R&B singer Natina Reed hit and killed by car in Georgia

(Reuters) - Natina Reed, a member of the R&B singing trio Blaque, was struck and killed by a car as she walked in a major roadway in Georgia, police said on Saturday.

Reed, who also appeared in the cheerleader movie 'Bring It On' in 2000, would have turned 33 on Sunday.

She was struck by a car at about 10:30 p.m. Friday on a state highway just north of the Atlanta suburb of Lilburn, Gwinnett County Police Sergeant Rich Long said.

The car's driver called 911 and a passenger performed CPR but Reed was pronounced dead at an area medical center, police said. Authorities ruled the driver was not at fault and no charges were expected to be filed, Long said.

Investigators were trying to determine why Reed was in the road, Long said.

As part of Blaque, Reed performed the 1999 hits 'Bring It All to Me' and '808' with fellow members Shamari Fears DeVoe and Brandi Williams.

Reed's fellow group members said in a statement on Saturday that Blaque had recently reunited and the group was working on an album and a reality show.

'My world as I know it has forever changed,' DeVoe said on Twitter on Saturday. 'Until we meet again, may you find comfort in the arms of an angel. I love you Natina.'

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott)



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Billionaire Adelson, wife give new $10 million to Romney "Super PAC"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top Republican donors Sheldon Adelson and his wife gave another $10 million to the 'Super PAC' backing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in October, saying they hoped to 'level the playing field' with Democrats ahead of the November 6 election.

In a campaign year of unprecedented contributions, Adelson and his wife Miriam have stood out above the rest.

The 79-year-old billionaire chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corp, Adelson emerged as the Republican Party's biggest patron in the 2012 campaign, pouring at least $47 million into Republican coffers with his wife.

The Adelsons gave $5 million each to the pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future, accounting for about half of the fund's cash raised from October 1 through 17, according to Federal Election Commission filings released on Thursday. The filings are the last disclosures before the November 6 elections.

In a statement on Thursday, the Adelsons said they were exercising their 'privileges' of free speech to counter the millions of dollars raised by President Barack Obama as well as contributions from liberal billionaire George Soros and labor unions.

'Our family has felt an obligation to help level the playing field by providing support to the candidates and causes on the other side of the equation,' according to the statement provided by a Sands spokesman.

A series of U.S. court cases in recent years have shined a spotlight on political spending as a form of free speech.

The rulings spawned Super PACs, outside groups that can raise and spend unlimited funds but cannot formally coordinate with official campaigns.

Soros, a billionaire financier, held the previous political donation record with $27.5 million contributed to Democrats in 2004. In October, Soros gave $1 million to the pro-Obama Super PAC.

The Adelsons have also donated to Super PACs helping Republicans in Congress. They were the largest donors behind the party's convention in Tampa, Florida, in late August.

During the Republican primaries, the Adelsons used their fortune to attack Romney. They gave up to $20 million to presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who won the South Carolina primary.

The Adelsons became Romney donors in June when the candidate became Obama's remaining Republican challenger.

Forbes estimates Adelson's fortune to be $20.5 billion.

In September, Adelson told Politico he planned to spend up to $100 million, or 'whatever it takes,' to defeat Obama.

Adelson may have given another $20 million to $30 million to fundraising groups that do not need to report their contributors, according to Politico.

Adelson has also used his contributions to push for a stronger U.S. defense of Israel's sovereignty. He is a director of the Republican Jewish Coalition and has called Obama's Israel positions too soft.

In the previous presidential campaign of 2008, Adelson was a much less prominent donor, giving about $100,000 to Republican candidates and party funds, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that tracks spending.

(Additional reporting by Alina Selyukh and Alexander Cohen; editing by Todd Eastham)



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Obama tackles rape comments, "fiscal cliff" on TV talk show

BURBANK, California (Reuters) - President Barack Obama suspended the levity during an interview with late-night TV talk show host Jay Leno on Wednesday to address a Republican Senate candidate's assertion that pregnancies resulting from rape are intended by God and to express confidence that Washington could soon address the looming "fiscal cliff."

"I don't know how these guys come up with these ideas. Let me make a very simple proposition: rape is rape. It is a crime," Obama said on NBC's "The Tonight Show."

"This is exactly why you don't want a bunch of politicians, mostly male, making decisions about women's healthcare."

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock's comments that pregnancies caused by rape are "something God intended to happen" echoed across the U.S. media and sent ripples through political circles ahead of the November 6 election.

The Obama campaign, which enjoys leads among women voters in many election battleground states, sought swiftly to connect Mourdock with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. This summer Romney had to distance himself from remarks by another Republican Senate candidate, Todd Akin of Missouri, about what he called "legitimate rape."

In an interview full of jokes about marriage, Halloween and other topics, the Democratic president made a few serious comments, mostly about the hottest topic of the election: the economy.

Asked about the so-called fiscal cliff - a combination of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes set to kick in early next year - Obama said he was confident that a solution could be found before the end of the year.

"Solving this is not that hard. It requires some tough choices," Obama said, adding that some programs had to be cut and tax rates should go up for people making more than $250,000 a year.

"I hope that we can get it done by the end of this year. It just requires some compromise, which shouldn't be a dirty word."

On the economic crisis gripping the European Union, Obama said countries have been "kind of muddling along" and "they didn't respond as quickly as they could."

The United States is working with those nations to make sure they have a credible plan to maintain the unity of Europe, he added.

In a lighter moment, Obama joked about real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump, who recently posted a video challenging Obama to release documents about his education.

Trump has persistently questioned whether Obama, a native of Hawaii, was actually born in the United States, and Obama played off Trump's theories about his origins.

"This all dates back to when we were growing up together in Kenya," Obama joked. "We had, you know, constant run-ins on the soccer field. He wasn't very good and resented it."

(Additional reporting and writing by Lisa Lambert in Washington; Editing by Christopher Wilson)



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Strauss-Kahn seeks comeback via conference circuit

PARIS (Reuters) - Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF chief whose French presidential ambitions were shattered by a sex scandal last year, is making a comeback in business and at conferences.

The 63-year-old Strauss-Kahn was accused of trying to rape a New York hotel maid in May 2011. He protested his innocence and criminal charges against him were dropped, though civil proceedings by the woman are still pending.

Now he is promoting himself as a consultant and guest speaker at far-flung points on the world's conference circuit, where participants can demand $100,000 or more to talk for an hour, and five times that sum for star performers such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

While Strauss-Kahn's itinerary for now will keep him at some distance from the financial capitals he used to frequent, experts say his economic policy experience and a contact book that many heads of state would envy will stand him in good stead.

'He has the potential to be enormously successful,' says Roy Cohen, a New York-based career coach and author of 'The Wall Street Professional's Survival Guide'.

'He needs to be test-driven first ... If he is able to prove that his intervention and the consultancy advisory work he is doing is powerful and effective, he's going to generate interest.'

Strauss-Kahn has been little seen in public in his native France, where until recently media have been portraying him as a shunned and lonely man. Yet in the past year he has delivered keynote speeches at conferences in China, Ukraine, Morocco and South Korea.

He was warmly applauded when he spoke about global economic prospects to hundreds of students and executives in Morocco in September, at an event where his hosts at a private university introduced him not with his grandest former title but simply as Professor Strauss-Kahn, the economist.

He is scheduled to make a second appearance in Morocco at an Arab banking congress in Casablanca in mid-November. Organizers of the meeting declined to comment when contacted by Reuters, as did others hosting conferences Strauss-Kahn is due to attend.

MAGAZINE PHOTO SHOOT

His come-back plan took another step forward last month when he lodged the founding statutes of a consultancy firm, called Parnasse, at the commercial court in Paris.

On top of conference work, public speaking and consulting, Parnasse's statutes show his ambitions stretch to finance, real estate and political services in France and abroad.

Strauss-Kahn this month also gave a rare magazine interview to France's 'Le Point', which photographed him relaxing at his new apartment in Paris's Montparnasse district with a tablet computer in his hand.

It was a stark contrast to the image the world watched on TV in May 2011, as he trudged handcuffed and haggard to a U.S. courthouse to be jailed briefly on criminal charges, later dropped, of trying to rape hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo.

But the potential pitfalls that lie ahead were illustrated in March when police had to bundle him into a getaway car as protesting students clashed with security guards after he gave a speech on the world economy at Britain's Cambridge University.

The case will hang over for him for some time yet; though New York prosecutors dropped the charges on the grounds that Diallo was not a reliable witness, the date of her civil suit has yet to be determined.

And in France, a court will rule on November 28 whether to pursue a judicial investigation into a prostitution ring in which he was allegedly involved. He says he has done nothing illegal and is being pursued because of his libertine lifestyle.

Yet if Strauss-Kahn can put those cases behind him, Cohen said time would work in his favor and pointed to other big names on the conference circuit who overcame image problems.

Clinton, who survived sex scandals and an impeachment trial in the late 1990s, now makes millions of dollars a year attending high-profile events.

According to financial declarations his wife Hillary Clinton makes as U.S. Secretary of State, Clinton charged $750,000 for addressing a telecoms event in Hong Kong, and $500,000 for his presence at an Abu Dhabi conference on environmental data.

EURO ZONE PROBLEM SOLVER?

Sylvie Audibert, a Paris-based consultant who coaches corporate executives on topics from stress management to life-makeover decisions, said Europe's economic crisis could give Strauss-Kahn a perfect forum to use his talents.

He recently floated an idea under which Germany and France, which are enjoying low borrowing costs as investors see their debt as safe, devote some of their savings to helping weaker countries in the euro zone.

The idea has generated little visible interest, apart from a blog mention by former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton. Greek government sources have also quashed rumors that he is advising Athens over their debt troubles.

But Audibert said that like others who have held frontline posts in politics and global economic management, Strauss-Kahn may still harbor hopes of one day taking up a public policy role, perhaps at European level.

'We're talking about people with very big egos and very big ambitions,' Audibert said. 'I am not convinced his ultimate goal is to remain the adviser in the shadows.'

Strauss-Kahn himself hinted at his longer-term ambitions in his interview with Le Point.

'I sense a possibility of investing myself in big international projects ... For the moment, my situation stands in the way.'

(Additional reporting by Dina Kyriakidou; Editing by Catherine Bremer and Will Waterman)



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DeGeneres honored for lifetime as U.S. entertainer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ellen DeGeneres, an American entertainer and prominent gay rights advocate, received the highest U.S. award for achievement in comedy on Monday.

Receiving the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center, the national showcase for arts, DeGeneres was praised as a pioneering female comic whose edgy variety show has helped define the format for daytime television in recent years.

But several guests also highlighted the comedian's groundbreaking decision 15 years ago to go public with her sexual identity in a career-rattling move the comedian said was a necessary step for personal dignity.

'I did it for me and it happened to help a lot of other people and cause a big ruckus,' DeGeneres, 54, told reporters before the tribute, summarizing her decision in 1997 to come out publicly as gay in tandem with her on-screen character in a move that sparked controversy and prompted some advertisers to flee.

The Twain prize, named after the 19th century satirist, is the nation's highest honor for achievements in comedy.

A native of New Orleans, DeGeneres spent her twenties as an itinerant comedian on the Los Angeles nightclub circuit until prominent spots on late night television led to her own prime time sitcom.

The original show, Ellen, featured DeGeneres in the lead role as a bookshop owner in an idiosyncratic neighborhood. While the show got a boost after the star came out of the closet, it was over a few years later.

She later returned to the standup stage, and hosted the 2001 Emmy awards, which was postponed twice after the September 11 attacks - a somewhat subdued celebration that allowed her to try to lighten the national mood.

Several guests said that DeGeneres brought a compassion to her comedy that is rare in the field.

'The rest of us comics come from really messed-up, dark childhoods. She might have come from that, I don't know. But it's not what she puts forth,' said John Leguizamo, who joined the tributes. 'She just puts out this beautiful goodwill.'

In the last 10 seasons on television, DeGeneres has left her mark with a daytime variety show which she often uses as a way to promote a commitment to gay equality.

'For a lot of people, Ellen is their only homosexual friend,' said late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.

DeGeneres is the forth woman to receive the award since its inception in 1998.

Comedian and actor Will Ferrell won last year. Past award winners have included Bob Newhart, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby.

Monday night's ceremony will be broadcast on PBS on October 30.

(Reporting By Patrick Rucker; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)



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Goldman book was not meant to be an expose: author

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The former Goldman Sachs Group Inc vice president who publicly accused the bank of taking advantage of unsuspecting clients said he never intended his book to be an expose of practices at the Wall Street firm.

Preliminary reviews of Greg Smith's 'Why I Left Goldman Sachs,' which hits bookstores on Monday, have been lackluster. Critics say the book contains few revelations, given that it had been hyped as a 'tell all' look at the investment bank.

Smith, a native of South Africa, told Reuters in a phone interview on Sunday that his book was not meant to be a manual for change on Wall Street. Instead, he said he wanted to shine a light on what was wrong in investment banking and how ordinary people - not the super-wealthy - pay for it.

'People are looking for something sensationalist and expose-like,' said Smith, who sold equity derivatives at Goldman. 'I would like people to look at it in a thoughtful manner, with an objective sense that Wall Street has do to things that are right.

'I didn't write this book for Wall Street, I just wanted to give the Main Street people a window into what goes on, so they could make their own judgment.'

Smith created a furor earlier this year when he resigned from Goldman, saying in a New York Times op-ed column that the firm had engendered a 'toxic' culture of treating clients as 'muppets' - slang in Britain for idiots - and relieving them of their money.

Smith then promised the book about the bank, building up expectations of new insights about the culture at Goldman.

Grand Central Publishing, a unit of Hachette, planned a print run of 150,000 copies for the book. That is considered a relatively big number for a first run, although many will also be sold through e-book formats.

The publisher declined to say how much it had paid Smith for the book, but media reports said he had received $1.5 million as an upfront payment.

Smith's op-ed piece and his plans to write a book prompted a public relations campaign and internal inquiries at the bank, as it tried to avoid another hit to its image after suffering a barrage of bad publicity in recent years.

'The Goldman Sachs Mr. Smith describes is not one our employees would recognize,' a spokesman for the firm said on Sunday. 'Mr. Smith has asked for answers, yet he did not respond to our repeated attempts to contact him after his abrupt departure earlier this year.'

Goldman has said it looked into Smith's allegations - including the use of 'muppet' in emails - and turned up little. The bank says that unless Smith provides specific examples, it cannot check what he is alleging.

Although 'Why I Left Goldman Sachs' does not reveal a new scandal at the firm, Smith said he believed his book shines a spotlight on a worsening culture of greed on Wall Street.

Smith, who worked for Goldman in London, said the company would overcharge customers, such as charities or funds managing the pensions of teachers and firemen, or sell them products they did not need and did not understand.

In some cases, Smith said, traders would use knowledge of the clients' business to make easy bets against them.

'When you're trying to make an extra $2 million off a teachers' retirement fund, it doesn't jive at least with the values that I felt,' he said. 'There is no criminal activity because it's legal. But it should not be allowed, because it's unethical.'

Smith, who quit his $500,000-a-year job at the bank, said he would do more to push for change in finance.

'I am in a rush to spread a message and get mainstream people to realize there is a big problem and to be outraged that no one fixed it,' Smith said.

'There is a real absence of people within the financial industry trying to advocate for positive reform,' he said. 'I would like to try to be part of that conversation.'

(Additional reporting by Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York; Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Lisa Von Ahn)



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Anna Nicole Smith lawyer Howard Stern back on the hook for conspiracy charges

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Howard K. Stern, the former lawyer and domestic partner of deceased actress/heiress/Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith, suffered a blow Thursday in the ongoing legal saga over Smith's death, when a California court of appeal reversed his acquittal on two conspiracy charges.

In October, a judge reversed Stern's earlier conviction on two felony conspiracy charges related to obtaining drugs for Smith under false names, saying there was insufficient evidence.

The appeals court, reversed that decision Thursday, and also reversed the dismissal of charges against Dr. Khristine Elaine Eroshevich, who prescribed drugs for Smith in the period leading up to her death.

'As to defendant, Howard Kevin Stern, the new trial and dismissal orders are reversed,' Thursday's ruling reads. 'The verdicts as to counts 1 and 3 are ordered reinstated.'

It's unclear what the next step is for Stern; according to the ruling, the trial court that ruled in October can dismiss on grounds other than insufficient evidence or impose sentence, but cannot retry Stern due to the rule of double jeopardy.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)



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Pro wrestler Hulk Hogan sues gossip site over sex tape

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan has sued gossip website Gawker for $100 million for posting excerpts of a sex tape featuring Hogan and the wife of his best friend.

Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, has also filed a lawsuit against the woman, Heather Clem, and her ex-husband, radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge, claiming they videotaped him without his knowledge.

The posting of the video earlier this month 'constitutes a shameful and outrageous invasion of plaintiff's right of privacy by a group of loathsome defendants who have no regard for human dignity and care only about maximizing their revenues and profits at the expense of all others,' said the lawsuit against Gawker, which was filed Monday in Tampa federal court.

The video depicted Hogan and Clem having sex in her bedroom while she was still married. It was recorded six years ago, according to the lawsuits.

'Plaintiff has spent considerable time and effort developing his career as a professional champion wrestler and developing his brand,' the lawsuit against Clem and Bubba, whose real name is Todd Clem, said, noting that Hogan is a '12-time world wrestling champion.'

Cameron Stracher, a lawyer for Gawker, said he believes the suit is meritless and will ask a judge to throw the case out.

'He's having sex with another man's wife in another man's home,' he added. 'I'm not sure it's reasonable to say he has an expectation of privacy under the circumstances.'

The lawsuit against Gawker seeks $100 million in damages. The lawsuit against the Clems, filed in Pinellas County, Florida, does not specify an amount.

Stephen Diaco, a lawyer for Bubba, said Hogan knew there was a tape of the encounter, despite his claim that he was unaware, and that Bubba had nothing to do with its release.

'Bubba is a victim; Heather is a victim,' he said. 'Bubba does not know who released this tape.'

It was not immediately clear whether Heather Clem had retained an attorney in the matter.

The two men have long been close; Hogan was the best man at the Clems' wedding and is a godfather to their son, Diaco said.

Hogan told radio host Howard Stern during a recent appearance on his show that Bubba gave him permission to have sex with his wife.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)



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Brad Pitt mystifies as first male face of Chanel No.5

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Brad Pitt made his debut as the first male face of Chanel's iconic No.5 fragrance on Monday, in an ad campaign that had fans and fashionistas split on the actor's latest role.

Pitt, 48, is seen with long hair and dressed casually, looking wistfully into the camera in an enigmatic black-and-white video directed by 'Atonement' filmmaker Joe Wright.

'It's not a journey. Every journey ends, but we go on. The world turns, and we turn with it. Plans disappear, dreams take over. But wherever I go, there you are, my luck, my fate, my fortune. Chanel No.5, inevitable,' the 'Moneyball' actor says.

The video is part of a $10 million advertising campaign for which Pitt was paid $7 million, according to Women's Wear Daily.

Time magazine's Erik Hayden called the ad 'nonsensical,' saying Pitt's 'vaguely existential monologue ... sounds like it could plausibly have been discarded narration from the trailer for Terrence Malick's (film) 'Tree of Life.''

Us Weekly's Zach Johnson called the video 'sensual,' while Vanity Fair's Amy Fine Collins said the choice to cast Pitt as spokesperson showed the French fashion house 'subtly circling back to its gender-twisting origins.'

Pitt is the first male spokesperson for women's fragrance Chanel No.5, the first perfume launched by legendary French designer Coco Chanel in 1921.

In a statement from Chanel, the actor called the fragrance 'revolutionary.'

'N°5 has always been the most iconic women's fragrance,' Pitt said. 'That's what I see being the appeal of this campaign; it goes beyond the abstract of emotion or beauty to evoke what is timeless: a woman's spirit.'

Chanel No.5 has been represented by actresses Audrey Tatou, Nicole Kidman and Catherine Deneuve in the past. It has also been linked with screen icon Marilyn Monroe after she famously said the fragrance was all she wore to bed.

LOVE, SCORN AND AMBIVALENCE

On Twitter and YouTube, some fans noted the somewhat ironic coincidence of the campaign's release tying in with the 13th anniversary of 'Fight Club,' in which Pitt played a consumerism-hating salesman.

While the video for Chanel No.5 had generated more than 3,000 'likes' on YouTube within the first 24 hours, it also has 850 'dislikes', with some commenters saying they believe the ad did not represent the fragrance.

Harper's Bazaar editor-at-large Derek Blasberg said on Twitter: 'I've watched Brad Pitt's Chanel No.5 commercial, oh, about 17 times today. I still don't know how I feel about it.'

Another Twitter user, Aime Rogers, said, ' WHAT were they thinking?? So strange.'

YouTube user BabyHippo26, said 'So pretentious!!! Why does he look so sad and serious ... I? have been a long-time consumer of Chanel No.5 and Chanel products. This commercial has turned me off so much, I won't be buying No.5 again!'

Other fans, however, were mesmerized by the Hollywood star.

User Medusafern posted on YouTube: 'it's his VOICE, that VOICE, Jesus, it's like one sweet drop of liquid angel I shall savor on my weary lips.'

Twitter user Liz Lyons simply said, 'I love love love Brad Pitt for Chanel no.5.'

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, Editing by Jill Serjeant and Jan Paschal)



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Russell Crowe separates from wife: media

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Academy Award-winning actor Russell Crowe has separated from his wife after nine years of marriage, Australian media reported on Monday.

Neither Crowe nor his musician wife, Danielle Spencer, was available for immediate comment and their Twitter accounts gave no hint of any split.

But Don Spencer, Spencer's father, confirmed the couple had separated and said their main priority was the children, Australian TV station Ten Network reported.

New Zealand-born Crowe was filming the Biblical epic 'Noah' in the United States, while Spencer remained in Sydney with their two sons, the Sydney Morning Herald said.

The couple married in 2003 and were seen as a solid partnership in showbiz circles. Spencer was believed to have tamed Crowe's temper while pursuing her own music career.

'All that stuff has nothing to do with me as a person,' Spencer had said of her husband's fame, according to the newspaper.

Crowe won the best actor Oscar for the 2000 movie 'Gladiator' and was nominated for the same award for the 'The Insider' (1999) and 'A Beautiful Mind' (2001).

(Reporting by Maggie Lu Yueyang; Editing by Elaine Lies)



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Jewels, pearls, and plain Florsheim shoes for Michael Jackson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Michael Jackson was the ultimate entertainer, who oversaw all the details of his shows, from the slick choreography to the rhinestones and pearls carefully hand sewn onto his elaborate costumes, his longtime costume designer says.

As much as music and dance characterized the pop superstar, the late Jackson was also known for his style, from military outfits and regalia, to jewel-encrusted gloves, fedora hats and intricately beaded jackets.

In a new book, 'The King of Style: Dressing Michael Jackson,' Michael Bush, the man who designed and made Jackson's stage costumes for 25 years until the pop star's death in 2009, offers a behind-the-scenes look at the iconic superstar and the development of his signature style.

'The clothes had to work around the way he was performing,' Bush told Reuters in a telephone interview. 'He wanted his outfits, or his costumes, to be as entertaining on a hanger as they were on him. It was an added layer of refinement and detail that he was projecting to his audience.'

Everything Jackson wore had a focus and was an extension of what he was doing on stage, with dance playing a pivotal role in the designs. He favored rhinestones and beading because they reflected the stage lighting.

Function, fitness and comfort were essential, with neckties and fringes forbidden because they could be grabbed by fans.

'It was very contrived. It was very thought out,' said Bush, adding that as the stadiums got bigger, Jackson's pants got shorter and shorter, the better to see his rhinestone socks.

'Michael was concerned that the people in the back row paid just as much to see him perform as the people in the front, so no one got cheated out of the entertainment he was projecting, because everyone could see what he was doing,' Bush said.

MAN OF PARADOXES

Each of the 800 to 900 costumes Bush and his partner Dennis Tompkins, who died last year, made for Jackson were over-the-top, skin tight, flashy pop-star creations. Many are shown in detailed photographs in the book, along with sketches and performance photos.

Still, away from the spotlight, Jackson preferred more casual, loose-fitting corduroy shirts, black cotton pants with front pleats, and loafers.

And despite all his fame and wealth, and gifts of expensive designer shoes, Jackson always performed in Florsheim shoes, which can be purchased in most U.S. malls.

'He taught himself to dance in Florsheims. They were comfortable and were what he had worn as a child star,' Bush explained in the book, to be published October 23.

Jackson's style evolved from his military outfits, featuring taut lines and embellishments and designed with his female audience in mind. These were followed by a more rebellious, edgy look with leather jackets, including one with small spoons and forks dangling, like military medals, across the front.

'The first layer was the jacket, then we put the zipper underneath that and the buckles from the 'Bad' album look, and then we asked: 'How can we make this larger than life on stage?''

Strobe lights and electric jackets were the next step. Each album had its own look, which evolved from the look preceding it.

Perhaps Bush and Tompkins's greatest achievement was Jackson's 'lean shoes,' which were eventually patented. He first performed his 'lean move,' leaning forward at a 45-degree angle in the short film 'Smooth Criminal' in 1987, thanks to behind-the-scenes magic.

Bush and Tompkins were tasked with developing shoes that would allow Jackson to perform the move before a live audience, without falling over. It took Tompkins a month but he devised shoes that bolted to the floor and worked perfectly on stage.

Although Jackson claimed not to have a favorite costume, Bush said the one the pop star liked the most, and in which he was laid to rest, was the pearl and bead encrusted white military jacket that he wore when his sister Janet handed him a Grammy award in 1993.

There wasn't time to track down the original jacket when the Jackson family contacted Bush and Tompkins and asked them to choose his final outfit, so they made a copy.

'Michael was a man of many paradoxes, most of which we were able to represent in the clothes we designed: Rigid military cuts that were also elastic and moveable; rebellious regalia, fit for army commanders, worn over the heart of a gentle man; bedazzled embellishments adorning a man blessed with a quiet humility; one of a kind, handcrafted clothes worn with aged, scuffed Florsheim shoes,' Bush said in the book.

Jackson, 50, died in Los Angeles in June 2009 from an overdose of the surgical anesthetic propofol, which he was taking to help him sleep. His personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, is serving a four-year prison term for involuntary manslaughter.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Bernadette Baum)



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China Nobel winner Mo Yan calls for jailed laureate's freedom

GAOMI, China (Reuters) - Chinese Nobel Literature Prize winner Mo Yan unexpectedly called for the release of jailed compatriot Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel Peace Prize two years ago, having come under fire from rights activists for not speaking up for him.

The author, a portly 57-year-old whose adopted pen name Mo Yan means 'don't speak', said he had read some of Liu's literary criticisms in the 1980s, but that he had no understanding of Liu's work once it had turned towards politics.

'I hope he can achieve his freedom as soon as possible,' Mo told reporters on Friday in his hometown of Gaomi in the northern province of Shandong, in bold remarks likely to embarrass Beijing which has lauded his victory and denigrated Liu's prize.

Liu should be able to research his 'politics and social system', Mo said without elaborating

A number of dissidents and other writers have said Mo was unworthy of winning as he had shied away from commenting on Liu's plight. They have also denounced him for commemorating a speech by former paramount leader Mao Zedong.

But Mo, whose real name is Guan Moye, shot back at those criticisms.

'I believe that the people who have criticized me have not read my books,' he said. 'If they had read my books they would understand that my writings at that time took on a great deal of risk and were under pressure.

'Many of the people who have criticized me online are Communist Party members themselves. They also work within the system. And some have benefited tremendously within the system,' he added.

'I am working in China,' he said. 'I am writing in a China under Communist Party leaders. But my works cannot be restricted by political parties.'

Mo, who was once so destitute he ate tree bark and weeds to survive, is the first Chinese national to win the $1.2 million literature prize, awarded by the Swedish Academy.

He is best known in the West for 'Red Sorghum', which portrays the hardships endured by farmers in the early years of communist rule and was made in a film directed by Zhang Yimou. His books also include 'Big Breasts and Wide Hips' and 'The Republic of Wine'.

Prominent dissident Hu Jia, a close friend of Liu's, praised Mo's apparent sudden change of heart.

'What has happened in the last 24 hours has changed him. A Nobel prize, whether for peace or for literature, bestows on one a sense of wrong and right,' Hu told Reuters.

China, long used to wringing its hands at perceived snubs or insults by the Nobel organizers, has worked its propaganda machine into overtime to hail Mo's win as a breakthrough for the entire nation, and recognition of its place as a great country.

Senior Communist Party official and China's propaganda chief Li Changchun congratulated Mo, state media reported, saying he hoped 'Chinese writers will focus on the country's people in their writing and create more excellent works that will stand the test of history'.

But the mention of Liu by Mo, a vice-chairman of the government-backed Chinese Writers' Association, could make things awkward for the Chinese authorities, who jailed Liu for 11 years in 2009 for inciting subversion of state power.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei repeated government criticism of Liu's award, saying it amounted to 'grave meddling in China's internal affairs and judicial sovereignty'.

COUNTRY BOY

Mo's interest in literature dates back to his childhood in Gaomi. When he was six, he was an avid reader of Chinese classics, said Mo's elder brother Guan Moxin, 62. The youngest of four children, Mo loved telling stories.

But Mo's farmer father and brother, who are still living in the dusty, hardscrabble village in Gaomi where Mo grew up, had no idea they had a Nobel Literature Prize winner in their midst.

'What are the chances that a country boy without anything to his name could become a great author?' Guan Moxin told Reuters.

'He is just a man from this remote land, and this poor family; he is not from some big city.'

Mo, already hugely popular in China, has become something of a celebrity in Gaomi. Thrilled residents set off fireworks the night Mo's award was announced. Reporters started streaming into the nondescript town. A hotel put up a digital banner congratulating Mo.

'I couldn't quite believe it. It took me awhile before I could believe it. It seemed so impossible. We were all (the village) celebrating, lighting firecrackers,' Guan Moxin said.

Mo's books reflect the tumult of modern China. He has credited his early suffering for inspiring his works, which tackle corruption, decadence in Chinese society and rural life.

'When he was little at school he was very naughty,' Mo's 90-year-old father, Guan Yifan, told Reuters. 'But afterwards he had to stop and do farm work. At the time we had to eat wild vegetables, and he had to go and dig wild vegetables.'

(Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee, Terril Yue Jones and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Nick Macfie)



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China Nobel winner Mo likely to steer clear of politics: translator

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's newest Nobel laureate, novelist Mo Yan, could use his new-found stature to make a subtle difference in the arena of freedom of speech in China, but he is more likely to keep his head down and avoid politics, his translator said on Friday.

The 57-year-old Chinese author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, has achieved his success by working within a system with distinct boundaries, not ignoring them, said Howard Goldblatt, who has translated several of Mo's works into English, including the acclaimed 'Red Sorghum'. The book was later the basis for a film directed by Zhang Yimou.

'I think Mo Yan could actually, in a very nuanced way, make a difference and get some of this stuff happening,' Goldblatt said by telephone from Boulder, Colorado, referring to improving freedom of speech and conditions for writers.

'To be honest with you, I doubt that he will. I think he's just a novelist who doesn't want to be involved in those things.'

'He wants to continue to write, and to continue to write the kinds of things he needs and wants to write he has to live within certain parameters.'

Mo is the first Chinese national to win the prize, which comes with a financial reward of $1.2 million, and the decision was celebrated by state-controlled media in China and on popular Chinese microblogging sites.

Critics have said the decision was odd, and that Mo's works were not artistically original, emulating Latin American authors. Dissident artist Ai Weiwei said Mo carried the 'taint of government'.

Such comments were neither accurate nor fair, though, said Goldblatt, who noted that Mo started writing his trademark fantastical novels before reading Latin American works by authors including Gabriel Garcia-Marquez.

'If he's influenced by anything he's influenced by Chinese storyteller traditions, by the mindset and the concept of place by Faulkner,' he said, referring to U.S. writer William Faulkner.

'NO PUSHOVER'

Mo is a Communist Party member who grew up in a small town and served in the military, which Goldblatt said colored his world view. But he was not very different, in that respect, to other authors in China.

'They are all party members, and they are all members of the (state-backed) writers union,' Goldblatt said.

'You have to be. And all of these other writers are writing under the same strictures, they're writing in the same environment, they know the rules, they do essentially what he does.'

Mo is not a pushover, though. He has not been afraid to push the literary limits and some of his works have been banned in China. His 1988 book 'The Garlic Ballads', which Goldblatt later translated into English, depicts folly and brutality in Communist policy, which leads to tragedy.

Twelve years ago, when Chinese-born author Gao Xingjian was awarded the Nobel literature prize, Beijing attacked the exiled dissident writer and sharply criticized the Nobel award committee. Mo publicly defended Gao.

'He was one of a very, very small number of writers who came out and defended Gao Xingjian saying 'He's a good writer, he's Chinese, all of these things that you're saying are simply not true'.'

'You know, he respects and likes the dissidents,' said Goldblatt.

'He just doesn't want to become one of them in exile.'

(Editing by Sui-Lee Wee and Robert Birsel)



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Tom Hanks to make Broadway debut in new Nora Ephron play

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tom Hanks will make his Broadway debut playing a tabloid journalist in 'Lucky Guy', a new drama by the late Nora Ephron, producers said in a statement on Thursday.

The Hollywood star will continue his long collaboration with Ephron that has included 'Sleepless in Seattle' in 1993 and 'You've Got Mail' in 1998. Ephron died in June at the age of 71 of complications from leukemia.

Based on a true story, 'Lucky Guy' opens in April next year, the statement said, and dramatizes the rise and fall of former tabloid columnist Mike McAlary as he covers the police scandals of a polarized, crime-ridden 1980s New York. McAlary died aged 41 in 1998.

Hanks, 56, has won two best actor Oscars for his performances in 'Philadelphia' and 'Forrest Gump' and is known for other popular films, but his stage acting has been limited to small Shakespeare productions in the 1970s.

Ephron started as a tabloid reporter before becoming known as a writer of essays, books and screenplays. She penned romantic comedies such as 1989's 'When Harry Met Sally', and wrote and directed 2009's 'Julie & Julia'.

'Lucky Guy' is billed as a drama with touches of her famed acerbic tone.

Her first Broadway play, 'Imaginary Friends', was produced in 2002 and starred Cherry Jones and Swoosie Kurtz. The play was largely panned by critics.

She also co-authored 'Love, Loss, and What I Wore' with her sister Delia, which was performed Off-Broadway to positive reviews in 2009 and enjoyed a long run followed by a national tour.

(Reporting by Andrea Burzynski; Editing by Christine Kearney and Dale Hudson)



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Debbie Reynolds due out of hospital after bad reaction to meds

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran singer and actress Debbie Reynolds was hospitalized in Los Angeles over the weekend after a bad reaction to medication but is expected to be released on Wednesday, her manager said.

'Ms. Reynolds had an adverse reaction to some medicine and is on the mend and hopefully will be released today,' manager Milt Suchin said in an email. He did not provide details.

Reynolds, 80, who starred in the classic movie musical 'Singin' in the Rain' and dozens of other films in the 1950s and 1960s, is one of Hollywood's enduring legends.

Married three times, the actress shared a husband with Elizabeth Taylor when Eddie Fisher left Reynolds for her violet-eyed rival in a 1950s scandal. Reynolds also had her own TV comedy, 'The Debbie Reynolds Show,' in 1969, and continues to make guest appearances in movies and TV shows.

Celebrity website TMZ.com said Reynolds had canceled all upcoming appearances for the next three months. But Suchin said the actress was taking a 'wait and see' approach based on the advice of doctors.

'It's too soon to make a decision right now. But the prognosis is excellent,' Suchin said.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; editing by Matthew Lewis)



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Religious leaders and Russians favored for Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO (Reuters) - Russian dissidents and religious leaders working for Muslim-Christian reconciliation are among the favorites to win the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize when the result is announced on Friday.

The year has brought few notable peace breakthroughs, leaving an unusually large selection of names in circulation and perhaps increasing the chance of a surprise winner.

'I'm pretty sure the committee would like to honor the monumental events in the Middle East,' said Jan Egeland, the Director of Human Rights Watch Europe.

'But as the Arab Spring turns to 'autumn', this is becoming very difficult, so an approach may be to look at those who work for dialogue among religions,' said Egeland, a former United Nations under-secretary-general.

The betting agency Unibet favors Maggie Gobran, a Coptic Christian nun who runs a children's mission in Cairo, giving her a 13 percent chance of winning.

Others mentioned include Pakistani philanthropist and welfare worker Abdul Sattar Edhi and Nigerian religious leaders John Onaiyekan and Mohamed Sa'ad Abubakar, who have helped to calm their country's Christian-Muslim violence this year.

A direct recognition of the Arab Spring is unlikely, however, as the committee gave part of its 2011 award to the journalist Tawakkol Karman to recognize her work in Yemen's transformation, and it rarely visits an issue two years running.

RUSSIAN RIGHTS

The committee could recognize the struggle to prevent an erosion of human rights in Russia. Such a choice would probably touch off a diplomatic row, especially as committee chair Thorbjoern Jagland is also the secretary-general of the Council of Europe, which promotes human rights, democracy and the rule of law in its 47 member countries, including Russia.

'Jagland is always criticized on the grounds that there's a conflict of interest here and that he wouldn't dare to anger the Russians,' said Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo. 'So perhaps he's inclined to prove his critics wrong.'

Although the Norwegian Nobel Committee is independent of the government, its members are picked by parliament and Jagland is a former prime minister, so foreign governments often see it as an affiliate of the Norwegian state.

China froze diplomatic ties with Norway in 2010 when Jagland's committee gave the prize to dissident Liu Xiaobo, accusing Norway of interfering in its internal affairs.

'Russian names are always on the list but if they wanted to give democracy-oriented movements in Russia a push, this would be the year for that,' Egeland said.

Criticism of Russia's human rights record grew louder this year as the government cracked down on free speech ahead of presidential elections, and members of the punk band Pussy Riot were jailed for a protest in Moscow's main cathedral against Vladimir Putin, Russia's dominant leader for almost 13 years.

The list of potential Russian laureates includes Svetlana Gannushkina and the civil rights society Memorial that she helps to lead, and the radio station Ekho Moskvy and its editor Alexei Venediktov.

NOT PUSSY RIOT

Pussy Riot itself is unlikely even to be considered as nominations for the prize closed on February 1, before the band gained international attention.

The committee received 231 nominations this year, including 43 organizations. It usually narrows the list to between 25 and 35 names at its first meeting, said Geir Lundestad, the committee's executive secretary.

By April, the list is narrowed again, usually to between five and seven names. A decision is made about two weeks before the announcement.

The winner will receive 8 million Swedish crowns ($1.21 million), 2 million less than last year, as the economic downturn has taken a toll on Alfred Nobel's estate.

Other names in vogue include Gene Sharp, a retired American professor of political science known for his work on non-violent struggle, and the Afghan doctor and politician Sima Samar, an advocate of women's rights in the Muslim world.

The Irish bookmaker Paddy Power has Sharp as its favorite, followed by Samar.

The year's most notable advance towards peace has been Myanmar's gradual democratization but the committee has already honored opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the government is unlikely to be recognized merely for being less totalitarian, experts said.

'If they wanted to do something really different, they would look at South Sudan and a fairly exemplary peace process there,' said Iver Neumann, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.

'But the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is never adventurous, I think they'll find somebody like themselves, a mainstream politician who clinched some type of deal.' ($1 = 6.5846 Swedish crowns)

(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Kevin Liffey)



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Leave me in peace, France's Strauss-Kahn begs media

PARIS (Reuters) - Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a rare magazine interview published on Wednesday that he is tired of being hunted by the media and begged to be left alone as he tries to move on from a sex scandal that wrecked his career.

Strauss-Kahn, who is trying to make a comeback as a conference speaker while fighting two legal cases over alleged sexual misconduct, said since he had not been convicted of any crime he should be left alone.

'I no longer have public duties, I am not a candidate for anything. I have never been convicted in this country or any other,' Strauss-Kahn, once tipped to win the May presidential election, told the weekly Le Point.

'Nothing justifies the fact I have become the target of a media hunt which sometimes ends up resembling a manhunt.'

Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister, was days away from announcing a bid for the 2012 presidential election when he was pulled off a plane on a New York runway by police and briefly jailed after a hotel maid accused him of trying to rape her.

The ensuing scandal, and a media frenzy that raked up grubby details of his private life and other allegations of misconduct, turned him from being one of the world's most influential economic thinkers to a man millions now know best for being photographed in handcuffs with thick stubble.

Friends say he spends much of his time closeted at home playing online computer games, while his art heiress wife Anne Sinclair, has rekindled her career as a high-profile editor at the Huffington Post's French edition. A source recently confirmed media reports that the couple has separated.

Despite protests by feminists during his first sorties on the international conference circuit, the former International Monetary Fund chief recently appeared at events in Ukraine and Morocco and has set up a business consulting firm in Paris.

Strauss-Kahn is being investigated in France over alleged links to a prostitute network in the northern city of Lille, although prosecutors recently shelved a more serious investigation into accusations of group rape.

He is also fighting a U.S. civil case brought by the hotel maid who says he assaulted her in May 2011.

Strauss-Kahn, 63, told Le Point he was not a celebrity or politician and so was entitled to privacy like anybody else.

Instead, photographers frequently stand guard outside the apartment he recently moved to in Montparnasse, he said.

'I cannot stand people abusing my situation and the judicial inquiries that are, wrongly, targeting me to ridicule my private life and throw about scraps, real or invented, on the pretext of goodness knows what moralizing transparency.'

(Reporting By Catherine Bremer, editing by Paul Casciato)



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Relatives fear for female punk band appeal after Putin comments

Moscow (Reuters) - Pussy Riot supporters said the punk band members were unlikely to win their appeal against jail terms for a raucous Moscow cathedral protest against Vladimir Putin, after the Russian president said they had got what they deserved.

The three women were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for belting out a 'punk prayer' in Moscow's main Orthodox cathedral imploring the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin, and jailed for two years.

The case sparked an international outcry, with Western governments and pop star Madonna condemning the sentences as disproportionate, a view not widely shared in Russia where public opinion was shocked by the protest.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, say their performance was a political protest and that they have no animus toward Russian Orthodox faithful.

However, relatives and lawyers for the trio complained of political interference in the original trial and said that Putin's weekend comments on the case in an interview marking his 60th birthday had compromised the appeal.

'After Putin's comments, I don't think lawyers can do anything anyway,' Samutsevich's father, Stanislav, told Reuters on Tuesday.

The three women were brought to Moscow City Court and led into a metal and plexiglass cage where they sat facing a three-judge panel and stood to answer introductory questions from the senior judge.

Their protest was an acerbic comment on the close ties between the Kremlin and Russia's dominant church, whose leader Patriarch Kirill had given Putin, then prime minister, unofficial but clear support in his successful campaign for a third presidential term.

Kremlin opponents said the jail terms were part of a clampdown on dissent that has produced restrictive laws and criminal cases against critics of Putin since he began his six-year term in May.

TOUGHER LAWS

But sympathy for Pussy Riot is limited in Russia, where Patriarch Kirill has cast the protest as part of an attack meant to curb the church's post-Soviet revival in a nation where most people are Russian Orthodox.

Parliament is considering legislation stiffening punishment for offending religious feelings and Putin has warned that such offences - against Christians, Muslims or other believers in diverse Russia - could incite violence.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said last month that they have already served enough time, while the Russian Orthodox Church has said they should repent if they want forgiveness.

In an interview aired on Sunday, Putin defended the sentences: 'It is right that they were arrested and it was right that the court took this decision because you cannot undermine the fundamental morals and values to destroy the country'.

An opinion poll conducted on September 21-24 by the independent Levada center found 35 percent of Russians believe the two-year sentences were appropriate, while 34 percent said they were too lenient and only 14 percent said they were excessive.

The appeal hearing in the Moscow City Court began on October 1 but was quickly adjourned after Samutsevich dismissed her lawyers, citing unspecified differences of opinion on the case.

Samutsevich's father said there was no disagreement among the women about how to approach the appeal.

(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Jon Boyle; )



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John Banville novel plots the need to poeticize memory

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Booker-prize-winning author John Banville explores the nature of memory or, as he would prefer to call it, imagination in his latest book.

In an interview the Irish novelist said he intends for 'Ancient Light' to stand alone, but those who have read his previous novels will recognize the character of Alex Cleave from 'Eclipse' and 'Shroud,' which explored other facets of his life.

This time out, Cleve, now a washed-up actor in his sixties, relives the affair he had with a friend's mother at age 15 in their small Irish town.

Cleave's present life finds him developing a bond with a troubled young actress that drives him toward making peace with his daughter's suicide, but his vivid recollection of his illicit first love is the larger plot.

The novel, recently published in the United States, was described as 'an unsettling and beautiful work' by the Wall Street Journal. The Daily Beast likened its sensuously detailed recollections to the work of Proust.

As Cleave richly narrates his adolescent erotic awakening by the 35-year-old Mrs. Gray, hesitations about the accuracy of those memories and their missing fragments interrupt.

Banville, 66, said he wanted to write in a way that mirrors the way memory works.

'I think that we don't remember, I think that we invent,' he said. 'I think that imagination is a more accurate word for what we do than memory.'

Cleave describes the colored leaves of autumn only to reason that the incident he is recounting couldn't have taken place then. He recalls the scratchiness of the suit he wore while sitting on Mrs. Gray's sofa on a late summer Sunday, but not what brought him there.

Banville said memories allow for 'a more poetic perspective on the world,' whether what is remembered is accurate or not, and serve as an anchor.

'The past seems the thing on which we rest our sense of ourselves and our sense of the world,' he said. 'We don't experience the future until it arrives. All we have is the past.'

He cited this as the reason people focus on the past.

'We fixate on it because it seems so much more vivid than the present,' he said. 'A few years on, suddenly the most banal experiences take on this extraordinary glow.'

Though Cleave's past losses - of Mrs. Gray, of his daughter, of his own full memory of his experiences - loom large, the tone of 'Ancient Light' is neither somber nor regretful.

'We're constantly losing - we're losing time, we're losing ourselves,' he said. 'I don't feel for the things I lost. I love the notion that there's all this stuff piled up behind me, and the pile keeps getting bigger and bigger.'

(Editing by Christine Kearney and Prudence Crowther)



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UK's Prince William to attend former nanny's funeral

LONDON (Reuters) - Prince William will go to the private funeral of his former nanny on Wednesday, cancelling royal engagements to pay homage to the woman who looked after him and his brother Harry for most of their childhood.

Olga Powell, who died in September aged 82, cared for the boys over a 15 year period which saw their parents divorce and the death of their mother Princess Diana in a high speed car crash.

'Given the significant role that Mrs. Powell played in the Princes' lives, The Duke (Prince William) wished to pay his respects in person,' a royal spokesman said on Tuesday.

Younger brother Prince Harry will not be able to attend the funeral as he is on a tour of duty in Afghanistan as an attack helicopter pilot.

In a 2011 interview, Powell spoke of her close relationship with the two princes, whom she described as being the same as any other children.

'If they saw a muddy puddle they wanted to jump in it and if there was something to climb, they wanted to climb it,' Powell told the Hertfordshire Mercury newspaper.

'Their parents wanted them to have as ordinary a childhood as they could.'

Powell was awarded the Royal Victorian Medal in 2000 for her services to the family.

William cancelled plans to pay an official visit to Newcastle in order to attend the service, a spokesman said. His wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, will carry out the royal engagement on her own.

(Reporting By Alessandra Prentice, editing by Paul Casciato)



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Esquire names Mila Kunis "sexiest woman alive"

(Reuters) - Actress Mila Kunis has been dubbed 'the sexiest woman alive' by Esquire magazine in its November issue out this week.

Kunis, 29, a one-time star of the TV comedy 'That '70s Show,' was lauded by the men's magazine on its website as 'the most beautiful, opinionated, talkative, and funny movie star that we've all known since she was nine.'

As a grown-up, the native of Ukraine electrified audiences with a solid performance opposite - and sometimes in bed with - Oscar-winner Natalie Portman in 2010 ballet movie 'Black Swan.' She recently showed her comic chops in the surprise summer hit, 'Ted.'

Near year she will star in 'Oz: The Great and Powerful,' and she is the voice of Meg Griffin on the animated Fox comedy 'Family Guy.'

Runners-up this year included Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, 'Precious' star Gabourey Sidibe and newly divorced Katie Holmes.

Kunis joins the ranks of past Esquire choices, including Oscar winners Charlize Theron and Halle Berry, and last year's winner, Rihanna. (Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Jan Paschal)



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Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman split after 30-year marriage

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actors Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman are separating after 30 years of marriage, DeVito's spokesman said on Monday.

Stan Rosenfeld said the pair had split but gave no details.

DeVito and Perlman married in 1982 and have three adult children. The duo, both known for playing characters with sharp tongues, acted alongside each other in the 1978-82 TV comedy 'Taxi,' in which she had a recurring role as his character's girlfriend, and in the 1996 children's film 'Matilda.'

Perlman is best known for her role as sarcastic actress Carla Tortelli in the 1980s hit comedy 'Cheers,' for which she won four Emmy Awards.

DeVito, who won an Emmy for his turn as the despotic dispatcher in 'Taxi,' currently stars in the FX comedy 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.'

The pair also founded TV and movie production company Jersey Films, whose titles include 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Erin Brockovich.' (Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Gary Hill)



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In "The Details," a grown-up role for Tobey Maguire

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Tobey Maguire's boyish looks have played no small part in landing him a succession of roles as the youthful hero in films such as 'Spiderman' or the underdog jockey in 'Seabiscuit.'

Now, the 37-year-old actor is finally growing up on screen in 'The Details,' a dark comedy which marks a return to the lower budget, experimental fare favored by Maguire long before he first donned Peter Parker's blue and red suit.

Maguire plays Dr. Jeff Lang, a married father who strays from his wife Nealy - played by Elizabeth Banks - by sleeping with a former medical school friend (Kerry Washington). 'The Details' will be released on video-on-demand and iTunes Friday, ahead of a theatrical run in November.

'I did have a 10-year period where a lot of my time was taken up doing the 'Spider-Man' movies and I was heavily identifiable as that character,' Maguire told Reuters of the three films in the series, released in 2002, 2004 and 2007.

'Because Peter Parker is such a young and iconic figure, I think there is a heavy identification with me as a more youthful kind of guy,' he said.

Maguire, who made his name playing coming-of-age roles in 1990s movies like 'The Cider House Rules,' 'Pleasantville' and 'The Ice Storm,' said the latest film is tonally very different from anything he has done before.

In 'Details,' written and directed by Jacob Aaron Estes, Maguire's Dr. Lang battles both raccoons wrecking his back lawn and a marriage that has turned stale.

His affair sets in motion a chain of events that escalates into absurdity, involving an extortion, organ donation and murder. Laura Linney, Ray Liotta and Dennis Haysbert also star.

'I do enjoy films where the screws come down on a character,' Maguire said of playing Dr. Lang. 'I can understand how this guy got to a point where he made a bad decision and then in trying to retrieve that, it all unravels.'

The film casts him in the adult role of father and husband which he plays in real life as well, with his wife Jennifer Meyer and their two children.

'It's great that I'm of an age where I feel like there are more interesting roles and opportunities,' he said.

While the filming schedule and promotional duties of 'Spider-Man' had limited Maguire's opportunity to work on other films, the actor is less constrained now.

This summer, he shot the Jason Reitman-directed film, 'Labor Day,' an adaptation of a Joyce Maynard book about a mother and son who pick up a convicted murderer who has escaped prison.

For his next project, Maguire returns to blockbuster territory in Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of 'The Great Gatsby,' where he plays outsider Nick Carraway, opposite old friend, Leonardo DiCaprio, in the role of the mysterious and wealthy playboy, Jay Gatsby.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Bernadette Baum)



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Actress Daryl Hannah arrested in Keystone pipeline protest

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Actress Daryl Hannah was arrested in Texas on Thursday after she stood in front of an earth-moving machine clearing ground for the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, her representative said.

The protest took place outside Winnsboro, Texas, about 80 miles east of Dallas, said Hannah's agent, Paul Bassis.

Hannah, 51, a longtime environmental activist, was arrested last year outside the White House in another protest against the pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline, a project of TransCanada Corp, would ship more than half a million barrels a day of oil sands-derived crude to the Texas Gulf Coast from Canada.

On Thursday, Hannah stood in front of an excavator being used to clear trees and brush in order to build the pipeline, Bassis said. Joining her was the site's property owner, Eleanor Fairchild, 78, whose land was taken by eminent domain for the project, he said.

'Ms. Hannah and Ms. Fairchild were defending Ms. Fairchild's property from eminent domain abuse by TransCanada,' Bassis said.

A spokeswoman for the Wood County Sheriff's Office said no officials were available to discuss the incident.

Booking information from the Sheriff's Office said Hannah was held on charges of trespassing and resisting arrest.

A representative for TransCanada could not be reached for comment, but a company statement said the pipeline would be 'safe and reliable.'

The southern section of the pipeline - the project Hannah was protesting - will take oil from the glutted Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub to refineries in Texas. President Barack Obama lent his support to the project, which is being built.

But the northern section of the $7.6 billion project, which would take crude across the Canadian border into the United States, was rejected by Obama last year on environmental and water supply grounds about its route through Nebraska.

TransCanada has reapplied to the State Department for approval of the full project. The State Department has jurisdiction because the line would cross a border.

Hannah played the mermaid in the 1984 film 'Splash,' and also had roles in films such as 'Wall Street' and 'Blade Runner.'

(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Peter Cooney)



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Alec Baldwin says he offered to take pay cut to save "30 Rock"

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Alec Baldwin said on Thursday he offered to take a salary cut to keep NBC comedy '30 Rock' on the air.

As the Emmy-winning show starts its 7th and final season on Thursday, Baldwin, who plays the debonair fictional NBC head Jack Donaghy, posted on Twitter; 'I offered NBC to cut my pay 20 % in order to have a full 7th and 8th seasons of 30 Rock. I realize times have changed. I am looking forward to some time off.'

NBC said in May that the 7th season would be the last for the show, and it would have just 13 episodes rather than the regular 21-23.

The network did not immediately return calls for comment on Baldwin's Twitter remarks.

The show, created by comedian Tina Fey and inspired from her run as head writer for 'Saturday Night Live', follows the day-to-day life of fictional NBC sketch comedy show 'TGS with Tracy Jordan,' starring Fey, Baldwin, Tracy Morgan and Jane Krakowski.

According to Forbes' 2012 Celebrity 100 earnings report, Baldwin earned $15 million in the past year while Fey made $11 million.

'30 Rock' has won 14 Emmy awards, including best comedy series and two for Baldwin as lead actor.

Despite a fervent fan base, the show has only attracted modest ratings, falling from a high of about 7.5 million viewers per episode in 2008/2009 season to an average of 4.6 million last season.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Andrew Hay)



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New York police probe jewelry theft from actress Julianne Moore's home

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City police said they are investigating the theft of 10 pieces of jewelry worth $127,000 that were taken from actress Julianne Moore's Manhattan apartment several months ago.

The jewelry went missing between June 6 and August 28, while 15-25 workers were doing renovations on the actress's home in the West Village, police said on Thursday.

The stolen jewelry was comprised of 10 pieces -- seven of which were made by Cartier, according to The New York Post. The most expensive item was a $33,000 Cartier platinum diamond tennis bracelet. Four Cartier watches, worth a combined $77,800, were also taken, said the newspaper reported.

Moore, 51, had left New York to film a remake of the movie version of 'Carrie' in Toronto over the North American summer.

A representative for the Oscar-nominated actress did not return a request seeking comment.

The theft was not reported to police until earlier this week.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)



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L.A.'s richest man ups the ante for city, cancer fight

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - As owner of 5 percent of the Los Angeles Lakers, Patrick Soon-Shiong could walk into the locker room of the storied basketball franchise any time for a chat with stars like Kobe Bryant. But the richest man in Los Angeles chooses to sit with the rest of his team's fans.

'He's not one of those owners who wants to be seen everywhere. He's just one of the fans,' said Bryant. The NBA star gives his owner a hug before every game for luck 'and maybe some of the success' of the slender Los Angles surgeon who built a fortune exceeding $7 billion as a biotechnology entrepreneur.

For all Soon-Shiong's success, the South African emigre and son of a Chinese herbal doctor remains relatively unknown in Los Angeles, a city that thrives on status and celebrity.

That's likely to change soon.

In recent weeks, he emerged as a likely bidder for fellow billionaire Philip Anschutz's sports and entertainment unit AEG, owner of 100 venues worldwide and sports teams like the Los Angeles Kings hockey franchise and the L.A. Galaxy soccer team, not to mention a 20 percent stake in the Lakers.

And on Wednesday in Washington DC, Soon-Shiong and his L.A.-based NantHealth will unveil a joint venture with Verizon, Intel, Blue Shield of California and others to create a nationwide system for doctors to share DNA and other data on cancer patients. It will enable doctors to do genetic analysis of a patient's tumor in less than a minute -- a job that now can take from eight to 10 weeks.

'This is something the federal government should have done, but we waited and waited for them,' Soon-Shiong told Reuters in an interview.

'It's unconscionable that cancer patients get the wrong diagnosis 30 percent of the time and that it takes so long to treat them with appropriate drugs for their cancer.'

Soon-Shiong emigrated to the United States more than three decades ago with his wife Michele Chan, an actress who had a starring role in 80's show 'Danger Bay' that aired on CBS and the Disney Channel and guest roles on ' MacGyver.' Since then, he has methodically climbed the ladder of success by adroitly mixing science and business.

He created drugs to fight diabetes and breast cancer and then sold the companies that produced them for a combined $8.6 billion.

In the four years since selling those companies, he quietly spent more than $400 million of his own money to build a national fiber optic network that would link cancer clinics throughout the country -- the groundwork for the health superhighway.

HIGH SPENDING, LOW PROFILE

Soon-Shiong's philanthropy was in evidence at his West Los Angeles office. The new superhighway was illustrated on a flow chart in a conference room where staffers edited a video of it on a nearby TV set.

In the lobby was a model of the campus surrounding the Saint John's Health Center, to which he has given $135 million to build a biotech research center and sports medicine clinic.

'There are few Patrick Soon-Shiongs in this world,' said retired General Wesley Clark, who has served with him on non-profit boards. 'A brilliant doctor, a great businessman and someone who is very patriotic. He understands what it means to give back to his country.'

Elsewhere, Los Angeles bears the mark of Soon-Shiong's largesse and his fixation on healthcare. He and his wife operate the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, which last year endowed a chair at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering to support research in engineering and medicine.

In 2009, after watching TV footage of a woman dying on the emergency room floor because doctors didn't notice her, he guaranteed $100 million to underwrite efforts to reopen Martin Luther King Hospital. The hospital, which has since reopened, serves the city's low-income population.

The coming months may mark the public convergence of his private passions: health, sports, philanthropy and his adopted city.

He wants to buy AEG in large part because he plans to build a $1.2 billion football stadium to return pro football to the nation's second largest city.

Owning a National Football League team, he said, would give him a platform to promote wellness by having players mentor younger fans on exercise and healthy eating, and sharing training and medical techniques with local doctors.

Until recently, Soon-Shiong kept a low profile. He and his wife did not want their name in a press release when they first donated $23 million to Saint John's in 2007 to build a biomedical facility, recalled medical center president Lou Lazatin.

'Finally, they agreed when I told them it would help my marketing,' Lazatin said.

SURGICAL EYE FOR DETAIL

Soon-Shiong's business career started in the early 1980s with the help of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which gave him $2 million for stem cell research that could one day help treat injuries during space travel.

At the time, he was a surgeon at a hospital affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles. With the money, he opened a small lab near a veteran's hospital, where he developed treatments to reduce diabetes in pancreatic transplant patients and a cancer-fighting drug that doubled the response rate for the treatment of breast cancer.

His climb was not without bumps. In 1999, his brother Terrence filed a complex suit claiming Patrick Soon-Shiong neglected work on a diabetes drug being developed by a startup in which Terrence had invested. But an arbitrator found in Patrick Soon-Shiong's favor, and he declined to answer questions about the matter.

By 2008, Patrick Soon-Shiong controlled 82 percent of APP Pharmaceuticals, the company he started to develop injectable drugs to treat cancer and other illnesses. Soon-Shiong sold the company for $5.6 billion to Germany's Fresenuis Kabi Pharmaceuticals, netting him $4.6 billion.

In 2010, he sold Abraxis BioScience, which he had spun off from APP in 2007, to pharmaceutical company Celgene Corp. for $2.9 billion. His 82 percent stake was worth $2.4 billion.

Soon-Shiong paid Celgene $135 million for NantWorks, where he had begun the work of creating his planned high-tech health delivery network.

He contacted potential partners for the venture, including meeting AEG owner Anschutz, with whom he spent a day in the Denver suburb of Aurora touring the Anshutz Medical Campus.

Soon-Shiong also bought or provided seed money to small technology companies to aid in that effort.

He paid $20 million to buy a controlling interest in KeyOn Communications, which provides wireless broadband service for rural markets, and another $10 million to a stake in Raptor Networks Technology, which makes switching equipment for high speed networks.

'He watches every detail. I get emails from him at 2:30 in the morning, said Stephen Berman, CEO of toy maker JAAKS Pacific, which is licensing technology from one of Soon-Shiong's companies to make interactive toys.

He gives more than just money, says songwriter Burt Bacharach, whose son went to private school with Soon-Shiong's daughter. Soon-Shiong showed up unannounced at Cedars Sinai Hospital one day, says Bacharach, to help doctors find the right combination of drugs to treat the musician's son, who had a persistent staph infection.

For L.A.'s richest man, that patient visit was a brief return to the role of physician that he insists he one day will resume.

(Editing by Mary Milliken, David Gregorio and Andrew Hay)



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Novelist Helprin spins a good yarn in life and art

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Listening to novelist and political commentator Mark Helprin recount his life is a bit like listening to Forrest Gump - an eloquent, New York-born Forrest Gump.

Helprin is hardly slow-witted, but like the titular hero of the Oscar-winning 1994 movie, he seems to have been everywhere and met everyone. The sweep of his own life story is similar to one of his many novels - broad, impressive, improbable.

Helprin's new book, 'In Sunlight and In Shadow,' released on Tuesday, is a high society romance, World War Two drama and mob thriller. It matches his previous novels in scope and length and carries on the author's fascination with old New York.

In person, as on the page, Helprin likes a good tale. He jovially boasts about his encounters with past presidents, war leaders and famous businessmen with the kind of confidence that, over a literary career spanning more than 40 years, he has typically donated to his fictional characters.

He dined with Richard Nixon, rode in a golf cart with George Bush Sr. and even met Winston Churchill.

'I've never ridden in a golf cart that hasn't been driven by a president of the United States,' Helprin said during an interview this week, only half joking. That was in fact the only time he's ever ridden in a golf cart.

He recalled a night in the early 1960s when Nixon came over to his friend's parents' house for dinner, soon after Nixon's first failed race for the White House.

'I really liked him,' Helprin said. 'He seemed to be so approachable and humble.'

A short man, with alert eyes and thick hair, Helprin is a youthful 65 and full of anecdotes. He enjoys making stark, surprising statements - 'I have never drank coffee' or 'I've never paid for a taxi' - but he mostly answers questions in long form, fitting for a writer whose novels span generations, countries and continents.

His storytelling prowess began aged seven and a major publisher was so impressed by his writing that he offered him a book contract. His father refused, Helprin said, wary of the trappings of childhood fame.

It was a minor stumbling block at the start of a long literary career. Helprin has won many awards and his stories were published in The New Yorker for nearly 25 years.

He is most famous for 'Winter's Tale,' his fantastical 1983 novel about New York at the dawn of the industrial age, which is being adapted for the big screen.

But he was thrown into the spotlight after penning Bob Dole's Senate retirement speech during his 1996 presidential bid. Helprin's words are credited with breathing life - if temporarily - into Dole's campaign. He remains a prominent columnist for The Wall Street Journal and other publications.

NEW YORK APOSTLE

The New York-born writer recounted living in 43 different places, including California, England, Italy and Israel, where he served in the Israeli Air Force in the late 1970s.

But the twists and turns of his real life stories have sometimes drawn unwanted attention, most notably in a New York Times Magazine article in 1991, which questioned the veracity of some of Helprin's stories, including whether he completed a stint as a British merchant marine in 1967.

Deeply affected by the criticism, Helprin searched for proof to counter the claims and found his crew record in a warehouse in Newfoundland, which he published in the Paris Review.

Years on, and with more than a dozen works of fiction to his name, 'In Sunlight and In Shadow,' his sixth novel, has arrived. He called it a 'love song to my family,' borrowing a phrase from 'A River Runs Through It' author Norman Maclean. The lead character is very loosely based on his father.

'I waited a long time to write this book; to get the tone right. The hatch is closing and I wanted to get it in before I died,' Helprin said.

The 700-page novel is based in the New York of his youth - a purer, rougher city than today's incarnation. As a young man, Helprin never got in a cab, was repelled by the cost of the subway and preferred walking, absorbing the city's people and places.

'New York is not the city I remember, which is one reason why I wrote the book - to preserve the city I remember,' he said.

He does not expect the same commercial success that 'Winter's Tale' achieved, which he described as 'freakish.' Indeed, he isn't bothered by some early reviews that have been scathing and critical of his preoccupation with the ultra wealthy.

'You are expected to write a very spare, limited exploration of a single topic which shows that you know the world is bitter and awful, a sort of fashionable nihilism,' Helprin said. 'This book is not that.'

(Reporting By Edward McAllister, editing by Christine Kearney and Andre Grenon)



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