The latest member of the If-You-Can't-Beat-'Em-Join-'Em Club is the legendary Faye Dunaway( who may or may not have incorporated "legendary" as part of her legal name, so we're using it just in case).

Starting March 8, she'll be the Simon Cowell/Donald Trump of the WB's "The Starlet," which takes 10 aspiring young actresses -- including one Mercedes from the Philadelphia area of whom Dunaway speaks highly -- and puts them through acting lessons and a series of competitions that will culminate in one of them winning a guest role on the WB's "One Tree Hill."

In other words, we're not exactly talking "American Idol," folks.

Dunaway, who admits to not having seen a lot of "reality" TV, kept emphasizing that this is nevertheless what the young people are watching.

Not surprisingly, someone asked her about "Network," where she played an unscrupulous network programmer, and about its prescient writer, Paddy Chayefsky.

"Paddy Chayefsky did what all great artists do -- he predicted reality," said Dunaway, whose catch phrase on "The Starlet" will be, "Don't call us, we'll call you."

As for the title "starlet," which a much younger Dunaway would likely have seen as an insult, "we've reinvented the cliche," she insisted.