FIASCO
Oops! On June 27, the firms backing
www.whowantstobeamoviestar.com — including Blockbuster
Entertainment, MP3.com, Yahoo!, and the William Morris
Agency — announced plans to auction off roles in a comedy feature
(to be written by Mouse Hunt scribe Adam Rifkin). The problem?
California law bars the sale of jobs. The next day, they changed
course: Top bidders can award roles to others but not
themselves. On its first day, more than 240 bids totaling
$35,000 were submitted. Filming is set for fall.
LAWSUITS
Not all Jennifer Lopez's legal woes can be traced to
Puff Daddy. On June 2, L.A. talent agency the Gold Company sued
the 29-year-old actress-chanteuse for breach of contract,
claiming at least $1 million in damages. The suit alleges Lopez
broke an agreement made in 1994 (when she was an unknown dancer
on In Living Color) to pay commissions to the agency. Lopez's
spokesman said he had not seen the complaint.
DEATHS
Suave Italian actor Vittorio Gassman, 77, of a heart
attack, June 29, in Rome. Renowned for his work in drama and
comedy, he starred in 1958's Big Deal on Madonna Street and won
the top acting prize at Cannes in 1975 for playing a blind
military officer in Profumo di Donna (Al Pacino won an Oscar
reprising the role in the '92 U.S. version, Scent of a Woman).
In the '50s, he wed Shelley Winters, the second of his three
wives.... British actor David Tomlinson, 83, who played the dad
in 1964's Mary Poppins, of undisclosed causes, June 24, in
Buckinghamshire, England. He also starred in 1969's The Love Bug.
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