there was a Russian model who was at the top of her game, but she was depressed and killed herself. I didn't want that happening to my models." Even with Dickinson at the helm, she admits it still gets crazy at times. "There are going to be a lot of fireworks, jealousy, sex, drugs, alcoholism. It's going to make 'The Hills' look like kindergarten."

FROM THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT: Bill Pullman has been putting in lots of travel time in recent months, since "I have a bunch of movies in the festival circuit right now. They're all showing up at around the same time, so it seems like I've been hyper busy, but it's just a strange little bottleneck," says the star, whose "Bottle Shock" recently went into release, and who has Jennifer Lynch's "Surveillance," "Phoebe in Wonderland" with Felicity Huffman, "Your Name Here" (a reality-bending tale of sci-fi author William J. Frick during the last few days of his life) and "Peacock" coming up.

He notes, "I've been to almost everything — Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca, the Galway Festival in Ireland, Palm Springs, Montreal … They're all independent movies, and that whole circuit is important — more important than ever for films that aren't the blockbuster type."

Pullman describes "Peacock" as "a very interesting script, with Cillian Murphy's character having two identities living inside him. My part is another character hiding the fact he's the closest one like him. It's a very different part for me. We have some good actors in that cast — Ellen Page, Susan Sarandon."

As for taking a rest from it all, Pullman, who co-owns a Montana ranch with his brother, notes that "I don't really vacation. To me, getting back to the ranch is like a vacation. Montana, the big sky country — people go there to relax, but I don't think of it as a traditional vacation. Being out there slugging posts into the ground and pulling hay bales is a vacation from sitting in chairs in front of computers answering emails."

THE BIG SCREEN SCENE: Meg Ryan responds to reports that she and Annette Bening stepped in to help first time film director Diane English during production of their Sept. 12 release "The Women." "Every now and then, both Annette and I would sort of interpret movie jargon for Diane," Ryan diplomatically notes in the next issue of Entertainment Weekly. And English, the creative talent best known for the long-running TV hit "Murphy Brown," denies any on-set crises, but admits being grateful for her two leading ladies' "very strong presences."

English's very strong presence is inarguably responsible for getting the film made — since she never gave up on it through a decade of development hell after the project came apart back when Ryan and Julia Roberts both wanted the same role. Now the cast boasts Eva Mendes, Candice Bergen, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith and Bette Midler.

"Annette lent a great credibility to the project," English points out in EW. The actress had never been a fan of the catty, sexist undertones of the original play, written by Clare Boothe Luce. "But I liked that the retelling of the story was different," Bening said. "It's really about female friendship." More important, "I just thought it was funny."

GETTING OUT THE WORD: John Schneider's been busy with assignments including his "twentysixmiles" Catalina-based series pilot, and Brenda Hampton's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" ABC Family show. But he's also taken it upon himself to raise awareness of the forthcoming Digital TV transition that will render obsolete — and non-functional — all those non-digital television sets out there that aren't converted in time. The former "Smallville" and "Dukes of Hazzard" star tells us he realized how big the problem could be when he found his own mom wasn't aware of the changeover coming Feb. 17. She is now.

With reports by Emily Feimster.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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