//The best Web sites to get inside the personalities of your favorite stars/ By://Tom Samiljan

WEB SITES DEVOTED TO CELEBRITIES ABOUND — a quick search on Yahoo! reveals more than 10,000 of them, a fair number of which were created by their famous namesakes themsleves. Stars' reasons for wanting their own sites are varied. Some sell things: Cher bypassed her record company to hawk her album Not Commercial on her site. Some seize the gossip initiative and give their version of events: Barbra Streisand, for instance, uses her site, BarbraStreisand.com, to dispel rumors reported in the press. Melanie Griffith writes a diary about her recovery from painkillers, while Ben Affleck regularly converses with fans on his site's message boards. Then there's Russell Crowe, who sends up the concept of publicity photos by uploading gory pictures of his shoulder surgery on RussellCrowe.com. Certain stars farm out their sites to agencies that create official fan sites, but the result is usually like a bad infomercial. When stars do their own sites, they reveal sides of themselves that didn't have a forum before the advent of the Web. Here are some of the best, and most personal, official celebrity Web sites.

ALYSSA MILANO
alyssa.com
After winning a lawsuit against Web entrepeneurs who had posted nude pictures of her online, the Charmed star founded Safesearching.com, a company that creates Web sites for other celebrities, including Catherine Zeta-Jones and Portia de Rossi. Needless to say, Milano has much tamer images of herself on the official site. Visitors can find offbeat music videos from the former child star's brief flirtation with dance pop in the late '80s. (Milano can sing — she once starred in the national touring cast of Annie.) She also sells posters and photos with personalized autographs and includes links to Keen.com, where she offers prerecorded answers via telephone to trenchant questions such as "How did you get into the business?"

The other celeb sites reviewed:

BEN AFFLECK affleck.com
MICHAEL J. FOX michaeljfox.org
KELSEY GRAMMER kelseylive.com
LEONARDO DICAPRIO leonardodicaprio.com
CLAUDIA SCHIFFER claudiaschiffer.com
JEFF BRIDGES jeffbridges.com
JENNA ELFMAN jennaelfman.com
TOM ARNOLD marrytom.com
LILY TOMLIN lilytomlin.com
MICHAEL DOUGLAS michaeldouglas.com
DAVID BOWIE davidbowie.com
BJÖRK bjork.com
CINDY CRAWFORD cindycrawford.com
HALLE BERRY hallewood.com
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER arnoldschwarzenegger.com
JOHN TESH tesh.com
JACKIE CHAN jackie-chan.com