BC-NAMES:PH – national, world, people (690 words)

Names in the news

(EDITORS: Archive photos for many of the celebrities mentioned in the NAMES column are available on KRT Direct.)

Knight Ridder Newspapers

(KRT)

Malibu Barbie, ah, we mean Britney Spears, cavorted for a week in Los Angeles with a dancer from her show. And here’s the spine-tingling part: He also was a dancer for former boy toy Justin Timberlake at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards.

Oh … and he’s got a seven-months-pregnant girlfriend.

The pair hit a beach in Santa Monica as news helicopters hovered and photographers snapped Brit getting a piggyback ride from Kevin Federline, after they left the Beverly Hills Hotel together in Spears’ white Mercedes convertible.

Are they an item? Will it end in marriage (and quick annulment)? Was Brit just having fun before jetting off on her European tour?

US Weekly reports that Federline, 26, has a longtime girlfriend, actress Shar Jackson of TV’s “Moesha.” Other sources say they also have a daughter.

She sure can pick ‘em.

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HARDEN DELIVERS

It’s a boy … and a girl for actress Marcia Gay Harden and hubby Thaddaeus Scheel. The actress gave birth to twins, Hudson and Julitta, in New York. Mother and babies are said to be doing “fine.”

The double-dip delivery brings the Harden-Scheel brood’s number to three: Hudson and Julitta join big sis Eulala, who was born in September 1998. Harden and Scheel, a prop man, met on the set of “The Spitfire Grill” and married in 1996.

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SEX-TAPE ALERT

Move over, Paris. There’s a new celebrity sex-tape star in town. “Baywatch” alum Gena Lee Nolin is the latest brazen blonde to bare it all in an Internet-bound mattress romp.

Yawn. So what else is new? And she probably never expected the video to be made public, even though it would undoubtedly boost a career that is saggier than her breasts before her implant surgeries.

An X-rated reel of the curvaceous thesp is reportedly being shopped to various porn sites for more than $1 million. The tape was made by Nolin and her then-husband, Greg Fahlman, in the 1990s, shortly after one of Nolin’s numerous breast implants, her spokesman, Jerry Shandrew said.

Shandrew said he suspected a woman to whom Fahlman was once married was responsible for the tape’s release. He also said Nolin wasn’t overly concerned about the tape and is happily raising her 6-year-old son in Phoenix.

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CAGE ENGAGED

Nicolas Cage moves fast. Just two months ago, the actor started dating 19-year-old waitress Alice Kim. Now she is apparently sporting a huge diamond and emerald engagement ring, according to a picture in the London Sun.

The two met on Valentine’s Day when a dateless Cage and friends went to Sushi Avenue in Los Angeles and Kim waited on them. But hey, the 40-year-old actor has to move fast. Before you know it, Kim – who went to Disneyland with her family last weekend courtesy of her new beau – will be all grown up.

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DATING DIRECTORS

Hot new couple alert: Uber-directors Sofia Coppola and Quentin Tarantino were spotted Friday and Saturday at two trendy New York nightspots. The next day they were strolling, arms around each other, through the West Village. Coppola, who ditched hubby Spike Jonze last year, then picked up an Academy Award for “Lost in Translation,” and Tarantino, whose “Kill Bill” movies bubble with gore, scooped up some movies at a video store.

Let’s see, two consecutive dates, a Sunday stroll, renting movies together … what were we thinking? Of course, they’re just “good friends,” according to a rep.

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BRANAGH ABOARD “IMPOSSIBLE’

Kenneth Branagh has signed to join Tom Cruise and Carrie-Anne Moss in “Mission Impossible 3,” zap2it.com says.

No word on the 43-year-old Brit thesp’s character except that it’ll definitely be a villain – a perfect type of role for the hopelessly thin-lipped Branagh. After all, as film writer Justine Elias has said, “thin lips are mandatory equipment for the Euro-villain,” Hollywood’s English-accented paradigm of the movie bad guy.

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(Inquirer wire services contributed to this column.)

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(c) 2004, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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AP-NY-04-28-04 1736EDT

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