Paul McCartney made a secret visit to his home city yesterday to congratulate the first graduates of the Fame school he founded. Staff at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts had announced last week that he cancelled his planned trip to the ceremony after the death of his wife, Linda, but McCartney turned up at the 600-pupil school for a reception that followed the ceremony at Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral.
Madonna, who spent three months learning to play the violin for a role in 50 Violins, has quit the film, according to Daily Variety. She was to begin filming in August.
The film is based on the life of Roberta Tzavaris, who taught children in New York's Harlem to play the violin. Director Wes Craven said Madonna decision stemmed from artistic differences.
Alec Baldwin has been ordered by a jury in California to pay $4,500 in damages and interest to a photographer with whom he had fight in 1995. Baldwin and Alan Zanger had fought as the photographer waited for the actor and his wife, Kim Basinger, as they approached their home with their new-born baby. Baldwin was acquitted in a criminal proceeding.
Julie Andrews (61) is due to return to Broadway next season, the New York Post says. Andrews, who last year had to abandon a national tour because of voice problems leading to surgery, is due to play a non-singing role in The Big Rosemary, a musical comedy written by her husband, Blake Edwards.
Medical tests conducted on Jordan's King Hussein at a hospital in the US suggest the 62-year-old monarch has cancer, the king told his brother Crown Prince Hassan ibn Talal in a letter made public yesterday. "All the indications lead one to believe that I have a lymphoma," the king said.