When Martin Sheen shot his November 1979 cover for Rolling Stone magazine, a teenage Charlie watched in awe from the sidelines. As the latter explains in a behind-the-scenes video for the continuation of this particular family tradition, he told himself at the time, “I want to do THAT.”

Strangely, the magazine’s editors chose a rather innocuous shot for the 2012 cover. Sheen cavorts with a number of women in the above video, but you’d never know at the newsstand unless you thumb into the actual article. Dad’s photographer was Annie Leibovitz; Charlie’s session was handled by Peggy Sirota.

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By somewhat sheer happenstance, the Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg has been thrust onto the Inside the Actors Studio beat.

After Martin Sheen heard “through the grapevine” about the film journalist’s fondness for The Way, an indie drama made with and by son Emilio Estevez, the 71-year-old actor invited Feinberg to his Malibu home. The result is a nearly two-hour videotaped conversation about Sheen’s life and times.

What’s so great about this video is how raw it is. With a spectacular rock-landscaped pool in the background, Sheen is free to reminisce without any of those annoying cut-away shots  so common at Hollywood junkets, of the interviewing journalist nodding or smiling.

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AFI Fest was not the only film action in town this weekend. Per an inspiring write-up in the National Catholic Reporter, there was also a memorable screening of the new Emilio Estevez-Martin Sheen drama The Way on Saturday atop the Chalon campus of Mount St. Mary’s College.

As Sister Rose Pacatte reports, a number of celebrities were among the 350-person audience. There was also this amazing post-screening Q&A tidbit, offered up by Reverend Scott Young, executive director of UCLA’s University Religious Conference:

Young shared that the day before, he had been at a restaurant in Seal Beach near a beauty salon where in October a gunman opened fire, killing eight people. Young began chatting with some ladies who were dining at the next table and found that they were close friends of the stylists who were killed.

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Longtime character actor G.D. Spradlin died at the age of 90 last Sunday at his San Luis Obispo home, reports the LA Times. Spradlin had a long career in Hollywood that began after a failed mayoral run in his native Oklahoma. He was undoubtedly best know for his role as the wildly corrupt Nevada senator Pat Geary in Francis Ford Coppola‘s The Godfather: Part II. Spradlin also played the part of the general who sends Martin Sheen upriver in Apocalypse Now.

His last part was as a Washington Post editor in the 1999 film Dick.

RIP.

This week’s episode of Two and Half Porn Stars featuring Charlie Sheen, a hernia and the alleged home delivery of a “briefcase full of cocaine” suggests that the highest paid TV actor in Hollywood continues to ignore the difference between “the life we live and the live we choose.”

That’s not some hokey life-mantra from FishbowlLA. It’s actually a pivotal line of dialogue brother Emilio Estevez‘s character utters via flashback in the upcoming Easter movie The Way, the story of a dad (Martin Sheen, pictured) who ventures to Spain to recover the dead body of his son. The drama is Estevez’s first writer-director effort since 2006′s critically acclaimed Bobby.

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Thursday 06.21.07
WHAT: Opening night screening of L.A. Film Festival
WHO: Kasi Lemmons, Don Cheadle, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cedric the Entertainer, Taraji P. Henson, Martin Sheen, co-chair Andy Garcia Cuba Gooding Jr. and many others.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Mann Village Theatre
WHY: Because, once again, Fantastic Four blows.

FRIDAY 06.22.07
WHAT: Film premiere of Ratatouille
WHO: Celebs include Patton Oswalt, Janeane Garofalo, Brad Garrett, John Ratzenberger, Lou Romano, Peter Sohn, celebrity chef Thomas Keller, Julius Calahan, Jake Steinfeld, producer Brad Lewis, writer/director Brad Bird; plus Denise Richards, Hayden Patettiere, Natalie Maines, Adrian Pasdar, Andy Garcia, Hector Elizondo, Greg Grunberg, Masi Oka and many others
WHEN: 4:30 p.m.
WHERE: Kodak Theatre
WHY: Because it’ll delight you … and keep you from ever eating at a French restaurant again.

Sunday 06.24.07
WHAT: Reading of essay anthology DAMAGE CONTROL
WHO: Sam Dunn Camp, Rachel Resnick, Francesca Lia Block, Emma Forrest and others.
WHEN: 5 p.m.
WHERE: Chateau Marmont
WHY: As Camp says, “Appetizers, the requisite celebrity sightings at the Chateau, a good book and my talented women pals… Such a deal!”

While the Rolling Stone/MTV reality show is sure to be engrossing, if you like that sort of thing, it’s not the first TV venture for the mag. In 1977, Jann Wenner launched a 10th Anniversary Special. Directed by Steve Binder, written by Steve Martin and Mason Williams, Donny Osmond was in the lineup, along with Ted Neeley (the guy who played Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar), Patti Labelle, Yvonne Elliman and Garfunkel, minus Simon. Check out the dancing strawberries in the Beatles tribute, minus the Beatles.

Wenner wanted a prime-time special despite CBS exec’s pleas to do a late night show. He’d alienated so many major stars, according to those who were around back then, that the network had to drag in some non-music talent, namely Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek.

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