Holly to Bolly: David Letterman’s mum dies, no charges expected for One Direction star in LA airport scuffle, and more

Fin Costello / Redferns

Eric Jamison / Invision / AP File

David James / Lucasfilm / Disney

AFP photo

AFP photo

David Letterman’s mum dies

David Letterman’s mother Dorothy Mengering has died. She was 95. Letterman’s publicist Tom Keaney confirmed Mengering’s death on Tuesday.

Mengering became an unlikely celebrity in her 70s, baking mystery pies and covering the Olympics for her son's Late Show on CBS. Letterman had been on the air for years, and had made ironic celebrities out of dozens of nobodies, before he thought to bring on his mum. The moment he did, she became a hit, with a cheerful "Hi, David!" in her Midwestern accent starting every appearance. She baked and appeared via satellite in her Indiana kitchen for a segment called Guess Mom's Pies.

She was also a correspondent for the show at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway, a role she reprised for the next two winter games. - Associated Press

No charges expected for One Direction star in LA airport scuffle

One Direction singer Louis Tomlinson is not expected to be criminally charged over a tussle with a photographer at Los Angeles airport last month, judicial officials said on Tuesday.

The British singer and the photographer, who was not named, will instead be summoned to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office to be interviewed and “advised of the law and ways to avoid similar incidences in the future”, the City Attorney’s office said in a statement.

“Typically there is no further action taken by our office after the hearing,” it read.

Tomlinson, 25, one of the members of the chart-topping boy band, was arrested at the airport on March 3 after a scuffle with a paparazzi photographer who was trying to take photos of the singer and his girlfriend.

Social media video showed the photographer on the ground and Tomlinson was booked for misdemeanour battery. - Reuters

Musician J Geils, dies at Massachusetts home: police

J Geils, leader of The J Geils Band whose hard-driving hits of the late 1970s and early 1980s included Centerfold, Freeze Frame and Love Stinks, died on Tuesday at his home in Groton, Massachusetts, police said. He was 71.

Groton police said Geils, whose full name was John Warren Geils Jr, appeared to have died of natural causes. After a “well-being check” at the musician’s house, Geils was found unresponsive and declared dead at the scene, police said in a statement.

The J. Geils Band was launched as a blues trio in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the 1960s. It soon switched its focus to electric guitars and bass as it became a staple of the Boston music scene through the 1970s with Geils as its lead guitarist and Peter Wolf on vocals, the group said on its Facebook page. The album, which followed the comical hit Love Stinks, also included the title track and Centerfold, which was No. 1 for six weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 list, the group said. - Reuters

‘Star Wars’ cast announces Force for Change campaign to raise money for Unicef

For a small donation you can put yourself right in the middle of Star Wars. Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill announced the 2017 Force for Change campaign and the OMAZE initiative, which raises money for Unicef and the Starlight Children’s Foundation, reports nydailynews.com

Donations range from $10 to $50,000 with prizes including T-shirts and a BB-8 iron-on patch. The first campaign raised $4.26 million for Unicef Innovation Labs.

One weekly winner will also be announced over the three-week fund-raising effort. The first week's winner will spend the night at Skywalker Ranch, including a VIP tour of the ranch, a stay at the Skywalker Inn and a private screening of Star Wars: A New Hope.

The second winner will join the cast at the premiere of Star Wars: The Last Jedi on the red carpet and at the after-party.

The third winner gets to visit the set of the upcoming Han Solo movie and have a chance to appear in the film, as well as a VIP tour of the set and meet-and-greets with directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller. One randomly selected fan will receive all three prizes. - The National Staff

Dilip Kumar honoured with Living Legend Lifetime Award

Bollywood thespian Dilip Kumar was honoured with a Living Legend Lifetime Award from the Punjab Association at his residence this week.

“Mr. Ranbir Singh Chandok and Mr. Anand of the Punjab Association visited me today. God is kind. Humbled at receiving the Living Legend Lifetime Award from Punjab Association this afternoon,” a post from the 94-year-old actor’s official Twitter handle read on Tuesday.

The post was accompanied by photographs in which Kumar - looking frail but in good spirit - could be seen posing with the plaque. Also seen in the pictures is his wife Saira Banu and the officials who felicitated the actor.

Last seen on the big screen in Qila in 1998, the actor was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015. He is known for films like Devdas, Mughal-e-Azam and Karma. - IANS

Amitabh Bachchan records prologue on women’s safety for TV show

Megastar Amitabh Bachchan has recorded a two-minute prologue for a TV show, in which he has dwelled upon women’s safety. “The recording is just the two-minute prologue on the essence of the programme - its message though is in similarity to the effort first out of the block, Pink; its sentiment, its message and its most stark and powerful issue - the safety of our women,” he wrote on his blog. The 74-year-old did not divulge details about the show but raised concern about rape victims, who go through “humiliating questioning to prove the credential for the actuality of the crime”. - IANS