McCartney ends tour in Liverpool Paul McCartney ended a 14-month world tour back in Liverpool last night, with an open-air concert on the city's docks for 30,000 fans. He dedicated one song, My Lovin' Flame, to his wife, Heather Mills, who is expecting their baby later this year.
The 60-year-old former Beatle was quoted yesterday as saying the tour would not be his last. "It's like footballers," he said. "As long as you can score goals, you keep playing, and for me that's what it is." McCartney also said he had resolved a row with Yoko Ono, widow of murdered Beatle John Lennon, over songwriting credits. All songs by the pair have always been credited to Lennon-McCartney, but McCartney reversed the order on his live Back in the U.S. album last year. Ono accused him of trying to rewrite history. "I'm happy with the way it is and always has been," McCartney was quoted as saying. "Lennon and McCartney is still the rock 'n' roll trademark I'm proud to be a part of -- in the order it has always been."
Playwright finally turns player
After more than two decades in theatre, August Wilson finally has the acting bug. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such acclaimed Broadway plays as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Joe Turner's Come and Gone made his stage debut two weeks ago at the Seattle Repertory Theatre with How I Learned What I Learned, a monologue about growing up black in Pittsburgh's Hill District. And, years after he turned down roles in Spike Lee's Malcolm X and Alan Pakula's The Pelican Brief, he makes his movie debut this month as narrator of The Naked Proof, an independent film premiering at the Seattle International Film Festival. "I'm on camera two or three minutes. The rest is voice-over narration," he said. "I haven't seen the film yet. My daughter said it was good, though."
Dancer broke ballet colour bar
Janet Collins, the first black prima ballerina to appear at the Metropolitan Opera and one of a few black women to become prominent in U.S. classical ballet, has died at age 86, in Fort Worth, Tex. In 1951, she played lead roles in Aida and Carmen and danced in La Gioconda and Samson and Delilah at the Met in New York. That was four years before Marian Anderson made her historic debut as the first black to sing a principal role there. Collins wasn't allowed to tour with the Met company in the off-season because she couldn't perform onstage with white dancers in the South. She left in 1954, toured with her own dance group throughout the United States and Canada and taught.
Men with yen for fame doff duds
A new reality show about strippers has some Canadian men ready to bare all. The producers of Strip Search are on a cross-country search for male contestants willing to take it off for a national television audience. Thirteen half-hour episodes of the show, inspired by the 1997 film the Full Monty, will air on Bravo this fall. As in Popstars, 20 finalists will attend a boot camp in Toronto, where one will be eliminated each week. The final six will get one-year contracts with Thunder from Down Under, a touring striptease troupe. Contestants aren't asked to take off everything, but series producer Morgan Elliott said she's gotten an eyeful from more than one applicant.
Fish film opens with splash
The deep-sea adventure Finding Nemo hooked box office honours yesterday with an opening weekend estimated at $70.6 million US. Jim Carrey's Bruce Almighty sank to second place with $35.6 million. The Italian Job opened in third place with $19.3 million. The Matrix Reloaded, three weeks old, slipped to fourth on $15 million. Daddy Day Care was fifth, at $6.8 million, trailed by X2: X-Men United, $5.02 million; Wrong Turn, $5.01 million; The In-Laws, $3.7 million; Down With Love, $1.6 million; and Bend It Like Beckham, $1 million.
