West Words

Victoria Beckham has been accused of stiffing a waiter when she took her sons to see a mediaeval-themed show.
The former Posh Spice took Brooklyn, 10, Romeo, nine, and four-year-old Cruz, along with a couple of bodyguards, to Medieval Times, a themed restaurant and show in Buena Vista, California, which features “knights” jousting and sword-fighting.
But according to celebrity site TMZ: “Posh and her crew left the show early – and multiple sources tell us she didn't leave a tip for the server who took care of the group.”

Actress Lindsay Lohan has been appointed artistic advisor to French fashion house Ungaro.
She and founder Emanuel Ungaro will unveil their first collection in Paris in October, and Ungaro hopes that Lohan and new designer Estrella Archs, will help revamp the brand, which has been out of the limelight in recent years.
The Mean Girls star, 23, who already has a line of leggings, told fashion bible WWD she hopes to take the line to a “younger place” with a harder edge.
“When I'm involved in a project I give my all to it,” she said. “I feel like there's a correlation between everything I do, whether its pop music or film.

Nicole Richie and her rocker boyfriend Joel Madden have welcomed their second child, a boy named Sparrow.
He joins big sister Harlow, who is 20 months old.
“In the middle of night, the very early hours of September 9, 2009, Sparrow James Midnight Madden was born to Nicole Richie and Joel Madden,” they wrote on her Web site.
“He weighs 7 lbs 14 oz. Nicole, Joel, Harlow and Sparrow are all doing well. Thank you for all your good wishes.”
Us magazine called on name and numerology experts to comment on the baby's name and birth date.
Name expert Pamela Redmond Satran said: “Bird names are definitely getting hotter. Of all the animal names, bird names are the hottest.

Playboy creator Hugh Hefner has filed for divorce, 11 year after he and his second wife separated.
Hefner, 83, cites irreconcilable differences – the only option in California – in his petition filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
But he decided to legally dump former Playmate Kimberly Conrad, 47, mother of two of his children, after she sued him last month for $5 million from the sale of a home next to the Playboy Mansion.
He denies owning her anything and says he had paid her $250,000 a year, as stipulated in their prenuptial agreement.
In his petition her asks the judge to reduce his monthly support payment to $20,000.

Grey's Anatomy star Katherine Heigl and her husband of two years, musician John Kelley, are adopting a little girl from Korea.
Heigl, 30, and Kelley, 29, have not yet met the baby, called Nayleigh, who is nearly 10 months old.
She told talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres: “She was actually born the day before me in November, which I thought was really serendipitous and just kind of like a sign.
“I realised just recently that I basically forfeited my birthday for the rest of my life.
“She is a special needs baby and because of that it all moved so much faster. They wanted to get her to us as quickly as possible.”

Welsh actor Ioan Gruffed and his wife Alice Evans have had their first baby, a girl called Ella Betsi.
She weighed in at 6lbs 3oz at a Los Angeles hospital in the early hours of Sunday morning after a 40-hour labour.
Fantastic Four and Hornblower star Gruffudd, 35, and Evans, 38, who met on the set of the 2000 film 102 Dalmatians and married two years ago, announced the pregnancy in April.
They knew the sex of the baby in advance but kept it a secret.
In July Gruffudd told People magazine: “I'm sure we have no idea what we are heading into. But we both love each other so much and really hope that we will create an environment of love and happiness.”

Actor Antonio Banderas has revealed his wife Melanie Griffith went back into rehab because of painkillers.
He denied rumours that he issued her an ultimatum that he would end their 13-year marriage if she did not seek help.
And he hinted that although her stay at Cirque Lodge in Utah was only announced in August, she may have been there for months.
Shrek and Puss in Boots star Banderas, 49, told talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres: “It's not a rumour but let me explain to you. It was actually said in some magazine that I gave an ultimatum to my wife.
“That I present the matter of divorce because she has been involved in addictions and blah, blah, blah.

Sexy Megan Fox has vowed she will never be involved in a home-made porn scandal – because it would put her off having sex.
The 23-year-old Transformers star said she cannot even imagine baring all in a mainstream film.
Vowing never to do a sex tape she told MTV News: “Ugh, never. That's the last thing I want to see – what I look like having sex.
“It would take one shot of me not looking good and would not be able to have sex ever again, because I would always just see myself looking like a hippo having sex.”
Megan is already upset about picture of her in flesh coloured undies which emerged last year, taken on the set of her new horror film, Jennifer's Body, due for release in November.

Screen sex siren Rose McGowan has suffered a serious elbow injury which will delay filming of her next movie by up to six months.
The 36-year-old beauty has been preparing to star in a remake of the action-packed movie adaptation of the adventures of comic book heroine Red Sonja when the painful accident occurred.
McGowan, who does many of her own stunts, is on the mend after having to undergo major surgery on her arm – which led to part of her elbow being removed - after being injured on the film set.
She revealed: "I had wrist and elbow surgery and they took part of my elbow out. I had really bad nerve damage from doing stunts — I do a lot of my own stunts.

The father of actor Hugh Grant has had a New York art exhibition to raise money for disabled children.
Nearly all the 86 water colours James Grant, 81, displayed at the Keszler Gallery in Southampton sold at a weekend auction, with prices from $250 to $750.
Music and Lyrics and Love, Actually star Hugh, who turns 49 today, was on hand to lend his support.
“I'm so proud of my dad,” he told the New York Daily News. “He's been painting all my life.
“My dad, who lives in London and is originally from Scotland, follows the tradition of Scottish colourists. And I really love his colours in these nature scenes.

Michael Jackson has sparked a mini property boom since his burial last week.
Prices for graves near his at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California are sky-rocketing.
Before the 50-year-old King of Pop, who died on June 25, was interred at the cemetery's Grand Mausoleum nearby crypts were going for $7,000.
Now the price has gone up to $9,000.
A spokesman for Forest Lawn told celebrity site TMZ: “When a high-profile person comes in, it can affect the prices of the surrounding plots.”
Some people who have already bought their final resting places are hoping to cash in on the latest famous resident.
A double unit inside the mausoleum is on the market for $34,000.

Desperate Housewives star Teri Hatcher is getting on her bike for a good cause next weekend.
She's also diving into the deep end and hoping to give her competitors a run for their money.
Hatcher, 44, is leading a team in Sunday's Nautica Malibu Triathlon to raise money for Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
She hopes to raise $20,000 from sponsors for her efforts – a 1.5 kilometre swim in the Pacific Ocean, a 40 kilometre bike ride and a 10 kilometre run.
Pledges so far stand at $3,370.
She was happy to take part when Disney, parent company of her hit show, asked her to enter because, ironically, she and a friend had been discussing their “bucket lists” – things they want to do before they die.

Liam Neeson is star in The Virgin of Las Vegas, an affectionate look at Irish show bands, with U2's Bono co-producing.
Neeson, 57, will play an ageing singer living in Las Vegas and spending his days hitting the bottle.
According to Daily Variety he “finds his his life turned on its head following the arrival of a mysterious stranger.”
The script for the $14 million film, written by former Horslips member Barry Devlin, recalls the days before television was universal, when show bands played cover versions of early rock songs and had huge followings across the country.

Up-and-coming actress Rumer Willis is thrilled that mum Demi Moore wants a new baby – and hopes it's a boy.
Rumer, 21, whose father is Moore's second husband, Die Hard star Bruce Willis, 54, sees no reason why her 46-year-old mother and her 31-year-old husband of four years, should not start a family of their own.
GI Jane star Moore, whose new film The Joneses premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival this month, revealed last week that she wants a fourth child before it is too late.
“I love the idea,” Rumer told columnist Bill Zwecker. “After all, our family continues to grow in so many ways all the time – growing in numbers could be a good thing.”

Award-winning Irish film director Tom Collins is set to bring the story of Irish-American gangster Pat Nee to the big screen.
He plans to film the story of Nee's failed 1984 attempt to smuggle seven tons of assault rifles to the IRA with the help of his former colleague James “Whitey” Bulger, according to the Boston Globe.
Collins, who directed the 2007 film Kings, and whose latest work, the RTE/BBC documentary the Boys of St Columb's, screened at the Galway Film Festival in July, is currently in Boston talking to Nee, 66, who emigrated to the United States from Co Galway with his parents when he was nine.

British actress Carey Mulligan looks a dead cert for a best actress Oscar nomination after her new film, An Education, got rapturous applause at the prestigious Telluride film festival.
Bleak House and Northanger Abbey star Mulligan, 24, plays a teenager in the 1960s coming-of-age drama written by Nick Hornby, co-starring Peter Sarsgaard and Alfred Molina.
The film, which won two awards at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, opens next month, with Mulligan tipped for Hollywood stardom.
“Comparisons since the Sundance debut to Audrey Hepburn are not without merit,” said Los Angeles Times commentator Pete Hammond

An A-list of Irish actors are ready to roll with a film version of Flann O'Brian's 1939 novel At Swim-Two-Birds.
Brendan Gleeson has spent six years working on the script and will make his debut as a director with the film.
And Colin Farrell, Cillian Murphy, Gabriel Byrne and Jonathan Rhys Meyers have signed on to star, according to American reports.
The story of a 19-year-old creating a world of fantasy characters who take on lives of their own, At Swim-Two-Birds was an instant classic and won praise from James Joyce, Dylan Thomas and Anthony Burgess.
All the actors have worked with Gleeson, 54, before.

Monsignor Myles J. McGowan, who is believed to be the oldest Irish-born priest in the United States, has died at the age of 96.
The son of farmers, Mgr. McGowan, who was born and raised in Mohill, Co. Leitrim, was also the oldest priest in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
He had been pastor of St. Ursula's Roman Catholic Church in Parkville, Maryland, for more than two decades.
Mgr. McGowan died on August 29 of a stroke at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium, it has been announced.
"He was thoroughly a priest and was the patriarch of the archdiocese. He was well-regarded and loved by priests both young and old," said Bishop William C. Newman, a friend of Mgr. McGowan for 55 years.

A Hollywood private detective has spoken out to claim that she fears the wife of movie star Randy Quaid may be plotting to kill the actor.
Private eye Becky Altringer says she got more than she bargained for when she accepted an assignment from Quaid's wife Evi to investigate murder threats against them.
The situation got so out of hand that Altringer filed a restraining order against Evi citing drug abuse and mental instability.
Altringer has now spoken for the first time about the ordeal the experienced while living with the celebrity couple and to tell why she thinks the actor's life is in danger.
"I am very much afraid for Randy. I believe Evi is going to kill Randy and herself," she said.

Hollywood director and movie star Mel Gibson's girlfriend has something to sing about.
Singer and pianist Oksana Grigorieva has settled a lawsuit against a man she claimed infringed on the copyright of four of her songs.
Russian-born Oksana has been locked in an ongoing battle with Samuel Oriti.
The 38-year-old beauty first filed a 10-count lawsuit against him centred around her music and later sued him for allegedly distributing photographs of her only wearing sexy lingerie.
But since becoming romantically involved with Braveheart Oscar-winner Gibson she has been able to step up her legal battle by hiring one of Los Angeles' top law firms, Lavely & Singer, to go on the attack for her.