Jessica Simpson to Join the Marines – on Film

Jessica Simpson's acting career is turning her into a major movie star – literally.

The singer has signed on to play the title role in the comedy Major Movie Star, about a down-on-her-luck actress who enlists in the Marines, her rep tells PEOPLE.

"She's excited to get back on a movie set and get into a new character," says her rep.

Simpson, 26, who has already had starring roles in The Dukes of Hazzard and Employee of the Month, had been scheduled to being filming a spy comedy, The Witness, in June, but now she'll start shooting Major in Louisiana that month instead.

Until then, she'll be spending time with boyfriend John Mayer. "They're really happy," says a source.

Pamela Anderson:Five Fun Facts

1 Pamela Anderson has appeared on the cover of Playboy a record 11 times.

2 As a teen, Pamela Anderson earned the nickname Rubber Band for her gymnastic prowess, according to Maclean's.

3 Pamela Anderson 's mother doesn't mind the Playboy pictures. In 1993, she told PEOPLE, "You see a lot of uglier people with next to nothing on down at the beach."

4 Pamela Anderson, who meditates regularly, once said the person she'd most like to meet is Indian holy man Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda.

5 Pamela Anderson learned to swear in Finnish from her grandfather, who was born in Helsinki.

Jessica Alba and Cash Warren

• Jessica Alba and Cash Warren, sweetly holding hands and smiling as they chatted with four pals over dinner at Beverly Hills eatery Mastro's. On the menu: steaks, sweet potato fries and red wine.

Carmen Electra:Snapshot

Carmen Electra was just Tara Patrick, a Midwestern girl with dreams of becoming a dancer, before auditioning for Prince in 1990. The audition changed her life (and her name), with the 18-year-old touring with the pop star and recording a solo album for his label. Though the album never took off, Electra eventually found her launching pad to success as a Playboy centerfold. The Ohio native went on to replace Jenny McCarthy as host of the MTV game show Singled Out and succeeded Pamela Anderson as a lifeguard on Baywatch – even though she didn't know how to swim. Through the years, Electra remained in the spotlight with film and TV roles, spreads in men's magazines, and a short Las Vegas marriage to basketball star Dennis Rodman in 1998. In 2003, the beauty married guitarist Dave Navarro and filmed her journey to the altar for the MTV reality series 'Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen & Dave. But, in 2006, she amicably split and filed for divorce from Navarro.

Beyoncé Goes Bilingual – Only When Singing

Beyoncé is up to something new: singing in Spanish. "I just feel like I have to learn Spanish because I can sing it – I just can't speak it," she says in the new issue of PEOPLE En Español. On April 3 she'll release a new version of her CD B-Day, which originally came out in September. This time, she's added six new songs – all sung in Spanish, including "Amor Gitano," the theme to the Telemundo telenovela Zorro, which she delivers as a duet with Alejandro Fernandez. "A lot of my fans are Hispanic," she says, "and they've always told me, 'You should sing something in Spanish,' but I don't speak Spanish at all. I took it in school [so] I thought, let me give this a try."

And trying it was. "I did these songs phonetically, sentence by sentence, and I spent a lot of time ... making sure it was perfect, because I didn't want to disrespect the language, because it's so beautiful," says the Texas-born singer, 25, who brought help with her to the recording session. "One of my best friends in the world is Cuban, so she was the test. I brought her to the studio and told her, 'Be honest. You have to tell me if anything is wrong.' So when she approved it, I knew everything was right."

Would she ever do an entire album in Spanish? "I would love to," she says. "I wanted to see how people would respond to me singing in Spanish and I'm so grateful that people have opened up their hearts to what I've done."

Avril Lavigne: I Won't Be Like Britney

Avril Lavigne says she loves to hit the town, but that "none of what's happened to Britney will ever happen to me." Lavigne, 22, tells the UK's Mail on Sunday of the recently rehabbed Spears: "What happened to Britney is all down to who she is as a person. If you want a piece of this business you have to be able to deal with it. "You can't complain about the pressures, the paparazzi, the madness. Because that is the job. I've always understood that's the deal." Lavigne, who wed Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley in July 2006, says she's no wallflower – she just keeps a low profile. "I love to go out to clubs, get drunk and party. I drink dirty martinis, red wine, limoncellos and go to places like Hyde, get up on the tables and let totally loose. But no one really gets to know about it. It's just me and my friends and whoever is in the clubs." She adds: "My friends and I all drink like crazy but none of us do drugs because you just get into trouble. If you get drunk you have a hangover and you have to deal with it. If you do drugs it messes with your head." Lavigne isn't unhealthy all the time, though. She's a vegetarian who often sticks to a macrobiotic diet. The singer, who appeared in the film Fast Food Nation, says eating that way "makes me feel completely healthy. When I tour, I stuff fridges full of organic food and stick to that." It's not the diet that's led to her new sexy image, though. "I guess I just feel more comfortable now," says the woman who as a teen pop star often appeared onstage in baggy, androgynous outfits. "I'm 22, so I'm all grown-up. It feels natural for me to be like this now. I'm very comfortable with how I look. I always have been. I think I look pretty good. There's nothing I want to change. I'm pretty happy with what I've got."

Jessica Biel Snapshot

With a pair of nude-colored boy shorts and an arm strategically placed over her bare breasts, actress Jessica Biel was transformed from a preacher's daughter on 7th Heaven into a babe of the month in lad magazine Gear.

Although Biel expressed regret over the raunchy spread years later, she achieved the image reinvention that allowed her to part ways with the wholesome show that put her on the map. The beautifully buff actress went on to scream in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and slay vampires in Blade: Trinity. But, it was Biel's turn in the 2006 period piece The Illusionist that took her out of Stealth mode and displayed her range as a dramatic actress.

The Sexiest Woman Alive (according to Esquire in 2005) has dated actor Chris Evans and was recently linked to New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter and singer Justin Timberlake.

Anna Nicole Smith

A Texas stripper turned Playboy Playmate, model and E! reality star, Anna Nicole Smith lived out a flamboyant rags-to-riches story before her sudden death on Feb. 8, 2007. The buxom blonde became a national curiosity after she married 89-year-old oil billionaire J. Howard Marshall II in 1994. When Marshall died after 13 months of marriage, it set in motion a long legal battle over his estate between Smith and Marshall's son, E. Pierce. The case, which is still pending, went all the way to the Supreme Court in 2006.

Her namesake reality TV show featured a perpetually befuddled Smith, her oft-present lawyer Howard K. Stern and her soft-spoken son Daniel, the product of a pre-fame Texas marriage. In September 2006, after Smith gave birth to daughter, Dannielynn, 20-year-old Daniel died suddenly in her hospital room from ingesting a lethal mixture of medications.

Compounding her woes, Smith was hit with a paternity test by ex-boyfriend photographer Larry Birkhead. She disputed Birkhead's claim and held a commitment ceremony to Stern, who is listed as Dannielynn's father on the birth certificate. However, DNA test results show Birkhead is indeed the father.