Paternity suit judge asked to order DNA test of Michael Jordan

By David Beasley

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Lawyers for an Atlanta woman who says basketball legend Michael Jordan is the father of her 16-year-old son asked a judge Tuesday to order Jordan to immediately take a DNA test.

Pamela Smith, 48, filed a paternity suit against Jordan last month seeking child support. Jordan denies he is the father of the child and has also filed a counterclaim seeking sanctions against Smith for making false claims.

Smith acknowledged in a divorce proceeding that her now ex-husband is the father of the child, according to Jordan's lawyers.

"It is unfortunate that well known figures are the target of these kind of claims," Jordan's spokeswoman, Estee Portnoy, said in a statement.

However, Smith attorney Randy Kessler said Tuesday that a simple $300 saliva test will prove or disprove the paternity question.

In a court filing Tuesday, Kessler asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Wendy Shoob to order Jordan to submit to "immediate genetic testing." There was no immediate ruling from Shoob following a 20-minute hearing Tuesday in the judge's chambers, Kessler said.

"My son has the right to know who his father is," Smith told reporters after the hearing. "He has had an issue with it over the years."

If Jordan is ordered to pay child support it would only be for about two years until the 16-year-old graduates from high school, Kessler said.

"If this was about money, she would have filed suit 10 years ago," the attorney said.

Jordan's attorney, John Mayoue, declined to comment following Tuesday's hearing. Jordan himself did not attend the hearing.

Jordan, 50, is widely hailed as the best basketball player of all time and was a member of six NBA championship teams with the Chicago Bulls. He is majority owner of the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats team.

(Editing by Tom Brown. Editing by Andre Grenon)

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Bob Dylan admitted to American Academy of Arts and Letters

By Todd Cunningham

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Bob Dylan has become the first rock star voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the century-old arts organization announced Tuesday.

The iconic singer-songwriter was one of seven named for induction into the group, which honors artists in music, literature and visual arts.

Voted into the academy's core membership were the novelist Ward Just, known for his stories set in Washington, D.C.; minimalist artist Richard Tuttle and painter and printmaker Terry Winters. The academy announced three honorary choices, all from overseas: Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, South African writer Damon Galgut and Belgian artist Luc Tuymans.

Academy officials couldn't decide whether Dylan belonged for his words or his music, executive director Virginia Dajani told the Associated Press, so they settled on making him an honorary member.

"The board of directors considered the diversity of his work and acknowledged his iconic place in the American culture," Dajani said. "Bob Dylan is a multi-talented artist whose work so thoroughly crosses several disciplines that it defies categorization."

Meryl Streep, Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, who directed "No Direction Home," a 2005 documentary about Dylan, have been similarly honored by the academy.

While he isn't the first musician to be named to the group, his predecessors have come mainly from the classical world. Dajani and other officials have said that the academy is reluctant to vote in rock performers because they already have organizations, such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to honor them.

The 71-year-old Dylan's song list includes "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and "Like a Rolling Stone."

He's used to breaking barriers. Dylan was the first rocker to receive a Pulitzer Prize, an honorary award in 2008, and the first to be nominated for a National Book Critics Circle award, for his memoir "Chronicles: Volume One."

An induction and awards ceremony will be held in May. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon, who was inducted into the organization last year, will give the keynote address, entitled "Rock `n' Roll."

The New York-based academy, which was founded in 1898, consists of 250 artists, musicians and writers. Openings occur upon a member's death, with current inductees nominating and voting in new ones.

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Justin Bieber concert in Portugal canceled

LONDON (Reuters) - Canadian singer Justin Bieber has canceled one of two planned concerts in Portugal this week, the venue in Lisbon said on its website on Monday.

A source close to the singer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the cancellation was not linked to Bieber's collapse on-stage in London last week, which forced the teen sensation to take a 20-minute break for oxygen and later to visit a hospital.

"Due to unforeseen circumstances, Justin Bieber was forced to cancel the second performance in Portugal, March 12," a statement said on the website of the Pavilhao Atlantico.

"The Canadian singer is eager to play for the Portuguese fans on March 11," it added. Ticket holders for the canceled gig were entitled to a refund if they claimed it within a month.

The Bieber source did not give a reason for the cancellation, but local media in Portugal reported that tickets sales for the March 12 gig, which was added to his itinerary in February, were lower than organizers had hoped.

Bieber described his visit to London as a "rough week".

As well as the collapse, the 19-year-old was caught on film in an expletive-filled altercation with a photographer, showed up nearly two hours late for a show leading to widespread anger and was labeled a "pop brat" by a leading tabloid.

Discovered on YouTube in 2008, Bieber has built an online following of tens of millions of fans and is one of the pop world's biggest stars. In February, he became the youngest artist to land five chart-topping albums in the key U.S. market.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Additional reporting by Andrei Khalip in Lisbon; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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"Rhoda" actress Valerie Harper living "fully" despite brain cancer

By Chris Michaud

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actress Valerie Harper, star of the 1970s television comedy "Rhoda," says she is determined to "live each day's moments fully" despite a brain cancer diagnosis that doctors told her could bring death in a matter of days or in several years.

Harper, 73, who won four Emmy Awards for her signature sitcom role, said on NBC's "Today" show on Monday that the reality of her illness hit home "when I heard the word 'incurable.'"

"'Incurable' is a tough word, so is 'terminal,'" she said with a laugh. The interview, taped from her home in Los Angeles, marked Harper's first appearance on network television since she disclosed her cancer diagnosis in a People magazine cover story last Wednesday.

In that article, Harper said she learned in mid-January that she was suffering from leptomeningeal carcinomatosis -- cancer in the membrane of her brain -- and was given as little as three months to live.

In her televised interview with Savannah Guthrie of the "Today" show, Harper said her doctor told her she could live anywhere from a week, if for example she suffered a seizure, to a few months or even for several years, and that he had patients who had lived much longer than the prognosis.

Harper was a prime-time staple on U.S. television through most of the 1970s, first as the brassy but insecure neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern on the hit CBS sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." The character proved so popular that Harper was given her own spinoff series, "Rhoda," which ran for several more seasons on CBS.

"A lot of folks are calling (asking), 'Can I come by the house?' 'Are you in a wheelchair?', because they hear it as a death sentence, which it may be," Harper said on "Today." "But I'm not dying until I do. I promise I won't."

As to holding out hope against a seemingly grim fate, Harper, her voice hoarse due to a bout of laryngitis, said that beyond being hopeful, "I have an intention to live each day's moments, fully."

Harper recently completed a tour promoting her new autobiography "I, Rhoda" and starred on Broadway as Tallulah Bankhead in "Looped," for which she earned a Tony Award nomination.

Harper, who underwent surgery for lung cancer in 2009, said on "Today" that the disease she is currently battling is "very rare" and was "hard to detect because it was diffuse. It's all around. It's not in one lump."

She recounted feeling odd symptoms when she was working to take her "Looped" show on tour, noticing "this weird feeling in my jaw," adding, "I vomited for no reason and wasn't sick. And I thought, 'That's weird.'"

Despite the dire nature of her condition, Harper said she clings to hope.

"The thing I have is ... very rare and it's serious and it's incurable ... so far. So I'm holding on to the 'so far.'"

(Writing by Chris Michaud; Editing by Steve Gorman, Patricia Reaney, Bill Trott and David Gregorio)

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Olivia Newton-John: sweetheart, sex idol, rock chick, radio star

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON (Reuters) - With a range spanning the cardigan-clad sweetheart in the hit musical "Grease" and the leotarded gym instructor in the raunchy single "Physical", no one could accuse Olivia Newton-John of playing it safe in 40 years of singing country, pop and rock.

The Australian, who was born in England and is touring there for the first time in 35 years, admits to being terrified at some of the choices she made in a career boasting four Grammy awards and a lead role in the biggest musical movie hit in U.S. history.

"I like a challenge," Newton-John, 64, told Reuters in an interview before starting a six-concert tour that ends on March 17 in Manchester.

"I was always afraid of these changes but I did them anyway, kind of 'face your fears' ... because I felt you also had to challenge yourself a little bit. But I was terrified."

The 1981 release of "Physical", a song from the album of the same name, was banned by some radio stations in the United States banned for raunchy lyrics such as "There's nothing left to talk about/Unless it's horizontally."

"I remember calling (manager) Roger Davies right after I'd finished it ... and going 'Oh, I'm not sure we should put this out, it's a little too risqué'. He said: 'It's too late, love, it's gone to radio'."

Adding to the controversy was the video, in which Newton-John played a gym instructor in a tight leotard surrounded by oiled body-builders portrayed as gay in a twist ending.

FROM NICE TO NAUGHTY

"I look back now and it's hilarious, because that was so naughty in its time," she recalled. "That was another challenge that worked, thank goodness. It was either going to be a big success or nothing. There was no in-between with that song.

"It was banned in Utah and I did my television special for the Physical Tour in Utah. I remember I was probably so terrified I got sick right before the shoot."

In fact, "Physical" proved to be the pinnacle of Newton-John's solo career, topping the U.S. pop charts and becoming one of the best-selling singles of the decade.

By then, Newton-John had already left her comfort zone more than once. She recalled pursuing a career as a performer despite resistance from her parents, who wanted her to finish school.

She comes from an academic background - her grandfather was Max Born, a German-British Nobel Prize-winning quantum physicist.

"My grandfather apparently used to play music with Einstein, they used to play chamber music together, so it (the musical gene) goes back," Newton-John said.

She left Australia for Britain in the 60s to make it as a pop star. By the early 70s, she had featured in the charts and on television before representing the United Kingdom at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, finishing fourth behind winners ABBA.

Then came a move to the United States, where Newton-John broke into the country music scene despite being considered an outsider. Her hit "Let Me Be There" won her a country vocal Grammy.

SANDY IN SPANDEX

The next gamble came with "Grease", the hit 1978 film adaptation of the Broadway musical that would turn her into a household name.

"Grease itself was a bold enough move - playing the second character in Grease, and for that to be so successful, I mean, who knew?"

Her character's transformation from clean-cut "Sandy 1" to spandex-clad "Sandy 2", out to snare John Travolta's Danny, was one that she took into real life, ditching the safety of soft pop and country for an edgier image and sound.

The name of her next album? "Totally Hot".

"The raunchy kind of image that Sandy 2 had, it gave an opportunity to change my direction a little bit and do something a little more fun," she said.

"I did country, and then it was pop, and then 'Grease' kind of went into rock and so I got to change a little bit. Everyone does it now, but then it probably wasn't so common."

Newton-John, now based on the west coast of the United States along with her family including daughter Chloe, said she would continue to record new music but may cut back on touring.

"I have so many ... other things I'm passionate about and involved in and I love singing and I love recording, but touring takes a toll and you're away from home a lot," she explained.

Newton-John, who survived breast cancer in 1992, has set up a cancer centre in Australia and has campaigned on issues including deforestation, dolphin culling and fracking.

Why does she take on so many issues outside music?

"I think it's really for my mum," she said. "My mum was always writing letters to the council about problems, and so I think I owe that to her."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Boy, 12, admits to prank crime report at actor Ashton Kutcher's home

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 12-year-old boy admitted in court on Monday that he falsely reported to police last year that criminals with guns and explosives had invaded the home of actor Ashton Kutcher and shot people, the Los Angeles County District Attorney said.

The boy, whose name was withheld because he is a minor, prompted police to dispatch emergency responders to the "Two and a Half Men" star's Hollywood home in October.

Such prank emergency calls are known as "swatting" because SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) officers are often sent to such purported crime scenes. The child was charged with making a false bomb threat and computer intrusion because he placed the call from a computer.

The boy has also been charged with a misdemeanor count of making a false emergency report when he allegedly placed a hoax call about gunshots being fired on the Los Angeles-area property of teen pop star Justin Bieber.

The boy, who will turn 13 in April, faces additional felony charges of making a false bomb threat and computer intrusion after allegedly saying there was a bomb at a Wells Fargo bank branch in Los Angeles.

Those charges are expected to be dismissed when the boy is sentenced, the district attorney said.

All of the prank calls were placed in October.

The boy's sentence is at the discretion of the court, which could decide on at-home probation or placement in a group home among other punishments, district attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons.

He has been released to the custody of his parents and the case has been transferred to his home county, which the court declined to name publicly.

In California juvenile cases, defendants have the option to either admit or deny charges brought against them by petition.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Cynthia Osterman)

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Ridley Scott partners with Machinima to produce 12 science-fiction shorts

By Greg Gilman

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Ridley Scott and his commercial company, Ridley Scott and Associates, have partnered with online network Machinima to produce 12 original sci-fi short films, Machinima announced on Monday.

RSA's directing talent will helm "original high octane science fiction content" to be distributed through Machinima, which boasts the No. 1 entertainment channel on YouTube.

Machinima CEO Allen DeBevoise hopes the partnership with Scott will result in new franchises for the genre.

"By combining this unique incubation model together with our powerful partnership of established creative talent and scaled distribution to millions on Machinima," DeBevoise said, "we believe new Sci-Fi franchises will be born."

Machinima's original content and scripted series are aimed at the 18- to 34-year-old male demographic, which recently delighted in the company's adaptation of "Mortal Kombat" - a videogame franchise that inspired two Hollywood productions in the '90s.

The first season of the web series, called "Mortal Kombat: Legacy," has racked up more than 60 million views and inspired Warner Bros. to begin developing a new feature film. The second season kicks off this spring.

Scott, the director of science-fiction classics "Alien" and "Blade Runner," is eager to take advantage of the medium that propelled "Mortal Kombat" back into relevance and hopes his own original content will connect with the same audience.

"With new media transforming the way audiences connect with films and filmmakers, Machinima is a great partner for us as we embark on this new model of delivering original content to fans," Scott said in a statement. "It's a tremendous opportunity for pushing the creative boundaries for both our filmmakers and the audience."

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Teenaged Olympic athlete Douglas to publish second memoir

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Olympic gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas, not yet 18, will publish her second memoir next month, publisher Zondervan said on Tuesday.

Douglas, 17, a gold medal winner at the 2012 Summer Olympics in both team and individual all-around gymnastics competition, will publish "Raising the Bar", a follow-up to her 2012 best-selling memoir "Grace, Gold & Glory: My Leap of Faith", on April 30, the publishers said in a release.

Zondervan is a division of HarperCollins that specializes in Christian-oriented books.

The book will offer a behind-the-scenes look into Douglas' life, including color photos, personal stories and details on the athlete's present-day life - from walking red carpets and appearing on TV shows such as "The Vampire Diaries" while also making time for friends, family and training.

"'Raising the Bar' explores what it's like to be an everyday teen with a not-so-everyday life," Zondervan said.

Douglas, who began training at age 6 and became the Virginia State Champion just 2 years later, made history last year when she became the first U.S. gymnast to take home a team and an individual gold medal in the same games. She was first African-American to win the individual gold.

Since the 2012 London Olympics thrust the young gymnast into the public eye, Douglas has appeared at the Democratic National Convention, the MTV Video Awards, on the cover of Time magazine and on special edition boxes of corn flake cereal, along with her gold medal.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Richard Chang)

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Facebook's Sandberg says men need to mentor women more

By Liana B. Baker

(Reuters) - Sheryl Sandberg's new book "Lean In" challenges men in the upper echelons of corporate America to take more women under their wing.

Sandberg is on a promotional blitz for the new book, which has been praised as an ambitious reboot of feminism and criticized as a manifesto directed to women from a privileged perch. On Tuesday, she said men need to amp up their mentoring of women, especially younger ones just starting out in their careers.

Noting that men hold 86 percent of the top jobs in corporate America, Sandberg said in a interview Tuesday that, "We want women to get into those jobs, but if we don't get older men to mentor and sponsor younger women, this will never happen."

Sandberg's book was born out of talks she gave starting in 2010 about how the world has scant female leaders in politics and corporations.

After studying at Harvard and working at the U.S. Treasury Department, Sandberg rose to the top of Silicon Valley, jumping from Google to Chief Operating Officer at Facebook while raising two children.

Sandberg acknowledged that there are stereotypes and double standards to tear down in mentoring relationships. An older man and a younger woman seen together at dinner or drinks looks like a date, while two men discussing business together looks perfectly normal, she said.

To underscore Sandberg's point, "Lean In" highlights a study published by the Center for Work-Life Policy and the Harvard Business Review that found men in high positions at companies were nervous meeting a younger woman one-on-one.

She also recounts an encounter with Larry Summers, who as U.S. Treasury Secretary served as her boss. Working on a speech together one night until 3 a.m. in South Africa, Sandberg had to make sure no one saw her step out of Summers' hotel room so late at night. Men, for example, never have to worry about that situation and it helps them move up faster in a corporate environment, she said.

"I want everyone to have the same policies for everyone and get explicit about them," Sandberg said.

Besides mentoring, she said male corporate executives need to be more cognizant of how women are perceived negatively once they start moving up. She calls this a "likeability gap" that holds women back from being ambitious. Managers should think twice before they give a performance review that calls a woman "aggressive," she said.

"As a woman gets more successful, everyone likes her less. This completely changes how women are portrayed in the office. What I believe is if you can make people aware of this bias that we all face - men and women alike - we can change it," she said in a separate television interview with Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Chrystia Freeland; Editing by Peter Lauria and L Gevirtz)

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Sybil Christopher dies; Richard Burton's ex-wife ran nightclubs, produced theater

By Greg Gilman

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Sybil Christopher, the wife that Richard Burton famously left for Elizabeth Taylor, has died. She was 83.

Long Island's Bay Street Theatre, which Christopher co-founded and served as artistic director for 22 years, announced her death last week, but did not specify the cause. Murphy Davis, a co-director of the theatre and one of Christopher's close friends, told TheWrap on Tuesday that she passed away March 7.

Born Sybil Williams on March 27, 1929 in South Wales, she attended the London Academy of Dramatic Arts and went on to act in the 1949 picture "The Last Days of Dowlyn," where she met her first husband, Richard Burton. The couple had two daughters, Kate and Jessica Burton, before Burton's much-publicized affair with Taylor, who was then married to singer Eddie Fisher, on the set of "Cleopatra." The Burtons were divorced in 1963.

After the scandal, Christopher packed up her children and moved from Southern California to New York City, where she opened a very successful Manhattan night club, called Arthur, in 1965. The club, which became a celebrity hot spot hosting regulars like Tennessee Williams, Andy Warhol and Truman Capote, was named after George Harrison's hairstyle as he described it in the Beatles' 1964 film, "A Hard Day's Night." When someone asked what the name of his hairstyle was, he answered, "Arthur."

Christopher traded in her second surname for a third when she married Jordan Christopher, the lead singer of her club's house band, in 1966. The following year, Christopher gave birth to her third daughter, Amy Christopher.

After Arthur closed in 1969, Christopher returned her attention to the dramatic arts and helped found the New Theater on 54th Street. In the '80s, she moved back to Los Angeles where she worked at ICM as a literary agent for eight years.

In yet another new beginning, she teamed up with Emma Walton and Stephen Hamilton in 1991 to turn an old Long Island warehouse along the Sag Harbor Bay into the Bay Street Theatre, which attracted top New York talent to star in summer productions and has become a staple of the region.

Christopher was the theatre's artistic director from its inception until stepping down in March of 2012. Eager to get out of the country and back to the city, she left Sag Harbor for Manhattan last September.

"She was a real New York City animal," Murphy fondly recalled.

Christopher is survived by daughters Kate and Jessica Burton, as well as daughter Amy and step-daughter Jody from her second marriage.

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