Famous Texans are always making headlines. For the latest scoop on our home-grown celebs, we bring you Own Stars, a TM Daily Post regular feature. 

Chuck Norris Fact: Chuck is Endorsing Newt Gingrich for President
Now that his buddy Rick Perry has untied his neon laces in strategic retreat, Chuck Norris has taken to the virtual pages of the conservative website World Net Daily to endorse the “best man left on the battlefield who is able to outwit, outplay and outlast Obama and his campaign machine”: Newt Gingrich.

“Just imagine the T-shirts they’ll be able to make,” Andre Tartar wrote on New York Magazine’s Daily Intel blog, “If You Don’t Vote for Newt, Chuck Norris Will Come and Destroy You.”

Gingrich’s camp responded enthusiastically on Twitter, offering up cabinet positions for Norris, including “The Czar Czar.” But the best response came from Gingrich, who perhaps hinted at his foreign policy strategy when he tweeted: “He will make an excellent Secretary of Attack.”

There are Two Major Movie Roles Woody Harrelson Regrets Passing on 
Would Dumb and Dumber have been dumber or smarter had Woody Harrelson played Harry to Jim Carrey’s Lloyd? Harrelson told USA Weekend Magazine that he regrets not taking the part two years before he appeared in the brothers’ movie Kingpin, as an amputee bowler trying to rediscover his game under the tutelage of an Amish dolt played by Randy Quaid.

In the same breath, Harrelson also reiterates a past regret of passing on Tom Cruise’s role in Jerry Maguire (instead he played the title character in The People vs. Larry Flynt). “Had Harrelson followed his turn as Roy Munson, the con-man-with-a-comb-over in the Farrelly brothers’ dumb-funny, cult-beloved ‘Kingpin,’ with the lead in the quintessential ’90s rom-com, would we think of him differently?” wrote Rachel Rosenblit of Elle.

Kris Kristofferson’s Son Enters the WWE Ring
Kris Kristofferson might take issue with his son, newly minted WWE wrestler Jody “Big Country” Kristofferson, making his entrance to the tune of John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” but he’d never tell him to his face.

The senior Kristofferson, a former Golden Gloves boxer, told the Toronto Sun he’d pass on entering the ring with his son. Matt Holmes of What Culture surmised that the junior Kristofferson made the leap from the minors to the pros—a move approved by legendary wrestler Triple H—not entirely on his ability to body slam his opponent: “Either Triple H is a big Kris Kristofferson fan, or more likely HHH has got excited about the marketing potential of Jody’s heritage.”

People Don’t Think Much of Larry McMurtry the Book Critic
The bandwagon for criticizing Larry McMurtry on his work as the new books critic at Harper’s is about to tip over. The hit piece by David Daley of Salon should have sufficed—he wrote that McMurtry reads “like an undergraduate with a word count and three hours until class”—but it just gave license to others to take shots at the Pulitzer Prize and Oscar winner.

Jerome Weeks of Art & Seek, though critical, did defend McMurtry’s essay–writing in general as “woefully under-appreciated.” But in the comments section of Weeks’s piece, Anthony Mariani of Fort Worth Weekly delivered the ultimate in condescension: “Not only is McMurtry’s taste suspect—he’s probably never even heard of Ben Marcus, Padgett Powell, or Breyten Breytenbach—but the old man’s writing is insular, clunky, and surprisingly rudimentary, as if he were writing about books and the business thereof for Martians.”

Did Terry Bradshaw Deserve to Get Ripped by Ann Mara?
Ann Mara, wife of former New York Giants owner Wellington Mara (and grandmother of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo‘s Rooney Mara), ripped Terry Bradshaw on national TV Sunday night for not picking the Giants to win, as NFL.com’s video shows.

There is a priceless look on the face of John Mara, Ann’s son, when she approaches the podium. Bradshaw laughed off the interruption, probably because he knows what Ride the Pine knows.