'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End' Ripped Off Billboards

If poster theft is any indication of how big "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" is going to be, someone had better be battening down the hatches.  We get word that as of late last week, more than half of the "Pirates" posters adorning phone kiosks in New York had been swiped, with more being filched all the time. At least 27 percent of posters in L.A. and Orange County bus shelters had been lifted as well -- despite the difficulty in getting to them.

'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End' Ripped Off Billboards

OK, so, going by the thefts in the two cities, which is the most popular "Pirate" poster? CBS's outdoor advertising wing reports theft correlating to allotments shipped: 30 Captain Jack Sparrows (Johnny Depp); 11 Will Turners (Orlando Bloom); 10 Elizabeth Swans (Kiera Knightley); 3 Captain Barbossas (Geoffrey Rush); and 2 Davy Joneses (Bill Nighy). Clear Channel, however, reports that they've had the biggest theft in Orlando posters.

Both vendors report arrrrght work missing all over the place. Hereabouts, we're told, pinching of the posters in Burbank has been especially concentrated. Shame on you, Burbank.

THE SILVER LINING: Brenda Russell says she's found that being diagnosed with diabetes while she was co-writing the songbook for the Broadway adaptation of "The Color Purple" turned out to be "a blessing in disguise.

 "I'm probably healthier now than I ever was," declares the singer/songwriter. "I had to change my eating habits, stop the sugar, of course, stopped eating a lot of white products like rice. I take insulin and do more exercises. It's really changed my life so that it makes me much more careful about what I put into my body. I feel really good, and I'll probably live longer now."

Russell says it was during the preview run of "The Color Purple" in Atlanta that she got "really, really sick. I just thought I was tired because I was working such horrible hours, but it became apparent something was gravely wrong with me. Then I was diagnosed with diabetes."

She adds, "If anyone had told me it was going to take five years to do 'The Color Purple,' I would have said, 'Oh, I couldn't possibly do that. I'm way too busy.'"

She says her whole life ended up on hold. "I couldn't do anything else -- no gigs, no touring, no writing for other people. I had to focus five days a week like I had a day job. But it turned out to be just a huge blessing. We had 11 Tony nominations, which was pretty awesome." "The Color Purple" just started its Chicago run -- with pre-sales over the $7 million mark -- and Russell says the show will probably hit Los Angeles "the first of next year."

HOT SLOT: Nothing like being in the catbird seat, says Willie Garson, who co-stars with Austin Nichols, Rebecca DeMornay, Ed O'Neill, Luke Perry and Jennifer Grey in "John from Cincinnati," David Milch's new HBO drama about a family of surfers. "Right after the finale of 'The Sopranos' June 10, it will fade out and fade into our first shot," says Garson, adding, "'The Sopranos' is leaving us, and this'll be HBO's next big hit." Might sound like typical hype, but he says HBO is fully behind Milch's latest project, especially after the success of his now defunct "Deadwood" series. "They love it, and we're all pretty happy. Even if it doesn't end up connecting with an audience, we know we're making something special."

Milch is known for his edgy projects rife with violence and sexual content, and Garson says, don't expect any less just because the show is set in the surfing world. "It's gritty and real … they're not messing around. The characters talk how real people talk, which is how I like to work." In "John from Cincinnati," he plays a lawyer named Meyer Dickstein. "The show takes place in Imperial Beach, a real city on the California/Mexico border," he says. "My character is Jewish, already a rarity in that part of the world, and I'm the president of the Attorneys Surfing Association." Say what? That's right, says Garson, "It's a real thing. There are surfing attorney chapters all over the country." Who knew?

FUR SURE: Molly Shannon, an avid dog lover, says that making her recent movie "Year of the Dog" gave her a chance to really explore the depths of people's feelings about their pets. "I know a lot of people who treat their pet like their baby," she notes. "I would treat the dogs on set the same as a person because the depth of love was the same as loving a human, as far as I was concerned. It's still love. There's no difference." However, Shannon's the first to admit that there are exceptions. "I'm severely allergic to cats, so I can't even entertain the idea of being near them." Me-ow!

(With reports by Stephanie DuBois and Emily Feimster)