As the various, cretinous cast members of The Hills took to David Letterman’s couch in recent weeks, more than a few of us were left wondering how the entertainment landscape had so quickly devolved from the days when the effortlessly charming and talented likes of Teri Garr would grace his stage—the two trading bon mots and flirting shamelessly, with Paul Shaffer providing a suitably white-funkified musical backdrop to the fizzy proceedings. They say you can’t capture lightning in a bottle twice (do they say that? Or are we mixing our metaphors? Where were we? Oh right, Dave and Teri), but you also can’t deny chemistry, and it was on abundant display when the two were reunited last night. They’re grayer now, and slower—Dave touchingly guided Teri, who is suffering from MS, to her chair—but you can’t deny the spark is still there. As Letterman stuck to his, “Did you do it with Elvis?”-line of questioning, Garr shot down the long-standing rumors that the two had once engaged in naked-pretzel antics themselves. But after the jump, we’d invite you to compare and contrast a classic pairing from 1986, in which an amorous Dave opens with, “I’d like to get a can of Windex and go to work.” Suddenly, his preoccupation with Elvis makes sense, in a vicarious-thrills-seeking way. It’s good to be The King.

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David Hans Schmidt, the self-proclaimed “Sultan of Sleaze,” told the New York Daily News he tried to kill himself two weeks ago, prior to completing that task Friday.

Cops found the body of Schmidt, 47, who became famous and rich for peddling celebrity photos and sex tapes, in his Phoenix home, dead of apparent suicide.

David Hans Schmidt had been under house arrest after pleading guilty to attempted extortion involving the wedding photos of Tom Cruise.

“I did something really stupid,” he told Daily News gossip columnist George Rush. “I put a belt around my neck in the shower. Fortunately, it didn’t work.”

“He was phoning me every other day,” Rush said. “I kept saying, ‘You got to get yourself some medication.’ He said he was on some, but it didn’t work for long.”

David Hans Schmidt was arrested in July after obtaining pictures of Cruise’s wedding in Italy last year from a co-defendant, authorities said.

Schmidt threatened to release the pictures if Cruise didn’t pay up. Schmidt and his client, who allegedly stole the photos from the wedding photographer’s laptop, were seeking between $1.2 million and $1.3 million from TomKat.

Schmidt, who had served time for violating a restraining order taken out by the mother of his daughters, was due back in court October 11 and faced up to two years behind bars. “I can’t go back to prison,” Schmidt told Rush.

“I tried to tell him how much he had to look forward to, that there was publishing interest in a book and he could use his time to write his memoirs,” Rush said.

But David Hans Schmidt was evidently too depressed.

“He had to wear an ankle monitor. He couldn’t leave the house, there were liens on everything he owned,” Rush said. “He was getting stripped of everything.”

David Hans Schmidt was famous, of course, for somehow getting hold of sex tapes and nude photos of celebrities, which he turned around and sold for big dollars.

David Hans Schmidt tried to sell off Paris Hilton photos (such as this one he is seen holding, which she later signed for him) from her L.A. storage locker.

He said he had the Dustin Diamond sex tape, featuring the cretinous actor who played Screech on “Saved by the Bell,” and he sold topless shots of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, as well as Tonya Harding’s wedding night sex video.

David Hans Schmidt also said he had nude pics of Gennifer Flowers, who once claimed to have had an affair with former President Bill Clinton.

“He just loved doing these deals,” said Rush. “When he had something in the works, he was pumped up. Full of energy. But he couldn’t do it anymore. He was afraid the prosecutors would use it as evidence that he was unrepentant and continuing to be up to his old tricks… It left him with no income.”

Cops said they found David Hans Schmidt dead at 3 p.m. on Friday after they noticed the tracking device he was wearing had not moved.

“He was a lovable rogue,” Rush said. “Every time he was on the phone, you knew there was another wild story coming down the pike.”

• Celebrity Sex Tape Broker David Hans Schmidt Dead at 47
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The uber-skinny Nicole Richie says that, contrary to media reports, she was back in rehab this month and was just “on tour with [Joel Madden]” - her Good Charlotte boyfriend.

Richie went on On Air with Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS FM morning show Wednesday, saying she believes that because she was not photographed for over a week, reports surfaced she was in rehab for drug abuse and eating disorders.

That and the fact that she weighs 45 pounds.

Anyway.

While she revealed that Paris Hilton is “scared” about going to jail, the anorexic waif is also nervous she may have to spend time in the slammer herself - stemming from her awesome, infamous wrong-side-of-the-road DUI arrest.

Although no decision has been made in the Nicole Richie case, she says, “I have to deal with any consequences that come my way.”

You think?

Nicole held a now infamous barbecue last weekend, where Mischa Barton was hospitalized for “an adverse reaction to prescription medication,” and which featured a pre-rehab appearance by Lindsay Lohan.

You know, just the kind of company a struggling “star” should keep.

Richie says she was not present for either Lindsay Lohan’s “five-minute” visit, or for Mischa’s medical scare, because the hostess was at the supermarket “buying Sunny Delight.”

Suuuuuure thing. We’ve heard some ridiculous lies during a year deep in the trenches of the celebrity gossip business, but that one’s a whopper.

It may even rival claims that the Dustin Diamond sex tape was released accidentally, not on purpose by the cretinous former child star.

You can listen to clips of Nicole’s interview with Seacrest here.

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Yes, you read that right. Forget Matthew McConaughey, George Clooney and their annual battle for Sexiest Man Alive honors. This battle is for the complete opposite (dis)honor.

This list, compiled by the amazing Boston Phoenix, is chock full of irritating smirks, bad haircuts, possible murders and seriously ugly mugs. The Phoenix list of The 100 Unsexiest Men Alive has it all, and we’ve got the highlights…

100. Tom Cruise. The heat that Tom Cruise emitted early in his career has long evaporated, leaving only a smirking corpse in its wake. Cruise struts around like a smaller, yappy version of Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator, but comes off creepier, given his campaign to impregnate and wed enslave hot actresses.

92. Osama bin Laden. Here’s a man that could use a makeover. Note to Osama: camouflage jackets have been out since the millennium. Sure, there’s not a surplus of hip outlets — or even dry cleaners — in the caves of Afghanistan. But come on.

87. Joe Simpson. The former Baptist minister relentlessly pimps his daughters (Ashlee and what’s-her-name) to MTV, John Mayer and Pete Wentz, then makes ourskin crawl by ogling his offspring’s endowments. Gnarly.

79. Joe Francis. Skeezy creator of Girls Gone Wild stuck it to Paris Hilton and Tara Reid. If doing that disease-ridden duo wasn’t enough to warrant his place on this list, he’s headed to jail on contempt-of-court charges.

56. Kim Jong-Il. Besides an uncanny resemblance to Tom Cruise, the deranged North Korean demigod is a porn connoisseur, binge drinker and womanizer. Oh, and a mass murderer with nukes.

45. The Duke Lacrosse Team. You go to Duke. You play lacrosse. Yet your social life is so barren that you’ve got to rent a couple of cut-rate strippers? You dudes are guilty… of having no game whatsoever.

35. Kevin Federline. Would’ve placed even higher had Britney Spears not gone off the deep end and made FedEx look relatively stable by comparison.

33. Spencer Pratt. This obnoxious star of the MTV “documentary” series The Hills (left) has greasy hair, a veiny neck and forehead, circa 1994 gold chains and a cast-iron jaw. Yet he still manages to get Playboy playmates’ numbers (while straight up playing Heidi Montag and making Lauren Conrad’s life a living hell). Spencer Pratt, we loathe thee.

30. Howie Mandel. Few things are less sexy than obsessive-compulsive disorder and fear of touching others. That spells bad news for the freaky host of Deal or No Deal. No deal, Howie Mandel. No deal.

28. Dustin Diamond. Deviant, cretinous former child star who scammed his fans by selling shirts to help him avoid foreclosure — there were no such proceedings against him. Then there was the Dustin Diamond sex tape in which Screech gave two skanks the Dirty Sanchez.

27. Mr. Blackwell. His relevance is on life-support, but he nonetheless makes the news every year with his embarrassing list of the best- and worst-dressed celebrity fashion offenders.

25. O.J. Simpson. We’re not even gonna go there.

23. Pete Doherty. “Heroin chic” is predicated on being able to do lots and lots of drugs without looking like a skid-row pin cushion. Somehow Pete Doherty (below) didn’t get the memo. By association, he made coked-up gal-pal Kate Moss unsexy, too, for which men the world over will curse him forever.

20. Jared Fogle. Ubiquity and over-exposure has turned a merely annoying ex-fatty Subway pitchman into a serious pain in the ass.

18. Mel Gibson. Hateful director with massive alcohol problem.

11. Perez Hilton. Exponentially overhyped celebrity gossip blogger whose sense of entitlement far outweighs his contribution to society. Oh yeah, Perez Hilton is also gross.

7. Sanjaya Malakar. The class clown of American Idol is operating under the delusion that he’s the class stud. Shyamali Malakar, on the other hand…

6. Don Imus. Long before Don Imus (below, left) got the ax for calling the Rutgers womens’ basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed hos,” this talk-show troll established himself as one of the ugliest faces in an industry that prizes them.

3. Howard K. Stern. We understood the zillion-year-old billionaire: Anna Nicole Smith would sleep with anything for money. But her dalliance with this glassy-eyed salamander of a man (above, right) forced Americans to lower her standards: she’d screw anything with… kidneys? At least she was smart enough not to have a baby with him.

1. Donald Trump. It’s not the greed, the preposterous comb-over, or the public bullying that turns us off any more: it’s the pursed lips and the scrunched stare. Actually, scratch that: it’s still the hair, the greed, and the bullying.

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