Category: People

BIRTHDAY BOY
Tom Cruise celebrated the big 4-0 on Wednesday. Cruise was reportedly feted by friends and family.

HARD TIMES
The Osbourne family matriarch, Sharon Osbourne, diagnosed with a treatable form of cancer and undergoing surgery Wednesday, the couple’s publicist confirmed. “She has the loving support of her husband and three children who are by her side at this time,” the statement said. The kind of cancer was not specified.
HARD TIMES II
The Price Is Right game show host Bob Barker checking into a hospital next week to undergo prostate surgery, his publicist said Tuesday.
Good luck to them both!

Julia Roberts Weds Cameraman
Academy Award-winning actress Julia Roberts married her cameraman boyfriend Daniel Moder early Thursday at her 40-acre estate outside Taos.
The wedding marks Roberts’ second trip down the aisle. The star of “Runaway Bride” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding” was married for 21 months to country and western singer Lyle Lovett.
The darkness of the cool New Mexico morning concealed the details of Roberts’ wedding but provided the perfect backdrop for the midnight ceremony.
“Julia Roberts and Daniel Moder married during a midnight ceremony before family and friends at their home in New Mexico,” Roberts’ publicist, Marcy Engelman, told The Associated Press about an hour after the ceremony.
Engelman declined to give any details about the couple’s nuptials, the bride’s attire or the guest list, saying, “This is all we’re going to release at this time.”
A big white tent was seen on Roberts’ estate Wednesday afternoon and the town was crowded with photographers and reporters, some of whom camped outside her gate.
A pitch-black sky was dotted with millions of sparkling stars as music and laughter could be heard coming from Roberts’ home into the early morning hours.
The rumors heated up this week when The Daily Mail of London reported that 50 guests were being flown from Los Angeles to New Mexico for some sort of celebration at Roberts’ estate. The paper said George Clooney, Roberts’ co-star on “Ocean’s 11,” was to be among them and that invitees were to wear white linen.
“Pretty Woman” (1990) remains Roberts’ biggest hit, with a domestic gross of $178.4 million. Her other $100 million hits include “Notting Hill,” and “Erin Brockovich,” for which she received a best-actress Oscar in 2001.
Roberts’ love life has been tabloid fodder for years. She broke up with actor Benjamin Bratt last year after dating him for nearly four years. He went on to marry actress Talisa Soto in April.
Roberts broke up with Kiefer Sutherland in 1991 on the eve of their wedding. She also was linked to Jason Patric, Dylan McDermott, Matthew Perry and Liam Neeson.

Here’s A Story About Dick
Author Philip K. Dick has been dead for 20 years, but his work still influences Hollywood filmmakers. Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report is only the latest movie to be adapted from a Dick story or novel. The writer’s paranoid source material also has formed the basis for Blade Runner, Total Recall, Screamers and this year’s Impostor.
Dick specialized in dystopian futures, altered realities and the effect of technology on humanity. He was a visionary, writing 40 years ago about issues that have only recently become significant.
“He resonates more than any other science-fiction writer with modern audiences,” says Edward Kastenmeier of Vintage Books, which publishes many of Dick’s novels. “What does it mean to be human? What is reality? These issues have only become more relevant as time goes by. When people imagine what virtual reality can become, it’s more like a Dick dreamworld or a Dick nightmare.”
His works contain “great concepts,” says Scott Frank, the screenwriter for Minority Report. “They’re simply terrific ideas, whether it’s a man who can’t remember his past in Total Recall or a detective tracking down replicants who may be a replicant himself in Blade Runner.”
Dick’s life was as weird as his work. Emotionally unstable, he ran through a series of bad marriages and periods of drug addiction. At one point he even claimed to have contacted an extra-terrestrial religious force named Valis, which influenced his work. (He even wrote a novel called Valis, which stands for Vast Active Living Intelligence System.)
Yet, during his bursts of creativity, Dick could produce outstanding creations. His novel The Man in the High Castle, in which America loses World War II and is occupied by Axis forces, won the Hugo, science-fiction’s highest award. And Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the novel adapted as Blade Runner, has become a classic about what it means to be human.
“He deals with levels of reality in the sense that now we’re obsessed with game playing and role playing,” Frank says. “We’re inhabiting all sorts of different realities now.”
Dick wrote more than 30 novels and hundreds of short stories, so there’s still plenty of material from which Hollywood can choose. Steven Soderbergh has purchased the rights to Dick’s drug-related novel A Scanner Darkly, and Paramount is currently developing Paycheck, a Dick story about a man who has part of his memory erased.
“His writing continues to be as relevant as the day he wrote it,” Kastenmeier says. “He was far ahead of his time, and for lots of people, only now can you come to grips with how real the worlds he was creating are. I don’t think The Matrix could have been created without Philip K. Dick.”

No Kiss and Make Up for Britney, J.Lo, Fans Say
Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez, back on the market for love, should turn over a new leaf rather than kiss and make up with old flames Justin Timberlake and Sean “P.Diddy” Combs, according to TV Guide fans.
According to a poll in Monday’s issue of TV Guide, 73 percent of fans do not want to see J.Lo getting back together with Combs following her separation in May from husband Cris Judd.
The 31-year-old singer and her dancer husband were married last year, only seven months after the end of Lopez’s highly publicized two-year romance with rap singer Combs.
Spears, 20, and ‘NSYNC singer Timberlake split up in March, citing the strains of conflicting schedules in their busy careers. Timberlake has been quoted as saying he is broken-hearted, but 59 percent of those polled by TV Guide said the pop princess should not get back together with her childhood sweetheart.
The poll formed part of a TV Guide look at some of Hollywood’s most talked-about couples. No reasons were given for the fans’ opinions.

We Stand On Guard For Thee!
Hey, it’s Canada Day, our nation’s 135th birthday! Once known as Dominion Day, July 1 is the day that in 1967 Canada became a country.
I love my country, but instead of me waxing poetic about The Great White North, let me share this hilarious essay about our country that is guaranteed to make to smile.
It will also make you remember Phil Hartman, a Canadian who is missed.
Happy Canada Day everybody!

ALL YOU NEED IS STANDARDS
Paul McCartney writing to the 100 top shareholders of McDonald’s, asking the fast-food chain to apply its U.S. animal welfare standards to all of its restaurants around the world. “Although McDonald’s has made laudable efforts on behalf of farmed animals in the United States and United Kingdom, it now needs to do the same in other countries,” he wrote.

She Is George Clooney’s Aunt
Hollywood star Rosemary Clooney has died at the age of 74.

CAN’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM HIM
The House of Representatives unanimously passing a bill Thursday that will rename the main post office in Hoboken, New Jersey, after favorite son Frank Sinatra. The Senate passed the measure in March, and now it only requires President Bush’s signature before taking effect.

The Who Bassist John Entwistle Has Died
John Entwistle, the quiet, efficient bass player who co-founded The Who and helped it become one of the most dynamic and successful rock bands in history, was found dead of an apparent heart attack Thursday in his Las Vegas hotel room. He was 57.
Entwistle was on medication for a heart condition, according to band member Steve Luongo.
An autopsy was scheduled for Friday, but Clark County officials said there was nothing suspicious about the death, which comes nearly a quarter-century after the band’s original drummer, Keith Moon, died of an overdose at age 31.
The Who was to play at the Hard Rock Hotel-Casino on Friday, the first date of a three-month, nationwide tour. That show and another scheduled for July 1 in Los Angeles were canceled. The rest of the tour was undecided, said Beckye Levin of promoter Clear Channel Entertainment.
The group, founded in London in the early 1960s, was part of the British rock invasion along with the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and others. They were the voice of a new breed, with a parade of guitar-driven hits that included “My Generation,” “I Can See For Miles,” “I Can’t Explain,” “Substitute,” “Pinball Wizard,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Who Are You.”
Their concerts were literally explosive ó a fusion of audacious acrobatics, martial precision and high octane rock ‘n’ roll that blew away audiences and left the stage and their instruments a smoldering wreck. The group was one of the premier rock bands in the world throughout the 1970s and sold millions of albums.
“A lot of our fans liked us because we made mistakes. It made us look more human. And then the fact that we could actually sort of burst out laughing on stage when we made a real bad blunder,” Entwistle told The Associated Press in a 1995 radio interview.
Entwistle allowed his fingers to literally race over his instrument, but he stood silently on stage ó a stark contrast to the antics of guitarist Pete Townshend and lead singer Roger Daltrey.
Ray Manzarek, keyboardist for the Doors, called Entwistle “one of the great, great rock ‘n’ roll bassists of all time. A real genius.”
“He just was the most humble rock star I have ever met, besides having the best hands of any bass player in the history of rock and roll,” added rocker Sammy Hagar.
Entwistle’s song writing contributions to the band were minimal compared with the prolific Townshend. The bass player penned “Boris the Spider” and “My Wife,” among others ó none of them big hits. Yet he was the only member of the band with formal musical training.
He was among the first in rock to experiment with the six- and eight-string bass and he also played the French horn.
“As a musician, he did for the bass guitar what Jimi Hendrix did for the guitar,” said Luongo, 49, who played drums in The John Entwistle Band for the last 15 years.
Entwistle was born Oct. 9, 1944, in London, and played piano and trumpet in his early years. He met Townshend and Daltrey in his high school years and by 1964 the band was born.
The Who played at the first Woodstock, opening with Entwistle’s “Heaven and Hell,” and churned out a succession of albums, including “My Generation,” “Happy Jack,” “The Who Sell Out,” “Who’s Next,” “Quadrophenia,” “Who Are You” and “The Kids Are Alright.”
They also made 1969’s groundbreaking rock opera, “Tommy,” about a deaf, dumb and blind messiah. The album was turned into a film starring Ann-Margret, in 1975 and later into a Broadway show.
Entwistle in many instances improvised as much as guitarist Townshend, who once said the bass player provided more lead material than he did.
“A lot of my playing is improvising,” Entwistle explained to Bass Frontiers magazine in 1996. “I will just discover different little patterns or riffs in any key at anytime. Somewhere in my brain I have a list of things I can play. It’s a matter of putting them in the right order.”
He released the first of his nine solo albums in 1971, and later formed his own ensemble, Ox, while continuing to play with The Who.
The band retired in 1982 but reunited and toured frequently. They gave a rousing performance at last year’s “Concert for New York,” which raised funds for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, and their latest album, “Ultimate Collection,” entered the Billboard charts two weeks ago at No. 31.
They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
Entwistle was also an artist and was in Las Vegas to open a show at Grammy’s Art of Music Gallery at the Aladdin Hotel-Casino. His work included cartoon-type portraits of himself and his fellow band members.
The image of a quiet artist seemed to fit Entwistle, who often said he didn’t worry about the wallflower label some applied to him.
“John always said that all the other personas in The Who were taken so he took that one,” Luongo said.