One-night dispensation for Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor, 75, returned to the stage Saturday night after persuading striking TV and film writers to briefly put down their picket signs. The Writers Guild of America agreed not to picket the Paramount Pictures lot when the actress and AIDS activist gave a benefit performance of A.R. Gurney's play "Love Letters" with James Earl Jones. More than 500 people, including California first lady Maria Shriver, paid $2,500 per ticket for the one-night performance. The goal was to raise $1 million for The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.

Ozzy's shades: $5,250

Sharon Osbourne and her Black Sabbath frontman husband, Ozzy, raised more than $800,000 for the Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Foundation when heavy-metal enthusiasts turned out en masse Saturday for their Beverly Hills-style garage sale and auction. Fans snapped up Ozzy's coat for $3,300, his skull-adorned sneakers for $2,625 and a pair of his wire-rimmed sunglasses for $5,250. The family's custom pool table racked up a winning bid of $11,250.

Silvio's school of rock

Steven Van Zandt says that in developing a curriculum to teach a new generation the history of rock 'n' roll, he tried to put himself in the place of students and "make it fun." "The history of rock 'n' roll is a history of, certainly, 20th-century America, from there on, anyway," Van Zandt said in an interview Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "All the cultural impact that it had with civil rights and women's rights and all that other stuff." Van Zandt, guitarist for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band and the character Silvio Dante on "The Sopranos," said he's never really repaid what music has done for him, but the new course is a start.

Runnin' down a dream

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers will perform at halftime during the Super Bowl XLII in Arizona on Feb. 3. This year, nearly 140 million Americans watched Prince play at the football extravaganza. Other recent acts have included the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and U2.

Today in History

1818: Illinois was admitted as the 21st state.

1967: Surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard, performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived 18 days with the new heart.

1979: Eleven people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum, where the British rock group The Who was performing.

2002: Thousands of personnel files released under a court order showed that the Archdiocese of Boston went to great lengths to hide priests accused of abuse, including clergy who had allegedly snorted cocaine and had sex with girls aspiring to be nuns.

Today's Birthdays

Rock singer Ozzy Osbourne, 59. Actor Steven Culp, 52. Actress Daryl Hannah, 47. Actress Julianne Moore, 47. Actor Brendan Fraser, 39. Singer Montell Jordan, 39. Actor Bruno Campos, 34. Actress Holly Marie Combs, 34. Actress Lauren Roman, 32. Actress Anna Chlumsky, 27. Actor Brian Bonsall, 26.

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