Seth Meyers is very much the leading candidate to succeed Regis Philbin on “Live with Kelly” despite his timid denials today. Meyers is on every day this week in the middle of July sweeps. He’s the only candidate to get a full Monday-Friday shot. He’s terrific, too. I’ve never seen someone so confident and poised–he’s also very funny. Ripa and Michael Gelman will be lucky to get him. And there’s no one else. Next week singer Josh Groban returns for three days, followed by Kristen Chenoweth and rock star Rob Thomas of matchbox twenty.

After that “Live!” goes on hiatus until Labor Day. There are no more co-hosts. Meyers was given the primo spot to show off in, and he’s doing an excellent job. Today’s report in the Florida Sun Sentinel doesn’t have him denying it, just sort of brushing off the question. My guess is he’ll continue to do the news at “Saturday Night Live” through the presidential election, but step down as head writer.

All of this will disappoint The Hollywood Reporter. They were very fast to reprint the Sentinel quotes, and quote this column as if to prove us wrong. It’s hilarious. They never give credit or a link for anything positive. But the Meyers story is pretty right on. And good for Seth. He can five years there, be 43, and ready for a spot on a nighttime talk show.

There are loads of stories out there from the 1970s about David Bowie and Mick Jagger perhaps carrying their friendship a little too far–taking it to another level, let’s say. There’s a new book just published by Christopher Andersen that more or less retells old stories from Angie Bowie’s previous books–Angie was married to David. But Andersen’s book also includes an interview with rocker-writer-ex model Bebe Buell, mother of Liv Tyler. Buell wrote her own book, “Rebel Heart,” a few years ago and told very specific stories about all her fabulous experiences with A list rockers.

But Buell tells me that Andersen went too far in characterizing her observations of Jagger and Bowie. “I want to make it clear that I never saw Mick Jagger and David Bowie having sex,” Buell tells me. “I knew them to share women, but not each other.” Jagger and Bowie have never denied all the talk. “Maybe they enjoyed the press and the p.r. about all the androgyny. But I never saw Mick Jagger sexually active with another man. But his dance card with women was legendary.” Buell says she was very good friends with Bowie and dated Jagger back in the day on and off for years. She stayed so friendly with Bowie that he and wife Iman came to daughter Liv’s wedding in 2003.

Buell, by the way, has a great new album out on iTunes and amazon.com called “Hard Love.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19cYIkyMDeY&list=LPeYyUPej6-ys&index=3&feature=plcp

Well, this is a relief. After enduring many unspeakable things to her characters in past movies, Dakota Fanning is suddenly shy. Maybe it’s because she turned 18 finally last February. In any case, for Naomi Foner’s film, “Very Good Girls,” Fanning will not be naked–at least at the beach. A casting call has gone out for body doubles for her and for Elizabeth Olsen. The movie is about two girls who want to lose their virginity to the same guy. Foner, mother of Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal, wrote the great Sidney Lumet movie “Running on Empty” years ago. Fanning almost left the indie  “Very Good Girls” before financing came together. Anton Yelchin did, and was replaced by 30 year Boyd Holbrook.

Fanning, by the way, before she turned 18, was raped in “Hounddog,” had lesbian sex in “The Runaways,” and recently did provocative commercial in the U.K. Through it all she’s remained incredibly normal and wonderfully poised.

Here’s the casting call. The “I” isn’t Foner but the casting director, I think:

There is nudity in this project. I’m looking for NAKED body doubles for Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen for the film, ‘Very Good Girls’. Beach scene MONDAY, JULY 16 IN BROOKLYN, NY. We will see bare back all the way down, top and bottom. We’ll do some form of modesty clothes for the front. Submits must have great bodies and not be too sun tanned.

Michael Jackson’s former attorneys have quite divergent paths since the child molestation trial in 2005. This week, Brian Oxman was disbarred by the California Bar Association for a host of malfeasance. Meanwhile, Thomas Mesereau continues to be a hero, handling pro bono cases to exonerate the wrongly accused in Alabama. Here’s a release from the Mesereau office about their latest accomplishment. Can you imagine that Mesereau had to put up with Oxman during the Jackson trial? The man has patience.

read also: http://www.showbiz411.com/2012/07/06/brian-oxman-disbarred-was-once-michael-jackson-lawyer-sort-of

July 9, 2012 – The Firm of Mesereau & Yu, LLP, is pleased to announce that Tom Mesereau’s former client, Wesley Quick, who was acquitted of capital murder and avoided the death penalty in 2003, has been listed in the “National Registry of Exonerations.”  A joint project of the University of Michigan Law School and Northwestern University School of Law, The National Registry of Exonerations is a newly published report on exonerated defendants between the years 1989 and 2012.

Mr. Quick was originally represented by other counsel when he was convicted of two counts of capital murder by a jury in Birmingham, Alabama in 1997.  He received the death penalty and spent four and a half years on Alabama’s death row before his convictions were reversed on a technicality.  The original jury heard evidence of devil worship, excessive drug use, and random targeting of innocent citizens for murder.

After his conviction was reversed, Mr. Quick hired Mesereau’s colleague and friend in Birmingham, noted criminal defense lawyer Charles Salvagio.  Mr. Salvagio asked Mr. Mesereau to try the case with him.  In a stunning reversal, Mr. Quick was acquitted of all counts in a high profile jury trial.  This resulted in a widely read editorial about injustice in death penalty cases by the Birmingham news.

Mr. Quick’s listing in the National Registry of Exonerations means that he has been completely exonerated from all legal obligations associated with this death penalty case.

At the time, Mr. Quick’s acquittal was the third high profile victory in a capital murder trial for Mr. Mesereau and Mr. Salvagio.  They had previously acquitted a homeless black man, who was charged with murdering a beautiful white woman in Birmingham.  This trial was also controversial and subjected to enormous media coverage.  On a prior occasion, the Mesereau/Salvagio team had won a high profile capital murder trial in Bessemer, Alabama, in which they represented a young mother charged with murdering her baby daughter with an M & M filled bottle.  She was acquitted of capital murder and murder and convicted of the lesser-included offense of manslaughter.

Mr. Mesereau has been defending clients accused of capital murder for the last fourteen years.  All of these cases have been in Alabama and Mississippi.  Mr. Mesereau defends one to two capital murder cases in the Deep South each year for no legal fees.