Matt Damon |
HOLLYWOOD - Top Story
According to the New York Post, Matt Damon will wed girlfriend Odessa Whitmire, once the personal assistant of Damon's best friend Ben Affleck. Reports say Damon announced the engagement last Wednesday at a New York benefit hosted by George Clooney. Damon met the 27-year-old Whitmire when Ben Affleck checked into rehab in September 2001. Maybe a double wedding is in the works?
Celebs
Screenwriter Frederick Knott, best known for penning the tense dramas Dial M for Murder and Wait Until Dark, died of unknown causes last Tuesday in his home in New York City. He was 86. Producer Sidney Glazier, best known for producing Mel Brooks' 1968 comedy classic The Producers as well as being an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, died Dec. 14 of natural causes in Vermont. He was 86.Tube
Friends will be back for a 10th season. NBC has agreed to pay $10 million an episode for the fabulous sextet to return, making it the most expensive half-hour primetime show in history. Variety reports the sitcom's return, however, will be shortened to 18 episodes instead of the regular 22 or 23 to accommodate "quality of life," especially on the part of star Jennifer Aniston, who, reports say, wants to start a family.According to The Hollywood Reporter, NBC will move the premiere of their midseason drama Kingpin from March to the February sweeps. The show is about a powerful Mexican family involved in the drug trade. The limited six-episode run will air Sundays and Tuesdays at 10 p.m. starting Feb. 2.Cable network F/X is developing a new reality series called What It Feels Like, based on an annual Esquire magazine series of articles. The series, which debuted last year, features firsthand accounts of experiences such as being bitten by a shark or surviving an avalanche. Music
Bad-boy rapper Eminem's music topped 2002's music sales, according to the RIAA's year-end figures. The Detroit rapper's latest album, The Eminem Show, as well as the triple-platinum soundtrack to his film 8 Mile, were the top-selling albums of the year, with combined sales of 22 million copies.Mexican pop singer Gloria Trevi, known as "Mexico's Madonna," was extradited from Brazil to the Mexican city of Chihuahua Saturday, where she is awaiting trial on charges of kidnapping and rape. Trevi has been accused of recruiting teenage girls to join her entourage for live-in musical training but in return they were to have sex with her manager and ex-husband Sergio Andrade.