Oprah will be Kitty Kelley's next target

Kitty Kelley has chosen Oprah Winfrey as her next subject for tell-all, unauthorized biography. "Oprah Winfrey has fascinated me for many years -- as a woman, she has wielded an unprecedented amount of influence over the American culture and psyche," Kelley said in a statement issued yesterday by the Crown Publishing Group, an imprint of Random House Inc. The book does not yet have a title and a publication date has not been set. Financial terms were not disclosed. Kelley, whose many best - sellers include biographies of Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan and the Bush family, has a long history of writing books as loathed by their subjects as they are fascinating to readers. For the Winfrey book, Kelley "plans to interview hundreds of sources, many of whom have never before spoken on the record about her subject," according to Crown.

A chauffeur for Yoko Ono has been arrested for trying to extort $2 million from her by threatening to circulate embarrassing photos, said police, who claimed he also spoke of killing her. Detectives from Manhattan arrested Koral Karsan, 50, on Long Island yesterday after Ono reported the plot, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said. Charges were pending. The security staff for the widow of John Lennon told detectives that Karsan told her that he had secretly photographed her and made audiotapes of her in private moments and warned he would make the material public if she didn’t pay him, police said. He also talked about killing her during a conversation with one of her associates, which was recorded by investigators, police said.

Naomi Campbell will not be charged with assault because there is insufficient evidence, Britain's Crown Prosecution Service said yesterday. Campbell, 36, was detained and questioned by police in London in October following an alleged altercation with another woman. The Prosecution Service said it had advised police there was no realistic prospect of a conviction, in part because the complainant had left Britain and would not return to testify. A statement from the Outside Organization, which represents Campbell, has called the incident "a misunderstanding." The British supermodel is due back in a Manhattan court Jan. 16 on charges she threw a cellphone at her maid in a dispute over a pair of missing jeans.

Fashion designer Stella McCartney, daughter of Paul McCartney, has given birth to a daughter, Bailey Linda Olwyn Willis, People magazine reports. The baby, born on Dec. 8 in London, weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces. This is the second child for McCartney, 35, and her husband of three years, former magazine publisher Alasdhair Willis , 36. . . . And "Access Hollywood" co-anchor Nancy O'Dell and her husband, business exec Keith Zubchevich , are expecting a child next summer. O'Dell and Zubchevich, who met in a security line at Burbank's Bob Hope Airport, were married last year. This is the first child for O'Dell; Zubchevich has two sons, Tyler, 11 and Carson, 7, both from a previous marriage.

The "Girls Gone Wild" video empire agreed to pay $1.6 million in fines, and its founder was sentenced to community service yesterday for filming drunken, underage girls in the raunchy videos. The guilty pleas by Mantra Films Inc. and its multimillionaire founder, Joe Francis , 33, stem from the company's use of two 17-year-olds in its DVDs and videos, which feature young women baring their breasts in public. The videos at issue were filmed on Panama City Beach, Fla., during spring break in 2003. US District Judge Richard Smoak ordered Francis to read aloud in court a victim impact statement from one of the women, who said she was emotionally tormented by her appearance on a "Girls Gone Wild," video and that the video damaged her relationship with her family.

FROM WIRE REPORTS