Actress Berry shows her wild side

The Hasty Pudding Theatricals know crazy behavior, but the likes of Halle Berry they haven't seen before. The Oscar-winning actress was at Harvard yesterday to pick up the troupe's 2006 Woman of the Year award and wowed the crowd with some delightful dirty dancing. Indeed, there was little Berry wouldn't say or do. Asked, for instance, if that ample bosom is all natural, the former Bond Girl grabbed herself and replied, ''If I took my bra off you'd see how real they are." At another point, to demonstrate her acting chops, Berry purred in the ear of Harvard student Sam Gale Rosen before surprising him with a full-on, open-mouthed kiss and a grab below the belt. ''I didn't prepare at all," the actress said afterward. ''They just told me to be game." And she was. In a mock dance-off with her arch nemesis ''Dog Man," the star of ''Catwoman," wearing tights jeans and a revealing white top, shook serious booty -- bringing the howling students to their feet. Berry also got political for a moment and used a profanity to describe President Bush, while saying he's ''the most serious problem" facing the world today. Berry assured those assembled that her golden Pudding Pot would be on display beside the Oscar she won in 2002 for ''Monster's Ball." When asked about her new beau, model boyfriend Gabriel Aubry, Berry said she wasn't in town to talk about that. Earlier yesterday, Berry was treated to lunch at Bonfire in Park Square. And last night she hosted a dinner at the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square, where the hotel's executive chef Peter Davis prepared a special menu that included loads of veggies and an entree of grilled filet mignon or sesame crusted orange roughy.

Hockney hopes his art draws in Levine

Artist David Hockney is hoping his exhibition of portraits at the Museum of Fine Arts will bring his good friend Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor James Levine down Huntington Avenue. (Hockney, who calls Levine ''Jimmy," has done set designs for Levine at New York's Metropolitan Opera.) One Levine has already made the trip to see the show, which opens to the public next week. That would be the maestro's brother, Tom Levine, a visual artist himself, who was spotted yesterday afternoon.

The Veronicas, that would be 21-year-old Australian twins Jess and Lisa Origliasso, performed a private afternoon concert for Stride Rite employees and their families in Lexington. The company, which makes Keds, is a sponsor of the duo's US tour.

Schnetzer gets to play ‘The Goat’

It's official: Actor Stephen Schnetzer has joined the cast of the Lyric Stage Company's production of Edward Albee's ''The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?" as the goat-enamored Martin. Patrick Shea withdrew from the production last weekend for personal reasons. The Boston-born, New York-based Schnetzer is a veteran of both daytime and prime-time TV. Schnetzer was Bill Pullman's understudy in the Broadway production of ''The Goat," and previously performed the role at Washington's Arena Stage.

Carell's Oscar-bound

Not that we needed further evidence that Concord native and sometime South Shore resident Steve Carell's career is white hot. We can now add that Carell has been tapped to be a presenter at the Academy Awards on March 5. The star of TV's ''The Office" and last year's hit ''The 40 Year-Old Virgin," will also be seen soon in ''Little Miss Sunshine" and has eight other film projects in the works.

Buchwald recovering

Columnist and novelist Art Buchwald is in a Washington area hospice with an amputated leg, an assistant said yesterday. Cathy Crary asked that the hospice not be named, saying, ''We don't want him swamped." The 80-year-old summertime resident of Martha's Vineyard had a vascular condition that caused his leg to not get enough blood, requiring doctors to perform the amputation below the knee. Crary said that it was not connected to a previously announced kidney problem. ''He's really doing very well," she said. Buchwald's column, which began in the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune in 1949, is on hiatus. In 1982, he won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

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