Actor Jerry Orbach (search), who played a world-weary cop on TV’s “Law & Order” and put Baby in the corner in “Dirty Dancing,” has died of prostate cancer at 69, a representative of the show said Wednesday. Orbach died Tuesday night in Manhattan after several weeks of treatment, Audrey Davis of the public relations agency […]
Powerball Winner’s Wife Wishes He’d Torn Up Ticket
The world’s first glimpse of Jack Whittaker (search), winner of the richest undivided lottery jackpot in U.S. history, was of a boisterous, happy-go-lucky guy in a big cowboy hat who loved his family, work and God and promised to share his good fortune with the church and the poor. Two years later, the picture the […]
Workers Strike at Seven Atlantic City Casinos
About 10,000 casino hotel workers from more than half the city’s 12 casinos went on strike Friday, even though negotiators had reached a tentative agreement with three of the casinos. Members of Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union chanted and carried picket signs outside seven casinos after going on strike at […]
Ashlee Simpson Has ‘SNL’ Gaffe
Singer Ashlee Simpson’s (search) “extra help” may have been exposed when a “Saturday Night Live” audience heard her voice — singing the wrong song — while she held a microphone at her waist. Her record company blamed a computer glitch and she blamed her band for Sunday morning’s incident, which cut off her planned performance of the […]
Ingmar Bergman Reveals Secret Daughter
In a book to be published Monday, iconoclastic filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (search) reveals that he fathered a daughter outside of one of his five marriages, a secret he had kept for 45 years, his publisher said. Bergman, 86, who is widely considered one of cinema’s greatest directors, writes in the book he is the father of Maria von […]
Janet Leigh Dies at 77
Janet Leigh (search), the wholesome beauty whose shocking murder in the classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller “Psycho” was credited with making generations of film fans think twice about stepping into a motel room shower, has died. She was 77. The actress’ husband, Robert Brandt, and her daughters, actresses Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis (search), were at […]
Man Sentenced to Life for Stomping Death
A man who stomped another man to death in what prosecutors called an anti-Semitic attack outside a St. Louis diner was sentenced to life in prison, the maximum penalty. “This was a deliberate killing,” Circuit Judge David Mason told Kevin A. Johnson (search), 36, of St. Louis, before sentencing him Tuesday. Mason said jurors had […]
Actor Christopher Reeve Dead at 52
“Superman” actor Christopher Reeve (search), who turned personal tragedy into a public crusade and from his wheelchair became the nation’s most recognizable spokesman for spinal cord research, has died. He was 52. Reeve went into cardiac arrest Saturday while at his Pound Ridge home, then fell into a coma and died Sunday at a hospital […]
‘Showgirls’ Bares All in Self-Mocking DVD
It was “42nd Street” with pasties, “All About Eve” with a G-string. Only those movies were cinema classics, while “Showgirls (search )” was so bad that adjectives such as awful, wretched and appalling somehow seemed too kind. But if a film festers in video stores long enough, its audience eventually will sniff it out. Since […]
Tim McGraw Pauses for Reflection
The din of guitars and drums echo from a sound check while stagehands mill around and a helicopter whips the tree tops. “I guarantee that’s Big & Rich,” says country singer Tim McGraw (search), turning to see his opening act buzzing the amphitheater in a helicopter. “Usually, it’s a limo every day. Now they’re in helicopters. […]