Priyanka refuses to shed clothes for Karan

 

Bollywood beauty Priyanka Chopra has told Karan Johar that she will not wear a bikini for his next movie. Karan wanted the former Miss World to tone her body to perfection and wear a sizzling bikini in the movie Dostana. The scene was to be shot at the sex frilled Miami beach. The actress however declined the offer and said that she was not willing to take her clothes off for anyone.

Karan has signed in Priyanka to star alongside Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham in the movie. The film is expected to be a remake of a 70s classic. Priyanka is currently struggling with her figure and has put on a lot of weight. Recently there were rumours that Madhur Bhandarkar might drop her from the movie Fashion if she doesn’t tone up her body in time

Celeb grapevine

Tuesday, 19 Feb 2008 15:13

Sir Paul and Heather battle on and Keira and Kylie in big in this week’s hottest celebrity stories.

In one of the most crucial slices of news to hit Tinseltown in recent months, the Hollywood writers voted to end their three-month strike this week, ending a hugely costly period of industrial action.

Movies and TV shows were cancelled, stars flip-flopped from project to project and with the 80th Academy awards lurching perilously close to suffering the same undignified press conference fate as the Golden Globes, Joan Rivers presumably grew intensely anxious at the thought of not being able to march brazenly up to celebrities on the red carpet and hassle them for information on their outfit.

But as one strike ends, the chance of another has arisen almost immediately. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) has not yet begun talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) before their current contract expires on June 30th and, fearful of another strike, top Hollywood stars including George Clooney have urged the union to begin talks immediately.

Movie studios have expressed their willingness to begin negotiations, but the SAG representatives are remaining reticent for the time being.

Could there really be another strike? Time will tell…

Liam Gallagher had a rather excellent week without any clashes with the paparazzi or arguments with his brother.Then again, it’s clear how much the Oasis frontman has matured by his decision to get married to Nicole Appleton on Valentine’s Day after nearly eight years together. Though getting married in the same spot in which he wed first wife Patsy Kensit does seem an odd decision…

He had some professional success as well, after Definitely, Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? were voted the two best British albums of all time. However, the fact that the poll placed Keane’s Under the Iron Sea above Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon shows it shouldn’t be taken entirely seriously.

By her standards, it was a fairly quiet week for Britney Spears, though we did learn that she apparently ‘doesn’t want custody’ of her kids, while her father was given increased control of her estate – probably for the best.

Avril Lavigne decided to steer clear of the recent scandal about her low pay for backing dancers and stuck her oar into the Britney mess, saying she feels bad for the Toxic star, while a man claiming to be Britney’s lawyer says granting her family control of her assets is a ‘civil rights violation’, though he undermined his case more than a little by bizarrely commenting: “In downtown Los Angeles I’m surrounded by people talking to themselves and having fits on the street.”

Why is he hanging around with crazy people?

Keira Knightley and Kylie Minogue were the big winners at the Elle Style awards while Hollywood great Mel Gibson had a slightly different success after completing a probation order for drunk-driving.

And finally, in a story that’s managed to make the news all week despite there being… well, little actual news at all, the divorce battle between Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills has rumbled on.

They arrived in court on Monday, with Heather’s father later saying she will leave the UK as soon as the case is completed.

However, there’s no telling when that will be, after the pair failed to reach a deal regarding a financial settlement, meaning that the judge ruling the case will now have the final say on the division of Sir Paul’s

Hollywood’s golden mystery man

Agence France-Presse
First Posted 09:38:00 02/20/2008

 
Javno.hr

 

HOLLYWOOD — The golden guy known to the world as the Oscar, the real star of Sunday’s Academy Awards, has become a Hollywood icon over the past 80 years, but the origin of his name is lost in time.

The venerable statuette, officially named the Academy Award of Merit, is the child of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which was created in 1927 as a small industry body to promote films.

Initially made up of 36 members with actor Douglas Fairbanks as its first president, the newly founded body created the golden trophy to honor performances by the industry’s leading actors, actresses and directors.

An art director from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, Cedric Gibbons, was selected to design the statuette — the figure of a knight standing on a reel of film, his hands gripping a sword.

From these humble beginnings was born an award that would become a global symbol of excellence.

The first Academy Awards were held on May 16, 1929 at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel.

They consisted of a simple dinner banquet attended by around 270 guests and Fairbanks handed out the 15 statuettes in just 15 minutes.

Ironically, the birthplace of the Oscars is just a short stroll from the Kodak Theatre, where more than 3,300 stars and Hollywood powerbrokers will gather for Sunday’s 80th annual Academy Awards ceremony.

Around 50 Oscars will be handed out during the glittering three-hour show, which over the years has expanded into a global spectacle with a red-carpet arrivals line that has become the world’s most glamorous fashion show.

Since the first awards ceremony, around 2,500 of the trophies have been handed out in an awards ceremony that has become bigger, glitzier and more glamorous over the years, with the exception of wartime shows.

The early editions of the statues were bronze, but during the World War II metals shortage, the trophies were made of plaster. Those were later redeemed for the now gold-plated ones.

The trophy, standing 34 centimeters (13.5 inches) tall and weighing 3.85 kilos (8.5 pounds), wasn’t always called an Oscar, but his form has not changed since his birth, except when his pedestal was raised 1945.

But the origin of the statuette’s nickname is unclear.

One legend has it that Academy librarian and eventual executive director Margaret Herrick thought it resembled her uncle Oscar and said so. Her staff began referring to it as Oscar.

Oscar-winner Bette Davis claimed she thought of the name because the nude statuette had a rear end that reminded her of the derriere of her husband Harmon Oscar Nelson.

Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky used the name in a 1934 column in referring to Katharine Hepburn’s first best actress win, but the Academy itself did not use the nickname officially until 1939.

Carried initially by radio, the Academy Awards were first televised in 1953 in black and white, making the jump to color in 1966.

In the early days, there was little suspense, as the results had been given to newspapers in advance for publication after the ceremony.

The invitation-only awards ceremony, which is now watched by up to one billion television viewers in more than 150 countries, has never been cancelled, though on rare occasion, the show was postponed.

Ceremonies were delayed in 1938 because of heavy flooding in Los Angeles, in 1968 after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, and in 1981 after the assassination attempt on one-time actor and then-president Ronald Reagan.

But just four days after the US-led war in Iraq erupted in 2003, the 75th anniversary edition of the show went ahead as scheduled, with only one nod to the circumstances — a smaller, more somber red carpet show.

Oscar has moved frequently over three-quarters of a century, shifting from hotels to venues such as the Dorothy Chandler Music Pavilion and the Shrine auditorium.

But in 2002, the Academy moved Hollywood’s biggest event into the new custom-built Kodak Theatre, a state-of-the-art auditorium in the heart of Hollywood, where Oscar was born