Ailing
Benicio Del Toro needs to allow his broken wrist to heal for at least one month longer before he returns to the set of his new film, The Hunted, Reuters reports. Del Toro, who is wearing a sling during a trip to Cuba to introduce free screenings of Traffic, broke his wrist in April during a fight scene with The Hunted costar Tommy Lee Jones.
Radio commentator Paul Harvey will receive outpatient surgery later this month to fix a vocal cord damaged by a virus, The Associated Press reports. Harvey, famous for his The Rest of the Story radio program, went off the air in May and will likely return at the end of August.
In Court
Warning to celebrities everywhere: think twice the next time that you stop to sign an autograph. Rap mogul Sean “Puffy” Combs stopped Tuesday to give his John Hancock to fans in New York, only to be entrapped by a process server, according to the New York Post‘s PageSix.com. Kim Porter, the mother of Combs‘ youngest son, Christian, is reportedly suing Combs for child support. Porter wants more than the $7,000 a month that Combs currently pays.
Former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith must pay $541,000 in attorney’s fees, a Texas judge said Tuesday, Reuters reported. Smith also must pay an unspecified part of the $1.2 million in court costs stemming from her six-year fight over the fortune of her late husband, oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall III. A Los Angeles bankruptcy judge awarded Smith $475 million from the estate in June. That decision is now being reviewed following an appeal by Marshall’s son, Pierce, who contends that Smith, 33, is a golddigger. Smith married the wheelchair-bound Marshall when she was 26 and he was 89.
Paula Poundstone has postponed a comedy tour after pleading not guilty last week to charges of committing lewd acts on a child and child endangerment, People magazine reports. She is in rehab for treatment of alcohol abuse, her attorney said Monday, and will return to court July 30.
In General
Harrison Ford once again came to the rescue of a hiker in trouble. He helped locate a missing Utah Boy Scout who wandered off a trail Monday and spent the night alone in the woods of the Yellowstone National Park in Jackson, Wyo., The Associated Press reports. Ford, a part-time Jackson resident, flew his helicopter as part of the search-and-rescue mission. Ford and another searcher found the cold and hungry Cody Clawson, 13, on Tuesday morning about 10 miles from the Boy Scout camp. Last year, Ford rescued a sick hiker stranded on Wyoming’s Table Mountain and flew her to a hospital.
Former Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert is planning to run for president of the factionalized Screen Actors Guild, The Associated Press reports. William Daniels, SAG’s current president, has not said whether he would seek a second term. Union members will receive elections ballots in mid-October, with the results scheduled for announcement in early November.
Is one stage big enough for both the so-called King of Pop and the Godfather? Marlon Brando will pay homage to Michael Jackson at the Sept. 7 all-star concert in Jackson‘s honor, Launch.com reports. The legendary actor will join such other luminaries as Whitney Houston, Britney Spears and Ricky Martin during two concerts scheduled for Sept. 7 and Sept. 10.
DreamWorks will need to pony up $35,000 an hour if it wants Eddie Murphy to continue to act like a donkey. Murphy, Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz are each negotiating a $35,000 hourly fee to lend their voices to the planned Shrek sequel, Variety reports. This could net the trio $5 million each. Final negotiations are set for later this week.
Forget about asking Madonna for a free ticket to her sold-out series of U.S. concerts. The Material Girl turned down requests for complimentary tickets by the likes of Mick Jagger, Elton John and George Michael, who all dug deep into their pockets to pay $125 to catch her perform in London. “If you want a ticket for one of her shows, you have to pay,” Madonna spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg told the New York Post.
The Hawaii-set Magnum, P.I. went off the air in 1988, but it’s taken star Tom Selleck 13 years to put his Oahu house on the market. Avid fans can snap up Selleck‘s three-bedroom house for $2.7 million, The Associated Press reports. He bought the house–which overlooks the Kahala coast–in 1981 for $700,000.
Life is not beautiful for Andrew Lloyd Webber. His new musical, the Irish soccer-themed The Beautiful Game, will close Sept. 26 despite good reviews and plenty of awards. The musical is one of many victims of a slump in tourism that has crippled London’s West End theater district. But the show will go on: Webber plans to stage the musical next year in Toronto.
The West Coast board of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists approved Tuesday a tentative three-year deal with studios and TV networks, Variety reports. SAG’s East Coast board will address the deal–which includes a hike in the minimum pay scale in the ballpark of 3 percent to 3.5 percent annually over three years- on Thursday. Union members will then likely receive mail ballots within three weeks.
