Ecollywood: Rosie O'Donnell's new girlfriend teaches her to be eco-friendly
By Gerri Miller
Thu, Jan 28 2010 at 7:44 AM EST
Read more: CELEBS
FAMILY TIME: Rosie and her kids pose for a snapshot. (Photo: Tom LeGoff/HBO) 
How green is Rosie O’Donnell? “Not green enough,” she admits, adding that she’s learning to do more than recycle since her new girlfriend Tracy came into her life. “She’s quite green. She’s got a composter with worms in it in her kitchen. She’s like, ‘You’ve got to get rid of the plastic bottles, get an aluminum bottle and refill it.’ So we’re getting greener as we go.”
O’Donnell’s documentary-with-music A Family is a Family is a Family, a celebration of diverse family units like her own brood, premieres on HBO on Jan. 31. She appears in it briefly with daughter Vivi, but has been busy off-camera of late with her Sirius Radio show and writing. Her next book, The Sound of Hope, is for parents of kids like her son Blake who have Auditory Processing Disorder. “Two years ago he began an intensive tutoring program with this amazing specialist and it was like watching her bring a withered plant back to life. I wanted to do a book so that parents who didn’t have access to costly treatment would have a way to help their children.” It’s due in the spring, and O’Donnell is also planning a summer standup tour and HBO comedy special. She may also reprise her role as a judge on season two of Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva.
The talk show grind, however, holds little appeal, “although there's been a lot of talk lately with Ms. Winfrey going to do her own channel. But I can't imagine doing it,” she says, happy with the flexibility radio gives her. “I really enjoy being home, and with four kids and two in the teen years and a lot of texts to check, I think that the radio may be what I do for a long time.”
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"We recycle everything and we turn off the water,” says Lost star Josh Holloway (pictured right), who’ll return Feb. 2 for the ABC series’ final season, one he sums up as “intense. You'll laugh, you'll cry, everything. Pretty much every episode this season is a stinger. They're pulling out all the stops, both emotionally and physically. There's a lot of action, a lot of stuff going on.” Many familiar faces will return, including actors who’ve since landed other series, such as Sonya Walger (Penny) of FlashForward , Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet) of V, and Ian Somerhalder (Boone), now on The Vampire Diaries.While he claims not to know or want to know how the intricate plot will resolve, Holloway no longer thinks his character Sawyer should die. “They have put him through every situation possible, emotionally and physically,” he told MNN. “He’s had to walk the fine line of discovering his humanity yet keeping his edge, and that humanity that he's been forced to acknowledge and grow with is going to come into play. He’s got some things that he needs to rectify, and hopefully the lessons he learned on the island will translate in real life and he can have a second chance.”
Holloway, who plans to keep his place in Hawaii along with one in L.A., “where the work is,” says he owes everything to Lost. “I’ve had so many life-changing experiences since the show has begun. I've gotten married. I've got my first home, validation as an actor, a baby. It's just been quite a phenomenal journey and an honor.”
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One of the stars of the environmentally themed blockbuster Avatar, Joel David Moore (pictured left) is green at home as well, thanks to the woman he married last year. “My wife changed me. We’ve started recycling, and we got Sparkletts water. I refill this pink bottle with a straw, it’s like a sippy cup, and I take it everywhere I go,” says Moore.He spent two years, mainly on a motion capture stage, to play avatar driver Norm Spellman, and even though he’d seen photos of what Pandora would look like, he was astonished by the finished film. ‘I think it’s one of the most spectacular, visionary projects ever to hit the theater,” he raves.
While he’s not surprised that Avatar has done well “because it’s Jim Cameron — he’s got such a consistent track record,” he didn’t expect it to surpass Titanic to become the #1 box office champ of all time. “It’s been such a crazy ride.”
With a recurring role on Fox’s Bones, Moore directed and starred in a thriller called Spiral, now out on DVD.
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When he’s not busy playing CTU chief Brian Hastings on 24, Mykelti Williamson (pictured right) spends his time doing DIY projects like replacing the floors in his home with bamboo flooring and designing a new headboard for the master bedroom using recycled railroad ties and low-VOC paint. “I’m at Home Depot so much, they offered me a job two years ago,” chuckles Williamson, who has made cabinets and a coffee table for his home.But to him, being green is no laughing matter. “I use as many green products as possible. We stopped buying bottled water for the kids to take to school in their lunchboxes. My three daughters have thermoses and we refill them with filtered water from the fridge,” notes the actor, who as a father has become more eco-conscious “because we have to leave the world in their hands. It really upsets me, a lot of the things I see. People just don’t care, and they don’t take global warming seriously. That kind of stuff makes me scratch my head.”
A fan of 24 from the get-go, Williamson had been asked by good friend Kiefer Sutherland, who directed and co-starred with Williamson in a 1997 film, to appear in season one but he opted to stick with movies. He didn’t hesitate this time. As the season progresses, “You’ll find out what his relationship is really like with Jack Bauer. The entire show evolves,” he promises. “No one ends up where they start out.”
Williamson can also be seen in the recently released movies on DVD Spinning Into Butter with Sarah Jessica Parker and the action flick Black Dynamite, and will star opposite Adrien Brody in the stoner comedy High School, which just premiered at Sundance Film Festival.’’
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“Recycling should be a no-brainer,” says style maven Stacy London (pictured left), who makes it easy for herself by organizing her bins. “I have four different garbage cans and everything is labeled so I don’t have to think,” says the What Not to Wear co-host, whose TLC series marks its 250th episode on Jan. 29 at 9 p.m. A self-described “crazy animal lover” who lives with a 13-year-old cat named Baby Al, she virtually adopts endangered animals from the World Wildlife Federation for herself and for friends. “I just bought a pygmy marmoset,” she notes. “I like to give adoptions as Christmas presents.”***
Tune in: The new Planet Green series Blood, Sweat & T-Shirts follows six spoiled teenage shopaholics to a sweatshop in India as they toil alongside underpaid workers making cheap apparel. The first of four episodes premieres Feb. 1 at 10 p.m.
Additional photo credits: Josh Holloway by Bob D'Amico/ABC; Joel David Moore by Michael Germana/Globe Photos; Mykelti Williamson by Brian Bowen Smith/Fox; Stacy London courtesy TLC. MNN homepage photo: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
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