Before Penn Badgely acquired his sarcastic smirk, before Leighton Meester had a stylist, before Blake Lively's breasts became the lead characters on Gossip Girl, before Taylor Momsen's '80s glam hair, and before Ed Westwick mastered the Chuck Face, the young actors on the CW show were, shall we say, not quite as polished.

Digging through old photos of the cast, the Daily Transom discovered that the group of twentysomething lead actors--or teenage actors in Ms. Momsen's case--that have become the beautiful young fixtures on red carpets over the past year were once just goofy teenagers with bad skin and terrible fashion sense.  read more »

Cecily von Ziegesar's half-brother Peter finalized a deal with St. Martin's last week to write an as-yet-untitled "family memoir." According to a posting on the Publishers Marketplace deal-wire (sub. required), the book will cover the childhood Mr. von Ziegesar spent living in the "wealthy and privileged enclaves of the northeast" and the relationship he had as an adult with one of his step-brothers, a homeless schizophrenic also named Peter.

According to the author's literary agent, David Kuhn, Mr. von Ziegesar's memoir will not be about his famous Gossip Girl-creating half-sister Cecily any more than it will be about any of the 50 secondary characters that will populate the book.  read more »

For this bit of exciting and awesome news, let us dust off our best Gossip Girl impression: Spotted: Uber-producer Josh Schwartz raiding Seth Cohen's old comic book collection as he gets ready to play ball with the big boys of summer blockbusters. Hope you bring your "X" game, Josh.

Ahem. For the non-cognoscente who don't have the foggiest idea of what we're referring to: Josh Schwartz, the creator of Gossip Girl, The O.C. and Chuck, has been chosen by 20th Century Fox to write the script for X-Men: First Class. Based on the 2006 Marvel comic of the same name, the film will deal with a young class of mutants attending the Xavier Institute, including such familiar X-Men faces as Rogue, Iceman and Angel.  read more »

WPIX-TV—better known as New York’s CW11, broadcaster of addictive junk food like Gossip Girl—has renewed its lease for 104,000 square feet at 220 East 42nd Street through 2012. The rent was not disclosed, but the building’s asking rents are $58 a square foot.

It was a rare note of good news in landlord SL Green’s otherwise sober third-quarter Tuesday afternoon investor conference call, during which executives sought to allay concerns about the real estate investment trust’s $141.5 million investment in beleaguered real estate financial firm Gramercy Capital Corp. and SL Green’s exposure, along with other major landlords, to New York’s uncertain office market.  read more »

If you happened to watch last night's off-the-reservation edition of Gossip Girl, here's a question you probably asked yourself as the episode came to an end: are they kidding me? Rarely can we say with actual meaning that a television show made us feel dirty all over. The latest Gossip Girl left us wanting to take a decontamination shower.

How crazy was it? Well, the opening, featuring Blair masturbating to a fantasy of Chuck going down on her, was actually one of the more tame moments of the night. (Also, hello, this show is on at eight o'clock!) By the time the last act rolled around, 15-year-old Jenny (15-year-old Taylor Momsen), and her new friend Agnes (17-year-old Willa Holland), had stripped down to their bras and were dancing around seductively while getting their pictures taken. For real. The scene played out like an American Apparel ad come to depressing life. It just made us feel bad for all the participants involved.  read more »

As we're sure you know, last night's episode of Gossip Girl featured a somewhat convoluted plot involving Vanessa, Chuck, Serena Blair, a sexy Cruel Intentions-style bet, and Boerum Hill's well-loved Brooklyn Inn, which Vanessa was trying to save from destruction by getting it landmark status. While the bar's divey, old-school qualities seem to have been a bit, shall we say, exaggerated for the purposes of the show (remember: they do have some viewers outside of New York!), we confirmed via the gentleman answering the phone over there that the episode was, in fact, shot on location. Had he enjoyed seeing his workplace on the small screen? "Oh, I don't watch television," he replied before directing us to manager Jason Furlani, who didn't pick up.  read more »

In their Gossip Girl recaps, New York's Daily Intel writers are fond of saying that Leighton Meester's Blair Waldorf has a different writer from the rest of the show. It's a funny conceit, the idea that there is some David Mamet-of-teen-soaps ghostwriting the delicious dialogue that Blair spouts each week. But we think that's just ignoring the obvious, discounting the talent of Ms. Meester. Perhaps everything Blair says seems heightened because an actual actress is delivering the lines. It's time to give the girl some credit!

We know it sounds like faint praise. A votive candle could out-act Blake Lively, and as appealing as most of the other actors and actresses are, none would have made the late Lee Strasberg stand at attention.  read more »

Earlier this week we learned about the social networking site YA for Obama, started by Young Adult writer Maureen Johnson. Judy Blume was the first author up at bat, and today we have two more. There's "Do The Math" by Scott Westerfeld (um, no), which involves charts and percentages (double no). And then there's "Gossip Girl for Obama" by Cecily von Ziegesar, writer of the Gossip Girl series.

Ms. Von Ziegesar poses the question, is Barack Obama a "Nate, a Dan, a Chuck, a Serena, or a Blair?". Turns out the answer is Blair (hmmm), but for our money the most fascinating thing about this post is the detail of Ms.  read more »

Last night's episode of Gossip Girl, while entertaining, did leave us with one gigantic question: How does Dan Humphrey not have a single male friend?

The lack of male camaraderie for Dan is something that has bothered us from the beginning. Gossip Girl has adequately sidestepped this problem by giving Dan a female best friend in the form of Vanessa, but their relationship features so much inherent sexual tension that it feels like the writers could turn it into a love affair at a moment's notice. There is also the relationship Dan has with his father, Rufus, but that can only go so far.  read more »

We admit we have a rather unhealthy obsession with Taylor Momsen, the 15-year-old actress who will likely do the bulk of her growing up on CW's Gossip Girl. (If Josh Schwartz's first show, The O.C., is anything to go on, Gossip Girl will likely be on the air for about four seasons, by which time Ms. Momsen will be safely post-high-school age.)

But the young Ms. Momsen has already embarked on the fast track to image makeover, trading in her pink tutu dresses for '80s rock star hair, leather pants and motorcycle jackets. All of which makes us wonder if the young actress is in desperate need of a stylist.  read more »