Jury gets case in Anna Nicole Smith drug trial

LOS ANGELES | Fri Oct 8, 2010 9:54pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The trial of three people charged with keeping former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith loaded up on painkillers went to the jury on Friday after two months of testimony.

Prosecutors ended final arguments, allowing the judge to hand the case to the 12-member jury that will decide whether Smith's companion, Howard K. Stern, and her two doctors, Khristine Eroshevich and Sandeep Kapoor, are sent to prison.

Jury deliberations will begin on Tuesday.

Smith, the fashion model and TV actress who was famous for marrying an 89-year-old billionaire, died in Florida in 2007 at age 39 from an accidental prescription drug overdose.

Stern and the doctors are not charged in her death but with unlawfully providing drugs and controlled substances to a known addict. If convicted, they could be sentenced to more than five years in prison.

All three have pleaded not guilty, and defense attorneys have offered several arguments, including that the case might never have gone to trial had Smith not been a Hollywood star.

Defense lawyers have said their clients cared for Smith and would not harm her. They add that the prosecution wants to paint her as an out-of-control drug addict when, they say, she used drugs to help her sleep and control severe pain.

Prosecutors said the defendants conspired to get Smith anti-depressants, muscle relaxers and anti-anxiety drugs by using false names and other means when they knew Smith had a history of drug problems. Smith was first treated for addiction in 1996, they said.

Judge Robert Perry last week threw out some of the charges against the defendants and criticized the prosecution for being overly aggressive.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Taylor Swift's ex-manager sues over contract dispute

By Matthew Belloni

Fri Oct 8, 2010 10:25pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Did Taylor Swift's father conspire to cheat her former manager out of millions of dollars earned by launching the Grammy-winning country star?

That's the question before a federal judge in New York in a case brought by Dan Dymtrow, a music manager who claims he's owed millions in commissions because he discovered Swift, signed her in April 2004 when she was 14 and played a key role in building her career before being dumped in July 2005, just before Swift signed with Big Machine Records and became an international sensation.

Dymtrow says his management deals with Swift and parents Scott and Andrea Swift provided that he be paid between 5 percent and 10 percent commission (or more) from Taylor's music career. But after developing Swift and introducing her to industry heavyweights like Big Machine CEO Scott Borchetta, Dymtrow says he was strung along by the family and then fired to avoid paying him.

"They delayed and delayed and got rid of my client and subsequently signed the deal and kept his commissions for themselves," Dymtrow attorney Fernando Pinguelo said.

In response, the Swifts claim that because Dymtrow failed to obtain the required court approval of his management contract with Taylor, then a minor, she legally disaffirmed the deal in 2005, months before she signed the Big Machine deal and a full year before she released her debut single, "Tim McGraw."

"For him to claim that her success and her major contracts were procured by him is ludicrous," said Swift's lawyer, Paul LiCalsi of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp. "And even if there were some merit to his claims, paying him on the contract would defeat the whole purpose of the law in New York, which is to protect minors who sign contracts."

Pinguelo retorted: "What the Swifts fail to realize is that the law also protects managers like Dan Dymtrow against minors and parents who take full advantage of his services without paying him what is owed."

The two sides have been battling under the radar since 2007, when Dymtrow, who also has represented Britney Spears, sued Taylor Swift and her parents, claiming they breached a management contract by paying him only $10,000 for his work launching Taylor's career. In March, U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan shot down six of Dymtrow's claims against the Swifts and Big Machine, leaving an unjust-enrichment claim against the Swifts intact.

On Wednesday, the two sides submitted a joint letter to the court seeking documents they hope will prove their cases.

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Comic book legend Stan Lee gets real

By Basil Katz

NEW YORK | Fri Oct 8, 2010 5:35pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Legendary comic book author Stan Lee is all set to cash in on reality TV -- sort of.

Lee, 87, who helped create Spider-Man, Iron Man, and The Incredible Hulk, told Reuters his new comic "Stan Lee's 7," will launch early next year featuring none other than himself as a key character, and it will be the first series from his new venture, Stan Lee Comics.

The stories, which will have a multi-media component on TV and the Web, tell of seven aliens who find themselves stranded on Earth after their spaceship crashes, and they are befriended by Lee. He becomes their leader and enables them to resume their lives as superheroes on earth.

"I wanted to cash in on the reality TV show craze," he said. "It's not only a new comic book with new super heroes, it is the world's first reality comic book," Lee said.

"Just as there are reality television shows, this comic book features real people in the superhero story. It features me. I am part of the cast of characters."

Lee, who said he keeps a cabinet stocked with 40 to 50 new comic book ideas at his New York office, is certain the appetite for superheroes and fantastic stories will never ebb, despite the recent explosion of TV shows and movies featuring people with extra-human powers.

"I don't think you ever outgrow your love for things that are bigger and more colorful than real life, and that's what superhero stories are: they're really fairy tales for older people," he said.

Lee's POW! Entertainment is working with Archie Comics, whose franchises include "Sabrina The Teenage Witch," and Los Angeles-based multimedia company A Squared Entertainment on the project which will also have a digital component in which the stories will be spun off into cartoons on TV or Webisodes.

The next two series Lee will write for Stan Lee Comics will be called "Airwalker" and "Legions," Archie Comics co-chief executive Jon Goldwater said.

"Stan Lee's 7" is not the first time Lee has put himself in his own work. In 1963, he and then collaborator Jack Kirby appeared as themselves on the cover of a "Fantastic Four" comic, and Lee has appeared in cameo roles in many movies based on the characters he helped to create for Marvel Comics.

(Reporting by Basil Katz; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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Warner Bros scraps 3-D plans for next "Harry Potter"

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Michelle Williams to play Marilyn Monroe in movie

LOS ANGELES | Fri Oct 8, 2010 2:23pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michelle Williams will play Marilyn Monroe in a new movie based around the iconic actress's 1956 film shoot in London opposite Sir Laurence Olivier, producers said on Friday.

Williams, 30, who earned an Oscar nomination for her 2005 role in "Brokeback Mountain" and also appeared in "Shutter Island", stars as Monroe alongside a British cast that sees Kenneth Branagh as Olivier, Julia Ormond playing actress Vivien Leigh and Judi Dench in the role of British screen veteran Dame Sybil Thorndike.

"My Week with Marilyn" chronicles a week in the life of Monroe as she escapes her Hollywood routine and is introduced to the pleasures of 1950s Britain by an assistant on the set of "The Prince and the Showgirl".

British actor Derek Jacobi, and young stars Dominic Cooper and Emma Watson of "Harry Potter" fame, will also appear, with Simon Curtis directing.

Work on the co-production between BBC Films, Trademark Films and the Weinstein Company has already started at Britain's Pinewood Studios, producers said.

The movie is the second planned film treatment of Monroe -- still one of the world's best-known sex symbols more than 40 years after her death.

Australian Naomi Watts is due to play Monroe in the Hollywood movie "Blonde" based on U.S. writer Joyce Carol Oates' 2000 fictional biography of the star. "Blonde" is expected to start shooting in early 2012.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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Yoko Ono says still getting over Lennon's death

By Birna Bjornsdottir

REYKJAVIK | Fri Oct 8, 2010 12:47pm EDT

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Artist and musician Yoko Ono said on Friday she was still getting over the death of her husband John Lennon, who was gunned down in New York nearly 30 years ago.

Speaking ahead of what would have been the ex-Beatle's 70th birthday on Saturday, Ono, 77, was in Iceland for the re-lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower that she created in memory of one of the world's must influential songwriters.

"Well, it was very hard because it was a sudden thing that happened, he wasn't ill for a long time or anything, it's just, we were talking before that you know, and, it was very hard," she told Reuters, recalling the moment Lennon was shot outside his apartment building in New York on December 8, 1980.

"I think I am getting over it in a kind of way, in my own unique way, but it's still lingering," she added.

The Imagine Peace Tower, consisting of searchlights reflected upward high into the sky, is located near Reykjavik in Iceland, and was unveiled in 2007 by Ono to symbolize wisdom, healing and joy.

The event in Reykjavik is one of several being organized around the world to mark the anniversary on October 9. Internet search site Google paid tribute to Lennon with a hand-drawn logo and mini-video based on his hit "Imagine".

"It's very interesting, you know, that songs like 'Gimme Some Truth' mean a lot now, and of course 'Give Peace a Chance'. ... 'Imagine'. All his political songs really have a lot of meaning right now for people," Ono said on Friday.

Before earning acclaim as a solo artist after The Beatles broke up in 1970, Lennon was also part of one of the 20th century's most successful songwriting partnerships alongside Paul McCartney.

The pair were responsible for a string of seminal hits, including "She Loves You," "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "A Hard Day's Night."

"MORE HONEST" POST-BEATLES

According to Ono, Lennon's music during and after the Beatles was of equal quality, but his later work was more sincere.

"Of course musically there was no difference in a sense that neither was inferior (to) the other," she said, when asked to compare the two phases of Lennon's musical career.

"I think that his direction changed a little ... I think he was more honest to himself after The Beatles."

Japanese-born Ono believes Lennon, who became a symbol of the anti-Vietnam war movement, would still be politically active were he alive today, but that after his death it was up to her to carry on his message of peace.

"We were partners and it was almost like we were in a battleground, really struggling you know, for peace, for world peace, against all odds.

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Johnny Depp makes surprise school visit in pirate gear

LONDON | Fri Oct 8, 2010 4:19am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Hollywood star Johnny Depp took "show and tell" to a new level at a London school when he turned up in full pirate regalia after a fan wrote to him seeking help stage a "mutiny," according to media reports.

Beatrice Delap, 9, wrote to Captain Jack Sparrow, Depp's character in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, asking for help with an uprising against teachers at Meridian Primary School in Greenwich, south-east London.

"We are a bunch of budding young pirates and we were having a bit of trouble mutiny-ing against the teachers, and we'd love if you could come and help," Delap wrote to Depp.

Depp, who is in south-east London filming the fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie "On Stranger Tides," gave the school 10 minutes notice on Wednesday that he was on his way.

The school quickly called an assembly and Depp walked in to gasps from the students, according to People magazine.

Depp, holding the letter, called Delap up to the front and hugged her but he dashed any thoughts of a rebellion.

"Maybe we shouldn't mutiny today because there are police outside monitoring me," Depp, a father of two, was quoted as saying.

(Writing by Elaine Lies, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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Zuckerberg takes staff to see "Social Network"

By Lindsay Powers

Fri Oct 8, 2010 2:27am EDT

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Mark Zuckerberg ended up seeing "The Social Network" after all.

The Facebook cofounder and CEO took his staff to a screening, a company spokesperson confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.

"To celebrate a period of intense activity at Facebook, we decided to go to the movies. We thought this particular movie might be amusing," the spokesperson said.

After the film, the group indulged in apple martinis, the same drink Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Zuckerberg, and Justin Timberlake (Napster's Sean Parker) drink in the Columbia Pictures film, wrote UsMagazine.com, which first reported the story.

Zuckerberg had said he wouldn't watch the movie, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher. But he called the film "fun" in an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to promote his $100 million donation to New Jersey schools (announced the same day the flick premiered at the New York Film Festival).

On Thursday, the "Social Network" cast landed in London to promote their movie ahead of the Oscars and U.K. BAFTA Awards. There, Timberlake admitted he "would have kicked the door down" for a role in the movie.

He also described a run-in with Parker. (He's the only cast member to have met his real-life alter ego.)

"I was coming out of a bar. He was going into one in New York," Timberlake said. "At the time I hadn't landed the part, so it was a bit awkward because he'd read on the Internet I was going to do it. I had to sheepishly tell him I hadn't been told if I had it yet or not."

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