People: We have great expectations
So how does J.K. Rowling feel after finishing the seventh and final Harry Potter book?
”Charles Dickens put it better than I ever could,” she says on her Web site, quoting from the preface to “David Copperfield”:
“It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years’ imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever.”
Adds Rowling: “To which I can only sigh, try 17 years, Charles.”
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” will come out July 21, bringing to an end one of the great phenomena of literary history.
“One thing has stopped me collapsing in a puddle of misery on the floor,” says Rowling.
“While each of the previous Potter books has strong claims on my affections, ‘Deathly Hallows’ is my favorite, and that is the most wonderful way to finish the series.”
Lawsuit, baby!
Anna Nicole Smith and TrimSpa Inc. have been named in a class-action lawsuit claiming their marketing of the X32 weight-loss pill is false or misleading.
Last month, the Federal Trade Commission announced TrimSpa would pay $1.5 million to settle allegations that the company’s weight-loss claims were unsubstantiated.
Former Playboy playmate and reality TV star Smith is a TrimSpa celebrity spokeswoman.
What a two-timer
Swiss watchmaker Raymond Weil has filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron.
Weil says Theron signed a “substantial” endorsement deal promising that from October 2005 through December 2006 she would only wear Weil’s high-end watches.
But he submitted a photo showing her wearing a watch from Christian Dior – with whom she had a perfume deal – at a March 14 news conference at a Texas film festival.
Brush with fame?
Country singer Keith Urban is suing a painter from New Jersey by the same name, claiming that the artist’s Web site violates federal trademark laws.
The site includes the statement: “You have reached the site of Keith Urban. To those who don’t know, oil painting is one of my hobbies.”
It directs viewers to a gallery of paintings and offers limited-edition prints for sale.
Urban says that misleads people into believing the Web site belongs to him.
Quoteworthy
Jim Carrey, on the status of his relationship with Jenny McCarthy: “No, we’re never getting married, but we’re never getting divorced, which is fantastic.”
Will he at least buy her a ring? “I bought her a Chloe purse. Isn’t that good enough?”
The birthday bunch
Composer-conductor John Williams is 75. TV newsman Ted Koppel is 67. Actor Nick Nolte is 66. Comedian Robert Klein is 65. Actress Brooke Adams is 58. Actress Mary Steenburgen is 54. Author John Grisham is 52. Singer Vince Neil (Motley Crue) is 46. Actor Gary Coleman is 39. Actress Mary McCormack is 38. Actor Seth Green is 33. Actress Karle Warren (“Judging Amy”) is 15.