The director of the Los Angeles Zoo on Saturday disputed game show host Bob Barker’s comments about the condition of the zoo’s three elephants.
Barker pleaded Friday with the City Council to close the zoo’s elephant exhibit, saying that the pachyderms lived in misery and that two of the three elephants were ill.
“His information was wrong,” said John Lewis, the zoo’s director. “He was making statements that were just factually untrue.”
Two of the zoo’s elephants, Billy and Ruby, are healthy physically and mentally, Lewis said. Gita has been recovering from October surgery for a foot injury and has been behaving normally, he said.
Barker, the 82-year-old host of “The Price is Right” and a longtime animal rights activist, stood by his remarks Saturday, saying that Gita has had continuous problems with her feet and she continues to stand on concrete and packed soil. He also said that Ruby is under emotional stress and that the elephant has started to sway back and forth for hours at a time.
The mayor and City Council will decide on whether the new elephant exhibit will move forward.
Actor Christian Slater is seeking joint custody of his 4-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son, according to refiled divorce papers.
The documents, filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, also indicate that Slater wants to divide property under terms of a written agreement between him and estranged wife Ryan Haddon. Terms were not disclosed.
Slater, 36, first filed papers in February 2005 to end his marriage to the television producer, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple married on Valentine’s Day in 2000. They separated on Jan. 1, 2004, according to the new papers.
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Ian McKellen says he’s enjoying a late burst of global fame and still has “a lot of life left” after a decades-long acting career that earned him a lifetime achievement award at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.
McKellen, 66, was picking up an honorary Golden Bear – the festival’s top prize – at a ceremony Saturday, accompanied by a screening of the 1995 film version of “Richard III.”
“I still hope I’ve got a lot of life left on stage and making films,” McKellen said.
After “Richard III,” he picked up an Oscar nomination for his part in 1998’s “Gods and Monsters” and gained worldwide fame by playing the wizard Gandalf in the “Lord of the Rings” movies and appearing in the “X-Men” films. Upcoming roles include the part of Sir Leigh Teabing in the movie of “The Da Vinci Code.” The actor, a gay-rights campaigner, was guarded as to what impact the success of the Oscar front-runner “Brokeback Mountain” might have.
It remains “very, very difficult for an American actor who wants a film career to be open about his sexuality and even more difficult for a woman,” he said. “The film industry is very old-fashioned in California.” But, he added, “my own career in mainstream films really took off once I’d come out.”
