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All Martina Navratilova wanted was to get duel citizenship so she could travel easily between the United States - where she defected to 33 years ago - and the Czech Republic where she was born.

But this led to a flood of erroneous stories published in recent weeks that the nine-time Wimbledon champion was leaving the U.S. in disgust over the policies of the Bush administration.

"Somehow, out came these reports that I was going to denounce my citizenship," Martina told me this week. "I never said those things and I don't know how it got to that point. Next thing I know, I read that I'm leaving America. It's just astonishing and insulting."

The 51-year-old athlete, who retired from pro tennis after winning the mixed doubles title at the U.S. Open in 2006, has been a U.S. citizen since 1981. Martina fled the then-communist Czechoslovakia in 1975 in a highly-publicized defection that was of great risk to her at the time. She was just 18 and didn't know if she'd ever see her family again.

That's why the false stories have cut so deep.

"This goes to the core of who I am and why I'm here," she said. "I'm very loyal and very grateful. This is my home and l've lived her for over 30 years. To have this kind of stuff said is really hurtful and disappointing. I'd like to get to the bottom of it."

"Millions of Americans have duel citizenship and I get roasted for it," Martina added. "I don't think anything less of America. But I'm proud of where I came from. When it was communist I wasn't proud of the government. Now it's a good place to be. There's nothing to be embarassed about."

The reasons for obtaining duel citizenship were actually quite simple: "It was practical because I travel a lot and I'm doing some business in the Czech Republic and have been on a monthly basis for a few years and my mom was sick."

Martina has long been something of a lightening rod for criticism because of her unfailingly outspoken nature. I reminded her of the time she was critical of the Bush administration while being interviewed by Connie Chung on CNN several years back. Chung shockingly wondered aloud why Martina just didn't go back to the Czech Republic if she didn't like the way things were in the U.S.

Martina now says of the incident: "I wondered, so if (Connie Chung) didn't agree with something she should go back to China? I thought the whole point of democracy is to be able to disagree with the govenment. That's the beauty of America."

As a major tennis fan, I've followed Martina's career for many years and she has always come across as incredibly partriotic, proudly played for the U.S. in the Fed Cup international team competition (the picture above is from the 1986 Fed Cup when the U.S., led by Martina and Chris Evert, defeated Czechoslovakia in Prague) as well as in the Olympic Games. But there is one moment from her career that I will never forget: she had just lost to Monica Seles in the finals of the 1991 U.S. Open and the crowd gave her one of the most rapturous ovations that I can ever remember.

Martina tearfully made some remarks then wrapped up her speech by saying: "I'm so damned proud to be an American."

That pretty much says it all.

Got the chance to talk to director Kimberly Peirce last week about her new movie "Stop-Loss" starring Ryan Phillippe (pictured with the director, above), Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, at the movie's premiere.

It's her first film since 1999's "Boys Don't Cry." It's release date on Friday is especially timely with the Iraq war at the five-year milestone this month and the death toll of U.S. soldiers reaching at least 4,000 this week. Her movie is about the soldiers who are forced into additional tours of duty and the toll the war is taking on their lives back home.

Q. Why did you wait almost 10 years to do another film?
A. "I was looking for something that really moved me and broke my heart and spoke to me in the deepest possible way. "Boys" was a dream come true, it is something that I will think about my entire life - it was about gender, sexuality, my friends, myself, my family. Once you have an experience that satisfying, that's what you want to put your whole life towards. When 9-11 happened and I saw the towers fall - I had been living there 13 years - and my country went to war, I knew I needed to make a movie about the soldiers: who they were, why they were signing up, what their experience in combat was and upon coming home. Not long after that, my baby brother signed up so we were a military family. We had a gandfather fight in WWII and we were deep in it. I can't think of anything that I would be prouder to have made in these last couple of years. I was just so excited to be able to talk to the real soldiers. I love to do things that I both have a sense of, but that I come to understand better and I now understand our soldiers and the experiences they've had fighting, what comraderie means to them and what it means for them to come home and I want everybody to understand that. It's the most important issue I see facing our country."

Q. How do you think the movie will be received?
A. "I've been to 22 cities in America and people are loving the movie and I think the reason is, look at the cast: it's all young guys who are totally reflective of real soldiers - they studied with real Iraq vets, they studied with Marines - they're just a young group of good looking charismatic guys. They're a lot like the American soldiers that I interviewed."

Q. How was it working with Ryan Phillippe?
A. "Ryan was fantastic. He came in, he had that gorgeous deep voice, he's got that cleft chin. He's just that all-American boy. In addition to being good looking, he;s also just incredibly mature and incredibly sensitive. He's a great father and I think he brings that into the role because he's the brother of the guys but he's also really the father of the guys. That's really what the movie's about - the comraderie between soldiers when they're over there in combat. All that matters is keeping alive the soldier to your left, the soldier to your right and bringing them home."

Jodie Foster gave a really moving and surprisingly candid speech when she received the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award at the 16th annual Women in Entertainment Breakfast on Tuesday.

Toward the end of her remarks, Jodie thanked those nearest and dearest to her. Among them was "my beautiful Cydney who sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss."

Since she has always been so intensely private, I was surprised at the public acknowledgement of who I presume is Cydney Bernard, the woman who is widely reported to be her life partner.

Lansing, who presented Jodie with the award before a crowd that included Queen Latifah and John Travolta, said of the actress-director: "Jodie Foster leads her life with dignity - she's her own person, she doesn't follow the herd. She's an original."

The two-time Oscar winner was funny and heart-warming during the speech, which brought some in attendance at the Beverly Hills Hotel to tears: "I feel fragile...unsure, struggling to figure it all out, trying to get there even though I'm not sure where there is," she said. "I've been working in this business for 42 years and there's no way you can do that and not be as nutty as a fruitcake."

Jodie and I had a light-hearted chat prior to the breakfast. I told her that just about everyone was either gushing about her or wanted to meet her.

"Really?" she said, smiling. "I think it's a lie. I think they're just saying that because I'm here."

I wondered if she ever gets tired of being feted since she's got a boatload of awards aleady.

"Well yeah, I get tired of getting dressed up," she admitted. "If I could get feted in my pajamas, I'd be there, I'd be like at the opening of a doorknob."

Is Jodie, who turned 45 last month, going to do more movies since she seems to do, at most, one a year? "One movie a year is really way too much even honestly. I did two movies in a year...and it almost set me over the edge."

She had a rare box office misfire this fall with "The Brave One" which opened at number one but went on to gross just under $37 million domestically. She's unfazed: "You make movies for the right reasons, hopefully, and that's a movie that I'm probably more proud of than anything I've done in many, many, many years. Some movies aren't for everybody."

Jodie, the mother of two children, told me that she has learned to juggle professional commitments with family.

"The one way that I've been able to make sense of it is to say that my job is something I do from 9 in the morning to 6 at night or whatever it is and my life starts after that," she said. "I've been able to compartmentalize and keep them separate. There are different parts to what I do for a living and part of what I do for a living is doing things like this [breakfast], part of it is being on a movie set at 4 in the morning, freezing cold and with a gun in my hand. Part of it is the thinking stuff. But when I get home, it's a different world."

When Martina Navratilova rang me up before lunch today, it was to talk about her new role as an ambassador for the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and I will post her comments about that tomorrow on this site and in my LA Daily News print column later this week.

First, I want to share the part of our conversation that focused on her coming out a lesbian in the late 70s and what she went through as she battled America's sweetheart Chris Evert on tennis courts around the world for the sports biggest titles. While news of a female athlete coming out would barely raise an eyebrow these days, back then, it was a very big deal and Martina displayed enormous courage in doing so.

"I don't know one person who's come out who wants to go back in," Martina said. "It was rough back then. It was rough when I walked on court, people would be clapping when Chris [Evert] or Steffi [Graf] were announced. I'd come out and some people wouldn't clap. Imagine if they didn't clap for Roger Federer if he was gay. He's the best tennis player in the world. So that hurt. To me, my sexuality should be irrelevant, it's not anything to be ashamed of. I was upset that people would think it was a negative and judge me just on that."

While Evert ruled the game for the second half of the 70s, Martina supplanted her from the top in 1982. They continued to battle for dominance but for a good three years, Martina basically owned Chris at one point beating her 13 times in a row. As Evert began to have some wins again - most notably in the 1985 and 1986 French Open finals against Martina - and Steffi Graf took over the top ranking in 1987, the public saw past Martina's dominance and began to recognize her for who she was.

BTW: Martina and Chris both ended up winning 18 Grand Slam titles but Navratilova had a slight edge in their 80-match rivalry which ended in 1988 at 43-37.

I mentioned to Martina that I thought a real breakthrough for her with the public was after the 1991 U.S. Open final which she lost to Monica Seles. The crowd just wouldn't stop clapping, finally bringing Martina to tears. It was a wonderful moment for me as a tennis fan watching on TV at home and I loved how she was being showered with affection for being a champion but for also being an honest and brave human being.

"They got me," she says. "First they liked me, then I was the big brute beating our Chrissie. Then in 1991, they just respected me and they got me. They realized I was real and said what I thought and tried to do it in the best way possible."

I commented to Martina (pictured after one of her nine Wimbledon singles wins) that she has had an enormous impact on untold numbers of gay and lesbian people who felt they would never be embraced if they did not remain in the closet or be able to make their dreams come true as an openly gay person.

I am one of them.

She seems to understand this and I'm so glad: "Probably my biggest accomplishment is changing those people on the fence. The thing I'm happiest about is the kids that didn't feel alone, who wrote me letters and said I helped give them the strength to be who they are."