Steven Spielberg is at it again, accidentally giving Hollywood a good name.

When the director quit as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics to protest China's economic support of Darfur, his act of conscience momentarily threatened Hollywood's worldwide reputation as a hotbed of sleaze and self-absorption.

Fortunately, China's state-run media leaped to the defense of the La-La Lady's bad rep: It condemned "a certain Western director" for being "very naïve," brought on "because of his unique Hollywood characteristics."

"This renowned film director is famous for his science fiction," huffed the China Youth Daily. "But now it seems he lives in a world of science fiction, and he can't distinguish a dream from reality."

Thank goodness we have China to remind us to keep the fires of contempt burning for Tinseltown.

Shedding fur

Aretha Franklin's appearance at the Grammys keeps repeating like an overworked song chorus.

Last week, we talked about how Franklin temporarily lost her title as "Queen of Soul" at the awards show when Beyoncé introduced Tina Turner as the "queen."

This week, it's the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals who are trying to dethrone her - for wearing a fur coat to the gala.

"Music lovers may think of you as a 'queen' but to animal lovers, you are a court jester," PETA guy Dan Matthews wrote in an open letter, released to the media. "Why not shed the old-fashioned look that adds pounds to your frame and detracts from your beautiful voice?"

Oh. So it was the coat.

Hmmm.

Shedding Jenny

Kirstie Alley and Jenny Craig parted ways this week.

Alley, you may recall, shed many - ahem - "coats" on the Jenny Craig diet after she starred in her 2005 Showtime reality series, "Fat Actress." About a year later, she appeared on Oprah Winfrey's talk show, wearing a bikini, and showing off her new 145-pound body.

Now that she has become an "accidental" inspiration to others who want to lose weight, Alley intends to capitalize on it.

"This was something I did not bargain for, or foresee happening," she is quoted as saying on ImNotObsessed.com. "Nevertheless, it is something I've grown to embrace and something I intend to continue to pursue."

How? By creating her own diet, complete with Jenny Craig-style meals, "that will help millions of people end the seemingly never ending fatty roller-coaster ride," she told People magazine.

And Alley's gonna ride that baby right to the bank.

Shedding clothes

Now we come to two bizarre Marilyn Monroe look-alike stories.

First up is Lindsay Lohan, who agrees to "re-create" Monroe's famous nude portrait shot just weeks before her death in 1962. Photographer Bert Stern took the iconic shot of Monroe - and he took the new shot of Lohan, now on the cover of New York magazine.

Lohan is clad only in a sheer pink scarf. She told the media that she had no moral qualms about the assignment.

"I didn't have to put too much thought into it," she added.

What a surprise.

Next up is some guy in Vegas (where else?), who found a poster of a blond he believed to be Marilyn, posing as a hitchhiker in nothing but heels, with a cigarette in her mouth.

The 73-year-old retiree and his wife spent four months researching the origin of the picture, The Associated Press reports, even calling in Marilyn "expert" Chris Harris to identify it. Harris promptly called a press conference to announce the find to the world.

It took an intrepid AP reporter to recognize the "discovery" as a blowup from Madonna's 1992 book, "Sex."

"Who wins here? Madonna, of course," Harris told the AP upon realizing his mistake. "She really looks like Marilyn Monroe."

Maybe Lindsay should pose as Madonna posing as Marilyn?

Or is that, as Marilyn said in "The Seven-Year Itch," just "too icky"?

Shedding bad image

Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum are giving models a good name, an ecstatic Sandy Dumont (yes, she's a former model) wrote on Models.com, a Web site devoted to the latest modeling issues, whatever those may be. (One of its Web categories is actually called "Feed," without an inch of irony attached. Turns out the title refers to a daily digital feed of urgent modeling news.)

In naming Banks the "fourth sexiest" model, Dumont writes that the TV talk show host, like Klum, is a "hard-working, three-dimensional" woman who hasn't disgraced herself "with drugs or bad boyfriends."

Notice the positive use of "three-dimensional."

Shedding a rumor

Eric Bana told paparazzi this week that Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson "indeed do get along really well," thereby dashing a rumor that the two dislike each other and were this close to having a girl-fight.

Bana stars with Portman and Johansson in "The Other Boleyn Girl," which opens next Friday.

"Why is it that people in the media hate the idea that actors working together is possibly true? I hate to break it to you but actors really do love each other."

What's this? People in Hollywood getting along and "loving" each other?

Where's the Chinese media when you need it?