Cameron Diaz issued a statement yesterday about the tragic loss of her father, Emilio Diaz at the age of just 58. Cameron’s dad was an oil company employee for over 20 years until he retired in 1998. He was battling the flu and developed pneumonia, complications from which led to his death:

“My mom, sister and I are deeply appreciative of the overwhelming outpouring of love and support during this difficult time for us and all of our family,” the actress said in a statement through publicist Brad Cafarelli.

“My dad was loved by so many people and his humor and spirit will always live on in our hearts.”

[From E! Online]

Cameron, 35, her sister Chimene, 37, and their mother Billie are together at their family home in Seal Beach, California surrounded by their friends and family.

Production has stopped on Diaz’s film My Sister’s Keeper and she has canceled a planned appearance at a party for British GQ, where she appears on the cover this month.

Our hearts and thoughts are with Cameron and her family at this tough time. I mentioned in an earlier post about this that my dad is older than that and I can’t imagine losing him so young. That’s a tough thing to go through.

Cameron is shown at the Shrek The Third premiere on 5/6/07, thanks to PRPhotos.

Cameron Diaz has lost her dad Emilio, 58, after an unexpected illness. He developed pneumonia after a bout with flu, and his death was a surprise both due to his relatively young age and the fact that he was in good health prior to his recent illness.

Emilio worked as a foreman at an oil company and lived in Seal Beach, California.

TMZ reports that production has shut down on Diaz’s film “My Sister’s Keeper.”

My father is a little older than 58 and I can’t imagine losing him so young. That’s incredibly sad and our thoughts are with Cameron and her family.

A lawsuit over the Heath Ledger video that was pulled from US entertainment shows after pressure from his PR firm, showing Heath talking about and taking drugs, claims that the video was a set up by the paparazzi. A woman who used to date one of the photographers is suing for unknowingly appearing in the video as well as having her hotel room appropriated for what she claims was a frame up:

The Australian film star accepted drugs from two photographers, who then videoed him talking about using marijuana, footage that created an international outcry when it surfaced after his death in January.

The video was condemned by Mr Ledger’s family and pulled from US television shows at their request, but has still raised more than $1million in international sales, the lawsuit claims. Legal papers filed in Los Angeles claim that Ledger had his own supply of cocaine, but that the notorious video was a set up.

The ex-girlfriend of one of the paparazzi is now suing for damages, claiming that her privacy was infringed because the filming took place in her hotel room and she appeared in the footage without her permission.

The legal papers claim that he was filmed in a room at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles in January 2006, as he celebrated winning a Screen Actors Guild award for his role in the film Brokeback Mountain, which also garnered him an Oscar nomination.

It says that one of the photographers “gave Ledger a package of cocaine. Mr Ledger also had some of his own. The cocaine was put on the table, and the men began snorting cocaine.”

The woman, who has filed the claim anonymously, says she did not take the drug. The papers say the same photographer who brought the drugs then left, and was soon “outside of our hotel room, on the balcony, hidden, shooting video footage of everyone in the room”.

The video, which did not show Mr Ledger actually snorting cocaine, has been broadcast on the internet. It shows the actor rolling a cigarette paper and saying: “I used to smoke five joints a day for 20 years.”

Telegraph

Her lawyer, Douglas Johnson, said, in what may be the understatement of the year, “This is bad stuff. You don’t give drug addicts drugs so you can then tape them.”

This behavior by the paparazzi is pretty disgusting, so I’m really hoping that the people supposedly responsible get an absolute arse kicking if this is true.

Michael Johns, the Australian-born American Idol contestant who was eliminated from the competition last week, has come out with his own comment about Heath Ledger – he knows nothing!

Speaking from the US, a day after being booted off American Idol, Johns said reports that he was friends with Ledger and had dedicated his Idol experience to him were untrue.

“I wasn’t friends with Heath Ledger at all,” Johns said.

“The guy’s a legend, I thought he did great in his career, and will be sorely missed, but I never said that.”

Johns said he was so angry about the story which quoted a “friend” and was widely circulated around the world, that he asked his mum to contact the Ledgers to set the story straight.

“When I saw that come out in Star Magazine I was livid,” he said.

“I actually told my mum when she got back to Perth please reach out to Heath’s family and let them know that that’s absolutely bogus.”

The West Australian

I don’t know how Star Magazine is with its geography, but Perth is a big place. It’s not exactly the kind of place where everyone knows all their neighbors, considering the population is around 1.5 million people.

————————-possible Dark Knight spoilers————————-
In other Heath Ledger news, the body bag scene from the up coming Dark Knight film looks to be kept intact. Which is good news for everyone involved – you don’t want to work so hard on a film to have integral scenes cut from it. Besides, it might be a reminder for people that Heath’s character was not him. It was a fictional character.

Note by Celebitchy: I read most of this lawsuit, and I’m glad Helen reported on it because it made me sad and I didn’t know what to say about it at first. The thing that struck me about this story was the fact that Heath is said to have found out at some point that he was being taped secretly, and the guys kept assuring him that they would destroy the footage and that he had nothing to worry about.

This completely explained to me why Heath hated the paparazzi and often looked annoyed and grumpy when he was photographed out - he was once set up by them, supplied drugs and taped doing them. So he had firsthand experience with how duplicitous the paparazzi could be, and he also had this potential bombshell hanging over his head. He must have worried about what would have happened if this video came out, and that’s something that can bother you in even the happiest moments, creeping into your thoughts and haunting you. He was a troubled guy in a lot of ways, but he had a lot to worry about too. At least his death was an accident, but it happened because he was taking prescription drugs to try and cope with insomnia and racing thoughts. It’s no one’s fault, but you can understand a little more what he was going through.

Thanks to PRPhotos for these pictures of the memorial set up outside the apartment Heath was renting in NY.

Kanye West used to have the reputation of being quite the diva. I have no idea what the male term for diva is. Divo? Let’s go with that. Kanye was notorious for his hissy fits when he didn’t win awards – often overtaking the stage and ranting to camera crews about how amazing his work was. His sense of entitlement was a pretty big turnoff, but it seems that we may have a gentler, kinder, more humble Kanye from now on. West says his mother’s death in November changed him, and his outlook on life is completely different now.

Rapper Kanye West says he’s been putting his priorities in place since his mother’s death. “If there’s anything my mom taught me [it] is to enjoy life,” West, 30, wrote on his blog on Wednesday. “I don’t do anything I don’t love anymore … While people chase money I pursue happiness.”

West’s mother died of heart disease and other factors Nov. 10th – one day after undergoing cosmetic surgery. The rapper paid tribute to his mom at this year’s Grammy Awards. On his blog, the multiple Grammy winner also wrote about the joys of making new music and recording “my first verse in the last six months” two days earlier in Japan.

“It felt good and I was inspired … tragedy can produce great art and this is definitely true … life is good … good as finding the perfect fabric for a simple one button casual blazer with matching pants.”

[From People]

The clothing analogy is a little unexpected, but whatever works for you. I was hoping there’d be a little something in there about not getting your boxers in a twist every time something doesn’t go your way, but I’ll take what I can get from Kanye. Losing a parent makes you really reflect on not just your life but life in general. Kanye’s right, tragedy can produce great art, and hopefully he’ll come back with his best work yet.

Here’s Kanye and fiancée Alexis Phifer at Paris Fashion Week on February 29th. Images thanks to PR Photos.

Stanley Kamel, 65, has been found dead in his Los Angeles home.

Actor Stanley Kamel, who starred on ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ and most recently on ‘Monk,’ was found dead in his Hollywood home on Monday, according to a report on TMZ.com.

Firefighters responded to a 911 call from the actor’s home on Monday afternoon, officials told TMZ.

The cause of death is not known at this time, TMZ reports.

Fox News

Stanley appeared on Beverly Hills 90210, as the father of Rebecca Gayheart’s character Toni. Stanley played mafia-type Tony Marchette, who ordered a hit to be put out on Dylan (Luke Perry), but ended up killing his daughter instead. A classic soap plotline, if ever I heard one.

In recent years he has played Dr Charles Kroger on ‘Monk’, and according to his IMDB page he was to appear in two upcoming movies. He has also appeared in ‘Melrose Place’ and ‘Cagney and Lacey’ for extended periods.

TMZ reports that the actor died of a heart attack. The case has not been referred to the coroner, suggesting there are no suspicious circumstances.

Our thoughts go out to his family, friends and fans at this sad time.

Howard K Stern and his dead eyes were on Scientologist Greta Van Sustern’s show on Fox News yesterday. He talked about the night Anna Nicole’s son Daniel died in her hospital room four days after she had baby Danielynn, in September, 2006.

Stern recounted the story in his typical flat affect, showing absolutely no emotion and looking straight ahead almost the entire time.

He said that after Daniel died Anna was inconsolable and refused to believe he was dead. Howard said he took the photo of Anna clutching dead Daniel in the hospital bed for her, and that it was stolen and leaked to the media. He said that he couldn’t take Daniel home with them, but he could take that last photo for Anna. Sustern acknowledged receiving the photo, but said she chose not to run it. I cannot remember seeing that photo.

Daniel’s death was officially ruled an accident earlier this month after an inquest in the Bahamas. He was said to have died of the drug combination of methadone, Zoloft and Lexapro. Coupled with Anna Nicole’s death from a drug overdose on Stern’s watch, it makes him look guilty as hell, but he’s managed to avoid being implicated in either death and it could perhaps be a coincidence.

Lawyer Howard K Stern continues to stay in the mansion in the Bahamas that Anna scammed from an ex boyfriend, developer Ben Thompson. The National Enquirer reported on April 7 that “Stern is living in the place pending the outcome of the ownership battle.” Eviction proceedings were started by Thompson over a year ago.

Princess Diana’s life and death has probably been the subject of more gossip than Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan combined. Now, the verdict has finally been reached at the latest inquiry into the death of Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed in the Alma Tunnel in France. It is consistent with the French inquiry into the accident and finds the paparazzi and chauffeur responsible:

Following three-and-a-half days of deliberation, the inquest jury has returned a majority verdict of unlawful killing through gross negligence with the shared blame resting between chauffeur Henri Paul and the paparazzi.

The jury had been told by the Coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker that such a verdict effectively implicated manslaughter.

The findings come ten-and-a-half years after Diana, Dodi and Henri Paul died after the Mercedes they were travelling in crashed into a pillar in the Alma Tunnel in Paris on August 31, 1997.

Contributing to their deaths, the jury found, were the fact that neither Diana nor Dodi were wearing a seatbelt, and the fact Mr Paul had been drink-driving.

They also singled out the paparazzi’s speed and manner of driving as factors.

Sydney Morning Herald

There have been many conspiracy theories about the accident, mostly that the British intelligence agency M16 was involved or acting under the orders of the Royal Family.

The other theories disproved by the investigation are that Diana was pregnant (she wasn’t), and that she and Dodi were engaged (nope, that wasn’t true either). It doesn’t matter how deep the investigations probe, or how many inquiries are held, not everyone will believe the results.

Dodi Al-Fayed’s father, Harrods owner Mohammed Al-Fayed has previously been the main source of the alternate theories, and it has been suggested that he will appeal the verdict. He has two memorials in his London department store, one of which has a wine glass that Diana drank from, containing an ‘engagement’ ring Dodi had bought the day before their deaths.

The inquiry cost the British taxpayer £10 million, and took 93 days of a jury sitting to come to the verdict. They are now excused from further jury duty for life, if they desire.

The best that can come out of the inquiry is this: If you drink and drive, speed, and don’t wear a seatbelt, an accident is likely to occur. It doesn’t matter how important you are, it can happen to anyone.

Some details from Wikipedia.

Here’s yet another reason to adore NBC’s hit comedy “The Office:” the show recently paid tribute to a young fan who passed away unexpectedly from the flu by airing an “In Memoriam” segment at the end of Thursday’s episode.

By all accounts, Nathan Robinson was a 15-year-old who loved math, music and The Office.

On Thursday night, Robinson’s favorite TV show paid on-air tribute to the Massachusetts high-school student who died March 14 of flu-related complications.

The in memoriam dedication appeared during the end credits of the NBC comedy’s 9 p.m. episode. It was accompanied by grainy home video of Robinson playing the show’s theme on the piano.

It appears the powers that be at The Office learned of Robinson and his rendition of their theme music after the Boston Globe ran a feature on the teen March 21.

The story noted Robinson’s love of everything from Beethoven to the paper pushers of Dunder-Mifflin. It also recounted how a few weeks before his death, Robinson and a friend got to talking about their favorite TV series. When the friend suggested Robinson, a talented pianist, take a crack at the show’s title tune, Robinson did. The resulting 32-second video, “Nathan Plays Piano,” was posted on YouTube the day after Robinson’s death.

The clip, which even after the Globe story ran could hardly be called an Internet phenomenon, was starting to head that way in the wake of its exposure on The Office. On Friday, the video was attracting thousands of views, and dozens of comments.

“I saw this while watching The Office last night, like everyone else here. And, like everyone else here, I was moved by it, so I just had to go on here and watch his playing,” one post said. “He was so talented…”

Said another: “Classy move by The Office to pay tribute to one of their fans. Rest in peace, young man.”

Kate, the friend who shot and posted the video—she didn’t want to disclose her last name—wrote in an email to E! News Friday that it was overwhelming to see people from all over reach out to Robinson.

“It was really amazing!” Kate wrote. “Nathan was such a fan of The Office, and he would have been so excited.”

[From E! Online]

I am getting teared up just thinking about this. How many TV shows have ever paid tribute to a fan like this? It’s pretty awesome. I can’t think of a single snarky thing to say right now, and that’s a big deal. Kudos to the producers at “The Office” for paying tribute in such a low key, heartfelt way.

Note by Celebitchy: Both MSat and I covered this by mistake. MSat’s version follows, and mine is below. RIP Charlton Heston.

---

Academy Award-winning actor Charlton Heston died over the weekend at age 84. The legendary actor had been battling Alzheimer’s disease for many years.

In a statement, Heston’s family acknowledged that their patriarch was viewed as larger than life and maintained that, offscreen, he was no less imposing.

“We knew him as an adoring husband, a kind and devoted father, and a gentle grandfather, with an infectious sense of humor,” the statement said. “He served these far greater roles with tremendous faith, courage and dignity. He loved deeply, and he was deeply loved.”

In all, Heston worked on screen for more than 50 years, in more than 100 films and TV productions, including The Ten Commandments, in which he played the lawgiver Moses; Ben-Hur, in which he commanded the epic production as the title’s chariot-racing prince; and the original Planet of the Apes, in which he was, simply, the last real man on Earth.

[From E! Online]

I will always think of Charlton Heston as Moses, all bare chested and brooding in “The Ten Commandments.” “Let my people go!” When I was a kid, I thought that movie was a documentary, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw Charlton in the “Planet of the Apes” movie and exclaimed, “Hey– that’s Moses!”

I lost my grandfather to Alzheimer’s three years ago, and it was probably one of the most difficult things my family has ever gone through. By the end of his life, he couldn’t communicate, could barely move on his own and had forgotten how to eat. I hope Charlton was not in that state. My heart goes out to his family today.

- Written By MSat

---

Screen legend Charlton Heston has died at the age of 84 from causes that are not yet known to the press. The Oscar winning actor is known for heroic roles in films like The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and Planet of the Apes, and for his controversial conservative political activism. Heston was a gun rights activist and was president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003. He is known for saying “From my cold, dead hands,” a phrase he popularized in 2000 when he accepted an award at an NRA convention.

Military Service and Acting Start
Heston started acting after he returned from serving two years in the army as a B52 radio operator in WWII. He married Northwestern University student Lydia Marie Clark in 1944, who remained his wife until his death. They have two children, Fraser Clarke Heston, 53, and an adopted daughter, Holly Ann Heston.

Heston’s first role was on Broadway in Antony and Cleopatra. He received his big break in the 1952 film The Greatest Show on Earth by Cecil B. DeMille, in which he played a circus manager. He went on to star in such sweeping epics as The Ten Commandments in 1956, and 1959’s Ben-Hur, which won 11 Oscars including a best actor award for Heston.

Political Activism: Heston used to campaign for civil rights
Heston campaigned for Presidential candidates Adlai Stevenson in 1956 and John F. Kennedy in 1960, both liberal Democrats. He also participated in Martin Luther King’s civil rights march in 1968 along with stars Marlon Brando, James Baldwin and Harry Belafonte, among others. He picketed a segregated theater premiere of one of his films in Oklahoma in 1961.

Contrary to his very vocal stance for gun owner’s rights in the later years of his life, Heston was among the actors who issued a statement after Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 assassination asking for support of the Gun Control Act proposed by President Johnson.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that Heston became a vocal conservative, opposing affirmative action and switching from a Democrat to a Republican.

Heston spoke out against political correctness in the late 90s, and resigned from the Actors Equity union after they refused to let a white actor play an Asian role in “Miss Saigon,” claiming it was “obscenely racist.”

He was famously cornered at home by Michael Moore in a scene from the 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine, in which Moore questioned Heston about an NRA meeting which was held in Denver in 1999 after the Columbine school shootings. Heston looked confused and walked out of the room. (Moore has recently posted a memorial to Heston on his website.)

Heston revealed in August, 2002 that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. In July, 2003 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush.

In his statement about his Alzheimers, Heston said that he would miss his fans and would not retire from public life entirely:

“For an actor, there is no greater loss than the loss of his audience. I can part the Red Sea, but I can’t part with you, which is why I won’t exclude you from this stage in my life. … For now, I’m not changing anything. I’ll insist on work when I can; the doctors will insist on rest when I must. If you see a little less spring to my step, if your name fails to leap to my lips, you’ll know why. And if I tell you a funny story for the second time, please laugh anyway.”

[Details from Wikipedia and AP Article]

Most photos are public domain and from Wikipedia.

Heath Ledger’s uncle gave an interview to US Weekly in which he made it clear that his brother was widely misquoted on the “Heath Ledger love child” story that had everyone talking earlier in the week. Heath’s uncle, Haydn Ledger, was quoted as saying a love child of Heath’s was a “real possibility,” but Heath’s other uncle, Mike, says his brother just gave a noncommittal response like “anything is possible,” not something like “that’s really possible.”

One thing Heath’s other uncle said that made it sound like this could be true though, is that “it’s been a rumor for a long time.”

How did the rumors start?
All my brother Haydn said was that anything is possible, and from there, it just went absolutely berserk. At the end of the day, our thoughts are with the little girl in question, and we’re not prepared to make any more comments at all.

So Haydn said something, and it was taken out of context?
Yes. Haydn was asked a question that wasn’t’t directly related to the Heath issue: ‘If someone was this age, could it be possible?’ and Haydn said ‘Anything is possible,’ and that’s it. His statement was absolutely taken out of context. Absolutely.

So you and Haydn don’t know for a fact if Heath had another child or not?
No. It’s just a rumor! It’s been a rumor for a long while.

Did you and the rest of Heath’s family know about Heath having a girlfriend who was older?
There were rumors. He was a young, good-looking guy, and he attracted lots of women.

[From US Weekly]

The Daily Mail has one of their long suggestive stories about an interview with the unnamed woman who is rumored to have had Heath’s love child after a 1996 affair when he was 17 and she was 25. The woman had a daughter after they broke up. The Daily Mail titles the article “Heath Ledger ‘former lover’ refuses to confirm whether he fathered her 11-year-old,” but the woman didn’t “refuse to confirm” it at all, she said “no” flat out, in a statement at the end.

The woman’s husband, who it sounds like was not around at the time the girl was born as he knows he is not the father, says that they would gladly submit to a DNA test, but Heath’s former lover says that’s out of the question, but that he’s not the father anyway.

Agreeing that he was not the girl’s father, the woman’s husband said: “I’m the step-dad, but there’s nothing to hide…and if I asked (the mother) I’m sure that she wouldn’t mind (to have a DNA test).”

But he wondered how they could even get Heath Ledger’s DNA.

However, his wife refused to have any part of the DNA suggestion.

“I’m not answering anything,” she said. “I think it’s very, very rude that I’m being posed all of this. I really do. I can’t talk about anything…”

“When you are considering an 11-year-old girl who has to go to school and be a part of society, that is my main concern,” she said.

Of the persistent rumours, she said: “You have no proof, there’s no background, there’s no grounds, there’s no nothing.

“I’m not going to answer anything or go into anything at all.” Her husband supported her denials.

“The whole thing with that (Heath being the father) is no. No way. No can be. It would probably be a great thing if she was, but no.”

[From The Daily Mail]

If the Daily Mail didn’t completely make up that interview, and I definitely wouldn’t put it past them, then the mother sounds like she’s completely denying that Heath is the father. Even if he is the father, she doesn’t want to acknowledge that possibility and is not going after any of Heath’s estate, assuming this interview is real. (The Mail is hardly accountable for it given that they don’t give a name or any other details that would explain how they were able to get in touch with her.)

As it is, the only one fueling these “love child” rumors is the media, looking for some more dirt to dig up on a dead guy who died of a prescription drug interaction.