Angelina finally gets a rock from Brad
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are engaged – and it’s on the record!
“Yes, it’s confirmed,” Pitt’s manager, Cynthia Pett-Dante, said Friday. “It is a promise for the future, and their kids are very happy. There’s no date set at this time.”
Engagement talk spread like wildfire Friday after jeweler Robert Procop revealed that the sparkler Jolie was photographed wearing Wednesday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was an engagement ring he had designed over the course of a year in collaboration with Pitt.
Jolie, 36, and Pitt, 48, have been together since 2005, after working together on the movie “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” The couple have six children. Jolie said in the past that they would wed if the kids asked, and Pitt told CBS News in January: “We’re getting a lot of pressure from the kids.”
Never too much cowbell
The Vermont city of Burlington will have “more cowbell” this weekend when Phish drummer Jon Fishman leads what he hopes to be the World’s Largest Cowbell Ensemble.
The fundraising event today will also celebrate the 15th anniversary of the band’s partnership with Ben & Jerry’s, which created an ice cream flavor named for the band called Phish Food.
Participants pay to be part of the event, then gather and ring cowbells. So far 1,300 people have signed up. Money raised will go to the WaterWheel Foundation’s Vermont Flood Recovery Fund.
Always sunny in Rome
Woody Allen brought “To Rome with Love” to the city that inspired his latest film, but some homegrown critics are grumbling that the American director’s new work is loaded with old-fashioned Italian stereotypes. At a news conference Friday in Rome following a screening for Italian journalists, Allen exuded a fuzzy, love-struck view of the country.
“(Americans) have an enormously affectionate feeling about Italy,” he declared. “They think of Italy as a country that is enormously warm . … It’s a very easygoing place to live, a place that enjoys life and that stands for everything positive about life.”
That sunny assessment of their country, which is now enduring tough economic austerity measures sparked objections from some Italian journalists. One said the film was “superficial.” Allen responded by saying his sole intention was making an entertaining movie set in Rome.
The birthday bunch
Country singer Loretta Lynn is 80. Actress Julie Christie is 72. Retired MLB All-Star Pete Rose is 71. Actor Brad Garrett is 52. Actor Anthony Michael Hall is 44. Actor Adrien Brody is 39. Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar is 35. Actress Abigail Breslin is 16.