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Actress EMMA THOMPSON has turned to MADONNA’s fitness expert in an effort to get in shape.
The beloved Brit admits she has always struggled to look good - and now has turned to Tracy Anderson for a little extra help.
Thompson says, "I’m not the sort of person… who can say ‘I’m completely happy whatever shape I’m in.’ "That means I have to work hard to regain a shape I’m happy with, which is very feminine. I’ve never been a skinny monkey." As for her new regime, Thompson tells More magazine, "It’s a combination of stuff: cardio and running around until you start to sweat and go red in the face."

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Pop star HILARY DUFF is set to play a young lawyer in a new TV sitcom.
The singer/actress, who made her mark as Disney’s Lizzie McGuire, is to star in Barely Legal for Fox.
The sitcom is based on the true story of Kathleen Holtz, who in 2007 passed the notoriously difficult California bar at age 18 to become the state’s youngest lawyer.
Duff, 21, signed a production deal with Fox and producer Universal Media Studios in 2008.

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Actress TARAJI P. HENSON has offered to babysit for her THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON co-star BRAD PITT and ANGELINA JOLIE after accidentally marrying the pair off in a recent interview.
Henson created a gossip storm when she referred to Pitt as Jolie’s "husband" on the red carpet at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in California earlier this month (Jan09), and now she’s keen to make amends - fearing she has upset the couple.
Backtracking, she says, "It was a slip. I mean, they have a family, they live together. What is married really? It’s like they are married." And, if she has caused problems for the unwed celebrity couple, she has already come up with a way to make things up to them.
She tells Eonline.com, "I told Angelina, ‘I will babysit for you anytime.’ All the kids are very adorable. They’re good, good kids."

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A settlement has been reached in the legal battle surrounding the nude and semi-nude photographs taken during MARILYN MONROE’s famous Last Sitting.
The seven erotic photos were taken in 1962 by Vogue photographer Bert Stern just six weeks before the icon’s drug-overdose death.
In a lawsuit filed against Michael Weiss and Donald Penny in September (08), Stern claimed the pair attempted to sell him back the snaps 40 years after he loaned them to the former editors of now-defunct magazine Eros.
Stern claimed the photos are worth $100,000 (GBP66,670) each, and was suing for $700,000 (GBP466,670) and $1 million (GBP666,670) in punitive damages and legal fees.
Weiss and Penny’s lawyer Jamie Brickell, and Stern’s lawyer, Stephen Weingrad, have confirmed the dispute has been settled "amicably".
Nine sets of photos from the transparencies will be produced and sold as a joint project between the parties, according to the Associated Press.

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THE SOPRANOS star JAMES GANDOLFINI is returning to Broadway in the hit show which won RALPH FIENNES critical acclaim on the London stage.
The actor will take the stage in Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage, a four-character play about two clashing middle-class couples.
The London production starred Fiennes and Janet McTeer.
The performance follows Gandolfini’s six-month stint in the 1992 Broadway production of On the Waterfront.
The New York show, which will also feature Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis and Marcia Gay Harden, is scheduled to open on 22 March (09), with preview performances beginning on 28 February (09).

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Golden Globe Award winner MICKEY ROURKE’s sisters have come to the star’s defence following a scathing New York Times article written from his stepfather’s viewpoint.
Rourke has often blamed his stepdad for his brutal youth in interviews and the man at the centre of the actor’s torment recently hit back by giving his version of events to the newspaper.
He painted Rourke as a fake, who made up stories about his youth to justify his tough-guy image.
But the actor’s sister and stepsister recently rallied for their brother, telling the Times that Rourke’s version of events was the correct one.
And now The Wrestler star is fighting back with a piece in U.S. magazine Men’s Journal.
He says, "I studied and struggled and persevered and concentrated and focused like a f**king monk to be the actor that I am, and then I threw it all away.
"You don’t do that unless you got issues, and those issues are f**king real.
And there’s no grey there. They’re all f**king black and white."

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DAMON DASH’s ex-girlfriend is making a new bid for custody of their 17-year-old son, insisting the rap mogul is a bad influence on the kid.
A court ordered Linda Williams to hand over Damon ‘Boogie’ Jr to Dash back in September (08), but she alleges her ex is a bad dad; fuming at reports he took their underage son to a nightclub on New Year’s Eve (31Dec08) to teach him how to DJ.
Williams is also upset about claims her ex is letting their son skip school.
She tells the New York Post, "A child should not be in an adult club that serves alcohol. Did anyone even check his ID? His father should stop trying to make a dollar off him and get him back into high school.
"I’m happy for my son that he is pursuing DJing, but not at the expense of school." The pair are due to clash in court at the next custody hearing next week (begs 19Jan09).
Dash has offered no comment.

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Singer CHARLOTTE CHURCH and her rugby star husband GAVIN HENSON have named their newborn baby boy DEXTER LLOYD.
The couple welcomed their second child on Sunday (11Jan09) at their farmhouse in the Vale of Glamorgan, in her native Wales.
The baby weighed in at seven pounds, five ounces (3.3 kilograms).
According to a posting on the couple’s website, Gavin and Charlotte chose the name "in keeping with the Henson family tradition".
Church and Henson first became parents when daughter Ruby Megan Henson was born in September 2007.

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Slain rapper NOTORIOUS B.I.G. was a secret softy whose mum called him Crissy-Poo behind closed doors.
The star - immortalised in new biopic Notorious - faced the world as a tough, hard-talking hip hop star.
But his mother Voletta Wallace insists he was a different person in her Brooklyn, New York family home.
Voletta tells the New York Post, "When he was small he loved Winnie The Pooh, so I combined his name with it. He didn’t want me calling him that, especially when I was doing an interview with a magazine. He didn’t want people to see that side of him. He had an image to maintain." The rapper - real name Christopher Wallace - was shot dead in Los Angeles in 1997.

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Rapper THE GAME’s sister SHERANI TAYLOR has spoken of her drive-by shooting nightmare for the first time as she recovers from the 2008 incident.
The hip-hop star, aka B-Fly, was recording at home in Compton, Los Angeles when she stepped outside for a break and was shot in the hip.
Luckily she was left with only a flesh wound - and she’s convinced the bullet wasn’t meant for her.
Now, walking with a limp, Taylor tells U.S. magazine Sister 2 Sister, "I’ll never believe what happened in that two minutes. My life changed.
"I heard a bullet fly. I didn’t think it was aimed toward my area… The next thing you know, they just started firing… I started to run. I fell… I thought I tripped over.
"My friend, he ended up grabbing my arm, helping me get up. I got up on my feet… and I just felt something drip down my back. I turned around and I just went into shock. I passed out.
"The doctor told me that it was a flesh wound; I had gotten grazed… The bullet looked like it just landed in my skin and sat there for five minutes and then fell out."

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An appeals court in Italy has ruled pop superstar PRINCE stole his THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE WORLD hit from two European songwriters.
Officials at the Court of Appeal in Rome have decided the 1994 hit borrowed heavily from Bruno Bergonzi and Michele Vicino’s Takin’ Me to Paradise.
Under the ruling, Prince must stop distributing the song on Italian territory. He also faces having to pay the royalties he has so far accumulated to Bergonzi and Vicino and their publishers, but only if a final hearing confirms the Italian songwriting duo was plagiarised.
Bergonzi and Vicino’s tune was a small European pop hit in 1983.
Bergonzi tells Billboard.com, "When we first heard Prince’s song we immediately took action, but this case has been dragging on for 15 years and it isn’t over yet, such is the slowness of the Italian legal system. We only decided to go public with our story now." A court originally rejected the songwriters’ claim in 2003.
For a sentence to become definitive in Italy, a "third degree" ruling is necessary.
Claudio Buja, the head of Prince’s new label Universal Music Publishing in Italy, tells the website, "We are waiting to see the outcome of the third and final sentence. We’re wary of making a comment at this stage, but I can say that plagiarism cases are invariably delicate and difficult."

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BONO and BEYONCE have joined THE BOSS, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, among the stars kicking off BARACK OBAMA’s presidential inauguration celebrations next weekend (18Jan09).
A host of stars will perform at a free show at Washington D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial on Sunday.
As well as Bono, Beyonce and Springsteen, the all-star concert will feature Mary J. Blige, Garth Brooks, Usher, Shakira, and Sheryl Crow.
The show is being billed We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial.
Queen Latifah, Jamie Foxx and Denzel Washington will be among those giving historical readings at the event.
Obama will officially become the new U.S. president on 20 January (09).
On the eve of the big event, the Beastie Boys and Sheryl Crow will co-headline the Hey, America Feels Kinda Cool Again event at Washington’s 9:30 club.
Also part of the 10-day celebrations are WAR, Marc Anthony, Wynton Marsalis, Josh Groban, John Legend, Stevie Wonder and John Mellencamp.
Soul queen Aretha Franklin is hotly tipped to perform at the inauguration itself.

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KANYE WEST has accused magazine bosses of digitally ageing his photograph on the cover of the new issue of Vibe magazine.
The Stronger rapper fronts the February (09) issue of the publication, but West claims his image must have been digitally altered - because he hasn’t got a grey hair on his head.
And the 31-year-old has likened his ‘ageing’ to Brad Pitt’s character in new film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, about a man who ages backwards.
He writes on his website, "I don’t have grey in my beard in real life!!! "I’m all down with being in my 30’s but daaaaaaaamn!!!! This is some Benjamin Button’s s**t!"

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New York City schools are using DANIEL CRAIG’s new World War II film DEFIANCE to teach courses about the Holocaust.
The film follows two Jewish brothers who help to save more than 1,200 Jews by organising a hidden village in the Polish forest.
And the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation has developed the website jewishpartisans.org, urging city schools to use the film as part of the online curriculum.
Alice Braziller, who teaches at Manhattan’s Satellite Academy High School/HS570 tells the New York Daily News, "Very often students, when studying this history, think of Jews as being very passive.
"I don’t think you should teach the Holocaust unless you’re also talking about resistance."

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BRITNEY SPEARS’ former manager JOHNNY WRIGHT has slammed the pop star’s minders - insisting they’ve ignored her best interests and pushed her into making a comeback.
The pop star is preparing for a whirlwind tour following the release of her highly-anticipated album Circus, and has reportedly swapped the team of choreographers who helped launch her to fame to work with Madonna’s choreographer Jamie King for the show.
The switch was followed by the star officially handing legal and permanent conservatorship of her estate over to her father Jamie last Wednesday (07Jan09) - almost a year after he was first put in charge of his daughter’s affairs.
And Wright, who parted ways with Spears in 2003, insists she’s not ready to return to the spotlight.
He tells America’s OK! magazine, "A comeback is not what I wish for Britney.
What I wish for her is to settle down and find real happiness. All her essential relationships have been torn apart. She’s been divorced twice, she doesn’t have custody of her kids, she’s being pushed back into being a money machine.
"I want her to be happy in her heart, then go back to the business because she wants to, not because people are convincing her she has to, or that it would be good therapy for her. It’s too soon for her to be a part of a manufactured machine that is pushing her to have to be a success.
"It was very telling when I found out Wade and Andre were no longer with the tour. They helped create the best tours we ever had with Britney. Wade is a really good influence and understands her. When I heard he was no longer involved, I knew there was a problem, and it is probably just the beginning of more problems to come.
"Britney has to rival Madonna out there, but Madonna really wants to do it.
Seeing Britney do it by the numbers isn’t a good sign. It means she might not want it as much as those around her do… Her career can wait. Now it should be about spending time with her kids. That’s where she’ll bring herself back to herself. But she’s gearing up for much more time away from them while on the road.
"Even if she’s gone for a month, the growth of those boys during that period is significant. She won’t see that and will really miss that. Those are moments she’s not going to get back." Jamie Spears was made a co-conservator of his daughter’s legal, financial and personal dealings in February 2008 following a public breakdown, in which the singer was hospitalised to undergo a mental evaluation.

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A representative for KATE HUDSON has played down rumours the actress is dating MADONNA’s alleged former lover ALEX RODRIGUEZ, insisting they were out as part of "a group".
The Almost Famous beauty prompted rumours of a new romance after she was spotted leaving Lure Fishbar in Manhattan, New York last week (ends11Jan09) with baseball star Rodriguez close behind.
They were then spotted in a bar together later that night, where they met up with Hudson’s pal Ron Burkle.
But Hudson’s spokesperson insists their outing was not a date, claiming the actress was at the restaurant with "a group of 10 people".
Hudson has previously dated cycling champion Lance Armstrong, and actor Owen Wilson, while Rodriguez split from his wife Cynthia last year (08) amid claims he was having an "affair of the heart" with the now-divorced Madonna.

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JOHN TRAVOLTA and wife KELLY PRESTON have published a letter thanking the residents of their adopted home of Ocala, Florida for their well wishes as they deal with the death of their 16-year-old son.
Jett Travolta died after suffering a seizure on 2 January (09) while vacationing with his family in the Bahamas.
The couple and its four-year-old daughter Ella, addressed the letter to ‘The People of Ocala’, thanking its residents for their support as they deal with an "impossibly painful situation".
Through family attorney Michael McDermott, they write: "The enormous amount of love, support and condolence we have received from this community has been most humbling. Comforting words, thoughts and prayers of Ocala’s citizens have made an impossibly painful situation, a little less painful.
"The actions of Ocala’s community leaders, its law enforcement professionals, our neighbours at Jumbolair and its surrounding communities have offered us the dignity to grieve the loss of our son and Ella’s brother in peace. For this we will always be grateful.
"From the people who drove hours to drop off cards and flowers at our doorstep, to the service providers who made Jett’s ceremony so beautiful, thank you. Every person who we have encountered has offered to do anything in their power to help us, but add that they feel powerless to do so. We want all of you to know that you have already helped us. By sharing our grief, you lessen our burden. For all of the people who have kept Jett in their prayers, know that those prayers have given us inspiration and strength.
"What we have experienced in Ocala transcends neighbourly civility. We have been treated as family. Although we lost a good part of the joy and radiance of our family, your embracing us as a member of your own has helped us to contend with our loss.
"In parting, we want all of you to cherish your loved ones and your friends like there was no tomorrow, to live your lives to the fullest by continuing to help one another, and to be true to yourselves. - Love John, Kelly and Ella." A memorial service was held for Jett in the city on Thursday (08Jan09), where Lisa Marie Presley, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood were among the celebrity guests.

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American actress CHERYL HOLDRIDGE has lost a two-year battle with lung cancer at the age of 64.
Holdridge, who starred as a Mouseketeer on hit 1950s series The Mickey Mouse Club, died last Tuesday (06Jan09) at her home in Santa Monica, California.
She became a Mouseketeer in 1956 at the start of the second season of the children’s show, and continued her TV success playing Wally Cleaver’s girlfriend for two seasons of Leave It to Beaver.
Holdridge also had guest roles on American TV series Bewitched and The Dick Van Dyke Show, among others.
She has no known survivors.

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