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LOS ANGELES -- The fall of "Rome" will happen sometime in early 2007. HBO announced Wednesday that the second season of its epic series set in the time of Caesar will debut Jan. 7. At the same time, the network says next season will be the last for the show. Filming on season two is currently taking place at the Cinecitta Studios in Rome and will wrap in October. Once that's done, though, the show -- a co-production with the BBC -- will call it quits. "Rome" was one of the most expensive projects in TV history -- reports pegged...

July 7, 2006 -- DON'T Hassel the Hoff! "Baywatch" star David Hasselhoff was barred from Wimbledon because he was "steaming drunk," reports The London Sun. He had a series of clashes with security staff, who would not let him in because he didn't have a ticket. Hasselhoff, 53, who's had a long battle with booze, had his arm in a brace and yelled: "You should let me in. Do you know who I am? I'm the Hoff!" < snip > Hasselhoff was eventually let in after actor pal Michael Brandon bought him a Centre Court ticket to watch champ Roger...

LOS ANGELES - Jan Murray, one of the fabled generation of comics who rose from the Catskills to prime time TV, tickling fans of the 1950s game show "Treasure Hunt," has died. He was 89. Murray, who appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows, died Sunday at his home in Beverly Hills, son Howard Murray said in a telephone interview Monday. "Treasure Hunt" ran from 1956 to 1959 in both daytime and prime time versions, first on ABC and later on NBC. The contestant who won a quiz got to pick among treasure chests, which contained anything "from a...

Apparently, Britney Spears is out to prove she's not a girl and very much a woman. Just days after baring her soul on Dateline, the pregnant pop tart is baring, well, everything else, for the cover of the August issue of Harper's Bazaar. The magazine confirmed Wednesday that Spears posed in the nude for the cover and an accompanying feature story and photo spread at a shoot on Thursday. Unfortunately for Harper's, said photos leaked onto the Internet shortly after the conclusion of the shoot and were available on various Websites as of Wednesday afternoon. In the images, a newly...

4 hours ago LONDON - Author J.K. Rowling said two characters will die in the last installment of her boy wizard series, and she hinted Harry Potter might not survive either. "I have never been tempted to kill him off before the final because I've always planned seven books, and I want to finish on seven books," Rowling said on Monday's "Richard and Judy" television show. "I can completely understand, however, the mentality of an author who thinks, `Well, I'm gonna kill them off because that means there can be no non-author written sequels. So it will end with me,...

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) - A paparazzo was arrested Thursday after he was discovered hiding in bushes outside a daycare center attended by Angelina Jolie's adopted son, authorities said. Photographer Clint Brewer, 25, was trying to take pictures of 4-year-old Maddox Jolie-Pitt, according to Cindy Guagenti, a publicist for Jolie's partner, Brad Pitt. Brewer was detained by security shortly before 11 a.m. and the property's owner made a citizen's arrest, said sheriff's Lt. Crystal Miranda. Deputies arrested Brewer on suspicion of trespassing and he was later released on $1,000 bail, officials said. Jolie, Pitt and their children returned to Malibu two...

U.S.-born actress warned 'she will be sorry' unless she pulls out of film Sienna Miller Sienna Miller reportedly feared for her life after getting a flood of death threats from Islamic extremists. The American-born, British-bred actress best-known for starring in the remake of "Alfie" as well as her engagement to actor Jude Law, is said to have received a torrent of vicious threats from Muslims furious she's starring in "Interview," a remake of director Theo van Gogh's 2003 thriller. Van Gogh is the Dutch director who was shot and killed in 2004 by an Islamic extremist in connection with his...

May 30) — The graduating senior looked unassuming recently as he strummed his guitar on the campus of Harvard University. But he was no average student, and it was no average song. Rivers Cuomo, 35, is lead singer of the band Weezer , and he was strumming "Beverly Hills," a recent chart-topping, Grammy-nominated hit. Six months ago, after completing an 80-city tour in support of his latest platinum album, Cuomo traded in pop hooks for books -- and five-star hotels for a 14-by-9-foot dorm room. "At first, I was a little nervous about living in dorms," Cuomo said, "because I...

Paul Gleason, who played the go-to bad guy in "Trading Places" and the angry high school principal in "The Breakfast Club," has died. He was 67. Gleason's wife, Susan, says her husband died Saturday at a Burbank hospital of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer linked to asbestos. Gleason appeared in over 60 movies, including "Die Hard," "Johnny Be Good," and "National Lampoon's Van Wilder." Most recently, he made a handful of television appearances in hit shows such as "Friends" and "Seinfeld." A native of Miami, Gleason was an avid athlete. Before becoming an actor, he played Triple-A minor...

IT'S a measure of what we have come to expect from celebrities to consider that if Henry Fonda were alive and having children today, it would seem as likely for him to name his daughter, say, Hanoi, as simply to call her Jane. It seems almost unimaginable for any 21st-century movie star to send his children out among the Hollywood elite equipped with ordinary names like Michael, Eric, Joel and Peter, as Kirk Douglas once did. This point was driven home again last week, when Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband, Chris Martin, the frontman of the band Coldplay, named their...

LOS ANGELES -- "Ice Age: The Meltdown" heated up the box office with a mammoth $70.5 million weekend, while audiences gave the cold shoulder to Sharon Stone, whose "Basic Instinct 2" debuted with a paltry $3.2 million. "No one had any idea it would do this kind of business," said box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian of Exhibitor Relations, who expected the "Ice Age" sequel to debut in the $55 million range. "The notion that people don't want to go to the movies is dispelled by something like this," he said. "It proves people will line up for the right movie...

Actor claims producers defrauded him (Mar. 23) -- Randy Quaid has filed a lawsuit claiming he was done in by producers of 'Brokeback Mountain.' TMZ obtained a copy of the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming producers falsely represented the movie to him as \"a low-budget, art house film, with no prospect of making any money.\" Qauid claims the representations were a ruse from the beginning. 'Brokeback' has grossed around $160 million. Quaid's suit claims that in 2004, he met with director Ang Lee, who offered him the role of Joe Aguirre. The suit alleges that Lee...

LOS ANGELES - Nicole Richie irritated a local family during taping of "The Simple Life" by asking an 11-year-old boy, in graphic language, if she looked attractive. The boy was playing basketball Wednesday in the driveway of his home. Richie, pushing a baby carriage, approached and questioned the youth about how she looked, using a profane word. Two camera operators and another crew taped the exchange. The boy's father refused the crew's request that he sign a release giving them the right to use the clip with his son. Instead he complained to the show's production company. "The Simple Life,"...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. A Mescalero Apache family in southern New Mexico has sued the producers of Steven Spielberg's television miniseries, "Into the West," claiming a set stylist cut an 8-year-old girl's hair without regard for tribal customs. "It's part of our culture not to cut a girl's hair until her Coming of Age ceremony," the girl's father, Danny Ponce, said Friday in a telephone interview. "The only ones allowed to do that are the parents. Nobody asked for permission." Ponce filed suit in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque on March 6, naming Turner Films Inc. and the unknown stylist as defendants....

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - Maureen Stapleton, an Oscar-winning character actress whose subtle vulnerability and down-to-earth toughness earned her dramatic and comedic roles on stage, screen, and television, died Monday. She was 80. The longtime smoker died from chronic pulmonary disease in the Berkshire hills town of Lenox, where she had been living, said her son, Daniel Allentuck. Stapleton, whose unremarkable, matronly appearance belied her star personality and talent, won an Academy Award in 1981 for her supporting role as anarchist-writer Emma Goldman in Warren Beatty's "Reds," about a left-wing American journalist who journeys to Russia to cover the Bolshevik Revolution. To...

Colombia's ambassador to the United States is criticizing Bruce Willis for comments he made during a press conference to promote his new film, "16 Blocks." The actor said the United States should consider "going to Colombia and doing whatever it takes to end the cocaine trade." In a harshly worded letter made public, Andres Pastrana told the actor that the source of the lucrative cocaine trade was an "enormous appetite for drugs, in particular in the United States and Europe." Pastrana, who as president in 2000 launched an anti-drug effort with billions in aid from the United States, added that...

When Christine Smith heard the song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" announced as the Oscar winner for best original song on Sunday night's telecast, she almost fell off the sofa in her Arlington living room. Deborah Veney Robinson of Silver Spring had pretty much the same reaction. So did Juaquin Jessup of Northwest Washington. "It was just like during the time when all the blaxploitation films were coming out with African Americans being portrayed as pimps and hos and gangsters," said Jessup, 51. "It was another example of how they pick the worst aspects of black life and...

In early 2005, Christians around the world were aghast but hardly surprised when The Passion of the Christ—a brilliant cinematic achievement in any previous age of the silver screen—was snubbed by the Academy Awards. What a difference a year makes? In this case, no difference. In 2006, the run-up to the Academy Awards became a three-week long public service announcement for an “alternative lifestyle” that a sizable majority of Americans find revolting. It is perhaps neither new nor surprising that the entertainment industry is dominated by narcissistic hedonists who seem to be in a race to see who can destroy...

'Muslim Madonna' - Brace for another muslims' riot, bloodshed Feb 24, 2006 Muslim pop singer Deeyah has irked the Muslim world with her provocative new music video that shows her stripping off a burka to reveal her bikini-clad body. Deeyah claims, the video, What will be? deals with Muslim women's rights and female empowerment, as it also features Muslim women who have fought for freedom of expression. The singer, who was born in Norway but moved to the UK after her act alienated her from the Muslim community, has been forced to cancel performances and hire a team of bodyguards...

LOS ANGELES - Film director Lee Tamahori pleaded no contest to criminal trespass in return for two prostitution charges against him being dropped, authorities said Thursday. The plea deal stemmed from Tamahori's Jan. 8 arrest for allegedly soliciting an undercover police officer in Hollywood and offering to perform a sex act for money. The two dropped charges, said city attorney spokesman Frank Mateljan, were misdemeanor counts of solicitation and loitering with the intent to commit prostitution. Tamahori, who was not present at the hearing in Superior Court, was placed on three years probation, ordered to attend an AIDS education course...