Top Story
Calling all diamond lovers: betcha don’t have a diamond CD! In honor of her 15 million album and single sales in the U.K., Celine Dion was given a solid silver CD Thursday by U.K. radio station Capital FM, Launch Music reports. The disk, made by the Queen of England’s jewelers, has more than 2.5 carats of diamonds sprinkled on it.
But wait…it can be yours! Celine is auctioning off the one-of-a-kind disk on March 31, to benefit Help A London Child charity. Go to http://sonymusic.co.uk/celinedion/hmvbid to place your bid.
In General
Janet Reno is headed to Hollywood this week, The Associated Press reports. On Tuesday, the former U.S. attorney general is booked to interview with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. As Florida’s 2002 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Reno is looking to get as much publicity as possible.
Rosie O’Donnell is showing Florida she’s really serious about their law that bans gays from adopting children. The AP reports the talk-show host purchased full-page ads in various Florida newspapers urging the Legislature to change the current adoption law.
The Oscar-nominated film Memento will air on TV’s Starz! channel beginning in June. Starz! paid $3.5 million for exclusive TV rights to the independent thriller about a man who suffers from severe memory loss while in search of his wife’s killer.
In more Memento news, four honors were bestowed upon the film at Saturday’s Independent Spirit Awards, including best feature, best director (Christopher Nolan), best screenplay and best supporting female actress (Carrie-Anne Moss).
There’s certainly no shortage of awards ceremonies in Hollywood these days. The Golden Raspberry Awards–a spoof show held on the eve of the Academy Awards–were held Saturday, and Tom Green won five “Razzies” for Freddy Got Fingered. According to the AP, Green is the only actor in “Razzies” history to attend the awards and collect his prizes.
The man who popularized the phrase “rock ‘n’ roll,” the late DJ Alan Freed, can be found in a new final resting place, the AP reports. As of Wednesday, March 20, a brass urn containing Freed‘s ashes, was moved from a mausoleum in N.Y. to an undisclosed wall at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Lance Freed, Alan’s son, approved of the transfer saying, “he lived for…the music.”
One of Hollywood’s most popular romantic leads of the 1970s, Ryan O’Neal, will appear as a presenter at tonight’s Academy Awards, despite his yearlong battle with leukemia, Reuters reports. Paper Moon, Love Story and Barry Lyndon–the latter of which he played opposite his daughter, Tatum O’Neal-are just a few of the films to O’Neal’s credit.
Spike Lee (Malcolm X, Summer of Sam), spoke about the need for blacks to be in power positions in the movie industry at the East Lansing Film Festival in Michigan. Lee, never one to shy away from controversy, said that blacks play token roles in too many feature films.
