Red, White, and Out

Change.

It’s really been what’s been on trend in the fashion world. Some of it has surprised, some of it has been plain ol’ sad. But change is inevitable.

And Ralph Lauren is not impervious to it.

Indeed, the 75-year-old iconic American designer has announced that he is stepping down as CEO of his company, and that Swedish-born fashion exec Stefan Larsson (Old Navy, H&M) will be taking over in order to revitalize the Ralph Lauren Corporation’s finances.

Money. It is usually the harbinger of change.

Ah, but do not fret: Creatively speaking, Lauren will stay on as chief creative officer (and to hold an executive chairmanship) – so you know his spirit will be all over the company still.

Photo: Bloomberg.com.

The Royal Beard Does Good

Prince Harry’s #RoyalBeard is still turning heads.

And doing good while at it!

The RUILF took out his beard for a veterans charity walk in England earlier today, as part of his work on behalf of Walking with the Wounded.

Swoon!

Photo: People.com.

Positively Boss

You remember Danny Pintauro, the cute kid from TV’s Who’s the Boss?, right?

Well, he just became an activist.

The actor revealed last weekend that he is HIV-positive...has been since 2003. He came out with his diagnosis on an installment of Oprah: Where Are They Now? (obviously), because he was finally “ready,” especially now that this is, “not something that people are really talking about right now.”

The revelation prompted a declaration of admiration from his old TV mom, Judith Light, as well as a public display of admiration from his old co-star, Alyssa Milano, on The Talk yesterday.

While it’s sucky that he got it, it is a good thing that Pintauro is willing to help everyone revisit the HIV conversation. We gotta do more to reignite the train of education and prevention.

Photo: CNN.com.

A Captain Enslaved

And for his next act, Russell Crowe’s turning to Sand and Blood.

Indeed, the Academy Award winner is going to star in In Sand and Blood, the adaptation of Dean King’s Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival.

It’s quite possible that the actor – who popped his feature-film directorial cherry with The Water Diviner  – may helm the project, which will tell the story of an American ship crashing in Western Sahara, where the 12 men on board were tortured and forced into slavery.

Well that doesn’t sound heavy at all.

Photo: USAToday.com.

The Taming of the Minaj

Strange Bedfellows Alert!

Nicki Minaj is working on a new untitled show for ABC Family.

Hollywood can so be weird sometimes....

The project, based on the rapper’s family’s immigration from Trinidad in the early ’90s and her growing up a Queens girl, is on the hunt for its #YoungNicki.

For her part, Minaj not only will contribute some appropriately tame spits for the character, she also will appear on the show, which she is executive producing.

Photo: MaryEbele.com.

Playing Favourites

Kate Winslet is getting regal.

The Academy Award winner is circling The Favourite, a new historical drama about Queen Anne of Great Britain. She would play the monarch’s (Olivia Colman) confidante, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, with whom she was tight until political differences torn them asunder.

Meanwhile, Emma Stone also has her eye on a part in the project – that of Abigail Masham, the duchess’ socially clever cousin.

That...is gonna be one fun and intriguing court, huh.

Photo: FoxNews.com.

Florent’s Big Comeback

An old New York institution is getting a revival.

Sorta.

Alan Cumming is developing a new show for Showtime based on the life of Florent Morellet, the restaurateur and AIDS activist that opened the dearly departed Meatpacking District pioneer Florent, which closed in 2008 due to a dramatic rent increase.

Cumming has been fixing to get this passion project a home for a while now, and the show is being put together as a follow-up to his Emmy-nominated stint on TV’s The Good Wife.

Photo: Vulture.com.

November 25d?

And speaking of Adele....

Looks like the British sensation’s beyond-eagerly awaited new album, 25, reportedly will be out...on Nov. 20.

A new single must be imminent then.

Photo: HilldaleBuzz.com.

How Ya Like That Writing?

Finally.

Sam Smith’s “Writing’s on the Wall” dropped this week.

That, of course, would be the singer’s theme song for SPECTRE, the new James Bond movie opening on Nov. 6.

What did you think, what did you think?

While I like some of the things S2 does on it...the song ain’t not “Skyfall.”

Photo: OkayPlayer.com.

Serving Miami Drama

Mr. Worldwide hearts the 305.

And that is why he is making a show out of it.

Yes! Pitbull’s producing a new drama for Fox titled 305, a nod to Miami’s OG area code. The show will revolve around a man named Willy who is forced to quit high school in order to move with his celebrity chef-uncle, who enrolls him the Magic City’s most elite private school.

Dale!

Photo: MusicTimes.com.

Watchu Got There, Zac Efron?

There Zac Efron was on the set of Neighbors 2, shirtless and doing a bulge check earlier this week....

And all was fine with the world.

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

Electric Dude(s)

Black Mass’ Benedict Cumberbatch (obviously pictured here) and Everest’s Jake Gyllenhaal are going to....

Yeah, I can’t even finish that sentence without acknowledging my excitement. I am excited.

I mean, the Cumber-stud and Jakey-bear in a movie together? Yes, please!

The actors are circling The Current War, a drama set in the 19th century about the feud over the future of electricity. The Gyllen-yum would play George Westinghouse, while Cumberbatch would portray Thomas Edison.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) is considering calling the shots from behind the camera.

Photo: CountessBastard.tumblr.com.

Girl Deuce

When James Franco – holla, y’all – pulls a Tom Hardy, he will do so with Maggie Gyllenhaal by his sides.

That’s because the Oscar nominee is joining the Oscar nominee on HBO’s The Deuce, the story of these twin mobsters that controlled the ol’ Times Square porn scene of the ’70s and ’80s.

Gyllenhaal will play an area hooker who has a bit of an entrepreneurial bent to her and who is drawn into the brothers’ fledgling porn industry.

As she would.

Photo: NewYorkTheater.me.

Mosaic Woman

Guess Steven Soderbergh is not really retired-retired, after all.

The Knick mastermind has quietly mounted another TV venture to supplement his Clive Owen-fronted effort for Cinemax.

Well, it’s not quite for TV – it’s for HBO.

Soderbergh’s Mosaic, reportedly an experimental film, is set to star Sharon Stone. The project will have an app tie-in that will enable users to interact with the story and determine its ending.

So modern! Plus, more Sharon Stone for us to enjoy, which is beyond-fine with me.

Photo: BiddART.

Tracy’s Trail

Comeback funny guy Tracy Morgan wants to make it official.

And he’s gonna.

No, not get us pregnant. (Ha!) Getting back to work, of course.

Morgan’s already set to host SNL next month, and, now, he has booked a new part on the big screen. The actor has joined Ice Cube and Charlie Day for Fist Fight, a new comedy about a mild-mannered school teacher (Day) who must go up against a more imposing co-worker (the rapper-cum-thespian) in a punching duel; the erstwhile Tracy Jordan of TV’s 30 Rock will play the school’s coach.

Get it, Trace!

Photo: Pulse.ng.

Amy Writes Books

Emmy winner and Madonna fluffer Amy Schumer’s swimmin’ in it now.

See, the funny gal reportedly has inked a book deal maybe-worth $10 million.

Now that’s a whole lotta boat rides with new BFF Jennifer Lawrence!

Tentatively titled The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Schumer’s tome will be a memoir that will touch on her childhood, her big Hollywood takeover, and, of course, feminism.

Photo: E! Online.

The Backer

Vanessa Williams is gonna hang with The Good Wife this fall.

Indeed, the erstwhile Wilhelmina Slater has been tapped for a part on the TV hit, on which she will play a successful self-made businesswoman who takes a shine to Alan Cumming’s Eli Gold after she decides to back Peter Florrick’s (Chris Noth) presidential campaign.

The Good Wife will be back on CBS early next month.

Photo: TVLine.com.

Train Man

Now that the women of The Girl on the Train have been found (Emily Blunt! Rebecca Ferguson! Haley Bennett!), it is high time the search moves to the men.

Enter Jared Leto.

The Academy Award winner is circling the project, the adaptation of the Paula Hawkins novel about a lonely and oh-so-unreliable narrator (Blunt) who becomes a tad too involved with the lives of a couple she spies from afar during her daily train ride. Not entirely certain which of the gals he would be paired with, although it does sound like it will be more than one....

Chris Evans is also being eyed for one of the male leads. Ditto on who he’ll be revolving around, so there ya go.

Photo: FlavorWire.com.

L’chaim!

The boy a record-spinning man now....

Divergent Series star Ansel Elgort is beyond-officially a DJ/producer now.

Check out the actor a.k.a. Ansolo’s first single, a ditty featuring Too Many Zooz titled “To Life.”

New Jam Alert?

Photo: ZippyMix.com.

The New King

Emma Stone leaves the court, and Brie Larson enters it.

And so it goes in Hollywood.

Larson is set to join Steve Carell in Battle of the Sexes, a telling of the 1973 tennis match heard-about ’round the world between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine) are directing. (Paul Giamatti and Elizabeth Banks, you will remember, are attached to a similar project, for HBO, though.)

The Room star is stepping in because Stone had a scheduling conflict with another project.

Photo: GettyImages.com.

R.I.P. Ms. Collins

Best-selling author Jackie Collins has died.

The woman behind the Hollywood Wives succumbed to breast cancer on Sept. 19. She was 77.

Collins – who must recently hit the promo circuit to chat up her latest tome, The Santangelos – never let on she was sick or in treatment for cancer, so her passing has come as a bit of a surprise.

She did it her way, indeed.

Photo: JackieCollins.com.

Update: Click here to read about Joan Collins’ reaction to the sad news, as well as that of Oprah, Sandra Bullock, Kathy Griffin, and more.

Temp Girl

Divorcée-to-be Megan Fox is rebounding with a bunch o’ guys.

The actress is the new girl of TV’s New Girl. Meaning the Jennifer’s Body star is joining the show to temporarily fill the void by Zooey Deschanel while she enjoys her maternity leave.

Bbeginning with the sixth episode back of the show’s upcoming fifth season, Fox will play Reagan, a straight-shooting pharmaceutical sales rep who rents Jess’s room while Jess is sequestered on jury duty.

How convenient – for all involved.

Photo: HuffingtonPost.com.

Amy’s Garden

She must have liked the taste of that!

Amy Schumer opened for Madonna at Madison Square Garden tonight – but come the new year, the Trainwreck is gonna be doing it for herself. (The famous New York City arena, that is.)

Hey, M will return the favor? Crazier things have happened, after all.

Anyway. Schumer announced during her “Rebel Heart Tour” fluff that she will headline the venue next summer. Madison Square Garden has confirmed the news, so save the date for June 23, kids!

Sold. I mean...bitch she’s Amy Schumer.

Photo: GettyImages.com.au.

Pulling a Bit of a Chris Hemsworth

Being Captain America cannot be all there it is to Chris Evans.

So seems to think Chris Evans.

That is why the actor has tried his hand at directing (his Before We Go is out in limited release and available On Demand now), and, now, he is committing to a comedy.

Granted, granted – it’s not like the guy hasn’t done that before. Not entirely sure he’s been making us laugh since joining the Marvelverse, though. Either way, Evans is headlining Gifted, Marc Webb’s cinematic escape from Spider-Man’s world. The project centers on a man raising his precocious niece, a – ha! – gifted student.

Obvious Child Jenny Slate and Octavia Spencer – Snowpiercer Reunion Alert! – are set to co-star.

Photo Morably.com.

Aping for a War

Seems life is a blockbuster after another for Woody Harrelson these days.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 player has been tapped for the antagonist role in the forthcoming War of for the Planet of the Apes, starring Gabriel Chavarria.

The actor is meant to play a character known as the Colonel.

Sounds like he’ll be leading the charge when the military that was teased at the end of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes arrives in the Bay Area to take on Caesar (Andy Serkis) & Co.

Photo: Emmys.com.