Madonna to star in new husband’s next movie
Madonna has been given a late wedding gift by her new husband, British film director Guy Ritchie — she is to be the star of his next film.

The Queen of Pop, who tied the knot with Ritchie in Scotland three days before Christmas, will take the lead role in his latest gangster film called The Mole, Britain’s mass-selling Daily Mirror newspaper reported.

“She plays an American girl who comes to England and is caught up in an underworld battle where the hunt is on to find a police informer in one of the gangs”, a production insider on the movie said.

Madonna,42 and Ritchie, 32, who directed the successful films Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels about gun-toting London gangsters, wanted to work together to avoid the pressure of having separate job commitments.

The movie will be based in London, where the couple have a home, and filming could start in March, reports said.

The newlyweds are on honeymoon at a 52 acre estate in southern England owned by British pop star Sting.

British singer Kirsty MacColl dies in Mexican accident
British singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl has died aged 41 in a boating accident in Mexico, her agent said.

The daughter of folk singer Ewan MacColl and dancer Jean Newlove was swimming off the coast of Cozumel when she was run over by a speedboat in an area reserved for swimmers.

A keen diver, MacColl was vacationing in the area with her two children from her marriage to producer Steve Lillywhite. The latter was flying to Mexico to be with his children.

MacColl first shot to fame in 1981 with her single There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis, and scored her biggest hit with the Pogues in 1987 with Christmas favorite Fairytale of New York.

“Pop music has always been my first love,” she had said in a recent interview.
She collaborated with several bands including the Smiths, Talking Heads and Billy Bragg.

Her latest album, Tropical Brainstorm released earlier this year, reflected influences from Brazil and Cuba and critics praised her latest live performances.

She was due to present Kirsty MacColl’s Cuba, an eight-part series on the development of popular Cuban music which was scheduled to start on BBC Radio 2.

Though the programs have been pre-recorded, the broadcast will be delayed as a mark of respect.

“We are devastated by her loss which is a tragedy for her family,” the network said. “Her death has robbed the music world of a major talent.”

MacColl’s manager Kevin Nixon, who worked with the singer for four years, said she was a bright, fun loving person.

“We are absolutely distraught,” he said. “I was personally immensely proud to be her manager after being a fan for so many years before that.”

Fairytale of New York has re-entered the charts this Christmas in a new cover-version by boy band heart-throb Ronan Keating.

Oscar-winning actor Jason Robards dies at 78
nTwo-time Oscar-winner Jason Robards, the flinty, craggy-faced star recognized during a half-century in show business as the consummate interpreter of playwright Eugene O’Neill and a star in the film All the President’s Men, died. He was 78.

Robards, whose last big-screen role was as the dying father of Tom Cruise’s character in 1999’s Magnolia, died at Bridgeport Hospital after a long battle with cancer, spokeswoman Sally Dalton said.

Robards, the son of an actor who disdained his father’s decision to move from the stage to Hollywood, won his Academy Awards for playing real people: The supporting roles of Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in the 1976 Watergate drama All the President’s Men, and the boozing, anguished writer Dashiell Hammett in 1977’s Julia.

Tall, thin and gravelly-voiced, Robards often portrayed disturbed characters in movies, on stage and on television, lending them a brooding intensity. In real life, Robards’ fight against alcoholism and fits of depression in the 1970s seemed to mirror the turmoil of many of his characters.