Actor Pierce Brosnan's daughter dies of ovarian cancer

LONDON (Reuters) - Irish actor Pierce Brosnan said on Tuesday that his 41-year-old daughter Charlotte had died after a three year battle with ovarian cancer, the same disease that killed his first wife more than 20 years ago.

Brosnan, 60, who was the fifth actor to take on the role of the fictional British spy 007 in the James Bond movies, said his daughter died last Friday, leaving behind her husband and two children.

Charlotte's mother was Brosnan's first wife, Australian actress Cassandra Harris, who died from the same type of cancer at the age of 43 in 1991.

"Charlotte fought her cancer with grace and humanity, courage and dignity. Our hearts are heavy with the loss of our beautiful dear girl," Brosnan said in a statement.

"We pray for her and that the cure for this wretched disease will be close at hand soon."

Brosnan adopted Charlotte and her brother Christopher in the 1980s after their father died and they took his surname. He went on to have another son, Sean, with Harris.

Brosnan married Keely Shaye Smith in 2001 and the couple has two children.

Angelina Jolie revealed in May that she underwent a double mastectomy after discovering she carried a gene that increased her risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer, the same disease that killed her mother Marcheline Bertrand age 56.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)

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French actor Depardieu in minor car collision in Moscow

MOSCOW (Reuters) - French actor Gerard Depardieu was involved in a car accident in Moscow on Tuesday when a taxi rammed into a Mercedes carrying him in his adopted homeland of Russia, where he is filming a movie.

The 64-year-old star of films such as "Green Card" and "Cyrano de Bergerac" was unhurt and posed for photos with Russian traffic police in footage shown by tabloid portal Lifenews.ru.

Depardieu, who was granted Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin in January after criticizing a planned 75-percent tax on millionaires in France, appears not to have been behind the wheel during the Moscow accident.

He was banned from driving for six months by a French court earlier this month, after he was found to be three times over the alcohol limit when he fell from a scooter last year.

France's best-known actor, whose lifestyle and outlandish behavior has made more headlines than his film career in recent years, was bitterly criticized for abandoning his homeland when he received a hug and a passport from Putin. But Depardieu, who owns a vineyard in the Loire valley, has said he did not leave for tax reasons.

Last year's scooter fall came a few months after a car driver filed a suit against Depardieu for assault and battery following an altercation in Paris.

A year earlier, Depardieu outraged passengers by urinating in the aisle of an Air France flight as it prepared to take off.

Depardieu is currently filming a thriller called "Turquoise" in Moscow and Russia's southern province of Chechnya with British actress Elizabeth Hurley.

(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Actor Paul Giamatti joins 'Downton Abbey' as playboy brother

LONDON (Reuters) - American actor Paul Giamatti is joining the cast of the British award-winning stately home drama "Downton Abbey", starting with the Christmas episode, the show's producers said on Monday.

Carnival Films, a division of Comcast's NBCUniversal, and British television channel ITV said Giamatti would play Cora Crawley's maverick, playboy brother Harold in the Christmas episode.

Giamatti, known for films including "Sideways" and "Cinderella Man", will be star alongside Shirley MacLaine and the regular cast members in the drama that won a Golden Globe for Best Miniseries or Television Film in 2011.

He is just one of a list of new cast members to star in an eight-part fourth series that includes New Zealand opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa and follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their staff.

"We're excited that Paul Giamatti will be joining us on Downton to play Cora's brother Harold, the rather free-spirited uncle to Mary and Edith," Carnival Films' Managing Director Gareth Neame said in a statement.

"We can't wait to see him work alongside Shirley MacLaine, who are both sure to upset the Grantham's apple cart in this year's Christmas Day episode."

The new series will see the return of MacLaine as Martha Levinson alongside series regulars Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery and Jim Carter.

In Britain, series three of "Downton Abbey" that was created by British screenwriter Julian Fellowes was the most watched drama of 2012, averaging 11.9 million viewers.

In the United States, shown on PBS, "Downton Abbey" was the highest-ranked non-U.S. series.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)

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French actor Depardieu in minor car collision in Moscow

MOSCOW (Reuters) - French actor Gerard Depardieu was involved in a car accident in Moscow on Tuesday when a taxi rammed into a Mercedes carrying him in his adopted homeland of Russia, where he is filming a movie.

The 64-year-old star of films such as "Green Card" and "Cyrano de Bergerac" was unhurt and posed for photos with Russian traffic police in footage shown by tabloid portal Lifenews.ru.

Depardieu, who was granted Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin in January after criticizing a planned 75-percent tax on millionaires in France, appears not to have been behind the wheel during the Moscow accident.

He was banned from driving for six months by a French court earlier this month, after he was found to be three times over the alcohol limit when he fell from a scooter last year.

France's best-known actor, whose lifestyle and outlandish behavior has made more headlines than his film career in recent years, was bitterly criticized for abandoning his homeland when he received a hug and a passport from Putin. But Depardieu, who owns a vineyard in the Loire valley, has said he did not leave for tax reasons.

Last year's scooter fall came a few months after a car driver filed a suit against Depardieu for assault and battery following an altercation in Paris.

A year earlier, Depardieu outraged passengers by urinating in the aisle of an Air France flight as it prepared to take off.

Depardieu is currently filming a thriller called "Turquoise" in Moscow and Russia's southern province of Chechnya with British actress Elizabeth Hurley.

(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel, editing by Paul Casciato)

View the original article here

Actor Paul Giamatti joins 'Downton Abbey' as playboy brother

LONDON (Reuters) - American actor Paul Giamatti is joining the cast of the British award-winning stately home drama "Downton Abbey", starting with the Christmas episode, the show's producers said on Monday.

Carnival Films, a division of Comcast's NBCUniversal, and British television channel ITV said Giamatti would play Cora Crawley's maverick, playboy brother Harold in the Christmas episode.

Giamatti, known for films including "Sideways" and "Cinderella Man", will be star alongside Shirley MacLaine and the regular cast members in the drama that won a Golden Globe for Best Miniseries or Television Film in 2011.

He is just one of a list of new cast members to star in an eight-part fourth series that includes New Zealand opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa and follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their staff.

"We're excited that Paul Giamatti will be joining us on Downton to play Cora's brother Harold, the rather free-spirited uncle to Mary and Edith," Carnival Films' Managing Director Gareth Neame said in a statement.

"We can't wait to see him work alongside Shirley MacLaine, who are both sure to upset the Grantham's apple cart in this year's Christmas Day episode."

The new series will see the return of MacLaine as Martha Levinson alongside series regulars Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery and Jim Carter.

In Britain, series three of "Downton Abbey" that was created by British screenwriter Julian Fellowes was the most watched drama of 2012, averaging 11.9 million viewers.

In the United States, shown on PBS, "Downton Abbey" was the highest-ranked non-U.S. series.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)

View the original article here

Which Actor (Or Actress) Should Replace Matt Smith In The TARDIS?

When I interviewed "Doctor Who" star Matt Smith at the end of last year, talk inevitably turned to the temporary nature of portraying the show’s semi-titular Time Lord, whose powers of regeneration have enabled an array of people to play the part since the British sci-fi series debuted almost 50 years ago.

Read the whole story at EW.com

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