'60 Minutes' will pay tribute to Bradley
NEW YORK (AP) - "60 Minutes" will give its late correspondent Ed Bradley a send-off on Sunday with an hour-long tribute that features interviews with close friends and a solo by jazz musician Wynton Marsalis.
Bradley, a 26-year veteran of the CBS newsmagazine, died of leukemia on Thursday.
Sunday's special includes Steve Kroft's interviews with some of Bradley's closest friends, musician Jimmy Buffett, journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Marsalis. Morley Safer will review the legacy of Bradley's estimated 500 "60 Minutes" stories.
Lesley Stahl will do a profile of Bradley, from his childhood in Philadelphia to his job at "60 Minutes."
It will air in the "60 Minutes" time slot of 7 p.m. ET.
Oscar-winning actor Jack Palance dies
LOS ANGELES - Jack Palance, the craggy-faced menace in "Shane," "Sudden Fear" and other films who turned successfully to comedy in his 70s with his Oscar-winning self-parody in "City Slickers," died Friday.
Palance died of natural causes at his home in Montecito, Calif., surrounded by family, said spokesman Dick Guttman. He was 87.
When Palance accepted his Oscar for best supporting actor he delighted viewers of the 1992 Academy Awards by dropping to the stage and performing one-armed push-ups to demonstrate his physical prowess.
"That's nothing, really," he said slyly. "As far as two-handed push-ups, you can do that all night, and it doesn't make a difference whether she's there or not."
That year's Oscar host, Billy Crystal, turned the moment into a running joke, making increasingly outlandish remarks about Palance's accomplishments throughout the show.
It was a magic moment that epitomized the actor's 40 years in films. Always the iconoclast, Palance had scorned most of his movie roles.
"Most of the stuff I do is garbage," he once told a reporter, adding that most of the directors he worked with were incompetent, too.
"Most of them shouldn't even be directing traffic," he said.
Movie audiences, though, were electrified by the actor's chiseled face, hulking presence and the calm, low voice that made his screen presence all the more intimidating.
His film debut came in 1950, playing a murderer named Blackie in "Panic in the Streets."
After a war picture, "Halls of Montezuma," he portrayed the ardent lover who stalks the terrified Joan Crawford in 1952's "Sudden Fear." The role earned him his first Academy Award nomination for supporting actor.
The following year brought his second nomination when he portrayed Jack Wilson, the swaggering gunslinger who bullies peace-loving Alan Ladd into a barroom duel in the Western classic "Shane."
That role cemented Palance's reputation as Hollywood's favorite menace, and he went on to appear in such films as "Arrowhead" (as a renegade Apache), "Man in the Attic" (as Jack the Ripper), "Sign of the Pagan" (as Attila the Hun) and "The Silver Chalice" (as a fictional challenger to Jesus).
Other prominent films included "Kiss of Fire," "The Big Knife," "I Died a Thousand Deaths," "Attack!" "The Lonely Man" and "House of Numbers."
Weary of being typecast, Palance moved with his wife and three young children to Lausanne, Switzerland, at the height of his career.
He spent six years abroad but returned home complaining that his European film roles were "the same kind of roles I left Hollywood because of."
His career failed to regain momentum upon his return, and his later films included "The Professionals," "The Desperadoes," "Monte Walsh," "Chato's Land" and "Oklahoma Crude."
When he appeared as Fidel Castro in 1969's "Che!" about Latin American revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, he told a reporter: "At this stage of my career, I don't formulate reasons why I take roles — the price was right."
He also appeared frequently on television in the 1960s and `70s, winning an Emmy in 1965 for his portrayal of an end-of-the-line boxer in "Requiem for a Heavyweight."
He and his daughter Holly Palance hosted the oddity show "Ripley's Believe It or Not" and he starred in the short-lived series "The Greatest Show on Earth" and "Bronk."
Forty-one years after his auspicious film debut, Palance played against type, to a degree. His "City Slickers" character, Curly, was still a menacing figure to dude ranch visitors Crystal, Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby, but with a comic twist. And Palance delivered his one-liners with surgeon-like precision.
Through most of his career, Palance maintained his distance from the Hollywood scene. In the late 1960s he bought a sprawling cattle and horse ranch north of Los Angeles. He also owned a bean farm near his home town of Lattimer, Pa.
Although most of his film portrayals were as primitives, Palance was well-spoken and college-educated. His favorite pastimes away from the movie world were painting and writing poetry and fiction.
A strapping 6-feet-4 and 210 pounds, Palance excelled at sports and won a football scholarship to the University of North Carolina. He left after two years, disgusted by commercialization of the sport.
He decided to use his size and strength as a prizefighter, but after two hapless years that resulted in little more than a broken nose that would serve him well as a screen villain, he joined the Army Air Corps in 1942.
A year later he was discharged after his B-24 lost power on takeoff and he was knocked unconscious.
The GI Bill of Rights provided Palance's tuition at Stanford University, where he studied journalism. But the drama club lured him, and he appeared in 10 comedies. Just before graduation he left school to try acting professionally in New York.
"I had always wanted to express myself through words," he said in a 1957 interview. "But I always thought I was too big to be an actor. I could see myself knocking over tables. I thought acting was for little ... guys."
He made his Broadway debut in a comedy, "The Big Two," in which he had but one line, spoken in Russian, a language his parents spoke at home.
The play lasted only a few weeks, and he supported himself as a short-order cook, waiter, lifeguard and hot dog seller between other small roles in the theater.
His career breakthrough came when he was chosen as Anthony Quinn's understudy in the road company of "A Streetcar Named Desire," then replaced Marlon Brando in the Stanley Kowalski role on Broadway. The show's director, Elia Kazan, chose him in 1950 to for "Panic in the Streets."
Born Walter Jack Palahnuik in Pennsylvania coal country on Feb. 18, 1919, Palance was the third of five children of Ukrainian immigrants. His father worked the mines for 39 years until he died of black lung disease in 1955.
In interviews, Palance recalled bitterly that his family had to buy groceries at the company store, though prices were cheaper elsewhere.
Yet, he told a Saturday Evening Post writer, he had "a good childhood, like most kids think they have."
"It was fine to play there in the third-growth birch and aspen, along the sides of slag piles," he said.
'Bourne' sequel finds bad guy
Given that production has been underway for a while now, it's good that "The Bourne Ultimatum" has finally found its big villain.
After an extended flirtation with Gael Garcia Bernal, the "Bourne" sequel has at least stayed in the Spanish-speaking world, hiring Venezuelan thespian Edgar Ramirez to play a character described as a "superkiller."
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the "Ultimatum" plot once again finds Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) looking for answers about his past, which brings the aforementioned superkiller into play.
Joan Allen and Julia Stiles are returning, along with "Bourne Supremacy" director Paul Greengrass. New additions to the gang include David Strathairn and Paddy Considine.
If viewers know Ramirez at all, it's from his co-starring role in 2005's "Domino." He's also set to appear in the upcoming thriller "Vantage Point."
Cameron Diaz wants a nose job
Cameron Diaz, who stars as a woman who finds new love in the upcoming comedy "The Holiday," says that she needs a new nose.
The actress tells W magazine that she needs surgery to correct her deviated septum.
"I'm getting it fixed. I can't take it. I cannot breathe at all," says Diaz. "One side of my nose is totally shattered -- my septum is basically like a train derailed."
Diaz, 34, broke her nose for the fourth time on her birthday in 2003 while surfing in Waikiki. It was the first day of her two-week Hawaiian vacation.
The actress also has to watch her diet and deal with other body issues as she ages.
"I used to be able to eat anything I wanted and then go right to bed. Fried chicken, onion rings, half a bottle of wine," she says. "As you get older, your insides rebel. You've asked so much of them for so many years, and then they just go, 'Uh-uh, bi-atch! Gonna eat cheese fries? See how you sleep!' And you're tossing and turning all night."
"The Holiday," which also stars Jude Law, Kate Winslet and Jack Black, opens nationwide on Friday, Dec. 8.
R&B crooner Gerald Levert dies, 40
NEW YORK - Gerald Levert, the fiery singer of passionate R&B love songs and the son of O'Jays singer Eddie Levert, died on Friday. He was 40.
His label, Atlantic Records, confirmed that Levert died at his home in Cleveland, Ohio.
"All of us at Atlantic are shocked and deeply saddened by his untimely death. He was one of the greatest voices of our time, who sang with unmatched soulfulness and power, as well as a tremendously gifted composer and an accomplished producer," the statement read.
Dan Bomeli, public relations manager at University Hospitals Geauga Medical Center in suburban Cleveland, said Levert had been brought to the hospital. Bomeli said Levert had died but he had no further details.
Over his two-decade music career, Levert sold millions of albums and had numerous R&B hits.
Levert first gained fame in 1986 as a member of the R&B trio LeVert, which also included his brother, Sean, and childhood friend Marc Gordon. They quickly racked up hits like "(Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop) Goes My Mind," "Casanova," and "Baby I'm Ready."
But Gerald Levert's voice — powerful and soulful, almost a carbon copy of his father's — was always the focal point, and in 1991, he made his solo debut with the album "Private Line," which included a hit duet with his dad, "Baby Hold on to Me." His father also recorded the successful album "Father & Son."
Levert was known for his sensual, romantic songs, but unlike a Luther Vandross, whose voice and songs were more genteel, Levert's music was explosive and raw — his 2002 album was titled "The G Spot."
Though Levert was successful as a solo singer, in 1997 he got into group mode again — joining with R&B singers Johnny Gill and Keith Sweat for the supergroup of LSG. The self-titled album sold more than two million copies, and their hits included the sensual "My Body." Levert also worked with other artists as a songwriter and producer.
His most recent album was 2005's "Voices."
Levert had four children.
Humiliated frat boys sue 'Borat'
SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Two fraternity boys want to make lawsuit against "Borat" over their drunken appearance in the hit movie.
The legal action filed Thursday on their behalf claims they were duped into appearing in the spoof documentary "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," in which they made racist and sexist comments on camera.
The young men "engaged in behavior that they otherwise would not have engaged in," the lawsuit says.
"Borat" follows the adventures of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's Kazakh journalist character in a blend of fiction and improvised comic encounters as he travels across the United States and mocks Americans.
The plaintiffs were not named in the lawsuit "to protect themselves from any additional and unnecessary embarrassment." They were identified in the movie as fraternity members from a South Carolina university, and appeared drunk as they made insulting comments about women and minorities to Cohen's character.
The lawsuit claims that in October 2005, a production crew took the students to a bar to drink and "loosen up" before participating in what they were told would be a documentary to be shown outside of the United States.
"They were induced to agree to participate and were told the name of the fraternity and the name of their school wouldn't be used," said the plaintiffs' attorney, Olivier Taillieu. "They were put into an RV and were made to believe they were picking up Borat the hitchhiker."
After a bout of heavy drinking, the plaintiffs signed a release form they were told "had something to do with reliability issues with being in the RV," Taillieu said.
The film "made plaintiffs the object of ridicule, humiliation, mental anguish and emotional and physical distress, loss of reputation, goodwill and standing in the community," the lawsuit said.
It names 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp., and three production companies as defendants.
Studio spokesman Gregg Brilliant said the lawsuit "has no merit."
The plaintiffs were seeking an injunction to stop the studio from displaying their image and likeness, along with unspecified monetary damages.
"Borat" debuted as the top movie last weekend with $26.5 million.