Entertainment Today: Showbiz News

PRIVATE FUNERAL FOR SCREEN LEGEND

Richard Harris will be remembered by his family at a small private funeral service in London.

The ashes of the 72-year-old Irish actor, who died Friday of Hodgkin's Disease, will then be scattered in the Bahamas, where he had a home, said his agent Sharon Thomas.

As of Sunday, the date for the service had not been set.

News that the star of "Camelot," "A Man Called Horse" and most recently "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" was suffering from the disease broke earlier this month.

Harris did not attend last week's New York press junket to promote the second Potter film as he had done last year to publicize "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." The actor played Potter's mentor, the wise and kindly Professor Dumbledore in the first two films in the series and was expected to begin filming the third installment of the franchise early next year.

"Potter" producer David Heyman talked to United Press International last week about Harris, who also happened to be his godfather. Speaking three days before Harris' death, Heyman seemed optimistic the actor would recover.

"I visited him in hospital a few weeks ago. He has lost some weight, but he hasn't lost any of his fighting spirit. He said, 'I'll be there,' so I'm hopeful that he will be," Heyman said. "He's fantastic. He's a legend -- as an actor, and as a hell-raiser, and as a godfather. He's fantastic and he's a very generous actor. Great to work with."

JURY SELECTED IN WINONA TRIAL

A jury has been selected in the Winona Ryder shoplifting case.

According to E! Online, six men and six women, along with three alternates, were elected Friday to decide whether the "Girl, Interrupted" star stole nearly $6,000 worth of designer goodies from the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue.

Among the jurors are former Sony studio boss Peter Guber and a freelance TV producer, indicating the 30-year-old actress really will be tried by her peers. Guber, who now runs Mandalay Entertainment, raised his hand when Judge Elden Fox asked if anyone was familiar with Ryder.

"I was the chairman of Sony Pictures when one of our companies made a film with Ms. Ryder," Guber said.

Ryder starred in three films distributed by Sony-owned Columbia Pictures during Guber's tenure at the compay: 1993's "The Age of Innocence" and 1994's "Little Women," both of which earned her Oscar nominations, and 1992's "Bram Stoker's Dracula."

Asked if his prior business relationship with Ryder would influence his judgment, Guber responded, "No, I believe I would be fair and impartial."

Guber was then appointed to the panel.

Although Guber made the cut, lawyers in the case dismissed a casting director who said she was considering Ryder for a role in an unspecified movie, a man whose wife works at Disney and an employee at MGM, from the jury pool.

Opening arguments in the case are set to begin at the Beverly Hills Courthouse early Monday, a day before the actress's 31st birthday.

Jurors are prohibited from reading newspaper articles, watching TV shows or listening to radio commentary on the case, as well as shopping at Saks for the next five to seven days.

DIAMONDS ARE ANISTON'S BEST 'FRIEND'

Emmy Award-winning actress Jennifer Aniston is now modeling pricey Italian jewelry for the company she and her husband once sued for $50 million.

The 33-year-old "Friends" star can be seen abroad in magazine ads wearing a serpentine gold and diamond bracelet and necklace crafted by Silvia Damiani, the same woman who reproduced Aniston and husband Brad Pitt's wedding bands, even though she had agreed to never to replicate or sell copies of the rings. The ads will not, however, run in North America.

Aniston and Pitt resolved their $50 million ring-rage lawsuit against Damiani in January over claims Damiani's company sold cheap knockoffs of their wedding bands and made the couple unwilling participants in one of her Internet advertising campaigns, reports the New York Post.

The superstar newlyweds claimed the jeweler was supposed to keep the 18-karat white-gold rings designed by Pitt a secret and break the mold.

The federal suit was settled after Pitt agreed to design an exclusive collection of jewelry for the company, while Aniston signed a deal to model a line of Damiani's gems overseas.

Both sides have refused to reveal how much the actors will make from their collaboration with the upscale jeweler. Damiani, who has stores and authorized retailers in Las Vegas, Palm Desert, Calif., Italy and Hong Kong, apologized to the couple earlier this year.

KID ROCK, PAM GET ROMANTIC

When it comes to rock-star weddings, fans have come to expect the unexpected. In Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson's case, the shock is that they are planning a romantic, traditional wedding, complete with a "big white gown" and "plenty of fancy decorations."

That's the word from New York Post columnist Victoria Gotti, who reported that Rock proposed under the stars during a romantic rendezvous in a Nevada desert and is now planning to give his fiancee a white wedding extravaganza.

Gotti said the venue for the wedding of the 31-year-old singer and the 35-year-old Playboy model/actress is not yet set, but will probably be close to their home in Detroit.

"Pam and I are very excited," said the groom-to-be. "We are very much in love and very compatible -- and we can't wait to make all of us an official family."