DeGette Teams Up With Hollywood

Rep. Diana DeGette hopes Hollywood A-list types can give her new PAC a boost:

Hollywood big-wigs are about to help Rep. Diana DeGette kick off a new political action committee for candidates who back embryonic stem-cell research.

"Surely, you can't be serious."

"I am serious. And don't call me Shirley."

Jerry Zucker, one of the writer-directors who made that line famous in the movie "Airplane," is co-hosting a $1,000-per-person fundraiser with his wife, Janet Zucker, at their Brentwood, Calif., home on Thursday.

Other hosts include Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher, producers of last year's "Memoirs of a Geisha," and countless other films. Wick won an Academy Award for the film "Gladiator."

DeGette has launched the Stem Cell Action Fund to raise money for congressional candidates who support her push for expanded federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, which advocates see as the best hope of curing Alzheimer's disease, diabetes and other diseases.