THE CELEB CHEF IS IN HOT WATER AGAIN AFTER SCUFFLE ON THE SHOW SET IN THE U.S.

 

 in Los Angeles since the beginning of the month. He is due back in Britain in the next few weeks. Ramsay’s wife Tana flew back to Britain on Friday after a short stay with her husband. The chef’s rise to fame has been as much about his colourful language as the quality of his cooking. His first TV appearance in 1998 was in a fly-on-the-wall documentary at his £100-a-head Chelsea restaurant where his staff were frequently on the wrong end of his verbal tirades. After one confrontation with pastry chef Nathan Thomas over his banana parfait a complaint was made to the police accusing Ramsay of assault. He denied this but the programme showed another worker cycling away in tears because they were so upset by their treatment. Ramsay ordered food critic AA Gill and guest Joan Collins out of his restaurant because Gill had once been rude to him. He was seen regularly criticising colleagues on Channel 4’s Kitchen Nightmares, and on one occasion was asked to go outside for a fight by a Lake District restaurateur. Ramsay also rarely held his tongue with contestants on ITV’s Hell’s Kitchen which was aired this summer. His use of the F-word while giving his celebrity contestants the ‘hair dryer treatment’ earned ITV1 a slap on the wrists from television watchdog Ofcom. In the show’s most memorable scene Coronation Street actress Amanda Barrie walked out after lashing out at the chef with a kitchen utensil. But he saved his most vicious attacks for former Tory MP Edwina Currie branding her "diseased", "poisonous" and a "pathetic bitch". Ramsay also made a series of jibes about Mrs Currie’s affair with former Prime Minister John Major. He said: "One minute you are s******g the Prime Minister and now you are trying to s**g me from behind." He vowed never to make another series and branded the celebrity participants a bunch of whingers.-Jonathan Leswar.

DEPP AND WINSLETT AT THE RED CARPET

Actors Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet have graced the red carpet at the UK premiere of Finding Neverland. The film tells the story of Peter Pan author JM Barrie, played by Depp, and the inspiration for his famous tale. Proceeds from the London premiere, in Leicester Square, will go to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, which treats sick children. Winslet plays Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, a mother whose young sons inspired Barrie to write the classic. Barrie, who never had children of his own, met the boys in London's Kensington Gardens. US critics had tipped Depp to win an Oscar nomination for his performance as the Scottish writer. Depp has admitted he had trouble with the Scottish accent required for the role. "Musically, rhythmically, I initially couldn't quite get a hold of it. "Luckily, I found this dialect coach who helped me out a great deal." Winslet, who wore a stunning floor-length turquoise Ben de Lisi dress to the premiere, has said being the mother of two young children helped her with the part. "I don't think I could have played Sylvia if I wasn't a mother," she said. "There is something about the physicality of being a parent that you don't know about until you become one." The film also stars screen legends Julie Christie and Dustin Hoffman. The movie has been accused of playing down the ambiguous nature of Barrie's obsession with children. Some descendants of the Llewelyn Davies family are also said to have expressed some disappointment that the film does not "stick to the facts". But film studio Miramax has the production was meant to be a fictional retelling rather than a biopic.

ROBERT DE NIRO FAILED TO TURN UP AT FILM EVENTS IN ITALY

The Italian-American film star was due to receive Milan's highest honour, the Golden Ambrosius award, from the city's mayor on Thursday. He also failed to appear at a press conference for the New York Tribeca film festival in Rome. In a statement issued by his publicist in Los Angeles, De Niro, 61, blamed "serious communication problems". Very possible? Yes? No! ?

 

DE NIRO'S ROLES IN THE MOVIES DAMAGED ITALY'S REPUTATION

"It was a complicated situation, and I'm not sure how it was handled at their end, but it certainly wasn't handled properly at mine," said the star of films such as The Godfather Part II and The Untouchables. Protests: "I was a guest in their country, and the last thing I would want to do is to offend anyone. I love Italy." The Italian media speculated that De Niro snubbed the Milan award because of accusations that his portrayal of Mafia men damaged the country. US-based group the Order of Sons of Italy said last month that he should not be granted Italian citizenship. The citizenship ceremony was postponed after the group's objections but is still due to go ahead. De Niro defended the parts he played, saying: "The characters I play are real. So they have as much right to be portrayed as any other characters." He also said the protesters had ignored scores of other parts he had played in his career. De Niro was born in New York after his great-grandparents emigrated to the US from Ferrazzano, in Italy's central Molise region, at the end of the 19th Century. The Sons of Italy group's president, Joseph Sciame, wrote to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to complain about De Niro receiving the award. He wrote: "He has done nothing to promote the image of Italians. He has damaged their image by constantly playing criminal roles that tarnish their reputation." But the government rejected the group's request to not grant De Niro citizenship.

MICHAEL JACKSON'S LAWYER QUITS

Singer Michael Jackson's long-time lawyer, Steve Cochran, has left the star's defence team. Mr Jackson, who is fighting child abuse charges, said in a statement that the lawyer had taken a "temporary leave of absence" but would still "collaborate". "I would like to thank attorney Steve Cochran for all of the hard work he has done on my behalf," the star said. In a separate statement Mr Jackson's lead defence lawyer Thomas Mesereau denied any clash with Cochran. Mesereau called Cochran a friend, "brilliant lawyer, and a great credit to our profession". Mr Jackson, 46, has pleaded not guilty to 10 child abuse charges. He is due to stand trial in January. In April, Jackson fired Mark Geragos and Benjamin Brafman, replacing the two attorneys with Mesereau. The team of Cochran and Robert Sanger had worked for Jackson in lesser roles throughout the case.

UNPRECEDENTED RECORD OPENING FOR SHREK SEQUEL

Computer animated sequel Shrek 2 has broken box office records in the US, taking $11.8m (£6.7m) in one day. It has scored the biggest midweek opening to date for an animated feature, beating the record set by Pokemon: The First Movie in 1999. A spokesperson for Dreamworks, which made the film, said the opening "exceeded all of our expectations". Shrek 2, which features the voices of Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz, is in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Unprecedented:  The film is also set to break another record in the US over the weekend, by being screened in 4,163 cinemas - making it the largest debut of all time. "This is unprecedented - I've never seen a movie open in that many theatres," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks cinema audiences in the US. Dreamworks head of distribution Jim Tharp said they had had an increase in the number of screens available to show the film, meaning they were able to expand past the 4,000 mark. The original film, which also competed at Cannes when it was released in 2001 and won best animated feature at the Oscars, made $267m (£151m) at the US box office and $455m (£258m) worldwide. The sequel sees Myers and Diaz reprising their roles of the green ogre Shrek and his sweetheart, Princess Fiona. Eddie Murphy, who supplied the voice of Shrek's sidekick Donkey, also returns, while cast newcomers include John Cleese, Jennifer Saunders and Antonio Banderas.-BC.

SPEARS GIVEN A DEADLINE

A US judge has ordered Britney Spears to explain why she has not responded to a lawsuit filed by diet pill makers. The companies behind Zantrex-3 claim Spears' lawyers

 

threatened to sue them for using her image without permission. Zoller Laboratories, DG Enterprises and Basic Research LLC are asking a federal judge in Utah to declare they have not violated any state or federal laws. Spears failed to respond by 1 September and now has until 22 October to do so or the companies will win by default. The action arose after Spears was allegedly seen spilling a bottle of Zantrex-3 at London's Heathrow Airport last year. Second time lucky:The Utah-based companies capitalised on the media interest by using Spears in their advertising. The lawsuit was filed in November in Salt Lake City but it took months to serve Spears with the papers. The pop star recently split with the manager who has guided her career since she was 13 years old. Larry Rudolph said he and the singer had "mutually agreed not to renew their nine-year management relationship". Meanwhile, the singer formalised her marriage with dancer Kevin Federline last week, almost three weeks after their Los Angeles ceremony. Spears, 22, and Federline, 26, filed for their marriage licence on 7 October, her publicist said.

WENDY JAMES FIGHTS BACK

Wendy James, the seductive former singer with punk-pop band Transvision Vamp, is back with her first album in 11 years. She burst onto the music scene in 1988 with the boisterous I Want Your Love, which along with Baby I Don't Care helped Transvision Vamp notch up seven top 30 hits in the UK. The forthright James earned the band acres of media coverage yet, despite American, Australian and European success, Transvision Vamp split in 1991. "We were the definition of a pop band," says James. "We shot into the sky, burned brightly then exploded. Pop." Musical shift:  The decision to quit was mutual, she says, after three albums and a gruelling world tour which left the four-piece exhausted. "If our record company had given us some time off, Transvision Vamp may have been able to continue for a few more years," she reflects. "But by then music had moved on. People were into Public Enemy, De La Soul and the Madchester scene. Suddenly being in a white pop band wasn't such an exciting proposition." After her solo career made a

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stuttering start with Now Ain't the Time For Your Tears, a poorly-received album of songs written for her by Elvis Costello, James vanished from public life. While she had contributed to Transvision Vamp material, James was now determined to write her own songs from scratch, so she taught herself to play the guitar, drums, keyboards and anything else she could lay her hands on. "When touring and promoting records constantly you come to resent the recording studio," she explains. "I had to give myself space to experiment and allow those sparks of inspiration to come." Two years ago James moved from London to New York and recorded under the pseudonym Racine, the name of a drag strip in Chicago which also means "roots" in French. "I never pictured myself as a lone female singer-songwriter," she says. "I'm not a Joni Mitchell type. I like being part of a gang, so I took on a band name even though I played everything myself." Lyrical lust : The result was the album Racine Number One, a self-assured mix of hypnotic electronic beats, warm guitars, lyrical lust and boy racers. "It's exactly the sound I wanted to make," James says. "There is a quiet calm there but also a great deal of strength and confidence. It accurately reflects my personality." James is delighted that the album sounds like nothing else in the chart, even as she prepares to release her single Grease Monkey. "I have always been inspired by artists who have the conviction to do something different, and the balls to stand up in front of an audience and say 'this is me - take it or leave it'. "You can trace that right back to Chuck Berry and Little Richard through to Public Enemy's Chuck D, Dr Dre and Eminem. Rap is the most exciting form of music for me at the moment." Nevertheless James admits she would love to have a number one single. "Of course I would!" she smiles. "I just don't want all the attention that comes with it."

Artistic freedom : Smoking an American Spirit cigarette, she says she enjoys the artistic freedom and opportunities of living in New York and does not plan to move back to London any time soon. "I can wake up every day and see the Empire State Building from my window," James says. "It's like being right in the middle of a Woody Allen movie." Neither does she intend to re-join Transvision Vamp, even if a lucrative deal was offered. "They know better than to ask me," she says. "Why would I want to go backwards?" Racine Number One is available on the Pia-K Recordings label.

 SANDRA BULLOCK WINS $7 M IN COURT

Actress Sandra Bullock has been awarded $7m (£3.9m) after her dream home turned into an expensive nightmare. The Speed and Miss Congeniality star was awarded the sum on Thursday by a jury after she took the builder to a court in Austin, Texas. Bullock testified in the two month-long case that she had paid $7m for the house on Lake Austin. But the actress said she had never lived in the 10,000-square foot house because of construction flaws.

LIVE SHOW TO START EMINEM

Rapper Eminem will launch his satellite music radio station, Shade 45, on 28 October with a live broadcast of a concert from New York. The Sirius radio network said the new station will feature a full line-up of hip-hop music and features. The channel, which was announced in July, will be available on subscription and so will not be subject to the rigorous broadcasting laws in the US. Sirius recently signed up shock-jock Howard Stern to present a show.

LOVE'S LAWYERS FIGHT FEES DISPUTE

Courtney Love's lawyers have agreed to try to settle a dispute in California with a law firm over legal fees. Judge Gerald Rosenberg gave Love's lawyers and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, until 5 February to reach a settlement. Last year, the firm sued Love, her Hole bandmate Eric Erlandson, and a firm that owns the band members' recording services, over claims of unpaid fees. If no agreement is reached, the judge could set a trial date, said Santa Monica court assistant Dane Gambill.

DIGITAL DEBUT FOR WILLIAMS FILM

Film distributor Lions Gate Films is to release movie The Final Cut digitally. Instead of delivering reels of film to US cinemas, the movie will be beamed by satellite and shown to audiences using digital projectors. Lions Gate said the film - starring Robin Williams - will be one of the first studio films to be digitally distributed to cinemas. It will be initially shown in AMC cinemas linked to the chain's digital distribution system.

ZETA JONES BACKS LITERARY PRICE

Actress Catherine Zeta Jones has supported a £60,000 literary contest  to be launched in 

the memory of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. The Dylan Thomas Literary Prize will be open to creative writing in English by poets and authors aged under 30. The actress will act as international ambassador to the biennial competition. "This is commemorating the fact that Dylan Thomas was essentially a young writer," said award founder Professor Peter Stead.

SIR ELTON'S PERSONAL PHOTOS COLLECTION: $900,000

Is Elton John's fortune going multimedia? The British pop star, who usually makes his living playing the piano, netted $900,000 US Thursday night by auctioning off a collection of photographs taken by some of the world's most famous photographers. The top earner was a 1988 black-and-white Robert Mapplethorpe photo of a vase holding white tulips, netting $83,650, said Rik Pike, a spokesman for auction house Christie's New York. A 1950 Irving Penn photograph of his wife, Swedish model Lisa Fonssagrives, took in $57,360, Pike said. A 1942 Ansel Adams photograph of the Grand Teton mountains in Wyoming sold for $43,020.

In all, 73 of 78 photos offered were sold, many for well above pre-sale estimates. All prices included the auction house's 19.5 per cent commission. John Elton began collecting photographs in 1991 and had what Christie's called one of the leading private collections in the world. He is, of course, better known for his musical hits, including Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Rocket Man and Bennie and the Jets.           More on the next page

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL RED CARPET

LONDON - Red carpets and banners festooned a soggy Leicester Square on Wednesday for the opening night of the 48th annual London Film Festival, which has a slate as diverse as the teeming capital city that hosts it. Between Mike Leigh's working-class tragedy Vera Drake, which opens the festival, and the closing film, David O. Russell's existential comedy I (Heart) Huckabees on Nov. 4, 180 features and 103 shorts from 60 countries will be screened. Last year, 116,000 people attended the two-week event. Among this year's highlights: 2046, the latest film from Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai; Zhang Yimou's kaleidoscopic martial arts fest House of Flying Daggers; Mira Nair's Indian-flavoured take on William Makepeace Thackeray's 19th-century novel Vanity Fair; and Enduring Love, Roger Mitchell's adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel of obsessive desire. There are films by what Sandra Hebron, the festival's artistic director, called "the great and the good of international cinema" - including French masters Jean-Luc Godard (Notre musique) and Eric Rohmer (Triple Agent), and Senegal's Ousmane Sembene (Moolande) - alongside films from edgy younger directors such as American Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin) and Sweden's Lukas Moodysson (A Hole in My Heart). Perhaps because it's an unsettled time for the world, Hebron said, it has been a good year for world cinema. "Many of the films in the festival are films that are somehow engaged with the world around us, films that are seeking to make sense of the world and also to talk about what they are seeing," she said. "There's a kind of intelligence coming through in a lot of the filmmaking - including some of the (Hollywood) studio pictures."

She cited Huckabees, already released in North America, which stars Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin as detectives who investigate existential crises instead of crimes, in a cast that includes Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts and Isabelle Huppert. "It's got a very starry cast," Hebron said, "and yet within that David O. Russell manages to slip in all sorts of political and moral questions. And a film like The Manchurian Candidate: a genre picture and a remake to boot, but you've got a director (Jonathan Demme) who brings an intelligence and curiosity and updates it in a way that makes it have a degree of contemporary relevance."-L. Laless.

 

BROOKE SHIELDS MAKES BIG TIME NEWS

NEW YORK --It was nearly a lifetime ago that Brooke Shields shocked the world as a knowing child prostitute in the film Pretty Baby and told us that nothing came between her and her Calvins. As that rare creature who navigated her way from child stardom to a successful adult career, Shields looks back on it all as a fun time, a great opportunity. But now that she has a baby of her own, she's wary about having her daughter follow her into the spotlight. "I just don't want to deny who she is naturally," says Shields, now 39. "The business is very different now. Kids are a lot more precocious. They're a lot more sexually aware. It wasn't like that for me when I was a kid. We were kids. We really just were kids." For now, Shields is toting 17-month-old Rowan to the Broadway musical Wonderful Town, a project she calls the perfect complement to her new life as a mother. Rowan watches the singing and dancing with wide eyes. When Shields snaps her fingers as part of a big swing number, her daughter imitates it by pinching her fingers together and making a clucking noise with her mouth. "She thinks that's snapping so I let her think that's snapping," Shields says with a laugh. "She does this really funny, awkward funny little dance." Munching on pizza backstage at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, Shields says motherhood has made her appreciate comedy - something she fell into later in her career in the TV sitcom Suddenly Susan. "I've just noticed that I'm OK with being happy in my work. I find that it's just as valid if I'm having a good time. I don't have to be suffering for it to be good or for it to be art," she says. Not that she doesn't still enjoy a challenge. She had just two weeks to prepare for her role as Ruth Sherwood, a tough-talking journalist from Ohio in the Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green musical. She took over the role from Donna Murphy, who earned a Tony nomination for the part. It was a daunting task, but for Shields, it fell into the category of the Eleanor Roosevelt adage: You must do the thing you think you cannot do. "It sort of terrified me," Shields says, "so I basically had to say yes." To the world, it would seem the former model is playing against type as Ruth, a brassy, sharp-tongued woman who never gets her man. But Shields says she identifies with the old-fashioned broad who fends off her vulnerability with a wry sense of humour. Audiences appreciate the comic turn and so did the critics. Her onstage battle with a stubborn sofa bed "recalls the great Lucille Ball at her most physically hilarious," wrote one drama critic; another said Shields was "an unpretentious delight." "This role is so perfect for her, it really is," says Jennifer Hope Wills, who co-stars as Ruth's sister, Eileen. "She's so funny, but in a natural way. And she just has that star quality." Celebrity has been a fact of life for Shields as long as she can remember. She started modelling at 11 months and never left the public eye, with controversial early roles in Pretty Baby and as a scantily clad castaway in Blue Lagoon. She examined the subject herself while a student at Princeton University, where she wrote her thesis on Pretty Baby and other Louis Malle films. In the movie, she portrays a child who lives in a brothel with her mother; a photographer falls in love with the young girl. Years later, Shields read accusations that she had been exploited, but it didn't fit with her memory. "I had a ball on the set," she says. "I played games with the gaffers. All the girls sang songs every day. It was like a big game. So there was a naivete that I think protected me from feeling exploited. And I think that's just lucky." As she grew into a bona fide star, the world watched her successes and heartbreaks, including her failed marriage to tennis star Andre Agassi and her professional break from her mother, who managed her career until the 1990s. Before Rowan's birth, a nurse leaked the news that Shields was having trouble getting pregnant with husband Chris Henchy and was undergoing fertility treatments. Shields hasn't been shy about discussing her troubles. She's finishing a book now called Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression, due out in May. Stripped of her makeup and wig, her long hair now blond, Shields sits in her dressing room surrounded by floral bouquets, with a picture of her daughter peering down from the mirror. She's happy to embrace a good time in her life by doing something fun and funny. "It's not heavy. You don't have to be told who you are and why you're bad and why life sucks," she says of the musical. "It's such a feel-good, kind of old-fashioned but very, very updated Broadway. It's what Broadway always was when I remembered it." It's the third time Shields has parachuted into a Broadway musical in mid-run - she replaced other actresses in both Grease and Cabaret. She calls the two-week rehearsal period "kind of devastating" and "almost not fair," but relishes rising to the task. "It's made me realize a capacity and a potential that I have that I thought I did, but now I can feel it and see it every night," she says. "So I think that to me and my career is priceless." -Lisa Talin.

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GEORGE LUCAS HONOURED

LOS ANGELES -- After creating Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and American Graffiti, Darth Vader might insist it was George Lucas' destiny to get the American Film Institute's lifetime achievement award. Lucas, 60, was picked on Friday to be the recipient of the organization's 33rd annual prize, following such recent recipients as Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro and Tom Hanks. "I've been very fortunate to have had a long career doing what I love to do, and being recognized by the AFI for it is really an honour," Lucas said. "I'm proud to be counted among such an extraordinary group of people whose lives are dedicated to the art of making movies."

Previous honorees include Jack Nicholson, Barbra Streisand, Elizabeth Taylor, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Poitier and Orson Welles. The gala dinner and ceremony, in which clips of his films will be presented by many of the stars he worked with over the years, is set to take place next June in Los Angeles. The award marks a busy year for Lucas. Last month his original Star Wars trilogy debuted for the first time on DVD (and became a best seller) along with a revised version of his first film, the sci-fi dystopian thriller THX 1138. Lucas also was one of the key presenters recently at the 75th anniversary celebration for the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television (which boasts him as one of its most famous graduates). And in May, he will wrap up his Star Wars prequels with the release of Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, which will reveal how Darth Vader became a scarred, half-human half-machine villain. -A. Brezncan.

ENTERTAINERS BECOME LOBBYISTS

NEW YORK- "If you want to send a message," movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn once said, "call Western Union." Translation. Entertainers entertain. Leave politics to the politicians. But Goldwyn is 30 years dead, and this year more than ever, artists are using their art to inspire people to follow their lead to and at the ballot box. Fahrenheit 9/11 has smashed the box-office record for documentaries. In arenas around the country, music stars and punk rockers are performing with the hope they'll get people to vote. Even painters and sculptors have been infused with an election-year muse. While some of the politicization of entertainment is neutral -- The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, for example, which mocks both parties -- many in the entertainment industry are using whatever medium they can to send a partisan message. There is no agreement on whether it does any good. "It is more likely that someone who hears a celebrity speak out for a specific candidate will form a new opinion about that celebrity as opposed to forming a new opinion about the candidate," maintains Robert Thompson, a professor of media and culture and director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.

 

 "Political opinion tends to run deep, and one celebrity is unlikely to change that in any but the most fickle and truly undecided." Kevin M. Scott of Elizabethtown (Pa.) College also doubts Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 or Bruce Springsteen's Vote for Change tour will change any minds. But he suspects it might get someone who already supports a candidate to become more involved in the electoral process. And that winds up being a de facto rebuttal to the criticism it's all just "preaching to the choir," says English professor Kathy M. Newman. "As a wise mentor once pointed out to me, most preaching IS to the choir," she says. "In other words, like the preaching of a favourite pastor, political culture energizes the base, cleanses the soul, reinvigorates the congregation, allows time for reflection and contemplation, and provides a gathering place." Terry Paulson, author of The Dinner: The Political Conversation Your Mother Told You Never to Have, sees the rash of movies, concerts, books, comedy tours and TV shows as "a reflection of suppressed anger over the contested election of George W. Bush in 2000 that has finally been free to surface." "The 'selected not elected' mantra that was so strong early was silenced by the need to rally in support of a leader facing the 9/11 tragedy and a war against terrorism," Paulson says. "But the questionable war on Iraq and the lack of weapons of mass destruction has unleashed that early anger with a passion that spills over into popular movies and a public ready to see them." Entertainers can even teach journalists a thing or two. Pop culture expert Jim Farrelly credits Moore "with teaching the media how to cover a president and his politics with both insight and panache." AP.

CHRIS ROCK TO HOST THE OSCARS

LOS ANGELES- The Oscars have a piece of the Rock. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday announced Chris Rock will host the next Academy Awards telecast. Rock, who's been in the films Head of State and Dogma, is best known for his standup comedy specials Bigger & Blacker, Bring the Pain and Never Scared. Rock, 39, has previously hosted the MTV's Movie Awards. "I am a huge fan of Chris Rock," said Gil Cates, the producer of the Oscars telecast. "He always makes me laugh and he always has something interesting to say. Chris represents the best of the new generation of comics. Having him host the Oscars is terrific." The one-time Saturday Night Live regular has won three Emmys for his TV programs and two Grammys for his comedy albums. Rock currently is shooting a remake of The Longest Yard with Adam Sandler and recently provided the voice of the zebra in the animated feature Madagascar, both to be released in May 2005. His other film credits include Pootie Tang, Bad Company, Down to Earth and Nurse Betty. The 77th Academy Awards telecast is set for Feb. 27.-A. Brezncan.

NICOLE KIDMAN PREFERS REAL BRUNETTE

PARIS- Blondes may have more fun, but Nicole Kidman says she'd rather have been born a brunette. In an interview with French magazine Paris-Match, the Oscar-winning actress also said she doesn't see herself pursuing her film career indefinitely. And she revealed that her 2001 divorce from Tom Cruise changed her criteria for selecting roles. "Since my divorce, I lean, consciously or not, toward characters who are strong women taking control of their destiny, personal and professional," the weekly quoted Kidman as saying. "The position of a so-called 'powerful' actress is comforting for a single woman like me," she added. "It gives you a character of hardened steel." Kidman, envied for her golden curls and porcelain skin, said she believes a darker complexion would have left her less susceptible to the sun's damaging rays. She said she worries about skin cancer. "I would, all things said, have preferred to be a brunette with a dark complexion. But I work with what I have." Kidman's upcoming films include Bewitched, The Interpreter and The Producers, also starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.-AP.

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MEL GIBSON DONATES MONEY TO CHARITY

 LOS ANGELES, California- Mel Gibson has donated $10 million US that will be split between Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA and the Cedars-Sinal Medical Center to help care for children from foreign countries. The donation, announced Tuesday, will help children with serious medical conditions who are unable to be treated in their own countries. The children who will benefit from Gibson's donation will be recommended by the Healing the Children organization. "For the past several years, the Gibson family has quietly supported Healing the Children's efforts to help sick and injured children around the world," said the organization's founder, Cris Embleton. "Not only have they given financial support, they also have given their time and hearts and as a result have seen firsthand how people working together can give a child the future they deserve." Dr. Edward McCabe, physician-in-chief of the Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA, said the gift will enable the hospital to help children worldwide. "Through this remarkable contribution, the generosity of Mr. Gibson will transform the lives of children throughout the world," McCabe said.

MICHAEL MOORE GIVES MONEY TO UNIVERSITIES

DEL MAR, California- Michael Moore promised to endow a scholarship at California State University, San Marcos, where administrators had cancelled his scheduled appearance because of what they called his partisan politics. The Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker addressed about 10,000 people off-campus Tuesday night at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, promising $5,000 US per academic year to a student who "stands up the most to the administration of Cal State San Marcos." Moore's documentary criticizes the policies of the Bush administration following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. "I hope to encourage students in the future to do the true American thing and stand up for what they believe in," said Moore, who was accompanied onstage by folk singer Joan Baez. They sang America the Beautiful together. About 200 demonstrators gathered outside the entrance to the fairgrounds. A few were removed from the audience when they tried to disrupt Moore's talk, said San Diego sheriff's Lieut. Don Fowler. Moore has been encouraging students across the United States to vote. His college tour, which ends on election day in Tallahassee, Fla., has drawn sellout crowds, as well as heated criticism at almost every stop. The student government at California State University, San Marcos, raised more than $40,000 to pay for Moore's visit after university president Karen Haynes revoked his invitation. Moore accused Haynes of bowing to Republican pressure, and vowed to donate about $20,000 that he earned from the event to the scholarship. Haynes said she cancelled his appearance because the state was prohibited from spending state money on partisan political activity and she believed there wouldn't be enough time to find a speaker whose opinions could balance Moore's views. She welcomed him back after the November presidential election.

 

 CABLE TELEVISION WILL NOT SHOW MOORE'S FILM

NEW YORK - A cable pay-per-view company has decided not to show a three-hour election eve special with filmmaker Michael Moore that included a showing of his documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which is sharply critical of President Bush. The company, IN DEMAND, said Friday that its decision is due to "legitimate business and legal concerns." A spokesman would not elaborate. Moore has just released his movie on DVD and was seeking a TV outlet for the film. Earlier this week, trade publications said Moore was close to a deal with IN DEMAND for The Michael Moore Pre-Election Special, which also would include interviews with politically active celebrities and admonitions to vote. The Nov. 1 special was to be available for $9.95. Moore said Friday he signed a contract with the company in early September and is considering legal action. He said he believes IN DEMAND decided not to air the film because of pressure from "top Republican people."

 "Apparently people have put pressure on them and they've broken a contract," Moore told The Associated Press. "We've informed them of their legal responsibility and we all informed them that every corporate executive that has attempted to prohibit Americans from seeing this film has failed," Moore said. "There's been one struggle or another over this, but we've always come out on top because you can't tell Americans they can't watch this." The New York-based IN DEMAND, owned by the Time Warner, Cox and Comcast cable companies, makes pay-per-view programming available in 28 million homes, or about one-quarter of the country's homes with television. In a statement, IN DEMAND said any legal action Moore might take against the company would be "entirely baseless and groundless." This spring, Moore did battle with the Walt Disney Co., which refused to release Fahrenheit 9/11 through its Miramax Films because it was too politically partisan for the company's taste. Moore found other distributors. The movie, which attacks Bush's handling of the war on terrorists and war in Iraq and the Bush family's ties to Saudi royalty, earned more than $100 million US at the box office. In an interview with a Maine television station that aired this week, former president George Bush called Moore a "slimeball" and an expletive. Also Friday, Moore offered to let Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. air the movie for free. Such a deal would likely get a chilly reception at Sinclair, a broadcaster with a reputation for conservative politics that plans to air a critical documentary about John Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activities on dozens of TV stations two weeks before the election.

JOHN EDWARDS RIDICULES PRESIDENT BUSH ON NATIONAL TELEVISION

BURBANK, California- John Edwards has a theory about what was hidden underneath an unusual wrinkle that appeared on the back of President George W. Bush's suit jacket during his first debate with John Kerry. "I think it was his battery," a grinning Edwards told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show on Tuesday. "I think tomorrow, before the debate, John Kerry ought to pat him down," Edwards said, referring to the final Bush-Kerry matchup, scheduled for Wednesday in Arizona. The Democratic vice-presidential nominee, making his second appearance on the comedian's stage this year, was in turns silly and serious while chatting about issues from Iraq to chubby Secret Service agents. Leno asked Edwards if he could beat the president in a foot race. Edwards, who said he jogged about eight kilometres Tuesday, reminded the audience he played football as a student. Bush, he noted, was on a cheering squad. Bush "was on the side, with his pompoms," the North Carolina senator said. "I don't know, can you run fast with those cheerleading outfits on?" Earlier, at a campaign stop in Colorado, Edwards attacked Bush and Cheney as "out of touch." He didn't let up on Leno's show. When Leno showed a clip of Kerry windsurfing, Edwards said, "If I had to spend 90 minutes on a stage with George Bush, I'd want to clear my head too." During the first debate between the presidential candidates, a camera glimpsed what looked like a rectangular lump between Bush's shoulder blades. Bush's campaign aides have laughed off rampant Internet speculation that the president was wired to get help from advisers. Edwards' one-day trip to California was somewhat unusual. The presidential race has largely bypassed the Democratic-leaning state, which is viewed as an all but certain win for the Kerry-Edwards ticket in November. Al Gore carried the state in 2000 by 12 percentage points. The last time Edwards was in the state was nearly three months ago.

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REALITY TV FINED $1,183,000 FOR INDECENCY

WASHINGTON- Federal regulators proposed a record indecency fine of nearly $1.2 million US Tuesday against Fox Broadcasting Co. for an episode of its reality series Married by America that included graphic scenes from bachelor and bachelorette parties. The Federal Communications Commission said the material, which featured male and female Las Vegas strippers in a variety of sexual situations, was indecent and patently offensive, intended to "pander to and titillate the audience." FCC commissioners voted unanimously to fine each of the 169 Fox TV stations that aired the program $7,000. Fox has 30 days to appeal the fines, which total $1,183,000. The fine is the most ever for a television broadcaster. The previous record of $550,000 was levied against CBS last month for the Super Bowl halftime show last February that included a racy duet in which singer Janet Jackson's breast was briefly exposed. It's also the first indecency fine against a reality television show, though other complaints are being investigated, the FCC said. A spokesman for Fox Broadcasting Co., Joe Earley, would not say whether the network planned to appeal. "We disagree with the FCC's decision and believe the content is not indecent," he said. The six-episode Married by America, which got dismal ratings, introduced a cast of single men and women and allowed viewers to match them up by popular vote. Five matched couples then went through some of the rituals of dating. None actually got married. The episode in question, which aired April 7, 2003, featured explicitly sexual scenes from their bachelor and bachelorette parties. "Even with Fox's editing, the episode includes scenes in which partygoers lick whipped cream from strippers' bodies in a sexually suggestive manner," the FCC said. "Another scene features a man on all fours in his underwear as two female strippers spank him. Although the episode electronically obscures any nudity, the sexual nature of the scenes is inescapable." Following the broadcast, the commission received 159 complaints. "Although the nudity was pixilated, even a child would have known that the strippers were topless and that sexual activity was being shown," the FCC said. Federal law bars radio and non-cable television stations from airing references to sexual and excretory functions between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., the hours when children are more likely to be watching television. The Fox show aired at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m., depending on the city. The FCC has stepped up enforcement of the statute in recent years as complaints mounted about a coarsening of public airwaves. Critics, notably radio host Howard Stern, claim the FCC is seeking to stifle free speech. Stern has been repeatedly fined by the FCC. He announced last week that in 2006 he would move his show to satellite radio, which is not subject to federal indecency rules. The Jackson incident prompted Congress to consider raising the maximum indecency fine from $32,500 to as much as $500,000 per incident. The House of Representatives and Senate passed different versions of an indecency measure but negotiators couldn't reach agreement on a final plan. Supporters have vowed to try again.-Laura Mecker.

 

 BROADWAY, THE FOLLIES, THE PBS AND YOU

NEW YORK -- Broadway: The American Musical begins in 1893, with the arrival of a five-year-old Russian boy born Israel Baline. He would adopt the United States as his homeland and Irving Berlin as his name, and help forge an as-yet-unimagined art form around an as-yet-unchristened Times Square. That same year, a young promoter named Florenz Ziegfeld arrived from Chicago to conquer New York. The first great impresario of the American musical, he would found the Ziegfeld Follies, eye-popping revues whose trademark was dozens of glamorous showgirls. After such an overture, a documentary on musicals could have charted the 20th century with six hours' worth of names, faces and performances - That's Entertainment from the Great White Way. But Broadway does far more. Airing on PBS from Tuesday through Thursday (check local listings), this magnificent miniseries connects Broadway's onstage evolution to the shifting scenery on a much larger stage: the country itself. America's culture, politics and heart have always starred on Broadway. Immigration, race relations, ethnic assimilation, the labour movement, Prohibition, world wars, the Depression; the arrival of movies, radio and TV; most recently, the civil rights movement and Vietnam, AIDS and globalization - Broadway missed none of it. Nor does Broadway: The American Musical. The goal, says producer Michael Kantor, was "to integrate the people, the art form, the place into one big series that helps tell us who we are as Americans." And (he might have added) tells us who we were as Americans each step of the way. "You can't just show a clip," Kantor says. "You have to consider what the audience brought to each of these shows: If we'd gone there, who would WE have been? Because theatre is not just what's on stage, it's an interaction between the performers and the audience." With a treasure trove of archival footage and photos, as well as on-camera interviews with more than 80 celebrated Broadwayites, this miniseries spins an epic tale with a century of pop songs as its soundtrack. (In addition, there's a jam-packed Broadway web site; a companion book and two different CD sets.) Kantor, who spent eight years on the project, cites as inspiration a quote by Yip Harburg, among whose songs is the Depression era lament, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? "Songs," declared Harburg, "are the pulse of a nation's heart; a fever chart of its health." With its songs, Broadway has always issued reports on current conditions. But it also expresses a country's hopes for the future. "The Broadway musical has sung the promise of America," says series host Julie Andrews. As Broadway begins, we find Andrews on the stage of the New Amsterdam Theater.

Restored from near ruin by the Walt Disney Co., this is now the home of The Lion King, a big-budget crowd-pleaser adapted from Disney's animated feature film. But a century ago, the New Amsterdam was the home of the Ziegfeld Follies, which the film revisits not only with newly uncovered colour footage from the 1920s, but also through sharp recollections from centenarian Doris Eaton, a Ziegfeld Girl from 1918 to '20, who then shows her stuff with some hoofing on the New Amsterdam stage. The first hour also introduces us to Jewish comedienne Fanny Brice and black singer Bert Williams, America's first "crossover" artists. Hour two covers the Roaring '20s and the emergence of the Gershwin brothers, Al Jolson and an innovative black composer, Eubie Blake. Hour three: the Depression years, with Cole Porter and the team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Then the fourth hour finds Rodgers and his new partner, Oscar Hammerstein II, changing the face of Broadway theatre with Oklahoma! This golden age of musicals also included Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady and Kiss Me, Kate. Spanning 1957 to '79, the fifth hour starts with West Side Story and traces an era of social upheaval, ending with other groundbreaking musicals such as A Chorus Line and Sweeney Todd.

The final chapter chronicles an era of British imports such as Cats, the old-fashioned smash The Producers, and the recent hit Wicked, a musical backed by entertainment giant Universal Pictures. In putting together the series, Kantor kept his focus on Broadway as the centre of the entertainment firmament. For instance, Liza Minnelli is the leading lady most identified with Cabaret, but that's thanks to her turn as Sally Bowles in the 1972 film; instead, the documentary scrupulously opts for Jill Haworth (who in 1966 created the role on Broadway) singing the title song. On the other hand: Two years after Fred Astaire performed Night and Day at the Shubert Theatre, he sang it in his first starring film. "Throughout, we tried to be true to Broadway, and use TV and Hollywood as a reflection of it," says Kantor. "So we used that clip of Astaire, because it's true to what he did on Broadway." Meanwhile, the truth of Broadway is a fascinating musical crash course in America.- F. Moor.

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