For those wondering, much-married screen icon Richard Burton was not gay. So say family members who are ticked by a new book (“The Most Beautiful Woman in the World” — a biography of Burton‘s ex Elizabeth Taylor) that says the actor had an affair with master thespian Laurence Olivier, whom latter-day biographies also have said that he was gay.
Burton‘s brother, Graham Jenkins, tells the BBC that his sibling was “the most heterosexual man most people had ever encountered.”
Burton died in 1984 at age 58 of a brain hemorrhage. He was married five times, including twice to Taylor.
“LIFE” DEATH: Russell Crowe‘s double for the upcoming romantic-drama “Proof of Life” was killed in a one-car auto crash Sunday in Ecuador. Five other crew members were injured in the accident that occurred when the pickup they were riding in rolled 450 feet down a mountain.
IT HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PAYCHECK: Wondering why “The View” co-host Lisa Ling has turned Old Navy pitchwoman? It was the message. “[The commercial] says women can choose capri pants over hot guys if we want to,” Ling, 26, said in an address at Duke University on Friday.
AND RODNEY DANGERFIELD IS THE SIX MILLLION DOLLAR MAN: Comic Phyllis Diller, 82, says that after recent surgeries to install a pacemaker and a new hip, she’s “the bionic woman.”
OBITUARY: Screen vet Claire Trevor, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her turn in the 1948 Bogie-Bacall classic “Key Largo,” died Saturday in Newport Beach, Calif. She was 91.
HE SEES PUBERTY: “The Sixth Sense” tyke Haley Joel Osment turns 12 today.
