Rachael Ray has amassed a food empire, including a magazine, cookbooks and several television shows. All without culinary training or owning a restaurant. Ray’s success has impressed Regis Philbin. The longtime daytime talk- show host told Star magazine, “She’s carrying the weight of her show on her own shoulders … You have to take your hat off to her.” A humble Ray admits her secret: “I’m very good at being average. People can relate to whatever I’m doing.”
Peter O’Toole nearly skipped out on his honorary Academy Award in 2003, bangshowbiz
.com reported. The noted hell-raiser threatened to leave because of the show’s strict no-alcohol policy. O’Toole, who may earn another Oscar nomination for his portrayal in “Venus,” said, “The only thing that wasn’t enjoyable was in the green room,” O’Toole recalled. “I said, ‘Can I have a drink?’ (They said) ‘We have lemon juice, apple juice, still or sparkling.’ I said, ‘No, I want a drink.’ I said, ‘All right, I’m (expletive) off.”‘ A stage manager persuaded him to stay and someone smuggled in a bottle of vodka.
The New York Daily News reports a rep for Muhammad Ali is shopping for empty New York storefronts to hawk the healthy GOAT snack line backed by the former heavyweight champ. GOAT stands “Greatest Of All Time.”
A South Carolina barbecue restaurant chain paid $50,605 for the portrait of Stephen Colbert that appeared above the fireplace on the Comedy Central show “The Colbert Report.” Colbert, pictured, announced the winner on the Oct. 31 show. Chad Walldorf and his partners own 17 Sticky Fingers restaurants throughout the South and he intends to hang the portrait in a restaurant in Charleston, S.C., Colbert’s hometown. Proceeds from the painting benefit Westport, Conn.-
based Save the Children.
