Celebrity JPG - Celeb pictures and gossip.

Miley Ray Cyrus auditioned for the Hannah Montana in 2005, when she was 12 years old. She became an overnight success after being cast in the show. She is ranked #17 on the Forbes Top twenty earners under 25 with an annual earning of $3.5 million. She was involved in a spin-off movie, Hannah Montana: The Movie that will release at the end of 2008.

Her show debuted on the Disney Channel in March 2006. The series focuses on a girl who lives a double life as an average teenage school girl named Miley Stewart. At night she is a famous pop singer names Hannah Montana. Only her close friends know about her double identity. Her father, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus plays her father on the show.

Audition tape: youtube.com/watch?v=caB6ibye87E

“American Idol” hopeful Amy Davis is making headlines today — and not for her stellar performance during the top 12 girls’ night performance (because it was anything but stellar)…

Amy Davis is making big news today because she’s featured as a Maxim “Hometown Hottie.”

Given Amy Davis’ lackluster performance of “Where the Boys Are” last night, you’ve got to wonder if she’ll be eliminated tonight…

Maxim could have kept her in the race a little longer if these pics were released earlier.

New York Times story suggested that Vicki Iseman and Sen. John McCain had a close relationship that may have been romantic.

Vicki Iseman had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

A champion of deregulation, Mr. McCain wrote letters in 1998 and 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a crucial issue for Glencairn Ltd., one of Ms. Iseman’s clients. He introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership of stations; Ms. Iseman represented several businesses seeking such a program. And he twice tried to advance legislation that would permit a company to control television stations in overlapping markets, an important issue for Paxson.

In late 1999, Ms. Iseman asked Mr. McCain’s staff to send a letter to the commission to help Paxson, now Ion Media Networks, on another matter. Mr. Paxson was impatient for F.C.C. approval of a television deal, and Ms. Iseman acknowledged in an e-mail message to The Times that she had sent to Mr. McCain’s staff information for drafting a letter urging a swift decision.

Mr. McCain complied. He sent two letters to the commission, drawing a rare rebuke for interference from its chairman. In an embarrassing turn for the campaign, news reports invoked the Keating scandal, once again raising questions about intervening for a patron.

Aishwarya Rai is optimistic that the historical romance ‘Jodhaa Akbar’ will do well and the controversy over distortion of facts would disappear once people go to watch the film.

Aishwarya, who was accompanied by husband Abhishek Bachchan, said: ‘Ashutosh (Gowariker) comes for a couple of minutes in the beginning of the film and clarifies that the character (Jodhaa) is documented under five different names. Among them, Jodhaa is most popular name and hence the director used it so people can relate to the character.’

‘After the audience watches the film they will understand and the row over distortion of facts will fade away,’ she added.

The Karni Sena, a Rajput organisation, is protesting against screening of the film as they claim Gowariker’s representation of Jodhabai as Mughal emperor Akbar’s wife is incorrect.

Britney Spears on Tuesday failed to regain the right to see her two young sons after a closed-door court hearing in the lengthy and bitter custody dispute with her ex-husband Kevin Federline.

Spears, who lost primary custody of her children in October, has been barred from court-monitored visits after refusing to hand the boys back to Federline in January and being taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

Los Angeles Superior Court spokesman Alan Parachini told reporters there had been no change in the orders handed out by the family judge who last month stripped Spears of her visiting rights to see Sean Preston, 2 and Jayden James, 1.

Celebrity web site TMZ.com said Federline wanted Spears to be able to see the boys under certain conditions but lawyers for both sides apparently could not agree on the terms.

The court denied a motion by Spears’ lawyer to issue a gag order to keep attorneys from talking to the media but it granted a request for Spears to change her lawyer from Anne Kiley of Los Angeles-based firm Trope & Trope to new attorney Stacy Phillips.

Earlier this month, Spears spent another six days in a psychiatric unit for what is thought to be bipolar disorder and her father Jamie Spears was given control of her personal and business affairs.

The American singer, once one of the world’s biggest pop stars, has spiraled downwards since her divorce last year from Federline.

A year ago she shaved her head and spent a brief stint in rehab but her behavior has grown more erratic in recent months, including wearing a bright pink wig and adopting a British accent.

Kate Nauta is an actress who also models and sings in her spare time. As a model, she uses the name Katie Nauta.Kate Nauta recently played in “The Game Plan” opposite The Rock Dwayne Johnson. The movie wasn’t a box office smash, but it got over all good reviews in the family film department. It just came out on DVD. Kate Nauta was born April 29, 1982 in Salem, Oregon, so her age is 25. She grew up outside Salem in a town called Woodburn. Her measurements are 5′9″, 34-25-35.

Nauta began modeling at the age of 15 and won the Elite Model Look contest at 17. She is now with Mode Models International. She has posed for Versace, L’Oreal, DKNY, and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. She goes by Katie when she’s modeling.Kate is also an actress, starring in “Transporter 2″ and “The Game Plan”. Director Luc Besson specifically asked for her after seeing a picture, and the rest is history. She is currently filming “Nine Miles Down” with Nick Nolte. She sings and writes music, having two of her songs on the “Transporter 2″ soundtrack. She has worked with Lenny Kravitz in the past, and she’s currently working on an album for Sony.

Priscilla Presley will participate in the next season of “Dancing with the Stars.”

“I dance because I, first of all, love to dance,” she said on “Good Morning America” today. “It’s a bit of dance within each of us.”

But it did not ignore the benefits of physical hobby and is looking forward to achieving a capacity of the body, like most of the former participants.

“I could just for muscular development,” she said.

Presley was one of the twelve people, six men and six women, came to participate in the sixth season, starts March 25th.

In 1962, photographer Bert Stern shot a series of photos (2,571 in all) of Marilyn Monroe at the Hotel Bel-Air that are collectively known as “The Last Sitting.” The 36-year-old Monroe was in the darkest period of her life, having weathered two recent divorces, gallbladder surgery and sickness during production of the romantic comedy Something’s Got to Give, from which she was fired and rehired. Six weeks after the Stern photo shoot, Monroe died from a barbiturate overdose in her L.A. home.

46 years later, Stern has revisited the series with Lindsay Lohan filling in for Monroe in a NY Magazine shoot that fastidiously replicates the original poses, lighting, and clothing. “It was very similar, déjà vu you might say, like revisiting an old street,” says Stern, who adds that the project arose from his interest in “controversial women,” or “bad girls,” like “Britney, Paris, and Lindsay.”

Lohan, who owns a lot of Monroe “stuff”, including an apartment the doomed starlet once occupied, seems to be in denial about the parallels between her troubles and Monroe’s last days, instead pointing to Heath Ledger’s death as “both prime examples of what this industry can do to someone.”

When asked during a break in the shoot why that fate befalls some and not others (hint, hint), Li Lo “replied with a flicker of annoyance: ‘I don’t know. I’m not them. But I sure as hell wouldn’t let it happen to me.’”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the next Spice Girls reunion. Geri Halliwell, a.k.a. Ginger Spice, said a second outing “probably won’t happen ever again.” The quintet’s Return of the Spice Girls World Tour wraps February 26 in Toronto.

“This is the last time you will ever get to see this Girl Power, the five Spices on the stage as one,” said Halliwell, who left the group in May 1998 but was a chief proponent of the current reunion.

That said, Halliwell told Billboard.com that she would not entirely shut the door on a bit more Spice if fans really, really want it.

“What this reunion taught me is you can never say never,” she said. “If you had asked me 10 years ago whether there’d ever be a Spice Girls reunion concert, I’d have gone, ‘No f—ing way!”‘

Halliwell said the reunion was “an experience of a lifetime,” and denied reports that it was coming to a premature end because of infighting among the five Spices.

“Actually it’s gone on longer than planned,” Halliwell said, “because we thought we were only going to go to the end of January. After February everybody had commitments — kids had to go back to school and that. So we had to leave places out that we would have loved to have gone to.”

Halliwell has her own post-Spice plan in place. In May she’ll roll out the first in a new children’s book series featuring a character named Ugenia Lavender, whom she cryptically described as “a rebirth of girl power.”

Singer Christina Aguilera has given the world the first look at her one-month-old son, by selling pictures of them both to People magazine.

Aguilera appears on this week’s People cover with her son Max Liron, her first child with husband Jordan Bratman.

Aguilera tells People, “He’s completely changed my life,” adding that she is “head over heels in love” with her son.

The magazine also features photos of Aguilera’s nursery, in her home which formerly belonged to Ozzy Osbourne and his family.

In real life, her first car was a Volkswagen bug when she was 16. In her racing life, Stephanie Mockler was driving quarter midget cars, tiny racecars that children can drive, at the age of 6. Now at 20, she is a record-setting driver.

Mockler became the first female to win a USAC Ford Focus Midget Series when she finished at the Indianapolis Speedrome. She is also the eighth woman in the United States Auto Club’s history to win a feature race. And she is the youngest female to ever win a USAC main event.

She gets the whole “Danica Patrick” thing a lot. Patrick is a 25-year-old Indy Racing League driver. Mockler is quick to point out that not all racing is the same and that she hopes to take the NASCAR track. But one thing between them is the same, “When you put on the helmet, you’re just another racer.”

O.J. Simpson’s girlfriend, Christie Prody has been hospitalized with a “severe head injury.” Despite speculation that Christie was the victim of a brutal beating at the hand of O.J., Miami police say her injuries are consistent with a fall she took at a gas station on Monday, and O.J. was never a suspect.

Police questioned O.J. on Tuesday and they quickly determined he had nothing to do with Prody’s injuries.

Prody was rushed to the emergency room at Baptist Hospital of Miami after an anonymous caller reported a woman falling at a gas station. According to a witness, who was not named, Prody was “intoxicated and always falling down” during a recent trip to San Antonio.

O.J. reportedly told police that he had returned from San Antonio a few days earlier than Prody because she was intoxicated and didn’t make proper arrangements to bring her dog on the February 4 flight. She returned the following Sunday.

Natalie Portman has had enough of scripts in which the only role for her is that of either a stripper or a prostitute.

The 26-year-old is now looking for a good romantic comedy but it seems that Hollywood just wants her to play hookers, like she did in Closer.

“I have recently been getting frustrated with the number of roles for strippers or prostitutes I get - or the opposite, the pure one. That dichotomy exists so strongly,” Contactmusic quoted her, as saying.

The ‘Star Wars’ actress said that she was sick of getting roles just on the extremes of good and bad.

“It’s the virgin/whore thing in evidence to the greatest extent. That’s bothering me. I want to find a character who is complicated. I also love comedies, but every time I read a comedy, the girl is in fashion and really into clothes and just wants to get married,” she said.

She added: “I would also love to do a romantic comedy, where the woman has a real job.”

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been named Hollywood’s most influential couple in a new poll.

Kate Moss and Pete Doherty finished in second place, despite ending their relationship last July.

Forbes magazine examined press cuttings and online stories about high-profile couples to determine which had the greatest impact on popular culture.

Pitt and Jolie topped the survey because of their humanitarian acts, growing family and “likeability” as a couple.

Other couples featuring high on the list included Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, and Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban.

David and Victoria Beckham finished in eleventh place.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Marisa Miller (born August 6, 1978 is an American supermodel. She is known for her many appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues and Victoria’s Secret catalogs. She is the cover model for the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

Marisa Bertetta was born in Santa Cruz, California, she was first “discovered” at age 16 walking through a San Francisco café by two Italian modeling agents. After talking to her mom Krista Bertetta, she was on a plane to Italy with her mom a few months later. Marisa says that the most valuable thing that her mom has ever told her was “You can always go back to school but you may not always be able to model.” Marisa took her mom’s advice and soon gained attention when she appeared in a 1997 issue of Perfect 10 magazine. Although she came in third behind Ashley Degenford and Monica Hansen in Perfect 10 magazine’s first annual model search, she was repeatedly showcased in following issues, including the covers of the Winter 1998, Aug/Sept 1999, and Fall 2004 editions. She has two sisters and attended Monte Vista Christian School in Watsonville, California.

2008 SI SWIMSUIT MODELS

Marisa Miller, Melissa Baker, Ana Beatriz Barros, Yasmin Brunet, Jeisa Chiminazzo, Brooklyn Decker, Jessica Gomes, Quiana Grant, Melissa Haro, Julie Henderson, Jarah Mariano, Oluchi Onweagba, Tori Praver, Bar Refaeli, Daniella Sarahyba, Irina, Anne V, Jessica White

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Steve Erle, Walter Iooss, Stewart Shining, Thomas Sewell, Paulo Sutch, Ben Watts, Antoine Verglas, Marlena Bielinska, Brian Lovely, Andrew Macphers

Jessica Alba has claimed that Latin American women are the new “It girls” in Hollywood.

The actress, who is expecting a baby with her fiancé Cash Warren, revealed that women in Los Angeles are desperate to change their appearance so that they look more like Latin stars.

“I think it’s funny that women get their lips injected and get butt implants,” Alba told Latina magazine. “Everyone wants to look like us now.”

Jessica insisted that she would never go under the knife for cosmetic surgery, claiming that she does not worry about her looks.

“I like that I look different,” she said. “I’m not a make-up and hair kind of girl. I don’t really have a brush.”

“Fool’s Gold” found real treasure as the romantic adventure starring Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson led the weekend box office with a $22 million debut.

Martin Lawrence’s family reunion comedy “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins” opened at No. 2 with $17.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Disney’s “Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert,” the 3-D concert film that was the previous weekend’s top movie, fell to third place with $10.5 million, a sharp drop from its $31.1 million opening. The movie has grossed $53.4 million after 10 days.

Released by Warner Bros., “Fool’s Gold” came in a bit under the $23.8 million opening of McConaughey and Hudson’s hit romance “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” which debuted over the same pre-Valentine’s Day weekend in 2003.

With Valentine’s Day on Thursday, the studio is counting on “Fool’s Gold” to hold up well, said Jeff Goldstein, Warner vice president of distribution.

Critics hated “Fool’s Gold” but audiences were eager to catch McConaughey and Hudson, who play a divorced couple reunited in a quest for 18th-century treasure lost at sea.

“A great marketing campaign, two appealing stars, and reviews be damned,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. “Heading into Valentine’s week, it’s sort of a natural.”

Universal’s “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins” features Lawrence as a talk show host who reluctantly heads back to the family homestead for his parents’ 50th anniversary.

This weekend’s other new wide release, Picturehouse’s “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights — Hollywood to the Heartland,” tanked with just $507,000. Playing in 962 theaters, the documentary of Vaughn and other comics’ standup tour averaged just $527 a cinema, compared to $7,043 in 3,125 locations for “Fool’s Gold” and $7,175 in 2,387 theaters for “Roscoe Jenkins.”

In narrower release, Paris Hilton’s comedy “The Hottie and the Nottie” did even worse, bombing with around $25,000 in 111 theaters for an average of about $225, according to an estimate from Media By Numbers. Distributed by Regent Releasing, the movie stars Hilton as a bombshell who refuses to date until her ugly best friend finds love.

Trapped half a world away by the place she promised to never “go, go, go,” a vibrant, exuberant Amy Winehouse dominated the Grammys, winning five awards and delivering a defiant performance of her autobiographical hit “Rehab” via satellite from London.

Winehouse, nominated for six awards, lost the final prize at Sunday night’s ceremony in a shocker when Herbie Hancock took album of the year for “River: The Joni Letters.”
“You know it’s been 43 years since the first and only time that a jazz artist got the album of the year award,” Hancock said, then proceeded to honor “the giants upon whose shoulders I stand, some of whom like Miles Davis, John Coltrane … unquestionably deserved the award in the past. But this is a new day, that proves that the impossible can be made possible.”

For a while it seemed impossible that Winehouse would perform at all. She recently entered a drug rehabilitation center after months of erratic behavior and canceled performances, not to mention the anthemic “no, no, no” resistance of her hit song.

As the ceremony approached, suspense built over whether the British singer’s drug troubles would cost her a work visa. When her visa application was rejected Thursday, Grammy producers arranged for her to perform remotely. On Friday, the U.S. government reversed itself and approved the visa, but it was too late for her to make the cross-continental trek.

So she took the stage at almost 4 a.m. London time Monday before a small cabaret audience, wearing a sly smile as she performed a sultry, soulful rendition of the hit that has defined her recent fall from grace. She looked just as coy as she sang the song “You Know I’m No Good” _ almost reveling in the irony of her words.

Susie Sprague Feldman (born June 7, 1982) was born in San Bernardino, California to Sue Egberts and Scott Sprague. Her parents split when she was 2 years old. Susie lived primarily with her father from the time she was 2 years old until she was 9 years. While living with her father, they traveled extensively, living in Northern and Southern California, Hawaii and Spain.

Her father, Scott, died when Susie was 9 years old. Susie then went to live with her mother; Sue Egberts, an iron welder. Finally settled in one location, Susie attended junior high and high school in Corona, California, graduating from Santiago High School in 2000.

Susie first met Corey Feldman while celebrating her 19th birthday with a bunch of girlfriends at Las Palmas in Hollywood. Encouraged by her girlfriends, she made the first move. On Valentine’s Day, 2002, Feldman rented a cabin in Big Bear, decorating it with balloons and flowers, and presented Susie with a large gift. Like the Russian nesting dolls, the large gift box contained numerous smaller boxes one inside another. Upon finally opening the smallest box, she discovered an engagement ring.

During their engagement, Corey was filming the popular reality show, The Surreal Life on VH1. Although they originally planned on getting married in May 2003, the producers approached them about pushing their wedding date up so they could get married on the show finale.

Corey and Susie agreed and the wedding date was moved up to October 30, 2002, leaving all the details up to the producers and a team of wedding planners. The wedding was put together in seven days with a $100,000 price tag.

For her wedding dress, Warner Bros. loaned Susie a gown for the day. The gown was so heavily encrusted with pearls that it weighed almost 65 lbs. Feldman and Sprague were married on October 30, 2002 on the set of The Surreal Life by a rabbi and rapper turned ordained minister, MC Hammer. At the time, Feldman was 31 and Sprague was 20.

Hammer, along with another member of the show, Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe, performed at the reception. After saying goodbye to their 100 guests and castmates, Corey and Susie took off for their weeklong honeymoon on Bora Bora where they stayed in an over-the-water bungalow at Pearl Beach Resort.

Under the influence of Feldman, she became a vegetarian and actively involved with environmental and animal rights organizations, including PETA, Farm Sanctuary and Last Chance for Animals. Sprague has a son named Zen Scott Feldman, born on August 7, 2004.

Brian McNamee accused Debbie Clemens of taking HGH.

McNamee is the former trainer of Roger Clemens. The two are in the middle of a heated debate, during which the former is accusing the latter of using steroids and HGH to prolong - and improve - his career in Major League Baseball. The latter denies using any performance-enhancing drugs.

Instead of worrying about economic problems in the country, Congress will hear each side of the argument next week.

Izabel Goulart was born on October 23, 1984 in São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil. She is of Italian-Brazilian descent. She has four brothers and one sister. Goulart once said that “the hardest part about being an Angel is I spend time away from my mom’s food and away from my home with my five brothers and sister.”

Goulart has stated that school was a particularly rough time, as she was made fun of for her skinny build, and was even called names such as “giraffe”.

While shopping for groceries with her mother at age 14, a hairstylist suggested that she should become a model. She moved to the state’s capital São Paulo and started modeling.

Keshia Knight Pulliam, the ever-adorable actress who played Rudy Huxtable on “The Cosby Show”. Having fallen out of the spotlight for awhile, Keshia made news again last year when she was rumored to have a pretty bad cocaine addiction. Most recently she was seen at Denver Nuggets star Kenyon Martin’s New Year’s Eve/30th Birthday party.

As a biography, Keshia Knight Pulliam was born April 9, 1979 in Newark, New Jersey, so her age is 28. Keshia started acting from the age of 3 on “Sesame Street”, but she landed it big in 1984 when she got the role of Rudy Huxtable on “The Cosby Show”, which she played until 1992. When she was six, she was even nominated for a supporting actress Emmy. Keshia has continued acting, her biggest role being the film “Beauty Shop”.

Pulliam graduated in 2001 from Spelman University. The next year she participated in a celebrity episode of “Fear Factor”, which she won. She’s also won a celebrity episode of “The Weakest Link”.

Keshia has been trying to shed her good girl Huxtable image since she left the show. In 2004, she shot a 6-page lingerie and swimsuit spread for Black Men magazine. She also starred in one of Chingy’s music videos, “One Call Away”. Of her attempts of breaking the Rudy shell, Keshia says,

“I knew it was going to be a shock for people because people are used to seeing me as a little girl, as Rudy from ‘The Cosby Show’ at 10 years old. I have to let them know that now I’m a woman.”

In 2006, it was reported that Pulliam was struggling with a cocaine addiction. That would be interesting considering in the interview below she discusses how she became the well-adjusted child star she is today.

Keshia is ranked 11th on E!’s list of “50 cutest child stars all grown up”. In the past, Pulliam has dated Quentin Richardson of the New York Knicks.

Bridget McCain, McCain’s adopted daughter, is from a Muslim country - Bangladesh.

Lately McCain said: “I’m not interested in trading with Al Qaeda. All they want to trade is burqas,” he quipped, referring to a type of dress some Muslim women wear.

Local Muslims say that criticizing Al Qaeda is legitimate, but wonder why he would make a snide remark.

I wonder if Bridget took her Dad’s comment personally.

Britney Spears got her stay in a psychiatric ward extended Sunday, as doctors decided to keep her hospitalized an additional 14 days, someone close to the pop star told the Associated Press.

Spears was to be released from UCLA Medical Center’s psychiatric hospital Sunday, but doctors and a medical officer at the ward determined that she should remain, said the person, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

Spears was committed Thursday for a 72-hour hold for evaluation. Paramedics, flanked by a police escort of about a dozen officers on motorcycles, in cars and a helicopter, took Spears from her home to the psychiatric hospital before dawn.

To extend her stay, hospital staff members cited a section in the state law that allows patients to be retained for medical treatment if they are found to be gravely disabled or a danger to themselves or others, the person said.

A UCLA Medical Center spokesman did not immediately return a phone message Sunday seeking comment. Calls to attorneys Sorrell Trope, Spears’ personal lawyer, and Andrew Wallet, also were not returned.

Court Commissioner Reva Goetz ruled the day after Spears was hospitalized — and following a year of increasingly bizarre public behavior — that she needed to have someone else take over her personal and financial affairs.

Katharine McPhee and actor Nick Cokas wed Saturday in Beverly Hills.

Approximately 300 guests – including a gospel choir – filled the Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church for the 45-minute service.

McPhee’s bridesmaids wore floor-length pink dresses.

The flowers included pink, purple, peach and white roses as well as green hydrangea and pink cherry blossoms.

Rumer Willis, McPhee’s costar in the upcoming film I Know What Boys Like, was in attendance.

McPhee, 23, and Cokas, 42 – who met in 2005 when they performed in a L.A. theater production of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir – have been dating for more than a year.

They got engaged last year.

The singer has always shrugged off their 19-year age difference.

“I love older men,” she has said. “They’re just wiser, and they’re less about themselves and more about you.”

Though McPhee was recently dropped from her music label, she may have other plans in store.

“I want to have, like, 15 babies,” she told Stuff last year. “I’ve always wanted to be pregnant. One year for Halloween, I decided to be pregnant, so I got this nun costume, and I put a big belly under it. I showed my parents and said I want to go to school as a pregnant nun. My dad sat me down and said, ‘Katharine, you can’t!’”

Acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair has signed on to join Hillary Swank in the mysterious biopic ‘Amelia’.

Swank will portray noted American aviatrix Amelia Earhart in the movie.

The film was earlier to be helmed by Phil Noyce of ‘Catch A Fire’ fame, but he later dropped out.

Besides being an aviation pioneer, Earhart was also known as an author and women’s rights advocate. She disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island during an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937.

Nair recently adapted Pulitzer prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel ‘The Namesake’ into a movie, released in March 2007.

A new poll of women has shown that it’s not just Michael Douglas who thinks that his wife Catherine Zeta Jones is the best looking actress in town by voting her to the top spot in the ‘World’s Most Beautiful Star’ list.

The Welsh beauty was the number one choice of 8,000 women worldwide who voted in a new global poll.

The 38-year-old stole the crown from many legendary beauties and has left behind the likes of 1960s actress Brigitte Bardot, who claimed second place.

Those polled were allowed to choose celebrity beauties, alive or dead, as they looked in their heyday. That’s why ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ star Audrey Hepburn, who died from cancer aged 63 in 1993, made to the third spot.

Zeta Jones, the curvy mother of two, effortlessly beat younger beauties such as long-legged Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen, 27, who was in 7th place.

She also out-classed the new generation of actresses including Jessica Biel, 25, who was in 20th place, and Sienna Miller, 26, (28th place).

The hottest celebrities of today could not compete with the classical beauties of past Hollywood eras, with the late Marilyn Monroe and Dame Elizabeth Taylor, 75.

Surprisingly, winner of most of the beauty polls, Angelina Jolie, did not figure anywhere in the top 50. In fact, both of Brad Pitt’s ex-flames Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow also missed out on a place.

“Catherine Zeta-Jones is an ideal winner. She oozes style and grace and her natural beauty just shines through,” Contactmusic quoted Charlotte Newbert, of poll organisers Nephria Cosmetics, as saying.

Eva Mendes, whose movies include “Training Day” and “Ghost Rider,” has checked into a rehabilitation facility in Utah, celebrity Web sites reported on Friday.

A spokesman for Mendes declined to confirm the report but did issue a statement saying the 33-year-old actress had taken time off to “attend to some personal issues.”

“Eva has been working hard for the past year and made a positive decision to take some much-needed time off to proactively attend to some personal issues that, while not critical, she felt deserved some outside professional support,” said the statement from spokesman Brad Cafarelli.

Celebrity Web site TMZ.com said Mendes had checked into the Cirque Lodge rehab center in Utah, which is the same facility in which actress Lindsay Lohan sought help late last year.

The news of Mendes’ stint in rehab came on the same day that Calvin Klein Inc. said Mendes would be featured in an upcoming advertising campaign for Calvin Klein Fragrances.

“We support Eva during this difficult time and respect her decision to seek professional help,” Calvin Klein Inc. said in a statement.

The actress starred in four movies in 2007 including the thriller “Ghost Rider” and the cop drama “We Own the Night.” She has two films planned for this year, “The Women” and “The Spirit.”

“She’s an excellent clinician and an excellent psychiatrist,” says Harold Young, the clinical director at the Maple Counseling Center in Beverly Hills, where Spears’s psychiatrist Dr. Deborah Nadel worked for about five years.

Board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Nadel graduated from University of California Medical School in San Francisco 18 years ago, and she did her residency at UCLA, records show.

Nadel, who has recently started treating the troubled pop star, had instigated Spears’s second hospitalization in January, this time at UCLA Medical Center’s psychiatric ward, for a 72-hour evaluation, sources tell PEOPLE.