Steven Miessner, the motion picture academy's devoted "keeper of the Oscars" who each year donned his signature white gloves to get the golden statuettes ready for their closeup before a worldwide audience, is dead at age 48.

Miessner died at his home Wednesday of a heart attack.

Leading up to the Academy Award ceremony, Miessner would take loving custody of the Oscars as they arrived from the R.S. Owens foundry in Chicago, logging them into a computer file, keeping them safe and secure, and then, on the big night, giving the coveted statuettes one last rubdown backstage before handing them to the show's trophy presenters.

In addition to his Oscar duties, Miessner was an executive assistant to academy executive director Bruce Davis and president Sid Ganis.

BOMB SCARE AT OPRAH'S STUDIO A MYSTERY

Bomb and arson detectives say a suspicious item noticed outside Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios in Chicago was harmless.

A Chicago police spokeswoman said security personnel found a dark backpack with wires hanging out of it early yesterday in a flower bed near the studios.

Police blocked off nearby streets as bomb and arson detectives investigated, and determined with "remote diagnostics" that there was no bomb.

But police will not say what was in the backpack.

The streets were reopened a few hours later. The building was not evacuated.

MATERIAL GIRL WRITES ABOUT MYSTICISM

Provocative performer Madonna is making her debut as an Israeli newspaper correspondent with a piece about her spiritual awakening.

Writing in yesterday's edition of the daily Yediot Ahronot, the Material Girl informs readers that when she discovered Jewish mysticism "all the puzzle pieces started falling into place" for her.

Madonna is bringing her Sticky & Sweet tour to Israel in September, which no doubt explains the timing of her journalism debut here.

But she also has ties to Israel and Judaism through her involvement with the Los Angeles-based Kabbalah Center.

She has taken the Hebrew name Esther and made a pilgrimage to Israel in 2004 with other Kabbalah devotees.

PHOTOGRAPHER SUED OVER $24M DEBT

A New York finance company that lent celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz $24 million has filed a lawsuit, alleging that she has reneged on the deal.

Art Capital Group says Leibovitz borrowed the money last year because she was in dire financial straits from unpaid bills, mortgage payments and tax liens.

The breach of contract lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan, says that in return Leibovitz granted Art Capital the right to sell all her photographs, plus her homes in Manhattan and upstate New York.

The lawsuit says Leibovitz and her associates are now trying to ignore those obligations.

A spokesman for Leibovitz denied the allegations.