Wanna Be Paparazzi & Make Easy Money? Email us your Celebrity Digital Photos and Videos... There could be a fortune sitting in your mobile handset. If you snapped it then send it to us at: Very. Important. Pictures.

week 19-01
ShowBiz Weekly: news from the UK & US...

SEAN ``PUFFY'' COMBS is heading for Death Row in his first major screen role. The rap mogul has signed to play a convicted murderer sentenced to the electric chair in Monster's Ball, a drama about three generations of racist executioners, played by PETER BOYLE, BILLY BOB THORNTON and HEATH LEDGER. HALLE BERRY will play the dead man's widow, who falls for THORNTON's character after the execution. Filming begins in Louisiana next week.

ANNE ARCHER, who is following KATHLEEN TURNER and AMANDA DONOHOE in the role of Mrs Robinson in the London production of The Graduate, has no qualms about taking her clothes off in front of an audience. ``I'm an actor,'' 51-year-old Archer tells Daily Variety. ``It's a character who is so deliciously amoral - and I'm old enough to play her.'' The actress, whose films include Patriot Games and Body of Evidence, is appearing on stage in Beverly Hills until Sunday in The Vagina Monologues. She saw The Graduate in London last week with her 24-year-old son Tom and she begins rehearsals on May 21 for when she opens in the play on June 11.

British film-maker RIDLEY SCOTT, who has directed Gladiator, Hannibal and Black Hawk Down in quick succession, will become a producer for his next project. He and his brother Tony are joining forces to produce a thriller called Six Bullets From Now, based on the true story of the biggest ever hotel robbery .

STEPHEN KAY, who directed the SYLVESTER STALLONE flop Get Carter, will direct the story of the five gunmen who stole more than one million dollars in cash and jewels from New York's Pierre Hotel in 1972. The film begins shooting this autumn, when Ridley Scott has finished post-production work on Black Hawk Down.

MICHAEL CAINE, who is co-starring with BRENDAN FRASER in a remake of the GRAHAM GREENE novel The Quiet American, is scornful of the original 1958 film, which starred Second World War hero-turned-actor AUDIE MURPHY. ``Michael says that Audie Murphy was a brave soldier but a cowardly actor,'' said Fraser, who is in Los Angeles for the premiere of The Mummy Returns. He said their version, under the direction of Australian PHILIP NOYCE, is far truer to the Greene novel than the original film, which deleted all anti-American references to push an anti-Communist message. ``It was contrary to what Greene intended in his novel,'' he said. Caine has the role of a cynical British journalist, originally played by MICHAEL REDGRAVE.

Director ROBERT RODRIQUEZ, who wrote and directed the hit family film Spy Kids, is heading south of the border to direct Once Upon a Time in Mexico. It marks the third part of his action trilogy which began in 1992 with El Mariachi and continued with 1995's Desperado. ``I plan on returning to a down-and-dirty, more experimental style of shooting, similar to El Mariachi,'' Rodriguez told the Hollywood Reporter.

ANTONIO BANDERAS is to star in Once Upon a Time in Mexico and QUENTIN TARANTINO and SALMA HAYEK may also join the cast. Friends star LISA KUDROW will produce and star in her next film, a dark comedy called Intense Girl Scouts. In it she will play a Girl Scout troop leader who becomes involved a murder mystery after being shunned by her troop when her attempts at good deeds go awry.

SHARON STONE is on the verge of signing a deal to portray LANA TURNER in a film about the star's romance with gangster JOHNNY STOMPANATO, according to director WAYNE WANG. Wang says the story of the affair, which ended with the stabbing of Stompanato by Turner's daughter, is ``so absurd it's almost a black comedy''. He tells Entertainment Weekly he has spoken with ANTONIO BANDERAS about playing Stompanato. But he told him: ``You have to get rid of your Spanish accent. Johnny was a mobster from the Midwest.'' Croatian actor GORAN VISNJIC, who co-stars in ER, is to make his British film debut in the supernatural thriller Doctor Sleep. Visnjic will play a hypnotherapist with telepathic powers who gets caught up in the pursuit of a ritualistic killer.

CORIN REDGRAVE, SHIRLEY HENDERSON and PADDY CONSIDINE co-star in the 8 million production. former James Bond star ROGER MOORE is lining up future film projects now he has decided to go back to work. As well as appearing as an ageing cat burglar in Skinning the Cat, he is joining the cast of Boat Trip, in which he will play a gay man on a Caribbean cruise.

Former Fleetwood Mac singer STEVIE NICKS has made a guest appearance with Destiny's Child on the video to promote their Bootylicious record. Nicks, whose latest album, Trouble in Shangri-La has just been released, is a big favourite of the pop trio, and Bootylicious features a guitar riff from one of her old songs, Edge of 17. The video was filmed in Los Angeles this week.

SEAN PENN, who was born and raised in Southern California, has narrated a skateboarding documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys, about the rise of the sport's popularity in the area. Directed by star skateboarder STACY PERALTA, the film profiles the Z-Boys, a skateboarding team in Dogtown, a seedy stretch of Los Angeles oceanfront. America's NBC TV network has ordered 13 episodes of the BBC's game show Dog Eat Dog following the success of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and The Weakest Link. BBC production executives will be going to America to help launch the show, which will make its US premiere in the summer.

FRANK STALLONE is using the online auction house eBay to sell memorabilia connected to his famous brother, SYLVESTER. Bidding has started at 5,000 on a Rambo knife autographed by the actor and used in one of the Rambo films. ``This is the only knife Sylvester Stallone ever signed,'' writes Frank in his description of the item. ``I know this for sure. I'm his brother Frank and it is signed to me.'' He adds that his brother was once offered (dollars)100,000 for the knife. According to the New York Daily News, Frank previously used eBay to sell a full length designer overcoat that had belonged to his brother. It brought in a little over (dollars) 100.

SOPHIA LOREN celebrates her 100th film, Between Strangers, by working with her son, EDOARDO (corr) PONTI, who is making his feature film directing debut on the drama. Her scenes will be with the British actor PETER POSTLETHWAITE, who co-stars with MALCOLM MCDOWELL, MIRA SORVINO and WENDY CREWSON in the story of three generations of women who confront their past. ``I feel so grateful to be work with such a magnificent actress and person,'' Edoardo told Daily Variety. ``We have been rehearsing in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks and it seemed so natural to be working with her.'' The film will be set and shot entirely in Toronto.

ALEX GARLAND, whose novel The Beach was turned into a film starring LEONARDO DICAPRIO, has written an original screenplay called Days Later. This new project will reunite him with The Beach director DANNY BOYLE and producer ANDREW MACDONALD. Days Later is due to start shooting in August in London, although no cast has yet been set. The story follows a small group of people who survive a virus that wipes out the rest of the world's population.

JAMES WOODS has taken over the role originally to have been played by MARLON BRANDO in the horror-comedy Scary Movie 2. Brando was to have spent four days playing a priest who performs a supernatural exorcism at the beginning of the film, but he had to drop out because of ill health. Woods joins a cast that includes the British actor TIM CURRY, TORI SPELLING and NATASHA LYONNE. Scary Movie 2 satirises supernatural horror films such as The Exorcist and Stigmata.

HELEN REDDY has sold the home in Los Angeles where she has lived for thepast 35 years in order to return to her native Australia The singer, best-known for I Am a Woman, is now semi-retired and plans to divide her time between Australia and the United States. She sold the house for slightly more than (dollars) 1 million, which she reportedly plans to use to buy a home on Norfolk Island, off the Australian coast.

JUDE LAW plays a romantic robot named Joe Gigolo in STEVEN SPIELBERG's AI, the science-fiction drama STANLEY KUBRICK was working on when he died. The British actor, who studied mime and the movements of peacocks to prepare for the role, sings and dances as part of his character's talents. ``He's a gigolo,'' Law explains to the Los Angeles Times. ``He has various clients - some he just talks to, some he massages, some he presumably takes a bit further. They are able to change the ways in which he seduces.'' The 60 million film is based on the BRIAN ALDISS short story, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, with a treatment and notes prepared by Kubrick in the early 90s and a script written by Spielberg. ``It's Steven's film but Stanley was talked about every day,'' said Law.

ROGER MOORE is coming out of retirement to play an ageing cat burglar in Skinning the Cat. The former James Bond star, who now spends his time as an ambassador for Unicef, made his last film appearance in 1997's Spice World. He has been lured back to the screen by Skinning the Cat director, JOHN GLEN, who previously directed him in the James Bond films Octopussy and A View to a Kill in 1985.

JIM CARREY is breaking new ground with his serious role in The Majestic, in which he plays a blacklisted writer in the 1950s who loses his memory in a car accident. ``He's going to surprise a lot of people and raise a lot of eyebrows,'' his co-star, MARTIN LANDAU, tells syndicated columnist MARILYN BECK. ``It's a pleasure to see him as a human being, a really complex character.'' Landau, who plays a man who mistakes Carrey's character for the son he lost in the war, added: ``Jim's character would have been played by Jimmy Stewart if it had been made in 1951. There are all these layers and it's totally devoid of shtick.''

WILL SMITH has joined the ever -growing ranks of celebrity parents who have written children's books. Just the Two of Us, which is based on Smith's hit song and which he wrote for his eight-year-old son Trey, is due to be released this month. Smith, who is currently filming Ali, the biography of MUHAMMAD ALI, has plans for more books with his wife, JADA PINKETT SMITH. ``We have lots of ideas that we are kicking around,'' he says.

LUCIE ARNAZ and her brother DESI ARNAZ JR are close to finalising a deal for an I Love Lucy 50th anniversary television special and a touring show which would pay tribute to their mother, Lucille Ball. The show would permanently tour theatres and fairs across the world, and lawyers are currently ironing out the details. Lucie Arnaz remains in London, resting with a broken toe from the show The Witches of Eastwick. She will return to America when her year's contract expires at the end of June.