Lois Maxwell, best known for her role as Miss Moneypenny, has died aged 80 from cancer.

Maxwell starred alongside Sir Sean Connery in Bond’s first movie outing, Dr No, in 1962.

She played the role until 1985’s A View To A Kill with Sir Roger Moore, who told the BBC she had been a “great asset” to the early Bond movies.

A spokesperson for Fremantle Hospital, Western Australia, said she died there on Saturday evening.

Maxwell starred in 14 Bond films as the secretary to M, the secret agent’s boss and head of the secret service.

BBC News

Lois Maxwell was the ultimate sexy secretary, until Maggie Gyllenhaal came along. She resisted Bond’s flirting and had a cheeky sexiness that Ian Fleming never quite gave his novel characters.

In 1948 Lois Maxwell won a golden globe for her role in That Hagen Girl for most promising newcomer. She played M’s secretary beside Bond’s Sean Connery and Roger Moore. Only Desmond Llewelyn who played gadget man Q has appeared in more Bond films than Miss Moneypenny.

She moved to Western Australia after being diagnosed with cancer to be closer to her son. Our sympathy to all her family, friends and fans.

Naomi Campbell has for once been praised for something she’s done – apart from the ability to look sulky and tall in a designer dress. She’s appeared on the Italian version of Dancing With The Stars and actually impressed the judges.

The 37-year-old — who has been much-maligned for a spate of temper tantrums — received an impressive 33 out of 40 for her opening turn on the show.

Campbell took to the floor in a sparkling two-piece gold outfit and energetically danced the salsa to Zucchero’s Baila Morena.

The London-based model showed no discomfort from a neck injury sustained earlier in the week while rehearsing with partner Alessandro Camerotto.

Campbell was reportedly paid nearly $115,000 to join the series.

ninemsn

Naomi is lucky she can remember the dance moves though – since she seems to have forgotten her modelling career, claiming that fashion magazines discriminate against her because she’s black.

The British beauty made the blunder after she claimed to have never appeared on the cover of the style bible at New York’s Blacks in Fashion event recently.

She says, “I’ve never been on the cover of British Vogue and I’ve asked a million times and they’ve always refused me. They’ll put the same white model for half the year - I swear like six times - but wouldn’t put me on once in my own country.”

Post Chronicle

Naomi, you’ve been on the cover of British Vogue eight times. Eight. That might have not been eight consecutive months, and three times you shared the cover with others, but that is a lot of Vogue covers to forget. Once it was with P. Diddy, and he’s not a man who likes to be forgotten. I’m sure you’ve hurt his ego terribly.

Note by Celebitchy: Here’s the video of Naomi on the show, called Ballando Con Le Stelle. Thanks to ONTD for the photos, originally from the Daily Mail.

Barely a year goes by that Pamela Anderson doesn’t indulge in a long term relationship that seems a little dubious – like her bikini clad wedding to Kid Rock that ended after four months, apparently because of her cameo in Borat. Perhaps when he watched the movie that was the first he’d heard of her sex tape with Tommy Lee?

Of course, her current beau is Rick Solomon, the man from the One Night In Paris sex tape, so at least she doesn’t need to conceal that part of her past from him, although for his sake I hope he never watched Barbed Wire.

Onetime Baywatch star Pamela Anderson and Rick Salomon, a former boyfriend of Paris Hilton, applied for and were granted a marriage licence in Las Vegas on Saturday, the syndicated TV show Access Hollywood has reported.

Representatives for Anderson and Salomon were not immediately available for comment.

Sydney Morning Herald

Pam had previously told Ellen Degeneres that she was engaged.

Pamela has been married twice before, to Tommy Lee and Kid Rock, and Rick Solomon was married to Shannon Doherty and has two children with first wife Elizabeth Daily. Maybe Pam’s boys Brandon, 11, and Dylan, 9, could be playmates with Rick’s girls Hunter and Tyson of the same ages.

Just because the wedding is in Las Vegas doesn’t mean it’s going to happen right now quickie style – that’s where Pammy works with magician Hans Klok. Rick also works there as a poker player, which means the previous engagement she was talking about to Ellen was to Rick. Well probably.

“I paid off a poker debt with sexual favors, and I fell in love,” Anderson, 40, told DeGeneres. “It’s so romantic. It’s romance.

“I’m not really engaged. I don’t know what I am,” Anderson added. “We may never get that far. We’re in love. This is nice.”

E! Online

Paying off a debt by sexual favours? I can’t imagine anything more romantic.

Note by Celebitchy: Paparazzi photo agency X17 is reporting that Pam and Rick got hitched in Vegas this weekend. There’s no proof other than a rumor, but I would assume that Pam would cash in on the pictures, even if it was a just a drunken trip to a hotel chapel followed by a cheap buffet feast. She wouldn’t be ashamed.

Nicole Richie and fiancé Joel Madden have set a wedding date, and it looks like she could be waddling rather than walking down the aisle.

Nicole Richie is set to marry her lover and the father of her baby, Joel Madden, in a last minute ceremony on 13th October.

Sources in American reveal the couple have decided to tie the knot in a lavish wedding in Laguna Beach, California next month.

The Sun

Well, I can only assume that the date is for this year, I guess organizing a wedding when you are a celebrity is a little different than for us average girls. Instead of getting the best deal for flowers, you’re getting the best deal on the exclusive pictures. Instead of shopping for a dress, you could get your stylist to bring a selection to you. Instead of worrying about being too pregnant and unwell to make those aisle preparations, you can just hire someone to make all the preparations for you and all you have to do is turn up. Looking really nice, or if not just get the exclusive pictures retouched.

Seems to take some of the fun out of it to me!

Nicole is lucky to have all that help – she’s going to be busy undertaking an alcohol education course.

The course consists of 52 hours of group counseling, biweekly face-to-face interviews with counselors and the completion of 12 hours of alcohol education. Attending 12-step meetings is encouraged but not required.

According to the Santa Barbara Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, the program hosts roughly 340 participants at any given time and will set Richie back $1,790, which she is required to pony up herself. Upon completion of the course, she will be eligible to get her driver’s license reissued by the state DMV.

On July 27, she was sentenced to four days in jail, fined $2,048, ordered to complete a minimum three-week alcohol-education course and placed on three years’ probation.

E! Online

Of course, Nicole has been court ordered to participate in the program, probably as part of the deal that got her in and out of jail in 82 minutes. I am impressed that Nicole is taking on more than what her sentence required, it shows a real commitment to staying sober and off the roads.

Nicole seems to be getting her act together, so I’m looking forward to her settling down and going back to her reguar day job of…er, being Paris’ best friend? An ‘It’ girl? What is it she does as a day job?

Picture note by Celebitchy: Nicole Richie and Joel Madden are shown outside Mr. Chow on 9/28. Thanks to WENN for these photos.

I was going to focus this article on the ridiculous mural Kanye West has to himself over his dining room table. It features Kanye as a huge God figure surrounded by swirling clouds full of worshiping angels pointing in his direction and reaching out for him, looking like they’re sucked into his orbit and grateful for his divine guidance. (Update: That’s not supposed to be Kanye, see below.)

Then I saw the inside of his house and I just can’t fault the guy. For someone who talks smack constantly about how superior he is you would expect his house to reflect his extreme wealth, but it doesn’t, it’s a showpiece of minimalist modern furniture accented by pop art originals. Kanye West has, dare I say it, excellent taste. The mural of the Kanye God is the only thing that reveals his enormous ego, and it was the first piece of art he commissioned back in 2004.

His house is a 4,200-square-foot three level. It was full of details found in high end homes like a big black granite fireplace and granite throughout. Kanye had all that gutted and redone and had walls blown out to achieve a big serene space without unnecessary details.

Given his celeb stature, West’s home is surprisingly restrained—the furthest thing imaginable from MTV Cribs. Built on spec, the 4,200-square-foot, three-level house started out as a beige stucco monolith. Inside were blond maple floors, an immense black granite fireplace taking up a wall in the living room, more granite in the kitchen, and random soffits all over. “Kanye loved the newness and the city views,” Stewart recalls.

When West purchased the property, he was initially looking only for furnishings. That phase was short-lived. “Kanye started to realize how into design he is,” Stewart continues. “Staying at the Bulgari in Milan and the Grand Hyatt in Tokyo on tour, he’d come back full of ideas, in touch with his inner minimalist.” What West envisioned was a cross between a museum and a Louis Vuitton boutique. The project eventually morphed into a full-fledged renovation, lasting almost three years.

Out went every vestige of spec. In came enrichment and consistency. Stewart got rid of all those soffits, raised ceilings, finished walls with raw plaster, and swapped out insignificant windows for frameless glass. He gave the top-floor public spaces a loftlike feel, opening up passages between living room, dining room, and kitchen. Designer and client hit upon French walnut for flooring, Stewart says, after “looking at almost every sample in town.”

[From InteriorDesign.net via Kanye West’s blog]

Of course Kanye hired an interior designer, but he picked someone who would execute his vision, and the results are incredible. It turns out he studied fine art in his hometown of Chicago at the American Academy of Art. I hope this doesn’t mean I have to like the guy, but his house is impressive.

West has art by Andy Warhol, Burton Morris, and Takishi Murakami, who has collaborated with West on his videos and designed some of his cover art. The chair that looks like a bunch of stuffed animals is by Fernando and Humberto Campana, and I’ve seen their furniture in a few modern art galleries.

Yes I’m fawning over his house a little, I’m a modern art lover and wish I could afford furniture from Design Within Reach, not to mention original art and custom pieces.

Here is a drunk Kanye saying he’s the number one human and number one artist in the world, just so I don’t forget who this house belongs to:

And here are pictures of the interior of the house found at InteriorDesign.net, the website of Interior Design Magazine, where the home is featured in the September, 2007 issue. Thanks to TMZ for the heads up about his blog.

Update: Thanks to Commentors Cass and Kolby for pointing out that the article, which I didn’t read carefully enough, says that the mural shows Kanye being saved by an angel after he nearly died in an accident. The big figure in the middle looks an awful lot like Kanye to me, but the article says he’s the one kneeling underneath, not the giant angel in the middle “Barnes’s resulting celebration, A Life Restored, is replete with a kneeling West and an angel swooping down.” That’s a lot less egotistical than I assumed. Why can’t Kanye West have a house I don’t love? I just wanted him to have something in his house that shows what an ass he is, but now even the mural is ruined for me.

Star Magazine does some detective work to try and figure out who the fourth guy was that Angelina had sex with. Angelina is quoted recently in British Cosmopolitan as saying that “I had only slept with four men in my life - and I married two of them!” I thought that was a fake quote, but given how much crap Angelina has spouted in other interviews, it’s entirely possible that she said this. That doesn’t mean it’s true, just that she may have said it.

Star speculates that her mystery lover was Timothy Hutton, who she met on the set of Playing God in 1997. She had something that looked like an “h” tattooed on her wrist at the time, and people said they were an item. Angelina says the “h” is for her brother, James Haven.

Star can reveal that all signs point to actor Timothy Hutton as Angie’s mystery man! When the pair costarred in the 1997 thriller Playing God, there were whispers that they were an item. These rumors escalated when a tattoo of the letter H - for Hutton - appeared on the inside of her wrist.

Later Angelina, now 32, insisted the “H” was for her brother James Haven, not Timothy, 47. So why won’t Angelina admit that it was Timothy? He was divorced from actress Debra Winger at the time.

When she and Timothy broke up, Angie took it hard, the source says. “Angie was very in love with Timothy and wanted to get serious, but he didn’t,” says the insider. “He broke her heart, and that led to a downward spiral for her in terms of her mental health.” The insider adds that after the split, Angelina turned to women and experimented with heroin.

[From Star Magazine, print edition, October 8, 2007]

Their insider is surely someone sitting in a cubicle reading the Internet like the rest of us, but it could be true that Angelina was heartbroken by Hutton.

All that was ten years ago, but maybe Angelina still has some hard feelings for Hutton if she’s bringing it up now. She was trying to establish that she’s not a slut despite saying in the past that she enjoyed casual sex with fuck buddies in hotel rooms. Maybe she also wanted the news to get back to Hutton that their relationship was special and she doesn’t take sex lightly. Or not. She could just be talking without thinking as she seems to often do.

I wonder if Hutton feels like he missed out or dodged a bullet by getting rid of Angie if they were indeed an item. Hutton has two sons, one from his marriage to Debra Winger, which lasted until 1990. His second son was born in 2001 from his second and current marriage to French illustrator illustrator Aurore Giscard d’Estain. While he probably enjoys children, it takes a special kind of guy to adapt to fathering four children as quickly as Pitt did.

Angelina’s other mystery male lover could instead be Colin Farrel, who worked with her on Alexander. They have denied having a relationship and claim to just be friends.

Thanks to MovieWeb for these pictures from Playing God, which also starred David Duchovny. Image of Angelina’s H Tattoo thanks to WestLord.com

According to ex members, Scientology teaches its followers to go to any lengths to silence critics, including murder. There have been several instances of questionable suicides and deaths (link has automatic music) of active and ex cult members, most recently of a well to do artist couple in NY. Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan committed suicide within days of each other after telling friends of extensive harassment and stalking by Scientologists.

Now the guy who claimed to have “wedding” pictures of Tom Cruise, the most high profile Scientologist around, has “committed suicide.” He was on house arrest after trying to extort money from Cruise for the photos. If he was trying to get paid millions for them, you know they weren’t just happy non-incriminating snaps:

The man who agreed to plead guilty to a plot to extort more than $1 million from Tom Cruise for stolen photos taken at his 2006 wedding to Katie Holmes in Italy was found dead in his home, the AP is reporting.

David Hans Schmidt, 47, was under house arrest and faced up to two years in federal prison. Authorities say it appears that he had committed suicide.

Schmidt, known as the Sultan of Sleaze, was found dead in his Phoenix townhouse on Friday afternoon after police noticed that a tracker placed on him had not moved and he had not checked in with them.

[From US Weekly]

It’s possible this man’s suicide was legitimate, not that I’m uh, suggesting that it was anything else. Daily News columnist George Rush says he was depressed and talking about suicide:

George Rush, one half of gossip columnist duo Rush & Molloy, said that Schmidt, who was most recently in the news for attempting to extort money from Tom Cruise, called him two weeks ago and told him of another suicide attempt.

“I did something really stupid. I put a belt around my neck in the shower. Fortunately, it didn’t work,” said Schmidt over the phone.

Rush says he encouraged Schmidt to get help. “He was phoning me every other day. I said, ‘You’ve got to get yourself on some medication. He said he was on some, but it just didn’t work for very long.

[From TMZ.com]

I’m sure the Scientologists will say it was all the fault of the antidepressants he was on. I picture a bunch of guys in dark suits shrugging and trying to look innocent, then pointing fingers.

According to The National Enquirer, the suicide was suspicious:

The 47-year-old Schmidt was found in a shower stall at a North 21st street condominium in Phoenix, AZ. “He hung himself, and the shower stall was so small, he had to squat to get the job done,” a source familiar with the situation said.

[From NationalEnquirer.com]

David Miscavige, the head of Scientology, was at Cruise’s wedding and there was a weird picture that came out of Cruise posing in what looked like a throne with his son Connor and Miscavige by his side. I wonder if they did any rituals at that wedding and if someone had documentation.

There’s a rumor of an Eva Longoria sex tape that was supposedly made with Tony Parker, but it strikes me as false for a few reasons:
1. You can download a supposed clip from a torrent, (NSFW) but once you try and view it you have to subscribe to a site called “Celebrity Orgy” to see it.

Believe me, I tried to subscribe using a couple different credit cards, but probably because I live overseas and have US-based cards, I was rejected every time and couldn’t view it.

2. No one who is reporting on this has even seen the tape.
This rumor seemed to originate on a site I’ve never heard of called “Oh My Lord,” which contains random news and seems to be a cut and paste blog, because they don’t source anything and I found a few of their posts word for word on other sites. Sites reporting on it just repeat the rumor so far, and no one has yet viewed the video that I could find.

3. The video has not been leaked yet
It’s not online other than these subscription torrents, and it’s not available on PornoTube.com, (link NSFW or under 18) which contains other videos with the keywords “Eva Longoria.” If it was really her I think it would be available already.

4. The title of the video suggests they just threw Eva’s name in there for good measure.
It’s called “Eva+Longoria+Home+Video+hot+MILF+caught+FUCKING+in+stolen+Sex+Tape”

Come on, Eva Longoria doesn’t have any kids. How is she a MILF? I doubt this is real. I just don’t think there’s anything to it given the source of the rumor and the fact that no one can verify that the tape exists yet.

It’s a shame, though. Eva Longoria could do with a good sex tape to boost her career.

The National Enquirer yells on this week’s cover “SPLIT! Julia Roberts’ husband walks out!” as if they’ve broken up and it’s a done deal. Once you read the article, you realized they’re hyping a one week surfing trip that he took with his guy friends.

The Enquirer brings up the old story that they reported over two months about how Julia is clashing with Danny’s family after they dropped out of therapy she insisted they go to, but that’s not new. It seems like they’re just trying to make it seem like a bad relationship with Julia is why Danny took a vacation, but it was only for a week and it’s not like he didn’t come back or was seen out partying with women.

With tension between them mounting, Julia Roberts’ husband packed his bags and left town, the Enquirer has learned exclusively…

When Danny broke the news that his family ended therapy, a livid Julia threatened to keep her in-laws away from the couple’s newest child, son Henry.

“Eventually she thawed and everyone made up,” the pal said.

“Julia even took Danny and the kids on a Hawaiian vacation to make amends. It was her way of saying: ‘Let’s make a fresh start.’”

But the couple didn’t even get home before Danny was ready to get away again.

Desperately needing a break from the continual clashing over the juggling of their marriage, careers and parenting, Danny headed to Bali with his buddies for some R & R after his week in Hawaii with Julia…

“After their trip to Hawaii, he needed to get away, so he went to Bali to surf. He was gone for almost a week while Julia watched the kids.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, October 8, 2007]

If he went with friends he probably didn’t just up and leave like the Enquirer is implying. It sounds like a planned vacation with other guys, so what’s the problem?

Danny Moder and Julia Roberts have been married for five years and have three children together, twins Hazel and Phinnaeus, who will be three at the end of November, and newborn Henry, three and a half months. They met on the set of the 2000 film The Mexican, where Moder was working as a cameraman. He was married to another woman at the time and it was rumored that Julia offered her 1/4 million to agree to divorce him.

I wouldn’t be surprised if these two were having problems given the way they got started, but you can really turn a one week trip with guy friends into a breakup. Danny Moder has already been seen back in LA in Venice, California furniture shopping with Julia and the twins.

Not to get too political on here (some of you like the variety, but a bunch of you yell at me too…) but Iran’s super-controversial president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University in New York City last Wednesday. The event was incredibly controversial – Ahmadinejad has been a longtime denier of the Holocaust. A lot of people thought he shouldn’t be allowed to speak by Columbia, while just as many people made the argument that in America, people generally have the right to say whatever they want, even if others don’t agree, and that’s a good value to show the rest of the world. Both of the arguments make sense to me in their way. During his speech, Ahmadinejad was heckled and several other speakers were really harsh to him – which was totally fair, because he got to speak his nutball views, and people got to respond. That’s the flip side of the whole freedom of speech thing – it applies to pretty much everyone. Ahmadinejad didn’t like that, and reminded the audience that that type of behavior wasn’t allowed in Iran. Ummm… well dude, you’re not in Iran. We let you come here and say things we consider stupid, so the way it works is that we then get to say things you consider stupid. See how we all win? Ahmadinejad claimed in his speech that there aren’t gay people in Iran, noting: “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I do not know who has told you that we have it.” Um, right. Well just because they don’t over-pluck their eyebrows and wear a lot of pink doesn’t mean you don’t have a couple of gays chilling in your hood, dude.

This past Saturday, comedic genius, “Saturday Night Live” cast member, and my future husband Andy Samberg responded to Ahmadinejad’s claims with one of his most inspired songs to date. Samberg is the lyrical mastermind behind SNL’s Emmy Award winning “Dick in a Box” and “Lazy Sunday.”

“Andy Samberg, Adam Levine and Jake Gyllenhaal lampooned Holocaust-denying, homosexual-decrying Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on ‘Saturday Night Live’ this week.

“Samberg performed a hilarious R&B love song titled ‘I Ran’ in homage to the Iranian president (played by Fred Armisen), featuring lyrics like, ‘You ain’t wrong to me, so strong to me. You belong to me, like a very hairy Jake Gyllenhaal to me.’

“Meanwhile, Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine gamely lent an overemotive chorus to the video, crooning, ‘And I raaaaan, I ran so far away. Because you’re home, in my heart you’ll stay…’

“The 29-year-old SNL funnyman took a shot at the statement in his serenade, singing, ‘I know you say that there are no gays in Iran, but you’re in New York now, baby!’

“Also up for ridicule was the president’s assertion that the Holocaust is “a myth.” Samberg tones, ‘You can deny the Holocaust all you want, but you can’t deny that there’s something between us.’

“At the end of the video, the real Gyllenhaal pops up for a cameo, fluffing his beard and flashing the double peace sign as the crowd bursts into laughter.”

[From Us Weekly]

Watch the video for comedic gold.