In continuation of my vow to write a “Good Celebrity” article every day, we have a wonderful story about the always endearing Will Ferrell. He’s not one of those starlets that’s always snorting coke with a needle still hanging out of his vein and his man bits hanging out like some starlets we know (ahem, Britney). Yes I realize what I just said. Anyway, Will is a pretty decent, low-key guy who’s always up for self-mockery. He also has an odd compulsion to show his hairy belly whenever he gets the chance, and that makes him loveable. What else makes him loveable, you ask? He’s auctioning off a cameo role in his new movie “Step Brothers” to benefit his college fraternity brother’s charity foundation, Cancer for College.

“Will Ferrell is auctioning a cameo spot in his new movie to raise money for a fraternity brother’s cancer foundation. Ferrell came up with the idea to help Craig Pollard’s Cancer for College foundation. The two were fraternity brothers at the University of Southern California. Online bidding will begin Monday and close Sept. 26. Ferrell will announce the winner on Sept. 27, and that person will meet the actor the next day at the 14th annual Cancer for College golf tournament dinner at Temecula Creek Inn. The opening bid for the movie appearance is $5,000.

“In October, the winner will join Ferrell on set of his new movie, ‘Step Brothers,’ and appear in a scene. ‘What a perfect Christmas present for your son or daughter,’ Ferrell said. ‘It is the surefire way to win the parent of the year award. Support this amazing cause, by buying them me.’ Pollard, a two-time survivor of Hodgkin’s disease, started Cancer for College to provide college scholarships to current and former cancer patients. The charity has awarded $200,000 to 50 cancer survivors since 1993.”

[From USA Today]

Props to Will Ferrell. I know it’s not quite as fascinating to read about someone doing something good as it is to read about Lindsay Lohan possibly selling her body for crack and/or crack money, but I think it’s important that we don’t encourage the notion that only bad behavior deserves recognition. So to make this post a tad more entertaining, I leave you with some Will Ferrell PSAs from “Talladega Nights.”

Picture note by JayBird: Header image of Will at the “Blades of Glory” L.A. premiere. Right image with wife Viveca Paulin. Images thanks to PR Photos.

A few years ago a homeless man, known to locals as Stress, made friends with Colin Farrell in Toronto. Farrell returned to town this week, promoting his new film Cassandra’s Dream, when he bumped into his old friend and took him out shopping.

On Tuesday, Farrell took the man on a $2,100 shopping spree. The actor, who told CTV’s eTalk that the homeless man is “a friend of mine,” walked into a Toronto store with his arm around his pal. He then bought the man, whose street name is “Stress,” waterproof jackets, pants, boots, and even socks.

“The homeless guy was grabbing … whatever he wanted,” Dave Mott, manager of Europe Bound, an outdoor gear store on King Street, told CTV Toronto.

“Colin was walking around with the guy and doing the same thing — grabbed a sleeping bag and back pack, came back down and grabbed more clothing.”

Mott told CTV Newsnet that “they seemed like they were really good friends and they were best buddies, like they’ve known each other for years.”

Mott says Farrell made it absolutely clear: “Get him what he wants, get him the best.”

CTV

After the shopping spree, he took him to an ATM where he gets out a ‘wad of twenties’, then paid rent on an apartment for stress for a year too.

This isn’t the first good deed Farrell has performed for stress, when a radio station offered $2,000 to anyone who could get the actor into the studios (alive, I presume) the actor took the man into the studio and he was $2,000 richer!

Apparently the homeless have been loitering around the Toronto Film Festival, getting A-list cash, although Whoopi Goldberg is known for not giving anything, Keifer Sutherland and Al Pacino have been known for generosity.

Stress is the only one to have struck Irish Gold!

Note by Celebitchy: According to the article in the Toronto Sun, none of Farrell’s people have mentioned his generosity to this man to the press and it only got out by word of mouth. What’s more is that Farrell donated $100k to a Uruguayan school back in 2005 to fund a computer lab - and the news did not get out until this summer.

Beyonce Knowles and Kelly Rowland are working on a project together, but it’s not a Destiny’s Child reunion. It’s an apartment block of crisis housing in Houston.

Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland were on hand Wednesday for the groundbreaking of the Knowles-Rowland Temenos Place apartments on the corner of Gray and Chenevert.

The project is backed by the Survivor Foundation, which was set up by the Knowles family and Rowland after Katrina in 2005.

Other sponsors include St. John’s United Methodist Church and the city of Houston.

The project is described as a 43 unit single-occupancy transitional housing development designed to provide housing for women and men taking “significant steps in improving their lives after … personal and natural disasters,” the Survivor Foundation reports.

Construction of the apartments is expected to cost $4 million.

Beyoncé, Rowland, and Solange, Mathew and Tina Knowles have pledged $1 million to the project.

Houston Chronicle

It seems that the two singers have used all their connections to get funding for the apartments, including Wal-Mart and American Express, and more unusual sponsors like L’Oreal and Giorgio Armani. The apartment is not the first humanitarian project Beyonce and Kelly have worked on together, it’s on the same block as the Knowles-Rowland Centre for Youth Recreation.

I love it when celebrities use their powers for good instead of evil.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Header image is of Destiny’s Child announcing their tour dates on 5/4/05 thanks to PRPhotos.

Just when you want to diss Angelina for helicoptering in to a charity event promoting environmentally friendly homes for New Orleans flood victims, she goes and wastes more fossil fuel flying to Iraq for another worthy cause. Angelina is in Iraq visiting with refugees on the Syrian border who have been displaced by the war. She spent hours with Iraqi refugees and hopes to bring awareness to the desperate need for humanitarian aid there.

The actress and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, 32, flew from New York to Syria on Monday. In Damascus, she visited a UNHCR registration center and spend hours talking to Iraqi refugees in their homes.

Tuesday’s journey took her to Iraq to meet with 1,200 refugees camped out in a makeshift outpost at the border, because they are unable to leave the country. She also witnessed dozens of Iraqis crossing into Syria.

“I have come to Syria and Iraq to help draw attention to the humanitarian crisis and to urge governments to increase their support for UNHCR and its partners,” Jolie said in a statement. “My sole purpose in both countries is to highlight the plight of those uprooted by the war in Iraq.”

Following her Tuesday meeting with those at the Al Waleed camp in the war-torn nation, Jolie said, “It is absolutely essential that the ongoing debate abut Iraq’s future includes plans for addressing the enormous humanitarian consequences these people face.”

[People.com]

Maybe if we never bombed the shit out of their country and occupied it under false pretenses then we wouldn’t need emaciated actresses to go over there to draw attention to the displaced people, because their homes, infrastructure, and lives would have gone on as they did before. Not perfect or anything, but certainly not the level of death and poverty that’s been inflicted on them.

Angelina Jolie is not my favorite person, but when she lends her support to such good causes I do admire her. You know that tomorrow The Sun or The Daily Mail or both are going to be report that she’s about to adopt an Iraqi orphan. There will probably be a quote from a supposed witness who claims to have seen her bonding with a little kid and looking at him longingly or something.

If you would like to lend support to the UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR, you can donate online via their website.

While the rest of the Brangelina brood must have been back in Chicago with Angelina as she puts the finishing touches on her new film, “Wanted,” Brad Pitt made a visit to the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans on Tuesday to tour what’s being called “an ecologically sustainable single-family home” which is being built by a company called Global Green USA, an environmental group Pitt lent his name and support to sometime ago.

During a news conference, Pitt said a home in the Holy Cross area of the 9th ward was a “small victory,” but took it one step further by saying Katrina was a “man-made” disaster:

“…it’s hard to find an overall victory when you see how slowly everything is still moving. And Katrina was a man-made disaster. This house is a man-made solution.”

I think it’s fantastic that he’s willing to get involved - that’s a lot more than I can say for most celebs who turn a blind eye to their fellow man, especially in times of desperate need. I give him a lot of respect for his efforts and I applaud what he’s done thus far - I don’t believe his work has gone unnoticed.

However, I’m a little confused by his statement. How is Katrina a “man-made” disaster exactly? Is he speaking of global warming? Does he mean the Government is to blame for the poor condition of the levees pre-Katrina?

Pitt said the city’s flood-protection defenses must be restored before displaced residents feel confident enough to rebuild.

“We’ve got to push to get these levees taken care of in the correct fashion,” he told reporters at a news conference in the hurricane-ravaged working class neighborhood.

In the meantime, Global Green says the house in the Holy Cross area will be a prototype for the neighborhood and they hope to create a community of green, eco-friendly structures.

Global Green hopes to use the house, which should be completed this fall, as a prototype for the neighborhood. Built not far from the banks of the Mississippi River and raised by three feet on concrete pilings, it is above sea level.

[Reuters]

The article wasn’t real clear on whether the prototype home will be made available for a family to actually move into right away, or if it will be more like a model home that will serve has a foundation (no pun intended) for future Global Green homes. That said, I’m wondering how long it takes for a home like this to be built and if it takes longer than a regular ol’ house to be built, do people who desperately need homes in the 9th Ward really care whether their home is eco-friendly or not? I know I wouldn’t - I’d just want a place to lay my head and call my own.

With or without solar panels.

Header picture from MediaBistro via Just Jared.

Saturday night’s Hot in Hollywood benefit featured well known television stars like Grey’s Anatomy’s Sara Ramirez, Ugly Betty’s America Ferrara, and House’s Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison. While the two House stars have called off their engagement, they might still be an item. USA Today reports that they sat together and hung out late into the night. Spencer wouldn’t give a firm answer when questioned about his relationship with Morrison, just saying “She’s a great girl… I can’t say anything more.”

An auction was held to benefit AIDS charities, with America Ferrera as the high bidder at $35k for a Toyota Prius. She said she already has a hybrid Hylander and “now I have two hybrids.”

Stars performed at the benefit, with America Ferrera singing numbers with Jerry O’Connell dressed in drag and with her co-stars Michael Urie and Becki Newton. Sara Ramirez was said to have wowed the crowd with a rousing version of The Man that Got Away:

Ferrera took the stage to sing a number from Gypsy. Crossing Jordan’s Jerry O’Connell was her backup dancer. Earlier, O’Connell was sweating bullets over his drag costume — a woman’s wig, high heels, underpants and a hot-pink sparkly bikini top that showed off more than he would have liked. “You can see everything,” he sighed.

The bit was inspired by a Broadway trip that Ferrera took this summer with O’Connell and his wife, Rebecca Romijn. The trio joined Newton and Urie to see Gypsy starring Patti LuPone, who plays Urie’s mom on Betty.

Heroes villain Zachary Quinto lined up co-stars Sendhil Ramamurthy, Jack Coleman and James Kyson Lee to perform a medley. They were introduced by Ventimiglia, who told Quinto, “I’m not a singer. I’ll pick up your microphone if it falls.”

But it was Grey’s Anatomy’s Sara Ramirez, a Tony winner for Spamalot, who brought down the house with a rendition of The Man That Got Away from 1954’s A Star Is Born.

[From USA Today]

Jamie Pressly from My Name is Earl hosted for the second time in the two year history of the benefit. She lost her uncle to AIDS in the 1980s.

I enjoy seeing pictures of minor celebrities I recognize but can’t name immediately. It’s a nice change from the constant pictures of the celebrities that you get sick of seeing every day. (Namely LohitneyParis, not that you needed any reminder.)

In the pictures from the event, Finch from American Pie, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Stifler’s mom, Jennifer Coolidge were there. I wonder if they reminisced over their long-running on-screen May-December romance?

Thanks to PRPhotos for these pictures. Also shown are Linda Cardellini and Parminder Nagra from ER, Emily Deschanel from Bones, Rachel Harris from Notes from the Underbelly, Amber Stevens from Greek, Maggie Grace from Lost, Shar Jackson, and adult star Tera Patrick.

What was Shar Jackson doing there? She’s been in a few episodes of different TV shows, but according to IMDB she’s not on a show now. TMZ is making a big deal of the fact that she called her ex K-Fed a great dad, but that’s what she always says. She’s waiting for some of that alimony from Britney to come her way.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s celebrity friends and supporters were out at the premiere of his environmental film The 11th Hour in Hollywood yesterday. The documentary urges us to make a difference in the state of our planet now, in the 11th hour, as it’s almost too late. With existing technology and a concerted effort the film asserts that we can ensure that our planet remains sustainable. It’s not about saving the environment so much as ensuring the continued survival of the human race.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, DiCaprio explains that it takes him just 15 minutes to get ready for a premiere. He says the film explores how we can make a difference in our world and that by interviewing experts he thinks that 11th Hour explains it in a way that is unique while focusing on change:

“How long does it take me? Usually 15 minutes, something like that,” Leo says about getting red-carpet ready. “And then it’s about putting the suit on. I don’t have a stylist — usually it’s my assistant who tells me to put this on and I go, ‘Okay.’

But before Leo walks out the door, there’s one crucial tool he can’t forget: “What do I not leave the house without? My cell phone!”

As for the new movie, the award-winning environmentalist star gives ET the lowdown…

“It’s not just global warming, it’s not just a loss of biodiversity, it’s not just the pollution of our oceans and the clearing of our rainforests and all these complicated systems,” Leo tells ET. “[The movie] talks about the world economy, it talks about politics, it talks about personal transformation and environmental consciousness that we need to have in this generation to implement a lot of these changes that need to occur.”

The movie, which features Leo as narrator, explores what it will take for humans to make a difference ecologically before it’s too late. Top scientists like STEPHEN HAWKING and leaders like former Soviet Union President MIKHAIL GORBACHEV are interviewed for the documentary.

“It’s a very, very daunting issue and it was a lot to, as filmmakers, wrap our head around,” says Leo, “but thankfully we got some of the most important people in the forefront of a lot of these issues to really explain it in a way that I don’t think has been done before, and that’s what I’m proud of.”

[From ETOnline]

Here’s a clip especially created for YouTube with a preview from the film. The first expert who speaks really brings it home with this statement: “The environment is going to survive, we’re the ones who are not going to survive, or we may survive in a world we don’t particularly want to live in.”

Here’s the trailer for the film. It looks really moving.

The 11th Hour is out in theaters on August 17.

Pictured at the premiere are Leonardo DiCaprio looking like he’s lost a little weight, Kate Bosworth, looking healthy, and DiCaprio’s good friends and fellow environmentalists Tobey Maguire and Adrian Grenier. Thanks to WENN for these photos.

Mia farrow is offering herself in exchange for unwell prisoner and Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) Humanitarian Coordinator Suleiman Jamous.

“Before his seizure, Mr Jamous played a crucial role in bringing the SLA to the negotiating table and in seeking reconciliation between its divided rival factions,” Farrow said in the letter dated August 5.

“I am therefore offering to take Mr Jamous’s place, to exchange my freedom for his in the knowledge of his importance to the civilians of Darfur and in the conviction that he will apply his energies toward creating the just and lasting peace that the Sudanese people deserve and hope for.”

New Zealand Herald

Suleiman Jamous is in need of a stomach biopsy, but cannot leave the United Nations Hospital in Kordofan, where he has been kept as a virtual prisoner. He would be arrested if he left.

If you check out Mia’s official website, it covers a lot of the history of the situation. It has some very sad photos of children, and the situation is probably not bedtime reading.

In case you’re wondering who Mia Farrow is, she’s kind of like Angelina Jolie. Which I didn’t think of before, but reading her biography on Wikipedia, I think Angelina ripped her off! And why not…? Mia has had a great career as an actress, married several times (to Frank Sinatra, Andre Previn and Woody Allen), and had fifteen children, eleven of which are adopted. In her spare time she’s a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and fights for children’s rights in areas of conflict.

Mia Farrow is shown speaking on 2/1/07 at a fundraiser for the Washington Area Next Generation Campaign at the US Holocaust Museum. Thanks to WENN for these photos.

Father of the Year contender and rageaholic Alec Baldwin has jumped on the “Save your career by promoting a cause” bandwagon, and he’s picked the noblest one out there: the manatee. That’s right; natures’ best loved boulder-with-a-face-looking sea creature now has Alec Baldwin’s sponsorship. I wonder if that’s like sponsoring a child where they write you a letter every month to let you know how they’re doing.

“The actor and producer has recorded two 30-second public service announcements for the Save the Manatee Club. The animals are on the federal endangered species list and at risk of being seriously injured or killed by boat strikes.

“The Save the Manatee Club has a history of famous promoters. It was founded by musician Jimmy Buffett and former Florida governor and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham in 1981.

“And this isn’t the first time Baldwin has taken action for the animals. In 2005, Baldwin voiced a marine biologist character on ‘The Simpsons’ that was passionate about manatees.

“Baldwin’s recordings were sent to radio stations nationwide Tuesday.”

[From the Herald Tribune]

I remember just a few months ago when some of Alec Baldwin’s other recordings went to radio stations nationwide. They seemed to get a lot more attention though… I think that time he was promoting pigs. The guy just can’t decide what his favorite animal is. Do you think the manatees want to be associated with this whack job? Hey Alec Baldwin, how about instead of saving the manatees, you just be decent to your kid. That’s enough for me. Though next time he calls his daughter a “vile little pig” she can legitimately call him a “wicked giant sea cow.” I’m not hating on the manatees at all. I feel badly for them. They’re my favorite car-sized animal.

Update by Celebitchy: Thanks to reader Lippy for pointing out that Baldwin appeared on a Simpson’s episode, “The Bonfire of the Manatees” in September, 2005, in which he played a scientist (not himself) working to save the manatees.

Manatee image from Sea World San Diego Manatee Rescue via About.com. Alec Baldwin image thanks to PRPhotos.

On Wednesday, Hilary Duff dished up chicken stew for the homeless in Edmonton, Alberta at Herb Jamieson Centre as part of her campaign to raise awareness about poverty and hunger. Duff also solicited food donations from those attending her concert. The food will be distributed in Edmonton through Alberta Harvest.

Duff volunteered her time for over an hour and also paid a visit to Hope Mission, a Christian social services agency.

“The Hope Mission was a priority and we wanted to lend a hand. It’s so rewarding for me. I love to get down and dirty and help out. A big misconception of charity work and celebrities is that it takes a lot of money. It doesn’t take a lot of money. Your time is the best thing you can give.”

Vancouver Sun

Duff, who was in Canada for a scheduled stop on her “Dignity Tour” which kicked off Saturday in Winnipeg, has previously collaborated with Canadian Harvest and has raised more than 125,000 pounds of food on her two previous Candadian tours.

Interesting to note that Duff’s supposed new man, New York Islanders player Mike Comrie, is also from Edmonton.

“I’m in Edmonton, he’s from Edmonton,” she said, squirming in her chair. “Some of the guys (at the shelter) asked me about him, about hockey.”

Canada.com

Hope Mission spokeswoman Janelle Aker praised Duff’s efforts, contributions and time saying Duff dished it up until the last man was fed.

“She stayed for the whole lunch,” Aker said. “Until the last man received his food.”

Photo: Vancouver Sun