Chronic back problems haven’t turned Elizabeth Taylor into a shrinking violet.
The winner of two Academy Awards was swathed in her trademark jewels when she made a regal public entrance to dedicate the new UCLA clinical AIDS research and education center.
In front of an intimate crowd that included rocker Tom Petty and actress Carrie Fisher, Taylor cut a red ribbon to signify the center’s official opening Friday and announced the creation of the Elizabeth Taylor Endowment Fund, which will support the center through grants and private donations.
“Acting is, to me now, artificial,” said Taylor, who won Oscars for 1960’s “Butterfield 8” and 1966’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” “Seeing people suffer is real.”
Actress Sutton Foster fell and broke her arm while rehearsing “I’m an Accident Waiting to Happen” last week for the musical “The Drowsy Chaperone.”
“I wasn’t even dancing,” the Tony winner said. “I was just stepping backward, and my feet went forward, and I fell backward and caught myself with my hands.”
“The Drowsy Chaperone” is still scheduled to open Nov. 18 at Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theatre, but Foster said she’ll have to modify her performance, dropping some routines.
Foster won a Tony in 2002 for the Broadway production of “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”
Roberto Benigni says he’s grateful to the United States for bringing film to the world.
“There is nothing that has brought them to the world like cinema has,” Benigni said during a meeting with the foreign media. “I’m grateful to the United States for the art of cinema.”
The 53-year-old actor-director said there are huge differences between Italy and the United States, and that every time he travels to the U.S., he is struck by the difference in colors and smells.
Benigni is promoting his new film, “La Tigre e la Neve (The Tiger and the Snow),” a comedy set in today’s war-torn Iraq. His co-star is real-life wife Nicoletta Braschi. He and Braschi starred in “Life is Beautiful.”
Dolly Parton will take part in a groundbreaking ceremony this week for a planned entertainment complex in northeastern North Carolina.
The ceremony for the $129 million project is scheduled Friday in Roanoke Rapids, where the entertainment complex will be constructed along Interstate 95, organizers said.
Parton’s brother, country-gospel entertainer Randy Parton, plans to operate the complex.
Officials hope it will be the first of a number of similar operations in the region.
The 1,500-seat Randy Parton theater is scheduled to open in April 2007 as the centerpiece of a planned 800-acre music and entertainment district at the complex.
Regrets? Ferrell’s had a few
Actor Will Ferrell shared one regret as he surprised winners of the state high school play festival in Greensboro, N.C.
“I regret the fact that I didn’t participate in high school drama in any fashion,” Ferrell, 38, told students Friday night. “You are way ahead of where I was, so congratulate yourselves for that.”
Students screamed when Ferrell walked onto the stage at Greensboro College.
“It’s Will Ferrell! I love you, Will!” the students yelled.
“I love you, too!” he yelled back.
Ferrell handed the festival’s top honors to Union Pines High School in Cameron and Parkwood High School in Monroe.
