TO DELAY OR NOT TO DELAY
Talk about a Hollywood cliffhanger: The showbiz world remains on the edge of its seat over whether Sunday's 75th Annual Academy Awards will go on as planned or be postponed due to the war in Iraq. Oscar organizers are said to be taking a day-by-day approach. Meanwhile, the state of California has assigned a National Guard unit to protect the event just as more celebs drop out. Angelina Jolie and Lord of the Rings helmer Peter Jackson are the latest big names opting to skip this year's ceremony. Of course, Jolie's withdrawal may have been triggered by a fashion crisis. Her Oscar frock was stolen Wednesday from the BMW convertible of London designer Scott Henshall. For more Oscar coverage, click here. |
AGAINST ALL ODDS
War concerns have led Paramount to delay the April 25 debut of its Meg Ryan boxing flick Against the Ropes. According to Variety, the studio feared that TV ads for the film would get lost in the midst of the wall-to-wall battle coverage. |
ENOUGH DRAMA ALREADY
Two weeks ago, Liza Minnelli checked back into the Caron Center in rural Pennsylvania for an eight-week "self help" program. Her publicist calls Minnelli's stay there routine, insisting the singer-actress "is obliged" to get treatment "eight weeks every year." (As long as she's married to David Gest, that is.) |
BOOKWORM FUN
Though expected to appeal to readers of all ages, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — in stores June 21 — will have two covers: one for grown ups, one for kids. The adult cover depicts a somber black and white phoenix. The kid's cover of the fifth Potter novel shows an orange and red bird rising from the flames. |
BAD VIEW
Wondering why Gwyneth Paltrow hasn't been out in force plugging her new flight attendant farce View From the Top, which opens today? I'm betting it's because she knows the film, which is getting its wings clipped by critics, is a stinker. "It was a darker comedy when we started, which is what really drew me to it," she told me last fall, "and it's been sort of commercialized along the way." |
LEGAL WOES
Breakfast Club star Anthony Michael Hall is being sued by the insurer of The Dead Zone, his Stephen King-inspired TV series about a psychic school teacher. Chubb Insurance of Canada claims the 34-year-old actor owes them $900,000 because he missed work back in 2001, when he was hospitalized for "bipolar affective disorder depression with psychotic features." In court papers, Chubb says he failed to disclose his mental illness on insurance forms filled out by Zone's cast. |
HELLO AGAIN
Everybody Loves Raymond actress Patricia Heaton is in talks to star in TNT's upcoming TV remake of Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl. Heaton would play the role originated by Marsha Mason in the 1977 film. The Richard Dreyfuss part, meanwhile, has yet to be cast. |
LIZ MOVES ON
Flintstones star Elizabeth Taylor, who can't seem to get arrested in Hollywood these days, is doing the only honorable thing: She's retiring from acting to focus on AIDS activism. The 71-year-old Tinseltown legend tells Access Hollywood that showbiz "doesn't really interest me that much anymore. It seems kind of superficial because now my life is AIDS, not acting." |
SMART MOVE
After "much internal discussion," USA Network has decided to remove a scene from its upcoming Rudy Giuliani biopic that shows a body falling from the north tower of the World Trade Center following the Sept. 11 attacks. In a letter to critics, the network said, "We have decided that the potential distress that could be caused by [that] shot... outweighs its place in the accounting of the life of [the former New York City mayor]." Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story airs on March 30. |
IS FOX NEWS BEHIND THIS?
CNN is being driven out of Baghdad. The network confirms that Iraqi officials have expelled four of its staffers — including correspondent Nic Robertson — from the war-torn country. |
