Entertainment Today: Showbiz news

MEG RYAN

Despite the fact that many critics love it, actress Meg Ryan says she didn't want to do the movie "Kate & Leopold" when she first heard about the project.

She tells Knight-Ridder she didn't even want to read the script at first.

Eventually, though, she met with the film's director and co-writer James Mangold. She says she loved one of his previous films, "Girl, Interrupted," and found out that Mangold was passionate in his plea for her to do his latest project.

Ryan says that many women of her type are seen as threats by many men. "The gender wars are still raging," she says. But she feels that attitudes are also changing. Many modern-day women actually like it when a man opens the door for them.

(Thanks to UPI Feature Reporter Dennis Daily)

NIGEL HAWTHORNE DIES

Veteran British actor Nigel Hawthorne died Wednesday at age 72. His agent said Hawthorne died from a heart attack at his Hertfordshire home but had been fighting cancer for the last 18 months.

Hawthorne's portrayal of Sir Humphrey Appleby -- a scheming senior mandarin in the British establishment plotting to keep the prime minister in his firm control -- in the English television comedy "Yes, Minister" resonated with issues in the politics of the day, and won him admiration from real-time stalwarts such as former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher's former news secretary, Bernard Ingham, told the BBC that the former prime minister was fascinated with Hawtorne's portrayal of "the games between the elected politician and the unelected official, who had a very clear concept that his was the way to carry on government."

Although he began his performing career at age 19, Hawthorne earned fame for his role in the comic send-up of the government when he was in his 50s. Further celebrity followed his role as King George III in both the theater and film versions of "The Madness of King George," which brought him an Oscar nomination.

Hawthorne was knighted in 1999.

THE YEAR'S DUMBEST PEOPLE AND THINGS

The Rev. Jerry Falwell tops MAD Magazine's list of "The Dumbest People, Events and Things of 2001." The evangelist receieved the dubious honor for blaming the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 on "the abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians."

"We thought Falwell had reached his personal pinnacle of dumbness a few years ago when he accused the Teletubbies of promoting homosexuality," said MAD co-editor John Ficarra. "Give the guy credit, we underestimated him."

The MAD editors point out that the millennium is off to an extraordinarily dumb start. "The botched presidential election made 2000 a very dumb year," said Ficarra, "but between Falwell's moronic comments after Sept. 11, the Gary Condit affair and the XFL debacle, 2001 was even dumber!"

The previous winners of MAD's "dumbest thing of the year" were Monicagate (1998), The Y2K Panic (1999) and last year's presidential election.

THE MAD 20: The Dumbest People, Events and Things of 2001

1. Jerry Falwell's Ugly Remarks About Sept. 11

2. Celebrity Substance Abuse As A Career Move

3. "13-Year Old" Danny Almonte And The Bronx Little League Scandal

4. Bill Clinton Gets A Sweet $10 Million Book Deal

5. Anne Heche Says Bye "Bi," Goes Hetero

6. NASCAR's Abysmal Safety Record

7. Err Jordan: Michael's Foolish Comeback

8. The Supreme Court Snuffs Out Medical Marijuana

9. The Timothy McVeigh Death Lottery

10. Fuzzy Math: The Bush Tax Rebate