The famous Dodge Charger from the 1980s television show <i>The Dukes of Hazzard</i> has sold via an internet auction for an astonishing $9,9-million, according to a page on eBay. The 1969 car was sold by actor John Schneider, who played Bo Duke in the long-running show.
A judge sentenced a shocked and tearful Paris Hilton to 45 days in jail on Friday, ruling that the hotel heiress violated her probation for a previous traffic offence by knowingly driving without a valid licence. Hilton wept and her mother, Kathy, yelled at the prosecutor, ”You’re pathetic,” as the packed courtroom cleared.
A surprise witness surfaced in the Phil Spector murder trial on Wednesday, telling the court that he saw a lawyer for the music producer pick up a piece of evidence at the crime scene that was never turned over to prosecutors. Spector is charged with shooting Lana Clarkson (40) to death in the foyer of his mock castle in the foothills outside Los Angeles on February 3 2003.
An alligator nicknamed Reggie appeared in a Los Angeles lake after disappearing there one-and-a-half years ago. ”Reggie is older, Reggie is bigger, and he’s probably hungry, so I want to make sure that we keep the public safe,” city councillor Janice Hahn said.
The ashes of Star Trek star James Doohan will be blasted into space on Saturday when a rocket carrying a symbolic portion of the late actor’s cremated remains is launched in New Mexico. Doohan, beloved for his role as the USS Enterprise‘s chief engineer Montgomery ”Scotty” Scott, died aged 85 in 2005.
Whether it is through the soaring grace of the Eiffel Tower or the breathtaking beauty of Provence, France is hoping to lure tourists by persuading Hollywood to shoot more films there. An unprecedented alliance of French film and local government officials descended on Los Angeles last week to attend the Locations Trade Show, an annual fair that puts potential film sites in the movie industry’s shop window.
Hollywood is banking that good things really do come in threes as it prepares to unleash an unprecedented series of blockbuster sequels on the box office. Three of the most profitable franchises in history release their long-awaited third instalments next month: Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider-Man and Shrek.
Shock jock Don Imus, who has made a career out of outrageous comments, was suspended on Monday for making racist remarks by both the radio and television networks that carry his programme. CBS Radio and MSNBC suspended Imus for two weeks for saying the mostly black Rutgers University women’s basketball team looked like a bunch of ”nappy-headed hos”.
Keith Richards may never have met a drug he didn’t like, but on Wednesday the Rolling Stones guitarist denied mixing his father’s ashes with cocaine and snorting the ghoulish concoction. Richards caused an international uproar on Tuesday when he was quoted as saying: ”The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father.”
So he’s faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings and all that, but there is one thing Superman cannot top — a Winkie. At least, not according to Joe Maddalena. The Hollywood memorabilia expert’s auction house on April 5 is holding one of its widely followed sales of movie and television items that could fetch an estimated -million to -million.
Countering widespread speculation, Harry Potter actress Emma Watson has decided to reprise her role as girl wizard Hermione Granger in the final films of the hit series, Warner Brothers said on Friday. ”I could never let Hermione go — she is my hero!,” Watson said in a statement.
Prospective United States voters anxious to know John McCain’s favourite television show or to be friends with Barack Obama now have a chance. The popular social networking site MySpace.com on Sunday launched a section dedicated to the 2008 presidential election.
Lanna Saunders, who followed her father and grandfather into the family craft of acting and was best known for her long-running role on the TV daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives, has died. She was 65. Saunders died on March 10 of complications from multiple sclerosis.
Hundreds of R2-D2s will be popping up on street corners all over the United States in the coming months as part of celebrations to mark the 30th anniversary of <i>Star Wars</i>. About 400 mailboxes across the country will be revamped to make them look like the famous chirruping robot from the science-fiction films.
A man accused of drunken driving and crashing his truck into a lamp post told police a unicorn had been at the wheel when it careered off the road, Los Angeles media reported on Wednesday. Phillip Holliday (42) appeared before a court in the western state of Montana on Tuesday, the <i>Billings Gazette</i> reported.
A Norman Rockwell painting stolen more three decades ago was found in Steven Spielberg’s art collection, but the Oscar-winning filmmaker acquired it legally, the FBI said on Friday. Rockwell’s Russian Schoolroom, worth as much as 000 today, was stolen from a St Louis gallery in 1973.
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/ 25 February 2007
Once an evening of backslapping and merrymaking within the narrow confines of Hollywood, the Academy Awards this year looks like a United Nations exercise in diversity. The 79th annual Oscars on Sunday feature their most ethnically varied line-up to date, with stars and stories that reflect the world’s growing multiculturalism.
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/ 24 February 2007
The Oscars will not be given out until Sunday night, but show producer Laura Ziskin noted on Friday that there is already been a winner — diversity. Ziskin, along with academy president Sid Ganis and show director Louis J Horvitz, spoke with reporters from the Kodak Theatre’s red carpet about what is in store for this year’s show.
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/ 23 February 2007
Oscar-winning songwriter Ray Evans, whose long collaboration with partner Jay Livingston produced such enduring standards as Mona Lisa, Buttons and Bows, Silver Bells and Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera), has died. He was 92.
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/ 19 February 2007
English soccer star David Beckham is struggling to find a suitable mansion in his future hometown of Los Angeles after he and his wife reportedly looked at more than 20 homes in the -million to -million range, the Los Angeles Times said on Sunday.
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/ 17 February 2007
A judge said on Friday that he would allow full television coverage of rock producer Phil Spector’s murder trial, despite an aversion to cameras in Los Angeles courts since OJ Simpson’s controversial 1995 acquittal. Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler said it was time to put aside the ”fear of cameras in the courtroom” in Los Angeles.
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/ 15 February 2007
The left knee feels good enough for Ernie Els not to expect anything to hold him back this year. It is strong enough for him not to think twice at the top of his swing as to how much it might hurt when he shifts his weight. Most of all, he believes it is strong enough to scale a figurative mountain bigger than Shasta.
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/ 12 February 2007
The Dixie Chicks, who stirred up a hornet’s nest with a jibe at United States President George Bush, won all five Grammys for which they were nominated on Sunday. The victory marked a stunning validation for the female country music trio from Texas, almost four years after their dream run as the darlings of Nashville came to an abrupt end.
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/ 7 February 2007
Frankie Laine, the full-voiced singer who became one of the most popular entertainers of the 1950s with such hits as I Believe, Jezebel and the theme to the TV Western Rawhide, died on Tuesday at 93. Laine died of a heart attack after hip-replacement surgery at the Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego.
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/ 3 February 2007
A Chewbacca impersonator was arrested after being accused of head-butting a Hollywood tour guide who warned the furry brown Wookiee about harassing two Japanese tourists, police said on Saturday. ”Nobody tells this Wookiee what to do,” ”Chewie” from the Star Wars movies said before slamming his head into the guide’s forehead.
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/ 1 February 2007
It’s hard to imagine a sequel to a movie like Oscar-nominated crime drama The Departed, which ends in such a spasm of violence that hardly any of the lead characters are left alive. But almost anything is possible in Hollywood when enough money is at stake.
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/ 31 January 2007
Sidney Sheldon, an Oscar-winning Hollywood screenwriter who went on to become one of the world’s most prolific novelists, died in California on January 30 at the age of 89, a publicist said. Sheldon died of complications from pneumonia at the Eisenhower Medical Centre in Rancho Mirage, near his Palm Springs home.
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/ 31 January 2007
A Sea Launch rocket carrying a commercial communications satellite blew up during its launch from an oceangoing platform in the equatorial Pacific on Tuesday. The Boeing-built NSS-8 satellite was intended for the Netherlands-based SES New Skies.
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/ 29 January 2007
A youth carrying South African documents has been found dead in the wheel well of a British Airways jet at Los Angeles International Airport, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday. Authorities are investigating whether the dead stowaway, described as a young black male, got into the plane at its previous stop in London or at an earlier stop in Hong Kong.
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/ 18 January 2007
Darlene Conley, a veteran stage and television actress who entertained daytime audiences for nearly two decades as the feisty fashion mogul Sally Spectra on The Bold and the Beautiful, has died. She was 72. Conley died on January 7 of stomach cancer at her Los Angeles home surrounded by family and friends.
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/ 17 January 2007
Alice Coltrane, a jazz performer and composer whose late husband was saxophone legend John Coltrane, has died. She was 69. Coltrane died on January 12 of respiratory failure at West Hills Hospital and Medical Centre in West Hills, California, said Marilyn McLeod, her sister.
It is the California earthquake hardly anyone has heard of — strong enough to rip 362km of the San Andreas Fault and make rivers run backward, but leaving nothing like the cultural scar inflicted by the San Francisco quake of 1906. Tuesday marks the 150th anniversary of the 7,9-magnitude Fort Tejon quake.