Gossip/Celebrity News

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Dennis Quaid: I Battled Anorexia

Eating disorders are commonly thought to be a female problem, but Dennis Quaid speaks out to dispel that myth in a new interview with Best Life magazine.

The 51-year-old actor says he battled anorexia in the mid-1990s, around the time he shed 40 lbs. for the role of Doc Holliday in the film Wyatt Earp, the New York Post reports.

In the period the film portrays, Holliday was dying of tuberculosis, and Quaid lost the weight to capture the gaunt look of a man near death.

"My arms were so skinny that I couldn't pull myself out of a pool," Quaid admits, describing what he suffered from as "manorexia." "I wasn't bulimic, but I could understand what people go through with that."

But, like other people who suffer from the disease, he had an entirely different image of himself.

"I'd look in the mirror and still see a 180-lb. guy, even though I was 138 pounds," he says.

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Bada Bing! Tony's Back

Tony, Carmela and the family return for the final season of The Sopranos on Sunday. PEOPLE takes a look at what new trouble they'll face, plus other events to check out in the coming week:

SUNDAY, MARCH 12: The last we saw Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), he was running from the law. Now the Mafioso is back and heading straight for more trouble with the premiere of the sixth and final season of The Sopranos (9 p.m. ET on HBO). Carmela (Edie Falco), the kids (Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Robert Iler), Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) and the rest of the crew are back, including slimmed-down Celebrity Fit Club alum Joe Gannascoli, who plays Vito Spatafore.

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Russell Crowe: New Baby to Be a Boy

It will be a boy for Russell Crowe and his wife, actress Danielle Spencer, whose new arrival is due by July, the actor told Jay Leno on Friday's Tonight Show.

While news of the pregnancy broke in January, this was the first time Crowe, 41, had mentioned the sex of the new baby. He and Spencer, 34, already have a son, Charlie, who was born Dec. 21, 2003, in Sydney. (Crowe and Spencer married the previous April at Crowe's Australian cattle property.)

In making his announcement, the Gladiator Oscar winner told Leno: "Just for you, Charlie is going to have a brother."

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Brown grilled in Da Vinci Code copyright case

LONDON - The lawyer representing two historians who accuse Dan Brown of copying their work in his best-seller "The Da Vinci Code" said on Tuesday he suspected the author had lied in his evidence.

The 41-year-old Brown, in the witness box for the second day, was forced to defend his assertion that he had not read "The Holy Blood, and the Holy Grail" when he came up with the idea for his religious thriller.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, co-authors of the 1982 Holy Blood book who are suing Brown's British publisher Random House, say he lifted their ideas wholesale.

Part of Brown's defense has been to say that he had already written the synopsis for The Da Vinci Code, one of the most successful novels ever with sales of around 40 million copies, before he became familiar with the Holy Blood book.

"You acquired a copy of 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' before you accept in your evidence you did," said the historians' lawyer Jonathan Rayner James.

Brown countered that neither he nor his wife and assistant Blythe had used ideas from the book for his synopsis.

There are seven books listed in the partial bibliography for the Da Vinci Code synopsis, written in January, 2001, but Holy Blood is not among them.

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Jack Black Elopes with Tanya Haden

Actor-musician Jack Black has eloped with girlfriend Tanya Haden, PEOPLE has learned exclusively.

Black and Haden, who met at Crossroads, a private high school in Santa Monica, only recently started dating.



"They love each other very much. We're thrilled," the bride's father, jazz bassist Charlie Haden, tells PEOPLE.

Black, 36, is coming off the big-screen success of King Kong. His credits also include High Fidelity and School of Rock, and he's one half of the comedy-rock duo Tenacious D, with partner Kyle Gass. The pair is due to release a film later this year, Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny.

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Rockers Irate at Hall of Fame Induction

Backbiting by Blondie members and a bitter letter from the absent Sex Pistols helped color Monday night's 21st annual induction ceremony of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in New York's Waldorf-Astoria ballroom.

Also inducted: Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd and jazz trumpeter Miles Davis.

As Blondie's Deborah Harry, Chris Stein and Clem Burke received their awards, they barely acknowledged former members Frank Infante, Nigel Harrison and Gary Valentine, reports the Associated Press. The slight prompted Infante to plead to perform with the band: "Debbie, are we allowed?" he begged before Blondie played "Heart of Glass," "Rapture" and "Call Me."

"Can't you see my band is up there?" Harry snapped, prompting Infante to groan into the microphone as the three rejected members walked offstage.



The Sex Pistols declined the honor in a profane letter that compared the hall to "urine in wine." Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner read the letter, and invited the punk rockers to collect their trophies at the rock hall in Cleveland. "If they want to smash them into bits, they can do that, too," Wenner said.

A relatively sedate Ozzy Osbourne had previously badmouthed the hall for waiting a decade to induct Sabbath, but at the Waldorf he thanked his wife, Sharon, who sat in the ballroom with their daughters Kelly and Aimee.

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Phil Collins and His Wife Split

For now, they'll go on living "Separate Lives." British singer and songwriter Phil Collins and his wife of six years, Orianne, have decided to separate, the couple said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

Collins, who rose to fame with the progressive rock group Genesis before branching out as a solo star, will continue to live in Switzerland to be near to his two young children, Nicholas and Mathew, his publicist Mara Buxbaum said.

"They have decided in the interests of their two children that it is better to separate," Buxbaum said in a statement. "They are both very sad that it should come to this, but have as their priority the welfare and happiness of their children and are determined to remain friends and be loving parents to them."

Buxbaum said the couple have lived separately since the beginning of the year and have been growing apart for some time.

This was the third marriage for the rock star, who has three other children from his previous marriages.

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Carlie Brucia's Killer Sentenced to Death

Joseph Smith, the man convicted of abducting, raping and slaying 11-year-old Carlie Brucia, was sentenced to death by a judge in Sarasota, Fla., Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier, Smith had been sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole with credit for time served for Carlie's kidnapping and assault. The death sentence was for her murder.

Smith remained silent and showed no emotion as Judge Andrew Owens delivered the verdict. "By your actions," Owens told Smith, "you have forfeited your right to live freely in society ... you are hereby sentenced to death."

Smith nodded slightly when Owens said, "May God have mercy on your soul."

During a hearing last month, Smith tearfully apologized for his crimes. He told the judge that he took large amounts of heroin and cocaine and tried to kill himself before he abducted Carlie on Feb. 1, 2004.

Smith claimed he remembered little about that day and asked the judge to spare him for the sake of his family.

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Jackson to pay workers but Neverland still closed

LOS ANGELES - Pop star Michael Jackson has made arrangements to pay employees at his shuttered Neverland Valley Ranch for the first time since December, avoiding legal action by the state of California, authorities said on Wednesday.

But Neverland, which effectively was closed by the state last week because Jackson allowed his workers' compensation insurance to lapse, will remain shut down until the singer obtains the proper insurance, California Department of Industrial Relations spokesman Dean Fryer said.

"Mr. Jackson's representatives are working to secure workers' compensation insurance but they have not done so and without workers' comp they cannot employ workers at Neverland," Fryer said. "We did verify yesterday that there was no one at Neverland working."

California's labor commissioner had fined Jackson $100,000 and threatened to sue the 47-year-old entertainer unless he made good on at least $306,000 in back wages dating to December.

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Pavarotti postpones Brazil show due to ailment

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Tenor Luciano Pavarotti has postponed concerts in Latin America and Europe because of health problems, a Brazilian state media office said on Wednesday.

The Italian star was taken to a hospital in New York on Tuesday night, the Minas Gerais state government said.

Pavarotti was scheduled to appear in a concert in Belo Horizonte, in Minas Gerais state, on Saturday.

"According to a statement from the artist's agents, Terri Robson and Harvey Goldsmith, the shows in Pavarotti's world tour in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Portugal and Bosnia were postponed for at least 60 days until the tenor has recovered," a statement from the Minas Gerais press office said.

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Jessica Simpson snubs Bush

LOS ANGELES- Concerned about politicizing her favorite charity, singer-actress Jessica Simpson on Wednesday turned down a invitation to meet with U.S.President George W. Bush, a snub that left Republicans dismayed.

The apparent final word that Simpson would be a no-show at a major Republican fund-raiser with Bush and congressional leaders on Thursday night came after a day of conflicting reports from her camp and organizers of the event.

The blond star of the film "The Dukes of Hazzard" still plans to visit Washington on Thursday to lobby members of Congress on behalf of Operation Smile, a non-profit venture offering free plastic surgery for disadvantaged children overseas with facial deformities.

People close to Simpson said she declined a request to appear that same evening at the gala fund-raiser of the National Republican Congressional Committee -- even after she was offered some private face time with Bush -- because Operation Smile is a non-partisan group.

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Angelina Jolie o Brad Pitt engar emrooz daran maraseme aroosishoono migiran dar Como ye shahre palooye Milan....