Tattle: 'Help' author is sued by ex-maid

TATTLE'S MOM reads a lot of books in her library book group and doesn't like most of them.

One book she did like is Kathryn Stockett's best-seller, "The Help," which was allegedly fiction.

Ablene Cooper, a black woman who once worked as a maid for Stockett's brother, is suing the author, claiming that she was the basis for a black servant character in the book, and she doesn't like the way she was depicted.

"The Help" is based on relationships between white families and their African-American maids in the segregated South of the 1960s, and a driving character in the book is a woman named Aibileen.

Ablene is claiming that Stockett used her name and likeness without permission and with embarrassing results.

The suit was filed Feb. 9 in Hinds County Circuit Court in Jackson, Miss., where Stockett grew up. It asks for $75,000 in damages, an amount chosen to keep the litigation from ending up in federal jurisdiction, where larger actions are often decided.

Penguin USA publisher Amy Einhorn said she doesn't think that there's any basis to the lawsuit.

"This is a beautifully written work of fiction and we don't think there is any basis to the legal claims," Einhorn said yesterday in an e-mail.

The six-page suit claims, among other things, that Stockett's refusal to publicly admit that she based the character on Cooper's likeness "is so outrageous in character, and so extreme as to go beyond all bounds of human decency, and is utterly intolerable in a civilized community."

"The Help" debuted in 2009, and there are 2.5 million hardcover copies in print in the U.S., according to the publisher's website.

Let's see: 2.5 million books plus a movie to be released this year vs. $75,000 paid to a 60-year-old woman who worked as a maid for the Stockett family.

Our guess is that while Penguin is claiming the lawsuit is baseless, someone involved with "The Help" is prepping a check.

Wonder Woman cast

 According to the Hollywood Reporter, "Friday Night Lights" star Adrianne Palicki is the new Wonder Woman.

The David E. Kelley-written pilot is a retelling of the DC Comics title in which Wonder Woman (Palicki), a/k/a Diana Prince, tries to balance her life as a vigilante crime fighter, a successful corporate executive and a modern woman.

* In other comics news, former (and perhaps future) Daily News Comics Guy Jerome Maida's comic book bio on Bill O'Reilly is now available from Bluewater.

Tattbits

 * Jackson Browne, Alice Cooper, David Crosby and Graham Nash will perform in Tucson to benefit a charitable fund established after the shooting there that killed six people and wounded 13 others.

Other acts at the March 10 concert that Browne and Cooper announced this week include Sam Moore, Nils Lofgren, Keb' Mo', Jerry Riopelle, Dar Williams, Ozomatli and Calexico.

Astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, plans to speak at the event. It will benefit the Fund for Civility, Respect, and Understanding. Wounded Giffords aide Ron Barber started the fund to support people affected by the Jan. 8 shooting and to hold events promoting community unity.

* The Hollywood Reporter says that "Two and a Half Men" will resume production Feb. 28. Charlie Sheen then has to stay clean for only four more episodes to make it through the season. During the shutdown, Charlie reportedly offered to cover one-third of the salaries of the show's crew if CBS and Warner Bros. TV would pay the rest.

The crew is still waiting.

* According to Britain's Star magazine, Victoria Beckham is going to spend close to $250,000 on a nursery for her upcoming baby girl.

"Believe me, that baby will be surrounded in luxury from the minute she, or he, comes home from hospital," an unnamed source told the magazine.

The room is believed to have a "bunny" theme, with a "French Bunnies" round cot with hand-carved woodwork, a matching nightlight and two lamps.

The source said that the nursery is to have an "old-fashioned theme with a shabby-chic feel."

Babies love shabby-chic.

Tattle once saw a friend's toddler spend an hour climbing in and out of a cardboard box.

That cost about a dollar.

* Brazil's Catholic bishops are blasting the country's popular reality-TV shows, saying that the shows have a "low moral level."

The National Conference of Brazilian Bishops said in a statement yesterday that the reality shows are an "attack on the human dignity of participants, who are fascinated with monetary prizes and a short-lived status as a celebrity."

In other words, the best defense is a good offense.

* Maria Bello, one of Tattle's favorite area-raised actresses, is nearly set to star in the Helen Mirren role in NBC's adaptation of the British police series, "Prime Suspect."

The Hollywood Reporter says that Maria met with executive producer Peter Berg on Friday.

* Jessica Alba and her husband, Cash Warren, are expecting their second child.

We sure hope Jessica's the one carrying it.

* As a follow-up to our lead story yesterday, Keith Brown, the father of The 5 Browns piano quintet, has pleaded guilty in Utah to sexually abusing his daughters when they were children.

Brown entered his plea yesterday to three felony counts in Fourth District Court in Provo.

Court records show that Utah County prosecutors charged Brown with one first-degree felony count of sodomy on a child and two second-degree felony counts of sexual abuse of a child.

* Rod Stewart, 66, has become a father for the eighth time. His wife, Penny Lancaster, gave birth to a boy Wednesday.

So the Rod still works.

BANGShowbiz.com and Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

E-mail gensleh@phillynews.com.