01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Look who's joining Kirstie Alley.

The former Cheers actress will be accompanied by John Travolta, who was featured with Alley in the Look Who's Talking films, in her upcoming Showtime series, Fat Actress.

The seven-episode, unscripted comedy series won't debut until March, but the cable network has revealed several guest stars slated to step inside Alley's hyper-reality world.

In the series, Alley plays a fictionalized version of herself, a TV and movie actress whose growing weight problem has been well documented in supermarket tabloids. Each Curb Your Enthusiasm-like episode emanates from a story outline with the actors largely improvising the dialogue.

NBC Universal TV Group President Jeff Zucker, Mark Curry (Hangin' With Mr. Cooper) and Travolta's actress-wife, Kelly Preston, also will guest star on the first episode, Showtime announced last week.

Alley played sassy bar manager Rebecca Howe on the '80s sitcom Cheers, and later starred in Veronica's Closet for three seasons.

Alley, 53, also served as the celebrity spokesman for furnishings outlet Pier 1 Imports for three years.

Kristin Armstrong, ex-wife of Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, will run in the New York City Marathon next month to raise money for her charity.

Kristin Armstrong, a contributor to Runner's World magazine, is on the board of directors for Fertile Hope, a charity dedicated to cancer and fertility. She lives in Austin, Texas.

She met Armstrong, a victor over testicular cancer, in January 1997, just weeks after he had completed intense chemotherapy to treat an advanced stage of the disease. The two started dating in June 1997 and were married 11 months later.

Because Armstrong's cancer treatments could have made him sterile, he had banked his sperm before chemotherapy. All three of their children were born through in vitro fertilization.

The couple announced they were divorcing last year.

At 98, groundbreaking architect Philip Johnson announced last week that he is retiring from his architectural practice, Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Architects.

During Johnson's six-decade career, he designed the AT&T Building (now the Sony Plaza Building) and Seagram Building (with Mies van der Rohe), both in New York. The Pritzker Prize-winning architect and his firm also designed the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif.

Johnson continued to work in the New York office until last fall, reporting like clockwork Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the statement said, adding that more recently he maintained "a vocal presence" from his home in New Canaan, Conn. -- the famous Glass House he built in 1949.

Compiled by Lifebeat editor Alexis Magner Miller from wire reports.