More tombstones for the sorcerers
J.K. Rowling says that writing the last of her seven Harry Potter books is proving to be “fun in a way that it hasn’t been before.”
“To an extent, the pressure is off, I suppose, because it’s the last book, so I feel quite liberated,” the British author says. “Now I can just resolve the story.”
Rowling, in the U.S. for the first time since 2000 for a series of charity readings with Stephen King and John Irving, says she is “well into” writing the final Potter book, in which she has said that two characters will die – possibly even Harry himself.
“I don’t always enjoy killing my characters. I didn’t enjoy killing the character who died at the end of book six,” she says of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”
“I really didn’t enjoy doing that but I had been planning that for years so it wasn’t quite as poignant as you might imagine,” Rowling says. “I’d already done my grieving when I actually came to write it.”
Into the lion’s den
Mel Gibson has received his first invitation to meet with the Jewish community after seeking forgiveness for anti-Semitic remarks he made during a drunk driving arrest.
Rabbi David Baron of the largest entertainment synagogue in America, the Temple of the Arts in Beverly Hills, has asked the “Passion of the Christ” director to speak at Yom Kippur services in October.
“It is one thing to issue a statement but coming directly into the presence of a community is more effective,” Baron says, adding: “I feel that Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, would be an appropriate time.”
Mel’s follicular folly?
By the way, “hair expert” Leo Benjamin Jr. says he knows the real reason for Gibson’s unseemly behavior.
His tirade is “typical of a male client who is starting to lose his hair,” Benjamin Jr. writes in an e-mailed press release.
“He’s angry at the world. He feels cheated and looks older than he really is.”
Just deadbeat it
For the second time in a year, a law firm representing Michael Jackson has parted company with the pop star, saying it hasn’t been paid and can’t get him on the phone.
A federal judge in Manhattan gave attorneys at Wachtel & Masyr permission to withdraw from a case in which a financial company claims the singer owes it $48 million. Jackson in turn says it was he who fired the firm.
All chewed up
A guard dog ripped apart a collection of rare teddy bears, including one that formerly belonged to Elvis Presley, during a rampage Tuesday at a British children’s museum.
“He just went berserk,” the general manager of the Wookey Hole Caves said of the 6-year-old Doberman pinscher named Barney.
Barney’s victims included a brown stuffed bear named Mabel, once owned by the young Presley, made in Germany in 1909. The collection was valued at more than $900,000.
The birthday bunch
Singer Tony Bennett is 80. Actor Martin Sheen is 66. Lifestyle guru Martha Stewart is 65. Actor Jay North (“Dennis the Menace”) is 55. Actor Isaiah Washington (“Grey’s Anatomy”) is 43. DJ Spinderella (Salt-N-Pepa) is 35. Actress Evangeline Lilly (“Lost”) is 27.