A business management and accounting firm sued Courtney Love for nearly $1 million on Tuesday, claiming she failed to pay them a share of profits from the sale of Nirvana's publishing catalog.

Love is the widow of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain. The five-page lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court Tuesday afternoon claims she sold a portion of his share of Nirvana's publishing catalog for $19.5 million.

Los Angeles-based London & Co. alleges Love broke an oral contract to share 5 percent of any of her earnings or those from her company, The End of Music.

That company, according to the lawsuit, was created to manage Cobain's intellectual property, including his career with Nirvana.

London & Co. claims its share from the sale would have been $975,000.

Love controlled most of the rights to Cobain and Nirvana's work after his suicide in 1994.

MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK

Vince Vaughn is the best star for the buck, says Forbes magazine.

Vaughn raked in $14.73 of gross income for studios for every dollar he was paid for "The Break-up," "Wedding Crashers" and "Dodgeball," the magazine calculated for its special entertainment issue, now on newsstands.

"That's because until recently his salary was relatively low, and the films he was in, like 'Wedding Crashers' and 'The Break-up,' had modest budgets yet did extremely well at the box office worldwide ($285 million and $205 million, respectively)," Forbes said.

Forbes said it compiled the Ultimate Star Payback list by looking at the stars' last three films that opened wide in at least 1,000 theaters before 2008 and were made in the last five years.

It calculated the gross income for each film by adding half the worldwide box office and the first three months of wholesale DVD revenues and then subtracting its budget. The gross income was divided by the actor's total compensation to derive his or her payback for the movie.

Tobey Maguire ranked No. 2 on the list, with a gross income return of $13.44 for each dollar of his pay for the "Spider-Man" sequels and "Seabiscuit." Julia Roberts was in third place with a gross income return of $13.19.

Brad Pitt ranked fourth with $12.73, followed by Naomi Watts and Matt Damon ($12.16 each), George Clooney ($11.56), Jennifer Aniston ($10.48), Hugh Jackman ($9.90) and Ben Stiller ($9.50).

GOOD 'GOSSIP'

"Gossip Girl" will get people talking. At least, that seems likely as the CW network brings to a boil its new campaign for the sexy prep-school soap.

The show's second season begins Sept. 1, following an August promotion to put viewers, um, in the mood. And here's a twist: The racy ads co-opt language from the very criticism of the show for being too, well, racy.

Alert surfers got a preview last week, when images of coupled-up "Gossip Girl" characters found their way onto several Web sites.

Item: Here's Serena van der Woodsen (series blonde Blake Lively) with eyes shut dreamily, mouth open, while a friend, his face buried in her tresses, nuzzles her neck.

Strongly suggesting the pair are just getting started, the headline, which quotes The Boston Herald, declares: "Every Parent's Nightmare."

DMX INDICTED

Rapper DMX has been indicted on felony charges by a grand jury in Arizona for allegedly trying to get out of paying a hospital bill.

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas says the 37-year-old rapper, whose real name is Earl Simmons, has been charged with one count of theft and one count of taking someone else's identity.

PHOTOGS ARRESTED NEAR SPEARS' HOME

Two photographers suspected of loitering on city-owned property near Britney Spears' home were arrested Monday.

Alexandre Passos of Canoga Park and Eduardo Ravalha of Los Angeles, both 35 years old, were arrested around 6 p.m. Monday after being warned to leave an access road near Mulholland Drive and Coldwater Canyon Avenue, police spokeswoman April Harding said.