For her new film, Garner is hot to foxtrot

By Carol Beggy and Mark Shanahan , Globe Staff  |  March 22, 2008

As anyone who watched her on "Alias" knows, Jennifer Garner's got some moves. So it's no surprise that the actress, who's in town filming "The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," can cut a rug. Emerson dance instructor Marlena Yannetti has been working with Garner (inset) and her "Ghosts" costar Daniel Sunjata, and she's plenty impressed. "[Garner] said she spent a summer with the Joffrey Ballet, and I believe it," said Yannetti, who choreographed a dance sequence for the movie with help from one of her students, Adam Eisenhut. Eisenhut has described the dance - a foxtrot - as "typical Fred and Ginger." "We've had a couple of rehearsals and we'll have a couple more," Yannetti told us yesterday. "Jennifer is just a doll. She and [Sunjata] are both so easy to work with and to talk to." Eventually, the bit will be filmed in a ballroom at the Crane Estate in Ipswich. Asked if she's starstruck working with Hollywood actors, Yannetti laughed. "I've danced New York and on Broadway and worked with Bob Fosse," she said. "I'm not easily impressed, but I am with them."

A few colleagues of this year's Coolidge Award winner, Jeremy Thomas, are confirmed for next month's festivities. We're told actress Debra Winger and directors Nicolas Roeg and Julien Temple will be in Boston to pay tribute to Thomas, the British film producer whose credits include several Bernardo Bertolucci movies. Winger worked with Thomas on "The Sheltering Sky." Roeg teamed with him on "Insignificance" and "Eureka." And Temple and Thomas worked on "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" and "Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten." The Coolidge Award, whose previous recipients include Chinese director Zhang Yimou, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, actress Meryl Streep, and film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, will be presented April 16. Organizers hope to announce additional guests.

Pats receiver Randy Moss broke down yesterday as the US Postal Service in West Virginia honored No. 81 with a limited-edition commemorative envelope. With his mother sitting beside him, Moss got emotional while talking about his childhood in Rand, W. Va., and his miraculous feats on the football field. The Postal Service is making 5,000 of the envelopes available, selling them for $6 each at post offices throughout the state. Not surprisingly, a few of the envelopes were already available on eBay yesterday, selling for $35.

What was with yesterday's ho-hum press release announcing Audrina Patridge's upcoming appearance at Ed Kane's club The Estate? Don't the promoters know that nude pics of the star of "The Hills" hit the Internet this week, prompting Patridge to post a defense on her MySpace page? Well, they do now. The saucy shots were taken five years ago, before Patridge was Lauren Conrad's sidekick on the MTV hit. "I intended them to be artistic and not in any way provocative," wrote Patridge, who'll get the VIP treatment at the club next Saturday. "I was naive, overly trusting of people, and inexperienced." The press release merely refers to Audrina as an "aspiring actress" and "Tinseltown sweetheart." Geez, do we have to do everyone's job for them?

A cast of thousands - OK, maybe dozens - attended Details magazine's "Mavericks 2008" party in Beverly Hills the other night. But if a maverick is defined as someone who stands apart from the crowd, why were omnipresent reality TV types Kim Kardashian and Kristin Cavallari, Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx, and "Beverly Hills 90210" actor Ian Ziering on the guest list? And what's so subversive about Newton native B.J. Novak (inset), who's one of the writers and producers of the hit show "The Office"?

Maureen Feeney was among friends at Thursday's "Celebration of Women's Leadership" event. Ostensibly a fund-raiser for the City Council president, the affair at Union Oyster House was hosted by Senate president Therese Murray and attended by former gubernatorial nominee Shannon O'Brien, Weber Shandwick's Micho Spring, Boston Medical Center's Elaine Ullian, Joanne Jaxtimer of Mellon Financial, former councilors Peggy Davis Mullen and Diane Modica.

Good-looking local lads Jeffrey Donovan and David Chokachi were a few of the familiar faces at an event in LA this week for the TAP Project. Donovan, the Amesbury native best known for his work on "Burn Notice," and "Baywatch" beefcake Chokachi, who hails from Plymouth, are both supporters of the campaign to provide safe drinking water to children around the world. They were joined by actors Chad Lowe, Daryl Hannah, and Annabeth Gish.

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