Mel Gibson, career and marriage in tatters, won’t give up making a fool of himself.

The much derided, criticized former movie star is now backing his pregnant 38-year-old girlfriend in her bid to be a pop star.

You can now hear Oksana Grigorieva’s caterwauling at www.oksana.fm.  Her song is called “Say My Name.” One listen and you won’t want her to say her name or anyone else’s.

Poor Mel! There’s nothing worse than a middle-aged man getting involved in something like this. And poor Mel’s seven children. My guess is they won’t be putting “Say My Name” on their iPods!

Wondering why movies continually star the same people over and over?

One reason is that there are plenty of Oscar winners and Hollywood heavyweights who’ve either retired or just made so much money that they don’t care anymore about having a career.

The No. 1 example? Gene Hackman. The two-time Oscar winner (”The French Connection,” “Unforgiven”) last made a movie in 2004—”Welcome to Mooseport.” It was so bad that he simply walked away from the business. Now 79 years old, Hackman makes big bucks doing commercial voiceovers for outfits like Lowe’s.

Runner-up would be Goldie Hawn. The 63-year-old sexy blonde comedienne—who won an Oscar for her first movie, “Cactus Flower,” in 1969—hasn’t made a film since “The Banger Sisters” in 2002.

Goldie’s lack of ambition extends to her life partner, Kurt Russell, who’s only 58. Russell rarely works anymore unless someone comes knocking. He starred in Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof” in 2007, but altogether has less than one credit a year. He and Hawn are simply very well-fixed at this point.

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Yoko Ono loves to support worthy causes concerning peace, love, and understanding. But she rarely puts money where her mouth is.

Yoko Ono

Even though Ono is a toweringly wealthy woman thanks to John Lennon’s estate, in recent years her actual charitable donations have dwindled.

For a long time Ono gave money through her Spirit Foundation. But a look at the most recent tax filing for Spirit shows that she’s slowed down to a trickle.

In 2007, Ono made donations through Spirit totaling $273,000 to a Japanese group that builds classrooms in the Far East and Third World countries ($227,559); Bailey House in New York ($25,000), and London’s National Holocaust Memorial Day Trust ($20,000).

It’s not much money despite the fact that, according to the 2007 tax filing for the Spirit, Ono has $4,225,000 invested for the foundation in T-bills.

The foundation lists $1,170,734 as the fair-market value of all its assets.

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Yes, that was New York Governor David Paterson paying a visit to Elaine’s on the Upper East Side last Thursday night. The governor and an aide came from a fundraising dinner/birthday tribute. (The gov’s actual birthday is May 20.)

Of course, in New York, the state government is in disarray. One of the prime culprits is a Democratic State Senator named Hiram Monserrate. Last week he jumped sides and took up with Republicans in what looked like a political coup.

I don’t know if Paterson knows that it’s Monserrate who backed a controversial Scientology program for detoxing firemen who who became ill in the September 11th/World Trade Center tragedy of 2001.

It’s the same Monserrate accused of beating up his girlfriend, Kara Giraldo, last year. He was indicted this past March on three counts of felony assault. In that case, Monserrate, according to published reports, has also been accused of soliciting funds for legal defense from a lobbyist.

Said Paterson, with a sigh: “I can’t catch a break here.”

He added that he was definitely running for election when his term is up in 2010. Paterson succeeded Elliott Spitzer as New York governor in 2008 after the latter’s infamous hooker scandal. This isn’t the first time I’ve run into him. Last August he took a Jet Blue flight back from the Democratic Convention in Denver. Everyone on the plane applauded him. His approval rating has dropped considerably since then.

Also at Elaine’s on a packed Thursday night: theater producers Jimmy Nederlander (with beautiful wife Margo) and Terry Allen Kramer; actor Bob Balaban; record producer Phil Ramone; rock cult hero Garland Jeffreys; documentary filmmakers DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus; movie producer Marty Bregman; “Law & Order SVU” actress Tamara Tunie and husband singer Gregory Generet.

Sunday would have been New York writer, novelist, essayist and short story writer Laurie Colwin’s 65th birthday. This is unbelievable. Laurie died in 1992 at age 48, unexpectedly, of a heart attack. All of her wonderful books are still in print, including “Happy All the Time,” “Another Marvelous Thing,” “Shine On Bright and Dangerous Object,” and “Family Happiness” — as well as her essays “Home Cooking” and “More Home Cooking.” Laurie’s death was one of those inexplicable tragedies, but her legacy lives on in her work and in her daughter, Rose Jurjevics, a contributing writer to the San Diego Reader. Someone should look into turning Laurie’s stories into films. Actresses from Scarlett Johansson to Jennifer Connelly to Rachel Weisz would be perfect fits for her lead characters. FYI: “Happy All the Time” is one of the funniest novels ever written. Laurie, you remain sorely missed.

Madonna has been allowed to adopt Malawi child Mercy James by that country’s highest court. This, despite a ruling from a lower court earlier this year that the adoption should not happen.

Earlier this year, the Malawai Human Rights Consultative Committee issued a strong statement against the Madonna-Mercy adoption.

It’s called “Redefining the Boundaries Between Child Adoption and Child Kidnapping.” You can read it http://www.hrccmalawi.org/madonnastatement.pdf

The statement is very specific:

“HRCC has all along, even before the adoption of the first child, David Banda by the
same pop star, been urging the government to speed up on its adoption policy so that
people like Madonna and others cannot use their financial power to override rules and
force the legitimization of child abuse. If this lacuna in policy and law is left unattended
for too long, more celebrities and other families will take our children away under the
guise of intercountry adoption, a development which may create loopholes and be
prone to child trafficking.
It is not only the material needs that matter for a normal upbringing of a child. Children
need to be taken care of within their communities and where their psychosocial needs
are satisfied. Mercy (Chifundo) James is a child who has her extended close family
members alive, and we urge Madonna to assist the child from right here and even
contribute to existing local capacities so that children are taken care of within Malawi.

HRCC shares sentiments by the British Charity Save the Children, which is of the view that the best place for a child is in his or her family in their community and just to remind that this is a position held in Guidelines for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (Malawi Government).”

In other words: Madonna has gotten her way, overturning a previous court decision and going against a country’s Human Rights counsel.

At the same time, the higher court has cited Madonna’s charity to Malawi. But they don’t underscore some very important points. For one, Madonna’s charity, Raising Malawi, as I’ve reported often, is simply a front for the Kabbalah Center of Los Angeles. Raising Malawi is using the Kabbalah Center’s Spirituality for Kids, or SFK, as a curriculum for Malawi orphans.

Second, there is still no official report about the money — said to be $3.7 million — collected from a February 6, 2008 fundraising event held by Raising Malawi, Gucci, and UNICEF. No report has ever been made about the collection or disbursement of these funds. Neither Raising Malawi nor the Gucci Foundation has filed a Form 990 tax report indicating what happened to the money. Maybe the high court of Malawi should be undertaking that investigation itself.

Jeff Kathrein, the male nanny and wedding photographer who was supposedly taking care of John Travolta’s son on the night he died, is back to work.

While Travolta has posted a notice on his website recently explaining that grief has kept him from promoting his new movie, “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” that hasn’t stopped Kathrein.

According to his website at K&K Photography, he and wife Ana were back to work by January 31st of this year, about a month after Jett died in the Bahamas.

Kathrein was identified at the time as Jett’s male nanny, even though he supports himself as a wedding photographer in Tampa, Florida.

And, according to the website Truth About Scientology, Kathrein completed a drug course with the sect almost a year ago — six months before Jett died.

Ana is also listed as having completed Scientology courses in 2004 and 2008.

How the Kathreins came to be “nannies” with the Travoltas for Jett remains a puzzlement. It also raises serious questions since the National Enquirer is reporting that John Travolta told Bahamian police that Jett was autistic. Why was a wedding photographer put in charge of an autistic teenager?

Scientology seems to be the connection between the Kathreins and Travoltas. It’s worked to Jeff Kathrein’s advantage: Kathrein’s only non-wedding pictures published in a magazine are of fellow sect member Kelly Preston, wife of John Travolta, in TV Guide.

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Mel and Robyn Gibson got the judge’s approval in a Los Angeles court on June 5th on their agreement to keep their finances secret as their divorce proceeds.

Mel’s net worth has been ballpark-valued around $1 billion. Most of it is said to be in real estate.

But Robyn should know that $42 million is parked in Mel’s A. P. Reilly Foundation. She should know because she’s listed as one of the foundation’s officers.

According to the foundation’s most recent tax filing, the fair market value of all its assets comes to $42,381, 645.

Mel parked $9.8 million in the foundation in 2007, even though by this time his Holy Family Catholic Church was pretty much completed. In 2007 it had expenses that were less than $500,000.

But Mel’s been squirreling away millions of dollars in A.P. Reilly for years now. Just FYI to Robyn and her divorce lawyers.

If you were concerned about this, Evan Rachel Wood, the lovely 21-year-old actress, has ended her relationship with Marilyn Manson, the goth singer/performer who is 40.

She told me this last night at the premiere party for Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works.” Of course the comedy is about Wood dating the vastly older Larry David. In real life, Manson — whom she actually calls “Manson,” by the way — is a mere 19 years Wood’s senior.

This girl is a smart cookie with a big future. She’s also young, and will date a lot of guys. The tabloids can rest easy on this subject. But Wood impressed me as a girl with her head on straight.

The break with Manson, by the way, is fairly acrimonious. He’s not happy. There seems to be name-calling involved.

What’s next, I asked? She’s moving to New York in the fall to begin rehearsals for Julie Taymor’s “Spider-Man” musical on Broadway. Maybe she’ll fall in love with Peter Parker, Spider-Man’s alter ego. He still hasn’t been cast.

“Maybe,” ERW said. “You never know.”

The main thing is, can she sing? In “Whatever,” she has such a convincing Southern accent you’re sure she’s from Georgia. She’s not, just from North Carolina.

“I can sing,” she said. “You’ll see.”

In the meantime, the “Whatever” premiere—the second for this film—took place at Brooklyn’s famed River Café, home of amazing food and the best views of Manhattan. Co-stars Larry David and Patricia Clarkson came over from the screening, but Woody Allen left immediately after sticking his head in.

“It was too overwhelming for him,” a publicist said.

He missed Clarkson’s pal, Amy Ryan, pregnant and due to give birth in October, as well as Dana Delany and her sister, Clarkson’s four sisters, comedian Caroline Rhea, Seth Meyers from “SNL,” Brooke Shields, Stanley Tucci, Swoosie Kurtz, and a gaggle of good-looking young people who no one knew and had nothing to do with the movie business per se. They were like props. The New Yorker sponsored the screening.

Here’s the deal on “Whatever”: It’s very funny, a real Woody Allen New York movie. I loved it. It’s not politically correct. Get over it. Clarkson and ERW are likely Oscar nominees. Woody should be nominated for the screenplay. I think “Whatever” will be a crowd pleaser. And if it got Evan away from Marilyn Manson, all the better!

P.S. Evan appears in the final two episodes of HBO’s “True Blood.” She plays the Vampire Queen. She has a memorable first scene, which I will leave to others to describe. It involves another woman, and, of course, blood.

Poor Michael Jackson. Yes, he’s done a lot of weird things and maybe some bad things. But he’s also vulnerable to crazy lawsuits.

The latest comes from a New Jersey concert promoter Patrick Allocco and something called AllGood Productions. Allocco sued Jackson today in New York, along with AEG Live and Jackson’s long ago former manager Frank DiLeo — long ago as in 20 years. Why the suit was filed in New York is a mystery, since none of the parties is here.

Allocco says in his suit that he made a deal with DiLeo for the whole Jackson family — Michael, Janet, Sleepy, Snoopy – to perform at a concert in Texas. He claims that after that, all the defendants conspired together to put on shows in London and knock out his effort. He wants $20 million, of course.

Allocco’s going to have a tough time making his case. He says he met with DiLeo in October 2008, that DiLeo said he represented everyone, guaranteed the show, and that Allocco had an exclusive.

Only one problem: AEG started negotiating with Jackson in 2007. DiLeo wasn’t Jackson’s manager then, and isn’t now technically. He’s never represented the Jackson family, Janet Jackson, or even Reggie Jackson. DiLeo has only been working with Michael recently again and still, I am told, has no formal written agreement with him. Allocco is also claiming Jackson would do a pay-per-view event with him. But from the beginning there was no indication ever that Michael Jackson was going to be on pay-per-view, ever.

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