"Most women when they encounter fashion -- whether it's in a magazine or in the mall or watching the Golden Globes -- they compare it to what they can wear. Melania isn't like that, probably because she was born beautiful," said Singer. Because of the sheer volume of the dress, the magazine reports, Knauss decided to sit on a bench for dinner because a chair wouldn't work and change into a new outfit following the traditional first dance with her new husband. That dress is a sexy and sleek tulle number by Vera Wang.  S. Critchel.

Former X-Files star, Gillian Anderson marries doc filmmaker

NEW YORK, NEW YORK- Former X-Files star Gillian Anderson has married longtime boyfriend Julian Ozanne. The couple exchanged vows Dec. 29 at a friend's beach house on Lamu's Shella island, off Kenya's Indian Ocean coast, People magazine said Tuesday. The ceremony, which included hymns sung by a Kenyan choir in Swahili, was attended by immediate family and a handful of close friends. "I can confirm it took place," People quotes Jonathan Clayton, a veteran London Times African correspondent and friend of Ozanne's, as saying. "It was a spectacular occasion. They were both delighted, but I would rather not go into details." Anderson's manager, Connie Freiberg, confirmed the report Tuesday. Ozanne, 42, a documentary filmmaker, was previously a correspondent with the London Financial Times. Anderson, 36, starred as agent Dana Scully in the Fox sci-fi series The X-Files, which co-starred David Duchovny. She has a 10-year-old daughter, Piper, from her previous marriage to production designer Clyde Klotz. Anderson played Lily Bart in 2000's The House of Mirth, an adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel.

Opera world freezing out obese singers. Heppner lost 90 pounds

LONDON, New York - The Royal Opera House has cancelled a performance by one of the world's most sought-after sopranos because she is too fat, a theatre spokesman said. American Deborah Voigt had been scheduled to play the lead in a summer production of Richard Strauss's Ariadne on Naxos, but casting director Peter Katona decided a slimmer singer would be better for the part, spokesman Christopher Millard said. Mr. Katona had selected a black evening dress for the part and believed Ms. Voigt would not look right in it, Mr. Millard said. "Normally, Ariadne is presented on a stylized Greek island with the singers wearing toga-type clothes, but we wanted to present it in an elegant, modern evening dress," Mr. Katona said. Anne Schwanewilms, a more slender but lesser-known soprano, will sing the part of Ariadne. Ms. Voigt's weight remains a closely guarded secret. The best estimate of observers is that Ms.

Voigt is on the heavy side of 200 pounds. "I have big hips and Covent Garden has a problem with them," she said. "Or, at least, their casting director, Peter Katona, has the problem, and he's made it clear that I won't be singing in his house as long as he's around. Which is sad." Mr. Katona said: "In making these kinds of decision, it is not just a question of how someone looks; it is also how they move on stage. "Mr. Millard confirmed by telephone that size was the reason the 43-year-old Ms. Voigt was no longer scheduled to sing in the Royal Opera House production. There is a growing movement against fat singers in the opera, traditionally one of the places where they are most welcome. Luciano Pavarotti was ordered on a diet after he cancelled some performances. Vocal coach Seth Riggs said the weight loss would most likely improve the singer's delivery. ''You do not have to be fat to have a beautiful voice,'' he said. ''Look at Renata Tebaldi, she was a large woman, but not a fat one, and she had a beautiful voice,'' he said. ''And Norman Treigle was the skinniest fellow you ever saw. But he was a bass baritone with a booming voice. Tenor Franco Corelli had a beautiful figure.'' There is a misperception, Mr. Riggs said, that large diaphragms, and therefore large bodies, are needed for singers to sing well. Last year, Toronto heldentenor Ben Heppner returned to the opera stage after a 14-month absence, with two big differences: His vocal problems were gone and so were 90 extra pounds. His voice returned after he stopped taking high blood pressure medication. Then came a new diet and exercise regimen to take off the weight that was contributing to the blood pressure problem. Mr. Heppner said people should know opera singers do not need big bodies to have big voices. 'That,'' he said, ''is a myth.'' Ms. Voigt was awarded France's Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2002, and was named last year's Vocalist of the Year by Musical America. Her debut solo album, featuring arias by Wagner and Strauss, is due for release on April 6. She is to give her Carnegie Hall solo recital debut the following day. Ms. Schwanewilms has sung at major European theatres and was a member of the Cologne Opera ensemble in the mid-1990s.

Ailing Jane Fonda to miss Vadim film

PARIS, New York- Jane Fonda cancelled plans to attend a premiere of a documentary about her former husband Roger Vadim on Monday because of hip and back problems that prompted her to seek treatment at a Paris hospital. Flying to France had left Fonda with hip and back pain, said Karine Lyons, a spokeswoman for the French Riviera resort of Saint-Tropez, where the screening was to be held Monday night. Fonda had X-rays at a Paris hospital Monday morning, Lyons said. She said Fonda had previously undergone a hip operation. The showing of the 90-minute documentary, Vadim, This Billionaire of Happiness, was to go ahead as planned. Fonda may attend a second showing in Paris on Tuesday, Lyons said. Fonda, 67, was married to the French director from 1965 to 1973. He died in 2000. Vadim directed Fonda in his 1968 sci-fi sexual spoof Barbarella.

 

The mood changes quickly, though, when a rare book is stolen and one of the club's actors dies in a car crash that appears suspicious. In a departure from his 87th Precinct series, McBain offers Alice in Jeopardy (Simon & Schuster). Alice is a recent widow and single mother expecting a life-insurance settlement for her husband, who disappeared in a boating accident and is presumed dead. When her children are kidnapped and the ransom demanded is exactly the amount of the settlement, Alice does some investigating of her own. The president of the United States also is displeased with an official investigation in Griffin's By Order of the President (Putnam). When a hijacked jetliner leaves Angola for points unknown, the CIA, FBI and other agencies get in each other's way trying to find out what's going on. So the president turns to an intelligence officer in the Department of Homeland Security, who travels to Africa undercover and uncovers a dangerous plot. In Survivor in Death (Putnam) by J.D Robb, a nine-year-old girl is the only witness to the murder of her family; and in Killing a Unicorn (Thomas Dunne) by Marjorie Eccles, a nine-year-old boy vanishes after his mother is found murdered. Forests of the Night (St. Martin's Minotaur) is James W. Hall's story of a police officer's search for her teenage daughter, who ran away from their Florida home with a drifter; and a defence attorney in Florida is summoned home to Toronto where her mother has murdered a stranger in Joy Fielding's Puppet (Atria). In The Mayday (Justin Charles) by Bill Eidson, a DEA agent and a repo boat contractor investigate when a man's story about losing his wife and children at sea off the Rhode Island coast doesn't hold water; and on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., lawyer Brady Coyne and private eye J.W. Jackson join forces when they suspect the motives of a fund-raising concert in Second Sight (Scribner) by Philip R. Craig and William G. Tapply. That Way Murder Lies (St. Martin's Minotaur) is Ann Granger's 15th book about British foreign consul Meredith Mitchell and police detective Alan Markby, who investigate a hate-mail campaign aimed at a woman who had been acquitted of murder 25 years earlier. The recent murder of a San Francisco socialite and his fiancee are investigated in The Motive (Dutton), John Lescroart's latest entry in his series featuring Glitsky and Hardy, police detective and lawyer, respectively. The Widow's Tale (Berkley Prime Crime) by Margaret Frazer, 14th in the series set in medieval England, finds nun Dame Frevisse helping a recent widow whose brother-in-law is trying to gain control of her estate. Femme fatales are afoot in Dangerous Women (Mysterious Press), edited by Otto Penzler and featuring 17 new stories by Joyce Carol Oates, Walter Mosley, Anne Perry, Elmore Leonard and others.-R. Bethel.