When NBC LA anchorman and reporter Robert Kovacik recently reminded on his Facebook page that he would be interviewing actress Jane Fonda as part of the Los Angeles Press Club’s 5th Annual National Entertainment Journalism Awards, held last night at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, the first comment he received came from a female resident of Malibu:

No offense to you Robert, but I feel very strongly that Jane Fonda is a lying b*tch who betrayed our nation. Ask her if she did indeed hand over to the VC the notes that the American POWs gave to her. They died a brutal death because of her traitorous actions. Shame on her.

Strong words, perhaps too strong. But Fonda is well aware of this specter. Last night during her Q&A with Kovacik, here’s how the worthy LAPC Visionary Award recipient answered when he asked about her biggest life regret:

“Sitting on that gun in North Vietnam. I’ll go to my grave with that one.”

The remark has been quickly pounced on this morning at Breitbart.com, The Daily Caller and elsewhere.

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Get ready to read and hear a lot this fall about David Oyelowo (pronounced “oh-yellow-oh”), the 36-year-old British actor who gained some prominence last year via The Help and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He’s got four films coming out in the next three months: Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy (October 5); 2012 Sundance award-winning drama Middle of Nowhere (October 12); Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (November 16); and the Tom Cruise action drama Jack Reacher (December 21).

Oyelowo is very good in The Paperboy, playing one half of a crack Miami newspaper reporting team (together with Matthew McConaughey) that comes to Lately, Florida in 1969 to investigate the possibly wrongful Death Row conviction of a local man (John Cusack) for the murder of a town sheriff. The actor has a big fan in Daniels, who planned earlier to make a civil rights era movie with Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr. and has the performer in his next film, The Butler. From The Paperboy press notes:

Daniels rewrote the character specifically for Oyelowo, transforming the part of Yardley Acheman from a white reporter into a cultured and sophisticated black man, whose English accent helps him navigate the still largely segregated American South of the 1960s. “As a black man himself, Lee was very interested in how a black reporter in Florida in 1969 would have been greeted and how he would react in that situation,” says Oyelowo.

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According to Variety’s Jeff Sneider, Lee Daniels wants Jane Fonda to play the part of Nancy Reagan in her his upcoming adaptation The Butler. The story of a White House servant spans many different administrations and Fonda’s role is not a main one. Still, with the actress’ CAA reps still needing to officially ink the deal, the mere possibility of Fonda-as-Ronald’s-First-Lady smacks of stunt casting.

Not to mention the kind of Hollywood move that will light up the blogosphere for days. Check out the punctuation at the end of this Fox Nation morning headline:

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A television adaptation of Jacqueline Susann‘s best-selling novel is currently in the works. Fox and Chernin Entertainment are currently producing the series, with Oscar-nominated Lee Daniels on board as writer and directer. The show was purchased by the NBC network late last year.

There’s only one little problem. According to Jacqueline Susann’s estate, managed by Tiger LLC, Fox doesn’t have the rights to make a Valley of the Dolls series, and they’re suing for copyright infringement

For an industry that’s been screaming bloody murder about copyright infringement as of late, that seems like a colossal oversight. But it’s complicated, of course. There was a time when the studio did have the rights to a Dolls TV series. Which, according to the lawsuit, Fox lost in 1994. But in 1998 the studio optioned the rights to a TV movie of the book. But not a TV series. At least not according to Tiger LLC.

Bottom line, no television show can stand up to the 1967 film version. All parties involved would be best served simply pouring themselves a whiskey sour, pulling up Valley of the Dolls on Netflix, and letting Sharon Tate blow their minds.