ELIZABETH Hurley is ditching the movie business for her son.
The Estee Lauder model and now fashion designer is determined to be a good mom to son Damian.
“I’m not going to do movies for now,” she said Thursday at the launch of her swimwear line at Saks Fifth Avenue. “I don’t want to leave my son for such long periods of time. This trip to New York is three days away from him, but a movie is three months, and I’ve decided not to do that until he’s older. I want to be there for him.”
The men in her life certainly help her make a lot of her decisions.
Arun Nayer, her Indian boyfriend “supervised everything!” said Hurley.
As for the swimwear line, the preternaturally toned actress said she designed it for women who want to look fabulous but “cover the bits they don’t like.”
“I know that women have parts that they are not so happy with, so I was trying to really do something that would work with that.”
Well, thanks.
HAWKE HUNTING
Ethan Hawke is dating once again.
His new girl is a blonde who sports two tattoos, said a spy. He’s so proud of her that he personally showed her around the new set of “Hurlyburly” at its off-Broadway location at 37 Arts.
Maybe she helped him prepare for the play’s now-famous opening, where he lies on his stomach on a couch, boxers pulled waaaaay down while the audience files in. “Yeah, I did special butt-method acting,” Hawke joked after the opening performance Wednesday night. “No, I don’t use makeup on the butt,” he continued. “Nothing at all.”
As for all the hard-core “drugs” that the players ingest during the play, don’t get excited – they’re fake. “We have a special herbal mix that is supposed to smell like pot,” Hawke said. “And the coke is a sugar substitute.”
Funny enough, the closest thing to reality is Hawke’s own character, who has gone through an agonizing divorce and has a child. Is it weird to be on stage with all that? “I can relate,” he admitted.
SMOKE KILLS
Not everyone knows how to behave at a party.
Hollywood producer Brian Grazer and his wife, author Gigi Levangie Grazer, hosted an elegant book party Monday night for producer Ron Howard’s wife Cheryl Howard Crew at their Pacific Palisades mansion, along with Renee Zellweger and guests Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi and Lara Flynn Boyle.
Crew joined the book club with her tome “In the Face of Jinn.”
But one poor guest got “really drunk,” according to another spy, and paused to have a smoke in the house. After carefully removing a pen and paper from a vase, she began casually tapping ash in it.
“I didn’t know I had a $40,000 ashtray,” Grazer quipped when he noticed her, causing the embarrassed woman to flee the premises.
AUSSIE RULES
What’s up with Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts? The good friends were on totally different wavelengths and didn’t pay much attention to one another at the Bungalow 8 after-after-party for Kidman’s film “The Interpreter” elegant MoMA premiere. Kidman sat calmly and left early while Watts partied late with a gaggle of girlfriends, alongside Sean Penn, Kelly Lynch, and Julian Schnabel.
OLSEN TWINGED
Julia Roberts still has it: Little Ashley Olsen stood in line to meet her idol at the Hole in the Wall Gang event to meet Roberts. “She was so excited to meet her! She just stood there waiting behind Julia,” said a spy. “She was like a little girl!”
REAL ESTATE ENVY
Robert De Niro was obsessed with artist Hunt Slonem’s 50,000-square- foot studio/apartment during the secret party designer Carlos Miele hosted Wednesday night. “How big did you say this was?” the amazed actor kept asking Slonem, while authors Paul Auster, Russell Banks and Salman Rushdie made a rare late-night appearance alongside the bevy of supermodels.
FYI: The Young Lions of the New York Public Library celebrated Thursday night but had problems with guests threatening to light up next to the stacks of books. They had to post guards who kept watch for tobacco-inclined guests … Jay-Z has already sold 30 of the $23,500 to $69,500 Audemars Piguet limited-edition watches that he designed … Mickey Rourke, Naomi Campbell, Roberto Cavalli and Kevin Bacon will be on hand to watch Sheryl Crow perform Tuesday at Cipriani’s Wall Street location, where tables have been pre-sold for $125,000.