Paramount Pictures and actor Tom Cruise called an end to their 14-year production deal on Wednesday as the chairperson of the studio’s parent company took a parting shot at the movie star’s off-screen behaviour. ”As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal,” said Viacom chairperson Sumner Redstone.
Bruno Kirby, a veteran character actor who co-starred in When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers and many other films, has died at age 57, his wife said. Kirby died on June 14 in Los Angeles from complications related to leukemia, according to a statement from his wife, Lynn Sellers.
A United States teacher arrested in connection with the decade-old killing of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey arrived in Los Angeles from Thailand late on Sunday to undergo more questioning about his possible role in the 1996 murder. John Mark Karr (41) flew in business class on a Thai Airways flight that landed at Los Angeles International Airport at about 04.27am GMT on Monday.
Top-seeded Russian Maria Sharapova avenged a French Open fourth-round defeat with a straight-set win over compatriot Dinara Safina on Friday to reach the semifinals of this 600 000-dollar WTA tournament. Sharapova, seeking to keep the momentum going after her WTA triumph in San Diego last week, defeated the fifth-seeded Safina 6-2, 6-4.
The film Snakes on a Plane has yet to be released, but already enjoys cult status in cyberspace, thanks to little more than its over-the-top title, which just begs to be parodied. It stars Samuel L Jackson as an FBI agent who fights off hundreds of snakes released by a Mob boss on a commercial flight in a attempt to kill a key witness.
Arnie drives a Hummer. And not just one. At one time the governor had a fleet of eight of the brutes to ferry him from photo op to photo op. He also has a private jet, which can be seen whooshing over the beach at Santa Monica as it takes him from his Los Angeles home to his office in Sacramento, 650km to the north.
Arthur Lee, the eccentric singer/guitarist with influential 1960s rock band Love, has died in a Memphis hospital after a battle with leukemia, his manager said on Friday. He was 61. ”His death comes as a shock to me because Arthur had the uncanny ability to bounce back from everything, and leukemia was no exception,” said Mark Linn.
He may be one of the most influential politicians in the world but even British Prime Minister Tony Blair succumbed to the larger-than-life charms of movie star turned California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Blair met the former body-builder this week to launch an agreement between California and Britain to reduce global warming.
The heat is on for United States Ryder Cup hopefuls with just three nerve-jangling tournaments remaining before the 12-man team is decided. After this month’s PGA Championship at Medinah in Illinois, the top 10 in the Cup standings will automatically qualify to take on Europe at the K Club in Ireland from September 22-24.
Six veteran homicide detectives are leading a new police task force investigating the unsolved 1997 killing of rap star Notorious BIG. The new probe comes in the face of a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the rapper’s mother, Voletta Wallace, and other relatives, who claim rogue police officers were involved in the killing.
Get real, Mann. Director Michael Mann ushers Miami Vice into theatres on Friday promising a reality-based movie with the sort of raw grit and steamy sex that never would have played on the hit 1980s television show of the same name he helped create.
Jimmy Connors spent three consecutive years as the World number one, so he has a good idea of what it is going to take for fellow American Andy Roddick to return to that lofty perch. Hall of Famer Connors and Roddick announced on Monday a link-up between the two former World number ones that is designed to end Roddick’s struggles.
United States entertainment giant the Walt Disney announced on Tuesday it is cutting 650 jobs and will reduce the number of movies made each year as part of a major restructuring plan. Walt Disney Studios chairperson Dick Cook said in a statement that the studio will produce and distribute approximately 10 Disney live-action and animated films a year.
A federal judge said that evidence favours a coalition of entertainment companies in their copyright infringement case against a distributor of online file-sharing software. United States District Judge Stephen Wilson made the statement on Monday during a hearing in the landmark case against the StreamCast firm behind the Morpheus file-swapping software.
Comedian Red Buttons, winner of a best-supporting-role Oscar for <i>Sayonara</i> (1958) with Marlon Brando, died in Los Angeles on Thursday at 87, his spokesperson said. Buttons, whose real name was Aaron Chwatt, died of circulation problems that he had suffered from for several years.
More and more United States police dogs are enjoying similar protection to their human partners in fighting crime. The latest group are the dogs of one Southern California town who will be strutting the streets this week with the new bulletproof vests. Prompted by the shooting death of a police dog last year, an anonymous donor in Glendale, gave funds to bulletproof the four dogs of his community’s K-9 unit.
A huge asteroid, known as 2004 XP14, skimmed about 432 820km from the Earth late on Sunday and early on Monday. That’s slightly farther away than the moon. It was expected to be visible as a small moving dot to amateur sky watchers with good telescopes in North America and as a fainter object viewed from Europe.
Arthur Malvin, a composer and lyricist who won two Emmy Awards for his work with Carol Burnett and Frank Sinatra, has died. He was 83. Malvin died at his Century City home on June 16 after a long illness, said his daughter, Janet Malvin. Malvin won an Emmy in 1968 for writing music for a Frank Sinatra television special, A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim.
A new breed of artificial human sex companion has been unveiled that promises to take the air out of old-fashioned inflatable dolls. My Party Doll, a southern California-based manufacturer, displayed two prototypes of their  000 love buddies at the 10th annual Erotica-LA Convention, which ended on Sunday.
Legendary television producer Aaron Spelling, who launched a string of star-making global hits such as Dynasty, Charlie’s Angels and Beverly Hills 90210, died following a stroke on Friday. He was 83. Spelling had produced about 200 television shows from the 1960s to date.
Vincent Sherman, who directed — and romanced — Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth and Joan Crawford during his heyday as a leading Hollywood filmmaker in the 1940s and 1950s, has died. He would have been 100 on July 16. His death at the Motion Picture and Television hospital was announced on Monday by his son, Eric Sherman.
An oil and gold-encrusted portrait by Gustav Klimt that was the focus of a battle between the Austrian government and the subject’s niece was purchased for a record-setting amount by a New York museum, an attorney said. The New York Times, citing experts familiar with the negotiations, reported the portrait sold for -million.
Doctors in Los Angeles are prepared for a marathon surgery to separate 10-month-old twin girls joined from the chest to the pelvis. The operation, scheduled to begin early on Wednesday, was expected to last 24 hours. It was considered more complex than other separation surgeries involving conjoined twins because so many organ systems were involved.
Ingo Preminger, a literary agent, producer of the film MASH and brother of the late filmmaker Otto Preminger, has died. He was 95. Preminger began his career as an attorney in Vienna, Austria, but fled the Nazis with his family in 1938 and moved to New York.
Tiger Woods admits he will be taking a step into the unknown at next week’s US Open as he returns to competition for the first time since the death of his father. Woods’s father Earl died on May 3 after a long battle with cancer and the American hasn’t played since the Masters in April.
Vince Welnick, the Grateful Dead’s last keyboard player and a veteran of several other bands, including the Tubes and Missing Man Formation, has died at age 55, the Grateful Dead’s long-time publicist said. Welnick died on Friday, said Dennis McNally, who declined to release the cause.
Photographer Peter C Borsari, whose celebrity snapshots over three decades included candid moments of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor and Jack Nicholson, has died. He was 67. Borsari died on Monday due to complications from elective knee surgery, long-time friend Laura Luongo said.
Folk singer Joan Baez and tree-sitter Julia ”Butterfly” Hill have taken up residence in a tree to raise awareness about a 5,7ha urban farm threatened with demolition. Hill lived in a redwood in Northern California for more than two years to prevent loggers from cutting it down.
The Da Vinci Code scored -million worldwide and topped the North American box office in its weekend debut as the controversial film overcame bad reviews and calls for boycotts, early figures showed on Sunday. It was the fourth biggest worldwide opening, according to Daily Variety, the top Hollywood trade paper.
After more than a decade of talking about it, movie theatres and studios are finally rolling out digital projectors that show sharper, brighter images without cracks, pops or hisses. This weekend, Sony Electronics will enter the field with a projector that displays the sharpest resolution envisioned under a set of standards issued for digital cinema.
Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft will unleash their latest video game offerings as they battle it out at a premier showcase of new products in the -billion global gaming market. The United States and Japanese computer game titans were among game-makers from 90 countries converging on the Los Angeles Convention Centre for an Electronic Entertainment Expo which begins on Tuesday.
Sony on Monday revealed key details of its PlayStation 3 video-game console, saying that two million of the next-generation game machines would hit stores in Japan on November 11 and in the United States, Europe and Australia on November 17.