Fear not for the rubber-faced funnyman! There wasn’t a fight with galpal pinup Jenny McCarthy.

The cast around his left forearm’s just a prop.

Jim Carrey joined a plethora of A-list actors working on several flicks in SoFla to film scenes for his latest, I Love You Phillip Morris.

The flick is said to have some elements of Brokeback Mountain, only funny and played on a backdrop of palm trees and ocean blue.

Earlier in the film, Carrey’s very hetero character is spending time behind bars and falls in love with a cellmate played by Star Wars’ Ewan McGregor.

The duo has been spotted doing “research” in gay bars in Miami Beach.

Carrey, 46, appeared with the cast on the beachside set in Hollywood, Fla., Tuesday afternoon.

Later, he was running out of a duplex in pajamas at a nearby location. And Monday morning, the star of Ace Ventura and The Truman Show was spotted wearing a wild Hawaiian shirt in Miami Beach while pretending to be window-shopping with a Versace-clad Brazilian hunk Rodrigo Santoro as the cameras rolled.

As Carrey sweated it out in the hot sun Monday, McGregor was at Bayside in Miami, checking out Hooters and entertaining picture requests from fans like this young woman, Canadian tourist Lisa Ann Girard. She pronounced him “beautiful,” even with the funky hair.

Carrey photos courtesy Storms Media Group; McGregor photo courtesy Lisa Ann Girard

Former Heat superstar Shaquille O’Neal has gone west, but he’s not forgotten here. Or, at least, his nickname isn’t.

Actually, Shak’s running for Broward County Sheriff.

Yep, that’s Shak with a “k.” Candidate lawman Shahrukh Shiraz Dhanji is using the big man’s nickname, except for one letter, which is sure to grab the voters’ attention in a crowded field.

Dhanji’s campaign literature includes the words “Shak for Sheriff” and on his Web site.

Funny thing is: When he first filed his intention to run, according to elections records, Dhanji went with his given name.

For some reason, he became S. “Shak” Dhanji in campaign material weeks later.

There’s little doubt that Shaq, as in the NBA’s loud-mouthed 7-footer, would love to get the very same job that Shak, the 6-foot businessman, is vying for.

O’Neal announced on Regis and Kelly in June that he was contemplating a run after years of volunteering as auxiliary police officer.

Any similarities are purely coincidental, says Shak.

“This nickname wasn’t created 90 days ago for political reasons,” said Shak. “My family and friends have been calling me like that for years. There’s just a similarity of pronunciation.”

A longtime political operative in Fort Lauderdale, however, begged to differ.

“I’ve known Shahrukh for 20 years and never have I heard anybody calling him Shak,” says Ron Cacciatore, who supports the leading Democratic candidate in the race, former police captain Scott Israel. “When he came to my office to tell me he was running, he told me he’d use Shaquille O’Neal’s nickname but that he’d change the last letter as so not to make him (Shaq) mad.”

Shak says he doesn’t recall that conversation although his name seems to be out there: He’s raised a respectable $120,000-plus for the campaign so far.

The race for Broward County’s top cop job over the years has been a colorful one, and not just because one starred the pot-smoking porky pornographer Al Goldstein.

In addition to Shak, the current one features a Boca resident who spent a career at the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office, then changed his name from Pat O’Hara to Pat Aahara, so that he could be first on the ballot.

Also running is lawyer Bruce Udolf, who worked closely with special prosecutor Ken Starr during the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton affair.

The one-and-only Shaq, who scored 19 points Tuesday night as his Phoenix Suns went 0-2 against the Spurs in the NBA playoffs, could not be reached for comment about Dhanji’s campaign name.

(Shaquille O’Neal photo courtesy ghostsofwaynefontes.blogspot.com; Shakrukh “Shak” Dhanji photo courtesy www.shakforsheriff.com)

It’s a match made in reality television heaven — The Apprentice meets The Surreal Life.

Fort Lauderdale lawyer Bradford Cohen, a star on The Apprentice’s second season in 2004, has been hired by The Surreal Life’s Vanilla Ice to shepherd him through the justice system — now that Ice Baby faces domestic violence charges.

Vanilla Ice (left), and Bradford Cohen

“I was referred by acquaintances of my client,” Cohen said. “I find him to be a perfectly genuine guy with a well-adjusted family. And he loves his wife very much. I didn’t hesitate to take him as a client.”

Vanilla Ice, a.k.a. Rob Van Winkle, the 1980s-rapper-turned-dirt-bike-racer, was arrested by sheriff’s deputies last week near his $800,000 home in Wellington’s Versailles community.

His wife Laura, 37, called 911 and reported Ice kicked her and hit her during an argument. By the time deputies arrived, Laura was downplaying the incident, according to police records, saying simply that she was pushed.

Ice, who said he had ridden a small motorcycle down the street to avoid a worsening of the argument, was nabbed by deputies on the street and charged with domestic battery. He spent Thursday night in jail.

Brad Cohen, who lost in the then-successful show to former U.S. Army intelligence officer Kelly Perdew, says he can win this one.

“I already got a statement from a neighbor who was visiting and saw the whole thing,” says Cohen. “The witness says Rob never touched her. It was just a verbal argument, not a physical altercation.

“His wife won’t press charges, but when it comes to domestic violence in Florida, she doesn’t have to.”

Ice starred on The Surreal Life 2 in 2003 alongside other C-listers like Tammy Faye Messner, the now deceased ex-wife of scandalous preacher Jim Bakker; porn star Ron Jeremy, and actor Erik Estrada.

Tammy Faye Messner (from left), Ron Jeremy and Erik Estrada

Cohen, meanwhile, is making a career repping former reality stars. He worked for a Season 2 colleague, Raj Bhakta, in a civil trial then took up the disorderly conduct case against Chris Shelton, an Apprentice 3 finalist who got into some trouble at the Seminole casino near Tampa in 2005. That case was dismissed.

Stay tuned, if you can stand it.

Cancer-stricken Hollywood star Patrick Swayze doesn’t need any new laws to swat away aggressive paparazzi.

But then, he’s getting some sugar from the feds.

Swayze, 55, who’s been hounded by photo hunters since announcing last month he has pancreatic cancer, is secretly using a government airbase for his flights between the hospital at Stanford University and his home in SoCal.

A friend of the Ghost and Dirty Dancing icon says Swayze somehow got rare permission from officials at Moffett Federal Airfield, a former Navy base now operated by NASA near San Jose, Calif., to land the Beechcraft Super King Air 200 he pilots himself. Swayze takes the one-hour flight to Moffett bi-monthly for chemo treatments.

Flightaware.com, a Web site that tracks down the movements of private airplanes, shows the Beechcraft last took off from the government-only strip March 24 about 6:30 p.m., and was headed to Van Nuys, Calif., the homebase of Swayze’s plane.

According to FAA literature, Moffett can only be used with special permission, and only if it involves government business.

Why the secret-agent scheme? I’m told Swayze didn’t appreciate the appearance of unflattering shots of him engaging in what you’d think would be the farthest from the mind of a cancer victim: Smoking! The pictures were taken as he walked to his plane at San Carlos Airport, a public airport near Stanford.

“He figures there’ll be no paparazzi at Moffett,” the source said.

Only military personnel live on the base, and folks who don’t work for the federal government are rarely allowed in.

Special celebrity treatment for Swayze? Hardly. Dolores Beasley, a NASA spokeswoman on the Left Coast, says that anyone who’s a patient at a local hospital, and who’s flying his own plane, is allowed to use the airfield.

“Medical and Life flights are allowed to use Moffett Federal Airfield at no cost,” Beasley e-mailed Page 2.1. “Although it is typically used for critical care and organ transport, anyone who’s a patient at a local hospital qualifies as a Life flight. Patrick Swayze meets that criterion.”

The news comes as authorities are under increasing pressure to do something about the growing ranks of paparazzi. A Los Angeles councilman is lobbying for a new law that would create “personal safety zones” for famous people after the city spent $25,000 in security setups for a short trip that singer Britney Spears took from her home to a hospital earlier this year.

COSBY BRINGS CAUSE
TO SOUTH FLORIDA

Beloved former sitcom star Bill Cosby is headed to South Florida to do what many out-of-town A-listers come for: raising cash for a pet cause.

The funnyman, who played head-of-household Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show for eight years, and his real-life family, including wife Camille, will collect the green stuff for the Hello Friend/Ennis William Cosby Foundation. It’s an educational non-profit named after Cosby’s 27-year-old son murdered in 1997.

The date: April 25. The place: The Forge restaurant in Miami Beach.

“We’ve done fundraisings in New York and we just launched in L.A.,” says Bill Cosby’s extra-tall daughter, Erinn. “South Florida is a natural progression. We’re expecting about 200 people.

“One bonus, outside the great food, will be the auction of four of my dad’s famous sweaters from The Cosby Show. It’s $5,000 minimum bid.”

She’s not known for dancing around a topic, but West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel will have to be fleet-footed Sunday.

That’s when the Dancing With The Stars fan will compete for the Dancing For The Stars championship at the Kravis Center, mostly against television anchors like Suzanne Boyd and Eric Roby of WPEC-Channel 12 and Tania Rogers from WPTV-Channel 5.

Mayor Frankel practices with her instructor

“I learned tap-dancing from the Blackburn Twins when I was 9 years old,” the soon-to-be-60-year-old Frankel says. Ramon Blackburn, who’s retired in Delray, and the now-deceased Royce were child actors on Broadway in the 1940s and broke into black-and-white television and movies.

“I’ve always loved to dance,” says Herhonor. “But I’m pretty nervous about Sunday.”

She probably shouldn’t worry too much. If Patrick Swayze’s character taught Jennifer Grey’s a thing or two in Dirty Dancing, then Palm Beach’s star dance instructor, Angelo Caruso, should be able to do the same for Frankel.

The two are paired up for the show, and Frankel says she has spent eight hours over the past weeks rehearsing a cha-cha routine.

Frankel has done funky things over the years for publicity. She has kissed a monkey on the lips. There was a mechanical bull ride on the front lawn of a Palm Beach mansion. She air-guitared in front of thousands during a rock concert by Vince Neil.

What wouldn’t she do for attention?

“I’ve done some funky things,” she says. “I flew on a trapeze once. Almost dislocated my shoulder.

“But this dancing is for charity.”

Proceeds go to the Students and Teachers Arts Resources at the Kravis.