Swayze: Not Afraid to Laugh at His Own Hunkiness

Kenneth Turan: She mesmerized us from the get-go

(NEWSER) - For Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan, an indelible image of Elizabeth Taylor comes early in her career in A Place in the Sun, filmed when she was just 17. "The actress' face in huge close-up is so exquisitely, so heartbreakingly beautiful you never doubt that (Montgomery) Clift's intoxicated character would do anything to keep her in his life," he writes. For years afterward, those "irresistible violet eyes" would have that effect on men both on screen and off. More»

Lisa Niemi talks of their marriage, his last days

(NEWSER) - Nearly 7 months after Patrick Swayze’s death, “it’s not getting better” for widow Lisa Niemi, she says. She discusses her grief, her husband’s death, and their life together with the Times of London.

• Her emotions: “I have a myriad of feelings. Some are extreme, some are a general malaise, sometimes it’s like someone has poured gasoline on me and set me on fire.”
• His last days: “We told each other we loved each other over and over again. I never left the room without telling him. It still didn’t feel like enough.”

Troubled starlet suffered cardiac arrest

(NEWSER) - Brittany Murphy, who made a splash playing the makeover victim in Clueless and later battled substance abuse, died today in Los Angeles. She was 32. The LA Fire Department was called to a home owned by Murphy's husband, Simon Monjack, where she was found in cardiac arrest and could not be revived, TMZ reports and multiple sources are confirming. More»

Lisa Niemi, Elizabeth Smart, Maria Shriver take part in Women's Conference

(NEWSER) - Just six weeks after losing her husband, Lisa Niemi spoke publicly for the first time about Patrick Swayze's death at yesterday's Women's Conference in California. "I am so grateful for what I had and my connection to him, and part of me believes that I will see him again," she said, "and I'm just going to have to go on until then." Niemi will also sit down with Oprah Winfrey on Friday. More from the conference: More»

Texas arrest for stiffing hotel bill is just the tip of the iceberg

(NEWSER) - The arrest of Randy and Evi Quaid in Texas for stiffing a California hotel is only the latest twist in a bizarre tale of unpaid bills and paranoid fantasies. A private investigator hired by the Quaids—she’s out $17,000—tells Diane Dimond the actor and his wife owe tens of thousands on hotel rooms and rental cars, and they may be dangerously unstable. Evi snorts Demerol to cure migraines and believes a murder plot is afoot. More»