A couple of local (stage) semi star sightings

...or, from the "Hey you used to be married/romantically involved with someone famous and now you're not earning gas money in the name of art" files.

Or... "Where have all the Scarlett's gone?"

Who out there remembers the very ill conceived TV adaptation of "Scarlett," Alexandra Ripley's sequel to "Gone with the Wind"? Nobody? Aw, sure you do. It was 1993 or thereabouts, and there was all this gas about the big international search to find a newcomer to Vivien Leigh's hoop skirts?

Well, they didn't, of course. They found Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, the British actress of "Scandal" and "Willow." I remember father quipping, "They didn't need to go on any kind of search. All they had to do was open the actors directory."

Whalley-Kilmer was 30 when "Scarlett" came out which makes her 43 now. And, yes, she's on stage at the Matrix Theatre for Tony nominated director Wilson Milam in "Poor Beast in the Rain," a play about a man's return to his hometown during the weekend of the All Ireland Hurling finals to encounter -- among others -- his "jaded, faded" ex flame, Molly.

That would be Ms. Whalley who dropped the Kilmer when she dropped hubby Val Kilmer in 1996 and who has a not insubstantial stage background: Per the website, her stage work includes: RITA SUE AND
BOB, TOO (The Royal Court); SAVED (The Royal
Court); THE POPE'S WEDDING (The Royal Court);
WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN (The Royal Court); AS I LAY
DYING (The National); KATE (The Bush); THREE
SISTERS (Greenwich); THE CRIMES OF VAULTRIN
(Joint Stock Company); THE LULU PLAYS (Alemeida)
and WHAT THE BUTLER SAW (Manhattan Theatre
Club).

"Poor Beast" is at the Matrix through March 16. (323) 960-4420 or visit www.salemktheatreco.org

Having nothing to do with Irish curling, but another familiar name from the past is that of "Titanic" and "Unforgiven" actress Frances Fisher who, in addition to a rather memorable topless scene in the recent "In the Valley of Elah" once had a thing with her "Unforgiven" director, Clint Eastwood, and is mother to Francesca Fisher-Eastwood.

Ms Fisher can be seen in the horny middle agers- comedy "Sexy Laundry" at the Hayworth Theatre through March 16, playing, yes, a woman who borrows a copy of "Sex for Dummies" and books herself and her husband into a fancy hotel for a weekend of romance-rekindling nookie.

Tickets for "Sexy Laundry": (213) 389-9860 or visit www.brownpapertickets.com