She may hang out with celebrities Victoria Beckham and David Beckham - and hubby Tom Cruise, of course - but Wednesday Katie Holmes proved that real American heroes trump all.

Wearing sunglasses and a ruffled black dress over black tights and shiny grey flats, the 29-year-old mom and her bodyguard shared a Manhattan moment chatting and getting photographed with some of New York City’s Bravest downtown. The actress is in the Big Apple rehearsing her upcoming Broadway show, All My Sons.

The Arthur Miller family drama, which also stars John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest, premieres Oct. 16.
- Michael Y. Park

The Cruise family has sent along a present to welcome little Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, PEOPLE has learned.

Contrary to some reports that Tom Cruise gave ex-wife Nicole Kidman a “room full of flowers,” the actor and his family - including Cruise’s children with Kidman, Bella, 15, and Connor, 13 - actually sent a huge baby basket to Nashville.

Kidman, 41, gave birth to Sunday Rose at a Nashville hospital on Monday morning, with husband Keith Urban, 40, by her side for the smooth delivery.

“We feel immensely blessed and grateful to be given this beautiful baby girl,” the happy couple said in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE. “She’s an absolute delight.”

Nothing like the wisdom of the stars to help make Katie Holmes’s jump from screen to stage a smooth one.

As the actress prepares for her Broadway debut this fall in the revival of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, veteran stage actors shared some tips at the Tony Awards Sunday night in New York City.

“She’s a pro and I’d say to be herself,” says John Lithgow, who will costar with Holmes in the family drama. “She’s going to be wonderful. I’m looking forward to working with her. We haven’t worked together yet but it’s going to be great.”

And Tony Award-winning actress Kristin Chenoweth says Holmes should focus on getting a good night rest. “I would recommend her just to stay %26#91;healthy%26#93; and get a lot of good sleep and drink lots of water,” she says. “It takes so much energy to be on stage 7 days a week so she needs a good night’s sleep everyday. But I’m sure she will do just fine.”

Katie Holmes will be spending a lot more time in New York City this fall: The actress has signed on to make her Broadway debut in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.

Holmes, who had been reportedly in final negotiations for the part last March, will join John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest and Patrick Wilson in the revival this fall.

Holmes will play a woman who visits the family of her former lover, a missing pilot. It will be her first play since high school and Holmes will be on stage six nights a week.

Video courtesy The Oprah Winfrey Show
Tom Cruise and Oprah Winfrey are sitting down to talk - but this time it’s on his couch.

In the first part of a two-part interview, Winfrey visits Cruise in his Telluride, Colo. home - and talk inevitably turns to the actor’s now-infamous couch jumping incident from 2005.

“%26#91;It%26#93; was a moment, and it was real,” Cruise says about his animated profession of love for Katie Holmes, in the interview to air on Friday. “I just felt that way, and I feel that way about her,” he continues. “I can’t even articulate it, to be honest. That feeling, that connection. Just who she is and what she means to me.”

• On Connor and Bella’s impressions of Holmes: “Kate shows up with cupcakes. The cupcakes are there, and they all looked at me like, ‘This is cool. Can we eat these cupcakes? This lady’s cool.’”

• On rumors about his relationship with Holmes: “That’s laughable to me. You just know that %26#91;tabloids are%26#93; trying to sell it and spin it.”

• On Connor and Bella reading tabloid reports about Cruise:“They love me, so they know. They’ve grown up with that, and I’m sure there are things that they don’t like, and you go, ‘Okay, that happened, things go wrong, but don’t live in it. Don’t live in that because today is a new day and there’s plenty of tomorrows. They’re good people, my children. I’m proud of them.I don’t want them to worry. They know I’m there. No matter what, I’m always there.”

• On dressing like Santa to surprise Suri: “I open the door, and I’m giving my best, ‘Oh, merry Christmas! Oh, look at this little girl,’ and Suri looks at me, and she says, ‘No - Dada!’ So that night, we were putting Suri down. Kate says, ‘How was it? Did you like it? What did you think of Santa?’ And Suri was really sweet, she looks up, and she goes, ‘Dada Santa.’”

• On whether Cruise has been misunderstood: “Listen I, I feel like definitely things have been misunderstood, and there are things I could have done better. But then there’s also that world where you go, ‘Oh, it’s been spun to such an extent.’ ”

Suri’s second birthday was a family affair this weekend as both Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’s extended families came together in Los Angeles to celebrate the youngest Cruise.

The two families, which included Katie’s parents Kathy and Martin Holmes, who flew in from Ohio, and Tom’s mother, sisters and his two children with Nicole Kidman, Connor and Bella, enjoyed a low-key, intimate birthday party on Friday afternoon at a property in the Hollywood Hills.

The guests listened to music, danced, played games and enjoyed a four-tiered chocolate and vanilla cake from Sweet Lady Jane, decorated with yellow polka dots and butterflies.

Suri Cruise captivated Berliners during her four-month stay in Germany. Now, another Hollywood baby has arrived to steal their hearts.

Liev Schreiber, Naomi Watts and 3-month-old son Alexander have moved into same Berlin hotel that Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and daughter Suri checked out of on Friday. Watts is in town to film a thriller called The International.

The new visitors braved the chilly autumn weather to take Alexander around the Gendarmenmarkt, Suri’s old stomping grounds.

Schreiber, 40, and Watts, 39, became first-time parents in July. They recently spent time in Lithuania, where Schreiber was filming his latest movie, Defiance.

Berlin will soon welcome another Hollywood star, as Watts’s good friend Nicole Kidman is due in town in early December to shoot The Reader.

Here’s one star-studded Golden Globe presentation that was televised.

Katie Holmes dropped by BET’s 106 %26 Park Wednesday to present her Mad Money costar, Queen Latifah, with an award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

After handing out the trophy, the two actresses then showed a brief clip of their new comedy about three women who plan a heist of the Federal Reserve Bank. Asked about any on-set hiijinx, Holmes gushed: “Queen Latifah and %26#91;costar%26#93; Diane Keaton - I just laughed the whole time. They went at it!”

Holmes, who wore a black blouse, tight black pants and a sparkling chain, appeared in good spirits and smiled throughout the taping (slated to air Friday).

“She’s so sweet and so humble,” 106 cohost Rocsi told PEOPLE after the show. “It’s the first time both of us got up close to meet her. It’s so weird to be like, ‘Okay, that’s Tom Cruise’s wife? That’s Suri’s mom?’”

Her cohost Terrence added that Holmes looked stunning. “She looks great on TV but she looks better in real life,” he said. “It was delightful to meet her and we’d invite her back anytime.”