For Ryan Pinkston, the Red Carpet Extends All the Way to Columbia

Small kid, big success. That's the brief version of Ryan Pinkston's climb from Howard County schoolkid to movie star.

The 5-foot-3 actor -- best known as the bratty kid interviewing stars on the red carpet during the first season of MTV's "Punk'd"-- landed his first big starring role in "Full of It," which opens tomorrow. Pinkston plays a high school senior who lies to impress his new classmates. The actor has invited 300 people to a glitzy screening . . . Saturday afternoon. . . at the AMC in Columbia, Md. "Mostly, it's a chance to let my friends and family see what it's like to be at a premiere," he told us yesterday.

The 19-year-old is already an old hand at the Hollywood scene. Seven years ago, he won the Internet version of Ed McMahon's "Next Big Star" with a dance routine using his martial arts moves. The win propelled him into the first season of Ashton Kutcher's celebrity-prank series. His favorite episode: Tearing apart Kutcher's home with Tom Arnold while a horrified housesitter looked on.

Pinkston's short stature and baby face led to plenty of child and teen roles ("Spy Kids 3-D," "Bad Santa," "Soul Plane") and sitcoms ("Quintuplets"). He commuted back and forth to Hollywood from Howard County and graduated from River Hill High School last year. "Full of It" (filmed two years ago) marks the first time he has played a character his own age.

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Playing It Safe Creates Interference for Rehm

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WAMU talk-show host Diane Rehm is still off the air after a nasty run-in with those little travel-size bottles dictated by the Transportation Security Administration.

As reported yesterday in the Examiner, Rehm put her contact-lens cleaner, rinse and perfume in three identical tinted plastic bottles to comply with the TSA's three-ounce rule for carry-on liquids. "They were all labeled, but the labels got blurred," she told us yesterday. While in Oklahoma City last week, Rehm picked up the wrong bottle and accidentally sprayed perfume on her contact, then popped it in her eye. The alcohol in the perfume burned 90 percent of the outer layer of her cornea; her doctor said the damage occurred in the first second. "It is a cautionary tale," she said.

The good news: Her doctor says the eye is improving, and she expects to be back at work for her 10 a.m.-noon show Tuesday.

QUOTE

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"I gotta get y'all together. He's finally at the point in his life where he can think about something other than golf. He's ready to become more political. You'd be a great place for him to start. . . . You give my love to your family, boy. And anything you need from me, you let me know."

-- Charles Barkley, former NBA power forward turned aspiring power broker, telling Barack Obama how he really must connect with Tiger Woods, in a phone conversation overheard by GQ and included in a profile in its March issue.

THIS JUST IN . . .

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The saga continues: Late last night Virgie Arthur dropped her bid for custody of her daughter's body, clearing the way for Anna Nicole Smith to be buried tomorrow in the Bahamas, next to her son, Daniel. On Tuesday Arthur met granddaughter Dannielynn for the first time. Nassau cabbies are getting big tourist bucks with the "Anna Nicole" tour. "It's sad that she died, but we don't look at the negative," one driver told Reuters. "People come here asking to go to the house, the cemetery and the hospital."

Paris Hilton could end up in jail after being ticketed in Los Angeles Tuesday for driving her Bentley with a suspended license. The heiress/reality-TV starlet lost her license after an alcohol-related reckless driving arrest in September. Authorities said she could face up to 90 days if a judge finds she violated her probation. That's one way to keep her out of trouble.