The 42-year-old actress, who won a million hearts with Pretty Woman and an Oscar with Erin Brockowich, took to Hinduism during the shooting of her upcoming film, `Eat, Pray and Love’ last year. In the movie, she plays a divorced woman who travels to Italy for food, India for spirituality and Bali, where she finds love. In the interview, Robert also spoke of reincarnation. “I’ve been so spoiled with my friends and family in this life. Next time I want to be just something quiet and supporting,” she said.

Swami Dharamdev of Hari Mandir, Pataudi, where `Eat, Pray and Love’ was shot for three weeks in September-October last year, said it is good news if someone accepts Hinduism from the heart. During the film’s shooting, he said, a makeshift temple had been constructed nearby where unit members would light lamps and burn incense sticks. “Julia too would pray there, run her hands over the lamp and her hair as we all do,” he recalled. “She also got her three kids here. I tied the sacred red thread on their wrists and applied the tilak on their foreheads,” he said.

Swami Dharamdev recalled the actress also requested him, through her private assistant, to pray for her mother who was ill. “Before she left I told her, `you may choose not to eat or love. But don’t forget to pray. Make that a part of your life, not just acting in this film’. She smiled and nodded affirmatively,” he said.

In a statement, Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism in the US, also said he and his fellow practitioners welcome Roberts into the fold.

Julia’s move to Hinduism has sparked off a torrent of online response. Some are highly critical of her; others the opposite. “Another confused celebrity trying on the religion “flavour” of the month. Hindu? Does she even know what that means? How can you convert to another religion after making a film? Next thing you know she’ll be wearing a Kabbalah bracelet after going to a Madonna concert!,” was a comment posted on The Daily Mail’s website. However, Anne, Leicester, wrote, “I like Julie Roberts, admire her work on screen and her commitment to her beliefs. If she’s living her life to the ideals of Hinduism, that’s all to the good. I look forward to seeing her latest film.

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Incoming search terms:

• celebrities embrace hinduism
• HONGKONG CATHOLIC CELEBRITY
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The restraining order bars 41-year-old Thomas Weldon from coming within 100 yards of Bullock, her adopted baby boy and the three children of her ex-husband Jesse James.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carol Boas Goodson had issued a temporary order against Weldon on July 19, after a previous stay away order expired last year.

"This is clearly a case of a fan going beyond being a fan," Goodson said. "This is the downside of celebrity."

Weldon allegedly showed up at a house Bullock keeps in Wyoming this past June, saying he had driven there to meet her. The previous orders were issued for similar attempts he made to meet the 45-year-old actress, who won a best-actress Oscar for her role in football film, "The Blind Side".

Bullock’s attorney Edwin F. McPherson said Weldon is currently in a mental health facility in Wyoming.

Bullock, who recently relocated to Texas from the Los Angeles area, was not present for the hearing.

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"Detective Dee" is a fictional account of Di Renjie, a legendary detective and official living in the Tang Dynasty of ancient China who was sometimes compared to Sherlock Holmes.

Andy Lau plays the detective, supported by Carina Lau, Li Bingbing, Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Deng Chao.
The film will compete for the Golden Lion with 21 other features that include Ascanio Celestini’s "La Pecora Nera", Antony Cordier’s "Happy Few" and Darren Aronofsky’s "Black Swan".

"Black Swan", starring Natalie Portman, will open the festival on September 1 along with the Chinese action film "Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen", which will be screened out of competition.

An international jury led by American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino will decide winners for the Golden Lion awards.

Chinese director John Woo, the mastermind behind such films as "Face/Off", "Windtalkers" and "Mission: Impossible II", will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.

The 67th Venice International Film Festival will close on September 11 with the screening of Julie Taymor’s adaptation of the mystical Shakespeare play, "The Tempest".

Thanks to the request for a two day credit for time already served (presumably in 2007 when she was arrested for the original D.U.I.) filed by her lawyer Shawn Chapman Holley, the incarcerated starlet is now expected to be released from jail by the end of the month. In other words, by the end of the upcoming week.

Lindsay was booked into the Lynwood Correctional Facility after turning herself in at the Beverly Hills Court House this past Tuesday. After calculating in credits for being a non-violent offender the actress’ sentence was estimated to last around 12 to 14 days, putting her release date around the 2nd or 3rd of August.

However, after the recent credits were granted for time already served, and rumors of additional credits for predicted good behavior have arisen, the starlet could be released as early as this weekend the site reports.

Despite sharing a cell-block with convicted felons and murderers, the actress’ lawyer reports that the Lindsay is actually dealing with her sentence quite well. During her first five days in jail she has received visits from her mother, Dina Lohan, and sister, Ali Lohan, as well as her ex-girlfriend, deejay Samantha Ronson.

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• lindsay lohan JAIL

Koo Hye-sun, one of South Korea’s top actresses, is enjoying a surge in popularity in Taiwan as a hallyu (Korean wave) star thanks to her starring role in the KBS-TV drama “Boys Over Flowers,” which closed in March.
YG Entertainment, Koo’s agency, said Friday that Koo is being wooed in Taiwan to appear in dramas and music videos.
Even before “Boys Over Flowers,” Koo won fame in Taiwan as she starred in hit dramas such as “The King and I” and “Pure in Heart.”

Koo received a warm welcome from Taiwanese fans during her visit last month.

Koo Enjoying High Popularity in Taiwan

"I hope I can personally witness and oversee the completion of the Bruce Lee museum in my lifetime," owner Yu Pang-lin, who is in his 80s, said at a press conference marking the 36th anniversary of Lee’s death.

Lee’s fans have been calling for an official monument for their hero in his hometown for years.

Lee became a chest-thumping source of Chinese pride by portraying characters that defended the Chinese and the working class from oppressors in films like "Return of the Dragon." He died in Hong Kong in 1973 at age 32 from swelling of the brain.

Yu said he wants the museum to include a memorial hall, a library, a kung fu studio and a film archive.

Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, and a panel of architects and town planners will judge the design competition, and the winners will be announced in November or December, the Hong Kong government said in a statement.

Yu has offered to donate Lee’s home and put up the HK$100,000 ($13,000) in prize money, but it is unclear how the museum itself will be funded.

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government has started collecting Lee’s personal items and commissioned a documentary about the late actor and one about the construction of the museum, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau said at Monday’s press conference.

Officials showed an 8-minute trailer of the biography produced by veteran Hong Kong director Ng See-yuen. It included interviews with "Mission: Impossible II" director John Woo; Lee’s frequent collaborator producer, Raymond Chow; Ip Chun, the eldest son of his kung fu teacher, Ip Man; and actress Betty Ting Pei — in whose home Lee died — as well as footage of Lee’s body in an open casket at his funeral.

The Associated Press:

The image is one of 10 prints of a nude Bruni lounging in an unmade bed captured by American fashion photographer Pamela Hanson in 1994.

The Villa Grisebach auction house appraised “Carla Bruni in Bed” at $3,568-$4,997 and talked to prospective buyers from as far away as Mexico, according to the house’s photography expert, Franziska Schmidt.

“I really don’t know why there is such a hype,” Schmidt said. “For us it is not the highlight.”

Last year, Christie’s auction house in New York sold a different nude print of Bruni for 30 times more than anticipated. An anonymous bidder paid $91,000 for the photograph.

Villa Grisebach would not provide any information on the winning bidder Thursday.

Links

• Nude Carla Bruni photo auctions for $19,600
• Carla Bruni Nude Photos

Weisz was born in Westminster, England, and grew up in the Hampstead Garden Suburb. Her mother, Edith Ruth (née Teich), is a Vienna-born Austrian teacher turned psychotherapist. Her father, George Weisz, is a Hungarian-born inventor whose family fled to England to escape Nazi persecution. Weisz’s father is Ashkenazi Jewish and her mother has been referred to as either Catholic, Jewish, having Jewish ancestry, and being of part Italian descent. Weisz was raised in a cerebral Jewish household and refers to herself as Jewish. Weisz has a sister, Minnie Weisz, who is an artist.

Weisz was educated at North London Collegiate School. She attended Benenden School and later enrolled in St Paul’s Girls’ School. She then entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she graduated with a 2:1 in English. During her university years she appeared in various student productions, co-founding a student drama group called Cambridge Talking Tongues, which went on to win a Guardian Student Drama Award at the Edinburgh Festival for an improvised piece called Slight Possession.

Links

• Rachel Weisz – Wikipedia
• IMDb: Rachel Weisz Filmography
• AskMen.com: Rachel Weisz
• Cool Chicks

The new image of Prejean appeared Wednesday on the site TheDirty.com, flying in the face of Prejean’s assurances to pageant reps that the earlier photo was the only one.

The site has been down due to heavy traffic, but CNN reports the second image, like the first, shows Prejean in pink panties and no top, facing away from the camera.

Pageant officials met Tuesday after the first photo appeared to consider stripping Prejean of her Miss California USA title for keeping the photos a secret. Failure to disclose semi-nude photos is grounds for disqualification from the contest.

While the photos released so far appear no more revealing than the swimsuit Prejean wore on stage, Nik Richie, publisher of TheDirty.com, has indicated there are more to come.

Prejean’s publicist says Prejean posed for the photos when she was 17 in order to land a modeling job. Prejean herself defended the first image, saying, “I am a Christian, and I am a model … Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos.”

Prejean, whose anti-gay marriage comments during the Miss USA pageant thrust her into the national spotlight, may also have some explaining to do about a series of court documents from her parents’ messy, decade-long divorce proceedings.

The papers, dug up by TMZ.com, show that Prejean’s parents flung a series of homosexual allegations against one another.

In one of the documents, Prejean’s father describes a confrontation he had with her mother in 1996, in which “Ms. Prejean accused me, in front of our daughter, of homosexuality.”

Another excerpt quotes a court-appointed doctor who said “The mother questioned [within hearing of the girls] whether [her father] was a homosexual or had a homosexual roommate.”

Court papers dated May 16, 2000, include the following statement from a court-appointed counselor: “The mother also alleges the father told the girls their stepfather was gay, that all men with mustaches are gay.”

Prejean’s father “acknowledges talking with the girls about the stepfather’s brother being gay, not the stepfather,” said the papers.

Prejean has said she believes her gay marriage views cost her the crown. She has since signed on to star in a controversial National Organization for Marriage campaign supporting “opposite marriage.”

“Marriage is good,” Prejean said at a news conference announcing the ad campaign. “There is something special about unions of husband and wife. Unless we bring men and women together, children will not have mothers and fathers.”

Court docs: Miss California USA Carrie Prejean’s parents used homosexuality as an insult

O.J. Simpson’s off the list, but singer Dionne Warwick, actor Burt Reynolds, actor-comedian Sinbad and a prominent Los Angeles developer still make this year’s roll of California taxpayers with the largest delinquent income tax bills.

This year’s ranking includes 250 names. A few are famous or local notables, but most are low-profile individuals and businesses. Together they owe $143 million in back taxes, said Franchise Tax Board spokesman John Barrett.

State Controller John Chiang, who also is chairman of the Franchise Tax Board, said the annual list, intended to pressure those with large bills to pay up, represents only a fraction of the $6.5 billion in personal income taxes that go unpaid each year.

Simpson was on last year’s list, with a bill of $1.5 million. The onetime football great and actor was taken off this year’s list after being sentenced to at least nine years — and possibly up to 33 years — in prison in Nevada for his role in robbing a pair of memorabilia dealers.

Barrett declined to comment on details of individual tax cases, and Simpson’s attorney could not be reached.

In addition to paying the taxes, names can be removed for several reasons, including filing bankruptcy and arranging installment payments. Names also can be removed when officials deem the debt uncollectable.

The 2009 list includes Warwick, who owes $2.18 million, and Reynolds, who owes $225,000. Both of the obligations date to the 1990s, according to the board.

Warwick’s publicist, Kevin Sasaki, said in an e-mail that the singer has cooperated with the tax board and that a payment arrangement is “already in motion.”

A representative for Reynolds could not be reached for comment.

Sinbad, listed as Sinbad Adkins, of Oak Park, Ill., owes $2.5 million on a tax lien first filed in 2001. His publicist said he had no comment.

Also continuing on the list is Christopher Hammond, a developer and political fundraiser who successfully built low- income housing in Los Angeles.

But Hammond ran into financial and legal problems on a large, city-subsidized shopping center project near Baldwin Hills.

Two years ago, when the list showed him owing $231,000, Hammond told The Times that he had made $90,000 in payments and arranged to be taken off the list.

Now he owes $504,000, according to the state. Hammond could not be reached for comment.

3 celebrities on list of California tax evaders