Category: Hard To Believe!

MacLaine joins ‘Green Gables’ cast
Academy Award-winner Shirley MacLaine has joined the cast of Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, CTV announced yesterday.
MacLaine, 73, will play matriarch Amelia Thomas, alongside Rachel Blanchard (as Louisa Thomas), Barbara Hershey (as the grown-up Anne Shirley) and Hannah Endicott-Douglas (as the young Anne Shirley).
Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning is a made-for-TV movie that will air sometime in 2008.
“Shirley MacLaine is a screen legend,” executive producer/director/writer Kevin Sullivan said in a statement. “To be able to cast her unique personality in the role of Amelia Thomas promises to bring both humour and pathos to this production, in a grand style that only a movie star of her stature can elicit.”

Poker game led to Pam’s latest marriage
NEW YORK – Pamela Anderson says she and Rick Salomon took their 17-year friendship to the next level during a poker game.
“I left the table and Errol (Lyon, Anderson’s driver) played in my place,” the 40-year-old ex-“Baywatch” star tells OK! magazine. “I came back to find myself $250,000 in the hole to Rick!”
So Salomon ó best known for making a sex tape with ex-girlfriend Paris Hilton ó struck a flirty deal.
“Rick, being the gentleman, said he would wipe my debt if I gave him a kiss, so I have to thank Vegas for our relationship switching gears!” Anderson says in the magazine’s latest issue, on newsstands Thursday. “It evolved into spending every day ó and then nights ó together.”
Salomon weighs in, telling OK!: “I’ve been plotting and scheming for the past 15 years, and I finally got the girl.”
The couple tied the knot Oct. 6 in a villa at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, squeezing in their vows between Anderson’s performances as an assistant in Hans Klok’s magic show at a nearby casino.
It was the third marriage for both Anderson and Salomon. The couple met when she was dating one of Salomon’s friends.
Anderson was previously wed to Kid Rock and Tommy Lee. Salomon’s ex-wives are actresses Shannen Doherty and E.G. Daily.
“There has always been chemistry, but mostly it’s been camaraderie,” Anderson says. “We have been there for each other through everything. We have seen each other through it all ó that’s tough to find.”
She adds: “I don’t just love him, I like him. We are an oddly good match.”

Whoopi officially joins ABC’s `The View’
NEW YORK – Whoopi Goldberg, officially named Wednesday as the new moderator of “The View” as the show puts Rosie O’Donnell in its rearview mirror, said her new job is a “big ol’ thrill for me.”
Goldberg jogged down the aisle of the New York studio, slapping hands with the audience, when the announcement was made live on the air by show creator Barbara Walters.
“I love this show,” said Goldberg, one of a select few performers to win an Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Grammy award. “I love coming on it. I love hanging out with you guys.”
O’Donnell announced this spring she was leaving ABC’s daytime talk show after less than a year filled with controversy and feuds with Donald Trump and co-star Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Despite O’Donnell’s polarizing presence ó or maybe because of it ó ratings went up last year.
Goldberg, 51, gives “The View” a big name to fill the slot of moderator, who generally steers the discussion.
She may not reach O’Donnell’s level, but Goldberg is no stranger to political controversy. She was dumped from a Slim-Fast advertising campaign in 2004 after making a speech mocking the Bush administration at a political rally, at one point using the president’s surname as a sexual reference.
“The View” is in “ongoing discussions” with several people for another cast slot, a spokesman said. That would fill the chair left unoccupied since the stormy departure of Star Jones Reynolds last year.
Among the candidates for that role is actress Sherri Shepherd, who has appeared on “The View” as a sub several times over the past month.

Avril Lavigne fires back
TORONTO (CP) – Avril Lavigne is fighting back against claims she’s a songwriting plagiarist.
She takes particular aim at fellow Canadian songstress Chantal Kreviazuk’s suggestion that the punk princess swiped one of her tunes for her new album, “The Best Damn Thing.”
“Chantal’s comments are damaging to my reputation and a clear defamation of my character and I am considering taking legal action,” Lavigne wrote on her website (www.avrillavigne.com) late Friday.
Kreviazuk’s recent claims to Performing Songwriter magazine are nothing more than sour grapes, Lavigne says, resulting from unsuccessful songwriting collaborations between the two.
“My decision to discontinue working with Chantal after co-writing together on my second record was simply based on the fact that we had no hits together. That is why her name is not on this record, despite her numerous attempts to be included, which were always denied. From my perspective, this is a clear case of bitterness.”
Lavigne also alleges that Kreviazuk e-mailed her after the magazine hit the stands to apologize for her suggestion that the song “Contagious” on Lavigne’s latest hit album was hers.
“I forgive her but I have to put the truth out there so my fans are not confused by these false accusations,” Lavigne wrote.
Lavigne, repeatedly dogged by accusations she doesn’t write her own songs, was equally miffed about being dragged into a legal battle to prove she wrote her chart-topping hit, “Girlfriend.”
A pair of U.S. songwriters allege her catchy single sounds suspiciously like a song called “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” released by the Rubinoos in 1979.
The American song features the upbeat chorus: “Hey, hey, you, you, I wanna be your boyfriend,” much like Lavigne’s boppy refrain, which declares: “Hey, hey, you, you, I don’t like your girlfriend.”
“I had never heard this song in my life and their claim is based on five words,” Lavigne wrote. “All songs share similar lyrics and emotions. As humans we speak one language . . . simply put, I have been falsely accused of ripping their song off.”
Earlier this week, Lavigne’s manager, Terry McBride, scoffed at the charges, calling the suit “baseless” and little more than a “case of legal blackmail.”
“Avril’s a great songwriter and she’s proving it over and over and over again,” McBride said from Vancouver, where he runs Nettwerk Music Group. “Avril’s very, very sensible. She knows music well. If the chords had been similar, the melodies had been similar, lyrics had been similar . . . she would have gone, ‘OK, I can see their point.’ But nothing’s similar.”
Lavigne, who grew up in Napanee, Ont., has also had to deflect accusations from the Matrix, the production team behind hits “Sk8er Boi” and “I’m With You.”
Songwriter Lauren Christie told Rolling Stone that Lavigne did little but “change a word here or there,” but Lavigne has insisted they crafted the melodies and lyrics together.
“Let it be crystal clear that I have not ripped anyone off or done anything wrong,” Lavigne wrote on her website Friday. “I do not deserve this negative press and attention. I take pride in the songs that I write and appreciate the opportunities to work with some great writers and musicians.”

Cowell says he’s bigger than Springsteen
NEW YORK – Simon Cowell says he’s bigger than The Boss. In an interview to air Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” the “American Idol” judge says he’s worth five times more to Sony BMG than Bruce Springsteen.
“I sell more records than Bruce Springsteen, sure,” Cowell says of the 57-year-old rocker, who signed a contract that was reported to be in the neighborhood of $100 million.
“I mean, in the last five years, I’ve probably sold over 100 million records. If (Springsteen) got one hundred (million dollars), I should have got five hundred (million dollars),” he says.
Cowell says he sells all those records because he’s signed “the biggest artist on the planet” ó Fox network’s “American Idol.”
“Every single `Idol’ winner is now signed through Sony BMG,” says Cowell. “And this applies to … all the countries … we sell `Idol’ to, which is over 30 countries.”
Albums by “American Idol” winners and runners-up are distributed by labels within the Sony BMG system through a deal between Clive Davis and 19 Recordings Unlimited, the label managed by “American Idol” creator Simon Fuller.
Interviewer Anderson Cooper asks Cowell, 47, whether his deal with Sony BMG is in the same neighborhood as Springsteen’s.
“A hundred million … that’s a great deal,” Cowell says.
Was he referring to himself or Springsteen?
“For him,” Cowell says, grinning. “For him it’s a good deal.”

Jacques Villeneuve releases CD
MONTREAL (CP) – Racing driver Jacques Villeneuve was focused on tunes instead of tune-ups Monday as he launched his first music CD, which includes a melodic tribute to his Formula One champion father.
Gilles Villeneuve, who died in a racing accident in 1982, was an inspiration to Jacques Villeneuve and the son said it was important for him to honour his father. “It felt great,” Jacques Villeneuve said in an interview after doing a selection from his album “Private Paradise,” which included “Father,” a song he performed in a duet Monday with his sister Melanie.
“It’s a very important song. It’s the only personal song on the album. I don’t write personal stuff and I don’t want to sing personal stuff either, but this one, because it’s with my sister, I’m quite happy doing it.”
Villeneuve, who no longer drives on the Formula One circuit, said the song was a more emotional experience for his sister, who started writing it in the mid-1980s, a few years after Gilles Villeneuve died when he crashed his car into a fence during a practice run in Belgium.
“I wrote the end of it a few years ago so by the time I wrote it we had grown and we had been used to living without our dad.”
“Private Paradise” goes into wide release next week after two concerts in Montreal, one at Villeneuve’s downtown restaurant, and the other at the Cabaret du Capitole du Quebec.
There are no immediate plans to tour with the album, most of whose songs are in English.
Villeneuve is not going to give up his day job for music and is still in talks to participate on the NASCAR circuit. But the sounds of guitar chords stir him just as much as the squeal of tires on a track.
“I’ve always loved music,” he said. “Everyone has music inside them anyway. Everyone enjoys going to a karaoke and singing.”
He decided to go one step further and write and record his songs – six of which are on his album.
“I said OK, I’ll rent a studio. I want to know how the songs properly sound once recorded fully and you just have to get going, you have to take the risks.”
Villeneuve couldn’t pin down a specific inspiration for his style – “I’ve been buying so many CDs over the years.”
“It’s always something I’ve listened to, a mood. Inspiration can sometimes be being stuck in a snowstorm for a week. That will give you some inspiration, having nothing else to do.”
Villeneuve was a little shaky in his performance before the media, suggesting he still has some work to do before he’s as at ease recording tracks as he is driving on them.
But Garou, a musical mega-star in Quebec, says he thinks his friend did pretty well.
“He doesn’t need any advice because he doesn’t want to be perfect,” Garou said after the performance for the media. “He just wants to have fun and he wants to share what he loves – music and songs. And he does it perfectly. It has to stay natural.
“It’s a passion he’s been sharing for years and years and years with his friends and now he’s doing it with the entire world.”
Villeneuve is among several Canadian athletes who’ve tried their hand at music, including:
-Olympic figure skater Elvis Stojko recorded a duet with Canadian Idol finalist Ashley Leitao last year and will soon release an album of his own. He has also dabbled as an actor, appearing in the stage production of “Grease” in 2004.
-Calgary Flames forward Darren McCarty has his own band Grinder, whose motto is “the Toughest Band in Rock-n-Roll.”
-Toronto Argo wide receiver Robert Baker quit pro football in 2006 to pursue a career in rap music under the name Shake Severs.
-Former Montreal Alouettes coach Don Matthews released a novelty song in 2005 called “What Time Is It?” The single was based on a speech he gave at the Alouettes’ 2002 Grey Cup parade, when he asked his players: “What time is it?” and they responded with things like: “Time to get busy!”
-Football brothers Doug and Darren Flutie play in the Flutie Brothers Band, opening for acts such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bo Diddley and Meredith Brooks. They also wrote and recorded the Saturday Night Football theme song for the Canadian Football League that is featured weekly on CBC.
-Hockey star Guy Lafleur released a disco album in 1979.
-Legendary goaltender Johnny Bower had a hit single in 1965 with “Honky the Christmas Goose,” selling more than 40,000 copies of the novelty tune.

New Line Chief: Jackson Won’t Direct ‘Hobbit’ Prequel “On My Watch”
New Line Co-chairman Bob Shaye has made it clear that his decision not to bring back Peter Jackson to direct the Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit is final and not just a negotiating ploy.
In an interview with the online Sci-Fi Wire, Shaye said that hiring Jackson for The Hobbit “will never happen during my watch.”
He claimed that Jackson had received “a quarter of a billion dollars paid to him so far, justifiably, according to contract, completely right, and this guy … turns around without wanting to have a discussion with us and sues us and refused to discuss it unless we just give in to his plan. … I don’t want to work with that guy anymore.”
Shaye then emphasized: “He will never make any movie with New Line Cinema again while I’m still working at the company.”
Jackson quickly fired back that he had tried to discuss the issues with New Line “for over a year, but the studio was and continues to be completely uncooperative.”

Kid Rock angry over Borat gag
PAMELA Anderson’s estranged husband Kid Rock was reportedly furious with the star over her appearance in the Borat movie.
Anderson, who has filed for divorce from the musician after just four months of marriage, had a cameo role in the hit film as the fictional Kazakh journalist’s dream woman.
Borat, played by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, falls in love with the actress after seeing an old episode of Baywatch and drives across America to propose to her.
Unlike most of Cohen’s other targets, Anderson was in on the joke.
But Rock, whose real name is Bob Ritchie, did not find it funny, according to the New York Post.
Universal Studio chief Ron Meyer’s held a screening of Borat at his house for a group which included the couple two weeks ago, the newspaper reported.
“It was the first time Bob had seen the movie, and, well, he didn’t like it,” a friend of Anderson told the Post.
“Bob started screaming at Pam, saying she had humiliated herself.”
The friend added: “It was very embarrassing. Pam thought he could have a sense of humour about the movie.
“She was in on the gag from the very beginning and loved doing the movie.
“And on the eve of what was supposed to be a very positive thing, he made it an awful night.”
Rock’s spokesman did not return the Post’s calls, while Anderson’s manager declined to comment.
Yesterday it emerged that both stars had filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences.
Anderson, 39, wrote on her website: “Divorce. Yes, it’s true. Unfortunately impossible.”
Earlier this year she suffered a miscarriage in the early stages of pregnancy.
Friends of the couple expressed support ñ and in some cases surprise ñ after the news.
Denise Richards, who has just finished filming Blonde and Blonder with Anderson in Vancouver, told People: “My thoughts are with her and her boys.
“Pam is a very strong woman and will get through this difficult time.”
Traver Rains and Richie Rich, designers who made Anderson’s wedding dress, said they were caught off guard by news of the divorce.
“Maybe it’s a spat,” Rich told the magazine.
“They’re so in love, and I’d be surprised if it was over forever. I don’t think she’d let her prince go.”
He added that he spoke to the actress recently and she showed no signs that anything was wrong in the marriage.

O.J. Simpson project may turn up on Web
NEW YORK – The O.J. Simpson project is dead, but the book and the TV interview could turn up in bootleg form in this age of YouTube and eBay, when scandalous information seldom stays secret for long.
News Corp., owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins, called off Simpson’s “confession” Monday after advertisers, booksellers and even Fox personality Bill O’Reilly branded the project sick and exploitive.
A two-part interview had been scheduled to air Nov. 27 and Nov. 29 on Fox, with the book, “If I Did It,” to follow on Nov. 30.
HarperCollins spokeswoman Erin Crum said some copies had already been shipped to stores but would be recalled, and all copies would be destroyed. She would not say how long that would take, although industry insiders believe several days would be needed to destroy a print run that was likely in the hundreds of thousands.
But with the interview already taped, and truckloads of books either sitting in warehouses or headed back to the publisher, Simpson’s supposedly hypothetical account of how he would have committed the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman appears all but certain to surface.
“A book becomes collectible when it’s hard to find, and this will become very, very collectible, surely worth four figures,” said Richard Davies, a spokesman for AbeBooks.com, an online seller that specializes in used and collectible books.
Steve Ross, senior vice president and publisher of the Crown Publishing Group, said tens of thousands of returned books are destroyed every day.
But it’s entirely possible that the Simpson TV interview will get out in some form, said Jeff Jarvis, operator of the BuzzMachine Web log and a journalism professor at City University of New York.
“All life is on the record now,” he said. “Anything you can do can get out there and get out there quickly.”
The Simpson book will also almost certainly remain underground, with another publisher unlikely to take on “If I Did It.”
Even Michael Viner, whose previous releases include a memoir by disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair and a tell-all by four Hollywood call girls, said his Beverly Hills-based Phoenix Books was not interested.
“It’s the public equivalent of doing a snuff film,” said Viner, referring to films that claim to show a person being killed. “People can make money by doing snuff films, but no one wants to be associated with it.”
The Simpson saga took another twist Tuesday when his former sister-in-law, Denise Brown, accused News Corp. of trying to buy her family’s silence for millions of dollars.
A News Corp. spokesman confirmed that the company had conversations with representatives of the Brown and Goldman families over the past week and said that they were offered all profits from the book and TV show, but he denied it was hush money.
“There were no strings attached,” News Corp. spokesman Andrew Butcher said.
Denise Brown told NBC’s “Today” show that her family’s response was: “Absolutely not.”
“They wanted to offer us millions of dollars. Millions of dollars for, like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry’ money. But they were still going to air the show,” Brown said. “We just thought, `Oh my god.’ What they’re trying to do is trying to keep us quiet, trying to make this like hush money, trying to go around the civil verdict, giving us this money to keep our mouths shut.”
Pre-publication sales for “If I Did It,” had been strong but not exceptional. It cracked the top 20 of Amazon.com last weekend, but by Monday afternoon, at the time its elimination was announced, the book had fallen to No. 51.

Shatner Sells Kidney Stone for Charity
LOS ANGELES – An online casino has a piece of Capt. Kirk. Actor William Shatner has sold his kidney stone for $25,000, with the money going to a housing charity, it was announced Tuesday. Shatner reached agreement Monday to sell the stone to GoldenPalace.com.
“This takes organ donors to a new height, to a new low, maybe. How much is a piece of me worth?” he said in a telephone interview.
GoldenPalace.com is noted for its collection of oddities, which includes a partially eaten cheese sandwich thought to contain the image of the Virgin Mary.
“This is a bold new addition to our fleet,” GoldenPalace.com Chief Executive Officer Richard Rowe said in a statement.
The money will go to Habitat for Humanity, which builds houses for the needy.
“This would be the first Habitat for Humanity house built out of stone,” joked Darren Julien, president of Los Angeles-based Julien’s Auctions, which handled the sale.
Shatner, who played Kirk on the original “Star Trek” TV show and won an Emmy for his role on “Boston Legal,” passed the stone last fall.
The stone was so big, Shatner said, “you’d want to wear it on your finger.”
“If you subjected it to extreme heat, it might turn out to be a diamond,” he added.
Shatner said the idea of selling the stone came up after “Boston Legal” raised $20,000 for Habitat for Humanity. With the money for the stone, Shatner said there is about enough funding to build half a house.
GoldenPalace.com originally offered $15,000 for the stone but Shatner turned it down, noting that his “Star Trek” tunics have commanded more than $100,000. His counteroffer was accepted.