This is sad news: “Hands on a Hardbody,” a really fine musical that just opened, is closing on Saturday. Starring Keith Carradine, “Hardbody” is truly ingenious show with terrific songs and a brilliant staging concept. It’s the story of a truck giveaway in Texas and how a group of people stuck it out to the end in order to win the truck. “Hardbody” was based on a documentary, and at the Broadway premiere many of the real people who’d been in the contest back in 1995 came to New York for the show.

Alas, “Hardbody” did not have a strong advance sale, or a good commercial hook akin to “Motown” or “Kinky Boots” or “Matilda.” I do hope all of its elements make it into Tony nominations, from the fresh score and songs to the performers– Carradine and Keala Settle, who should be a shoo in for Best Featured Actress.

It’s always easy to figure these things out in hindsight, but “Hardbody” might have worked better at the Roundabout with a subscriber base. Last week, it played to just 58% of its capacity, which is just too low to hang on. And obviously, the producers didn’t have the money to keep it going. A fine effort. My hat is off to the people who worked on it.

PS An even bigger shame when you realize real junk like “Jekyll and Hyde” is coming back– just wasted money. Oy.

EXCLUSIVE I told you ten months ago that Barbra Streisand would direct her first film in 16 years. It was called “Skinny and Cat.” Colin Firth and Cate Blanchett were all set to star in it. Alas, I am now told that “Skinny and Cat,” a love story about famed photographer Margaret Bourke White and novelist Erskine Caldwell, will proceed without Streisand. Blanchett is also gone, succeeded by Oscar winner Rachel Weisz (who actually resembles Bourke White). The financing is completely in place, and the producers are looking for a new director.

But the back story here is quite amazing, and a real Hollywood saga. This project has been kicking around since 1982, when producer Linda Yellen wrote her first script and spoke to Streisand about acting in the film. For years, sources say, like thirty, no one said a word about it. Then last year Streisand expressed interest in it as a director. Unfortunately, a new draft of “Skinny and Cat” was quite different than the one Streisand had last read.  Still, she was adamant about directing it.

In Hollywood, it’s all about scheduling. Even as Streisand felt committed to the cause, she had other projects like a world tour. (Not many directors are also international superstar performers.) Insiders say Streisand was unable to make meetings about the project last fall. In the meantime, Yellen set the movie up with producers Holly Wiersma and Logan Levy under their Lagniappe Films banner. That trio, not Streisand, owns the rights.

During the fall of 2012, when they were unable to secure Streisand in writing–couldn’t make a deal–the trio of Wiersma, Levy and Yellen brought on indie director Drake Doremus (“Like Crazy”). The producers, I’m told, offered Streisand a chance to be a producer on the film without the hassle of directing. Streisand’s reps said she would only do it if her contract read “producer for life.” She was still smarting, they say, from losing out on directing and producing “The Normal Heart” after being involved with it for 30 years.

The “Skinny” trio declined. I’m told what happened next was the threat of legal action against them from a litigator representing Streisand.

Last week, an item appeared on the blog deadline.com that Streisand would direct a movie about Bourke White and Caldwell, financed by Russian backed Aldemisa Films. There was a lot of confusion. It turns out, that movie, whatever it is, is not “Skinny and Cat.” Streisand, they say, has found a new script about this historical literary couple, and is developing it herself.

Only one problem there: the new script for the other movie cannot in any way use material from 30 years of drafts of “Skinny and Cat.” There are voluminous files of letters, snail mail, email, and drafts of the script as it changed. Bourke-White and Caldwell, names probably completely unknown to anyone under 50, are probably getting a kick out of all this attention wherever they are.

“Skinny and Cat,” meantime, is only absent a director, since Doremus is gone too. Otherwise it’s ready to be filmed. Firth and Weisz would be a sensational combination. Someone on imdb.com should change the info, including the budget, which was “never” $50 million. “Skinny and Cat” is an indie film with a $12 million budget at best.

And Streisand? She’s about to start a sold out tour with dates in Europe and Israel this June. She also has a monumental project coming up with the musical “Gypsy” for film. She’s also receiving the prestigious Chaplin Award from the Film Society of Lincoln Center on April 22nd.

Deadline.com keeps getting “exclusives” out of our old stories. Can’t Nikki Finke teach her people to use Google? First it was the Barbra Streisand story about her directing her first feature since “The Mirror Has Two Faces.” (I will have more on that on Monday.)

Now it’s Deadline’s “hot scoop” that James Gandolfini and Steve Carell are planning an HBO feature called “The Bone Men.” They’ll play Civil War era paleontologists.

This is no surprise to yours truly since I reported it in September 2012. http://www.showbiz411.com/2012/09/24/james-gandolfini-expectant-dad-plans-film-with-steve-carell

It’s not so hard to find out if a story has already been written. I do it all the time. I use a new search engine called Google. That way my only exclusives are ones that I report myself. Like this one. And many others that have wandered away and found new bylines. And this Google thing is free, too!

Exclusive: now I will tell you how that story about Paris Jackson spending time with Debbie Rowe, her biological mother, came to be in the press. But first: I can tell you it’s true, and not only that: Paris has asked if she could spend time at Rowe’s horse ranch, according to my sources. I was actually told that Paris asked Debbie if she could live there. Rowe has spent time with Paris recently, and went to her 15th birthday party this week in Calabasas.

How did TMZ get the story they ran? Because I called a mutual acquaintance to confirm the story. And the person I called immediately called in to TMZ with my story. I hope there was some goo remuneration from TMZ. But lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

TMZ is of course wrong about many things. In 2005, Debbie Rowe’s parental rights to her children, Prince and Paris, were reaffirmed. She went to court and a judge ruled that a parent never gives up parental rights. There had been a question about that since 2001. But at that point Michael Jackson was on trial, bills were not being paid, he was behind in owed amounts to Rowe.

From the time Michael Jackson died in June 2009, Rowe was clear that she would step in with both Prince and Paris if she were needed. She and Katherine Jackson had many cordial conversations about her role in the kids’ lives. Remember: Rowe is their only biological parent. And always was.

It makes sense that Paris would reach out to her mother. Her grandmother is 82 years old. Her aunts– Michael’s sisters–want nothing to do with her. Except for LaToya, who wants to guide her career for commissions.

And Paris is a lot like Debbie Rowe: she’s forthright, she tells it like it is, she’s funny. While she may have been raised very well by Michael Jackson, Paris must certainly be curious about her beginnings and identity. Debbie Rowe could be a great influence on her daughter’s life.

So that’s the story so far. I learned a lesson, and that’s always important. And two of Michael Jackson’s kids may have a chance to be close to an existing, living parent.