Sopranos, Boyle, Kattan and Taylor in Hot Stuff

There's life after Jack for Lara Flynn Boyle
Is Lara Flynn Boyle over Jack Nicholson? The Practice star introduced Eric Dane, who played Dr. Wyatt Cooper on the recently canceled ABC medical drama Gideon's Crossing, as the "new big love of my life" to a friend at Nello, a tony restaurant on New York's Upper East Side, a spy tells Hot Stuff. Boyle's rep insists the two are only friends, but our source spotted Boyle, 31, and Dane, 32, holding hands and smooching while having lunch at the eatery on May 18. "These weren't little pecks," the source says. "These were some really long kisses." The romantic afternoon continued with three hours of strolling along Madison Avenue, where they window-shopped at several jewelry stores and walked out of Barneys with a couple of shopping bags. Boyle and the 64-year-old Nicholson reportedly broke up in April after about a year together, by which time she was already seeing Dane, whose rep did not return calls.

Sopranos star can't watch
Millions of viewers may have watched Jackie Jr. get whacked on the Sopranos finale, but actor Jason Cerbone switched off just before his character was shot in the head. "I don't think anyone should have to watch themselves die," Cerbone, 23, tells Hot Stuff. He also felt squeamish filming the scene in which he's lying in a casket, if only because his castmates are such jokers: "I didn't want anyone closing the lid - so I kept shouting out 'No one's gonna touch this coffin, all right?' " And don't believe those stories about Cerbone dating Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who plays Meadow. He dates his high-school sweetheart, a nurse from Yonkers, New York.

Can Tobey win back Kirsten?
Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire's romance with costar Kirsten Dunst has unraveled. But the pair, who began dating in March while shooting in Los Angeles, may still have a future. Dunst, 19, who plays the superhero's gal, Mary Jane Watson, broke off the relationship because Maguire, 25, wasn't paying enough attention to her on the set, says a friend of Dunst's, who adds, "Tobey has been trying to make up with her by writing her these lovey-dovey letters."

All for Niki
Lauren Hutton wants Niki Taylor to know she's thinking about her. Hutton, 57, who is recovering from a near-fatal motorcycle accident on October 21, is "sending positive thoughts" to Taylor, 26, the model hospitalized in Atlanta after suffering severe internal injuries in a car crash on April 29. "Good thoughts work," Hutton says. And perhaps they do. Taylor is off a respirator and is talking a bit to family and friends.

Dentist Cary makes Liz fall in love again
Elizabeth Taylor has ruled out getting married again after eight walks down the aisle, but she hasn't given up on romance, especially with a good-looking younger guy. The 69-year-old actor is reportedly dating her fifty-something dentist, Cary Schwartz, a gray-haired, debonair bachelor whom she befriended in 1999 after years of being his patient. Most recently, Taylor and Schwartz, whose practice is in Beverly Hills, attended the Cinema Against AIDS benefit at the Cannes Film Festival (see page 18), sitting together and whispering to each other. The pair, along with Taylor's entourage - including a hairdresser and a masseuse - stayed at a private villa outside Cannes, France, for about a week.

Kattan's painful end
Work can be a real pain, as Chris Kattan found out when performing on Saturday Night Live on May 12. While doing a scene in which he played a teen obsessed with impersonating Betty White's character from the Golden Girls, Kattan, pretending to choke on a piece of blueberry cheesecake, fell from a chair and suffered a herniated disc (see above). The 30-year-old comic was able to finish the show, but he had to see a chiropractor the next day. "Chris is in pain," his rep tells Hot Stuff, "but he's a real trouper." Kattan also appeared on SNL's season finale on May 19, and two days after that, he headed for the Toronto set of his new movie, Undercover Brother.

Didn't Shaq up
Cindy Crawford is in denial. So are Barbra Streisand, Christina Aguilera and others who have devoted parts of their Web sites to clearing up nasty rumors. After Shaquille O'Neal joked in a radio interview that he had slept with Crawford, she wrote on her site, produced by oneworldlive.com, "Whew! Who wouldn't want to be with Shaq? However . . . we never had a sexual relationship. But he had you going there for a while, didn't he?" Streisand, meanwhile, says it's not true she and husband James Brolin planned to adopt a baby, while Aguilera wins the prize for weirdest denial, refuting a report that Brad Pitt threw water on her in a health-food store after she flirted with him.

MARCUS BARAM & MARC S. MALKIN
(June 7, 2001 - US 329)