Finally we can ID the diminutive actress who'll co star with Dwayne ``The Rock" Johnson in Disney's football flick ``The Game Plan." After conducting a nationwide search, the producers have settled on 7-year-old Madison Pettis, a curly-haired cutie from Arlington, Texas. In the film, which starts shooting here in a few weeks, ``The Rock" plays a quarterback who wakes up one day to discover he's got a 7-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. Pettis plays the girl. It's her first film, but Pettis is no stranger to TV, having appeared in ``Barney & Friends" on PBS -- for all you baby sitters, she's Bridget. She also has a recurring role on the new CBS show ``Jericho," which stars Skeet Ulrich and ``Major Dad" Gerald McRaney. (Not exactly lighthearted, the one-hour drama's about a small Kansas town struggling to cope after a nuclear attack.) We tried to reach Pettis yesterday, but she was at ballet school, which she's attending to prepare for the film. (A chip off the old ``Rock," Pettis's character in the film is a dazzling dancer.) ``This is huge for Madison," said her manager, Susie Mains. ``She has 35 costume changes -- she's on almost every page!" Cameras don't start rolling until June 26, but Pettis arrives in Boston Monday to begin rehearsing. ``She's happiest when she's working," said Mains. ``She just starts skipping." Meanwhile, as a result of a marketing dispute with Disney, the NFL's denying producers of ``The Game Plan" permission to use team names, logos, or uniforms in the movie, but we're told the Krafts have been exceedingly cooperative and will, after all, allow the filmmakers to shoot at Gillette Stadium. (The Pats owners are being compensated, of course, but no one's saying how deep Disney is digging into its pockets to film in Foxborough.) Additional scenes will be shot at BC's Alumni Stadium.
The Pops help rock Letterman show
A day after playing with
Bernadette Peters and celebrity stand-in
Arnold Palmer,
Keith Lockhart and 13 Pops players headed to NYC to do
David Letterman's show with ragged rockers My Morning Jacket. (They dressed up for the occasion.) ``Three letters -- Wow," said drummer
Patrick Hallahan after performing ``Gideon." ``I can't wait to get 100 of them behind us." (MMJ plays with the Pops at Symphony Hall June 21 and 22.) Said Pops arranger
Patrick Hollenback: ``If they play with half the energy they had tonight, it'll be a great show." . . . Patriots president
Jonathan Kraft surprised dear old dad with a cake the other night on the occasion of
Bob Kraft's 65th birthday. The enormous confection was wheeled in following a dinner the Krafts hosted at their Brookline home for Citizens Bank boss
Larry Fish and his wife,
Atsuko, recipients of the United Way's Alexis de Tocqueville Society Award for community service. . . .
Frank and
Joe Ciota's comedy, ``Stiffs," which filmed in Boston earlier this year , is being reworked. The brothers from the North Shore have been ``punching up" scenes after showing the film to area comics. Looks like star
Danny Aiello may even return to reshoot a few scenes.
Crimson in clover, over and over
Harvard's Class of '71, which the school's late president Nathan Pusey once called ``the worst class ever," celebrates its 35th reunion this weekend, and we're told a few familiar faces are coming back for it. ``House of Bush, House of Saud" author
Craig Unger will be there, as will New Yorker scribe
James Atlas. Former
Fannie Mae CEO
Franklin Raines RSVP'd, as did Sox owner
Tom Werner, Staples founder
Tom Stemberg, and former city councilor
Larry DiCara. B est of all?
Jerry Harrison (inset), former keyboardist for Talking Heads, will be in the house. . . . If you're waiting to see ``The Legend of Lucy Keyes" on the big screen, don't hold your breath. Filmed a few years ago in Princeton, Mass.,
John Stimpson's flick featuring
Justin Theroux and
Julie Delpy is going direct to video. Actually, the movie, produced by Waltham-based Moody Street Pictures, will air on Lifetime in August and
then be available on DVD. ``Lucy Keyes" was a hit at the Boston International Film Festival in April.
``SNL" regular Rachel Dratch was at the Newport International Film Festival last night, where she did a little improv with her ``SNL" castmate Horatio Sanz. Speaking beforehand, Dratch, a Lexington native, said she was ``just putting on a show."
Geoff Edgers of the Globe staff contributed. Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253. 
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
