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Actor Daniel Radcliffe, the Harry Potter star, was searching for a mystery Australian girl he met at an Australia film awards party and two young Australian women have come forward, each claiming to be the beautiful stranger who bewitched the teenage actor during the party.
But the story took a new twist when Daniel Radcliffe's representatives said that his comments about being smitten with a girl who stared at him all night and then disappeared were just a joke.
"(Radcliffe's comments) were meant in jest, but sadly been blown out of all proportion," his London-based representative Vanessa Davies was quoted as telling New York's Daily News.
Newspapers in Australia have been searching for the mystery women after 18-year-old Harry Potter star, Daniel Radcliffe told an interviewer he was smitten with a woman he met at a party, although he didn't manage to get her name and phone number.
"There was one girl there, oh, my God, she had these eyes that just looked at me like she wanted to pounce on me.....I must have walked around that party for an hour trying to look for this girl, like some sad pathetic dweeb, but it would have been worth it," he told Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper in an interview published on Monday.
The paper said it had found two women who were at the party with Radcliffe and who both say they were the ones to catch Radcliffe's eye. But the women, Cassi Mackay (above pic right) and Savannah Blount(above pic left), both 23, say they already have boyfriends, describing Radcliffe as lovely, "charming and very polite."
Radcliffe, who started playing Potter in the popular Harry Potter movies when he was 11, has often spoken about not being able to find a girlfriend.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Harry Potter Star: "Search for Mystery Girl a Joke"
Friday, April 18, 2008
Hollywood Celebrity Talk This Week: April 13-18
Cameron Diaz's father, Emilio Diaz, 58, died on Tuesday morning. He had been suffering from a flu, which turned into pneumonia. Diaz is currently filming the movie My Sister's Keeper. Emilio Diaz had a small part in his daughter's hit 1998 comedy, "There's Something About Mary".
Ashlee Simpson's Pregnant, Getting Married
Ashlee Simpson, 23, is pregnant and plans to get married next month at a a friend's house in La Jolla,north of San Diego, in Southern California. She is engaged to "Fall Out Boy" bassist Pete Wentz, 28, who initially blasted the pregnancy rumors as a "witch hunt".Pregnant Nicole Kidman Suffered Severe Morning Sickness
Nicole Kidman may be an Oscar winner, but she faces morning sickness like any other pregnant women.
"I’ve had severe morning sickness," the expectant actress, 40, said on Monday, when she and husband Keith Urban hit the red carpet at the CMT Awards in Nashville. "[I'm] good actually, really good. Waiting for the third trimester," she said. "Everyone says that is hard work."
Gwyneth Paltrow Had Post-Partum Depression
Gwyneth Paltrow is on the cover of the May issue of Vogue, and inside she reveals she battled post-partum depression after having her second child Moses in 2006."You know, I had postnatal depression after [my second child] Moses," Gwyn says. "I didn't know I had it until after it was over. I just didn't know what was wrong with me...I felt really out of my body. I felt really disconnected. I felt really down, I felt pessimistic."
Ivanka Trump Weds Toyboy
Donald Trump's ex-wife, Ivana Trump weds for the fourth time in a £1million ceremony at the Mar-A-Lago private beach club on Florida's Palm Beach. The groom, a 35-year-old jobbing actor called Rossano Rubicondi, arrived to the Rocky theme and was joined by 25 male supporters. Ivana, 59-year-old, wore a pink and white crystal-studded gown as she walked up the aisle to Il Divo's version of Unchained Melody.Donald Trump, who owns the venue, conducted the ceremony. Ivana was given away by her sons Donald Jr, 30, and Eric, 24, with daughter Ivanka, 26, as maid of honour.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Harry Potter Author - JK Rowling in Court with Her Fan
Harry Potter Author, J.K. Rowling strode into a lower Manhattan courthouse early Monday for the start of her lawsuit against one of her fans. She says her copyrights are being violated by Steven Vander Ark, an ardent Harry Potter fan who plans to publish a "Harry Potter" encyclopedia.
The showdown between Rowling and Steven Vander Ark is scheduled to last most of the week in U.S. District Court. She'll spend her breaks in the seclusion of a jury room—away from any die-hard Potter fans.
Rowling brought the lawsuit last year against Vander Ark's publisher, RDR Books, to stop publication of the "Harry Potter Lexicon."
The trial comes eight months after Rowling published her seventh and final book in the series. The books have been published in 64 languages, sold more than 400 million copies and spawned a film franchise that has pulled in $4.5 billion at the worldwide box office.
Rowling is a fan of the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site that Vander Ark runs. But she draws the line when it comes to publishing the book and charging $24.95. She also says it fails to include any of the commentary and discussion that enrich the Web site and calls it "nothing more than a rearrangement" of her own material.
One of her lawyers told the Judge on Friday, that Rowling "feels like her words were stolen." He said the author felt so personally violated that she made her own comparisons among her seven best-selling novels and the lexicon and was ready to testify about the similarities in dozens of instances.
A lawyer for RDR Books, which plans to sell the lexicon, said the publisher will not challenge the claim by Rowling that much of the material in the lexicon infringed her copyrights. But the judge will decide whether the use of the material by the small Michigan publisher was legal because it was used for some greater purpose, such as a scholarly pursuit.
In court papers filed prior to the trial, Rowling said she was "deeply troubled" by the book.
"If RDR's position is accepted, it will undoubtedly have a significant, negative impact on the freedoms enjoyed by genuine fans on the Internet," she said. "Authors everywhere will be forced to protect their creations much more rigorously, which could mean denying well-meaning fans permission to pursue legitimate creative activities."
In court papers, Vander Ark, 50, said he was a teacher and school librarian in Byron Center, Mich., before recently moving to London to begin a career as a writer. He said he joined an adult online discussion group devoted to the Harry Potter books in 1999 before launching his own Web site as a hobby a year later. Since then, neither Rowling nor her publisher had ever complained about anything on it, he said.
In May 2004, he said, Rowling mentioned his Web site on her own, writing, "This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an Internet cafe while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is embarrassing). A Web site for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home."
The Web site attracts about 1.5 million page views per month and contributions from people all over the world, Vander Ark said. He said he initially declined proposals to convert the Web site into an encyclopedia, in part because he believed until last August that in book form, it would represent a copyright violation.
After Rowling released the final chapter in the Harry Potter series that same month, Vander Ark was contacted by an RDR Books employee, who told him that publication of the lexicon would not violate copyright law, he said. Still, to protect himself, Vander Ark said he insisted that RDR Books include a clause in his contract that the publisher would defend and pay any damages that might result from claims against him.
In his court statement, Vander Ark still sounds like a fan, saying the lexicon "enhances the pleasure of readers of the Potter novels, and deepens their appreciation of Ms. Rowling's achievement."
But the affection no longer seems a shared experience. In court Friday, Rowling's lawyers did not want Vander Ark in the courtroom while Rowling testifies.
News from AP
