Celebrities without make-up
Ever wished you looked like a star, well wish again as we take a look at celebrities without make-up.
Beckham will not be singing with Snoop
Football star David Beckham has denied reports that he will be singing a song with US rapper Snoop Dogg.
Beckham, who now plays for Los Angeles Galaxy, was supposedly collaborating with Dogg after Beckham appeared on his reality TV show called Father Hood. However, the footballer clarified that he would not be singing with Dogg, contactmusic.com reported.
“No truth in that one,” said a spokesperson for Beckham.
Angelina pregnant with twins
It looks like Angelina Jolie may get her wish for a fifth - and sixth - child in 2008: the A Mighty Heart star is rumoured to be pregnant with twins.
Star magazine claims Angelina is around three months pregnant and is expecting twins after undergoing treatment to promote fertility following her drop in weight last year.
A source close to the growing family told the magazine: “Brad and Angelina are absolutely ecstatic.”
“But I still think there will be more adoptions to come.”
The couple were rumoured to be trying for a baby - fuelled by the observation that Angelina stuck strictly to drinking mineral water during the Critics’ Choice awards earlier this month - but Angelina’s brother James Haven has also sparked new adoption rumours and the couple were rumoured to be planning an Easter trip to Ethiopia to visit orphanages.
Timeline of Ledger’s final moments
Police have provided an in-depth timeline of Heath Ledger’s final moments, revealing the chaos that filled his Manhattan apartment in the moments after the Australian actor died.
It included a frantic call to former Full House star Mary-Kate Olsen, a massage therapist desperately trying to wake him, and a maid who was in Ledger’s bedroom in the moments before he died.
Police said Ledger, 28, probably died sometime between 1pm (5am Melbourne time) and 2.45pm (6.45am Melbourne time) on Tuesday of what authorities say may be an accidental drug overdose.
Ledger’s housekeeper, Teresa Solomon, arrived at his apartment at 12.30pm let herself in with her own key.
At 1pm, she went to his bedroom to change a light bulb, and saw Ledger sleeping and heard him snoring. She left the room without thinking anything was wrong.
At 2.45pm, a masseuse named Diana Wolozin showed up for her massage appointment with Ledger, who didn’t answer when she knocked on his door.
She then tried to call him on his mobile phone, but again got no response. She went into the bedroom, set up her massage table and again tried to wake Ledger.
Wolozin told police that Ledger was cold to the touch, but she just assumed he was unconscious.
She proceeded to grab his mobile phone and call Mary-Kate Olsen, whose number is programmed into the phone. Wolozin knew that Olsen and Ledger were friends, and she asked Olsen for advice on what she should do next.
Olsen, who also lives in Manhattan but was in California at the time, responded by saying she would send over her private security guards to help deal with the situation.
In the ensuing moments, Wolozin realised that Ledger might be dead, and called the 911 emergency number for an ambulance.
The emergency operator provided Wolozin directions on how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but it was too late.
Paramedics arrived minutes later - at about the same time as Olsen’s security guards.
The medical workers moved Ledger’s body to the floor and then used a defibrillator and CPR, but Ledger was pronounced dead at 3.36pm.
The police said Solomon, Wolozin and the three private security guards summoned by Olsen were co-operating with the investigation.
No illegal drugs were found in the apartment and there were no obvious signs of suicide, police said.
-Source The Age 2008
Lucy Liu wants more to give more
When Lucy Liu was nine years old she experienced a life-changing moment in a two-dollar shop. “I was with my mother and she was asking somebody a question who worked there. And he was very condescending and rude to my mother because she had a very strong accent,” Liu says. “And I remember being really angry — and as a child you don’t ever speak up — thinking, ‘My mother knows how to speak two languages and you only know how to speak one’.
“I remember I was angry and wanting to stand up for her and being so frustrated because I wanted them to see. She’s a biochemist. Yeah, she’s asking where the toothpaste is, and perhaps it’s not as clear as you’d like it to be but there was a certain respect that was missing that really angered me. So I stand up for things that I find are injustices.”
One of the leads in Darren Star’s new female-driven series Cashmere Mafia Liu is also a painter with a gallery showing in Munich in May, and is a devoted worker for UNICEF. Determination and industry is part of her heritage. She stood up to her parents when they objected to her being an actress, agreeing to earn her bachelor’s degree first.
“I think, in some ways, because I was not able to pursue acting until after I graduated college, it kind of made me bullet-proof to any rejection,” Liu says. “Because it didn’t matter … I didn’t know anyone in the business, didn’t know how to start. I just sort of went with completely innocent eyes, and I felt like I didn’t know what was out there. If I had known there were all these people that were going to be judging me … I had no idea. That naivete, I think, really helped to keep me going because the more you know the worse it is, honestly.”
Some of that resolve is apparent in her role as Mia Mason in Cashmere Mafia. Liu plays a no-nonsense publisher who’s no more willing to compromise than Liu is.
It wasn’t easy to maintain that principle when she began. Another Asian actor warned her that her roles would be limited.
“And I remember saying to myself, ‘That’s fine but I’m going to make a difference. I’m going to change that. I’m going to be a part of that change, for sure. You can’t just go along with everything that’s out there. I’m sure they thought that Einstein and Thomas Edison were crazy. Nothing comes easy; especially when you’re focused on something, people think you’re insane. But you can’t accomplish anything without having that focus, that belief … I didn’t know any better and I didn’t care. I felt if I wasn’t acting there was no point in living, it was that extreme.”
She pursued her dream in New York with the same resolve she’d observed in her parents; and with hard work. Her father started as a civil engineer and now owns a paper company.
“I worked seven days a week. I knew I needed money if I was going into acting because I was probably not going to be making a lot of money off the bat. So I worked five days a week as a secretary and on weekends, during the day, worked as an aerobic instructor and in the evening worked as a hostess in a place called Tennessee Mountain in SoHo.
“To me it was gruelling work but I was excited by the idea about why I was doing the work.”
Somebody suggested she try LA. “I got on a plane and I went and never looked back,” she says. “For me, if I’m scared of something I go face first into it because I want to get completely singed if I’m going to go for it, I want to get completely burned.”
Small roles followed until she landed the part of the feisty Ling Woo on Ally McBeal, a role especially written for her by executive producer, David Kelley. When the juicy part in the 2000 film Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle came along, it conflicted with Ally McBeal but Kelley arranged for her to do both.
After more than eight years in the business, Liu hints she might take time for herself.
“You have to want more in order to have more,” she says. “A lot of people say, ‘This is fine. I only need to make enough money to get by.’ And that’s fine in the beginning but if you have more, you can give more. You can live your life, fine, sustain yourself but look outside of that. That’s what I’m doing now. I’m giving more. You have to also give to yourself and not forget your own needs.”
Cashmere Mafia screens next month on Nine.
Paris hilton says Britney is a great mother
Paris Hilton says Britney Spears is “great mother” and people should let the pop star “live her life”.
In a TV interview aired in the US on Tuesday night, Hilton said: “She’s a very sweet girl and I love her to death.”
“I wish the best for her and I just wish everyone would leave her alone so she could live her life,” the 26-year-old hotel heiress-actress told the television programme E! News.
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Britney working with the Paparrazi
Ledger autopsy inconclusive
The precise cause of the death of Australian actor Heath Ledger may not be known for two weeks, according to a spokesman for the New York medical examiner.
“We did the autopsy this morning (Wednesday New York time) and the result was inconclusive,” said the spokeswoman Ellen Borakove.
“We have to do some additional testing which includes toxicology testing and tissue testing. We estimate it will be another 10 days too two weeks until we have any final results.”
Ms Borakove said that as a matter of policy the office did not release preliminary findings.
She said that despite the delay in identifying the cause of death, Ledger’s body would be ready for release to his family Wednesday, NY time.
“This never causes a delay. We have all the tissue we need. His body will be ready for release today,” Ms Borakove said.
The 28 year-old actor’s body was found in his rented Soho apartment about 3.30pm Tuesday afternoon. Two bottles of prescription drugs, including sleeping pills were nearby.
-Source The Age
Britney accused of working with the paparazzi
Britney Spears has been accused again of working in collaboration with the paparazzi to make sure she is always in the public eye.
Last June, Britney was accused of going out of her way to have her photo taken and having a deal with a photo agency who could sell more photographs if she changed outfits repeatedly throughout the day. Now the star is said to give photographers advance notice about her plans to ensure they’re in the right place at the right time to capture her comings-and-goings.
Paparazzo Alison Silva is quoted in the New York Post as saying: “Britney is in on it. [She] calls the paparazzi before she goes out. We know 15 minutes before she leaves the house. It’s all staged.”
Four photographers were arrested during their pursuit of the singer last week but they got an apology as well as a night in the cells: “one of [the photographers who] works for my company told me that Britney sent him a text message and said she was sorry. She tried to talk the cops into not arresting them … Money, fame, the excitement. It’s part of her life.”
In related news, Simon Cowell has decided he changed his mind about offering help to Britney, saying he believes she’s just playing up for the cameras: “Everyone thinks it’s breakdown this and breakdown that.”
“From the kind of stunts she’s pulling now, I think she is the puppet master and completely in control.”
“I really felt for her at one point, I thought she was heading for a meltdown and everything was out of control, but - especially over the past week - I thought she was honestly in control and, more to the point, wants to be in control.”
-Source fametastic
