Mariah Carey arrived in style at Caesars Palace in a classic pink convertible behind 18 mobile billboards bearing the titles of her No 1 hits. The grand entrance on Monday night was a celebration of her Las Vegas strip debut at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, which starts on May 6 and runs until July. The show — Mariah #1 to Infinity — is timed to coincide with the debut of her latest single and music video, Infinity. The Grammy winner is one of the best-selling female solo artists of all time and joins the ranks of Celine Dion, Elton John, Rod Stewart and Shania Twain, who have taken up residency at The Colosseum. — AP
Ranbir Kapoor in superhero film
Ayan Mukerji's long-delayed superhero drama, starring Ranbir Kapoor, will go into production in February next year. It will be actor's third collaboration with the director after Wake Up Sid (2009) and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013). Kapoor, 32, is reportedly involved in "all aspects of the project, including the script", which is said to have a mythological theme, the Mumbai Mirror reported. The as yet-untitled film is intended to be the first part of a trilogy, with Mukerji and Kapoor working together to develop the main character's backstory. — The National staff
Ironside creator dies at 93
Don M Mankiewicz, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter from a Hollywood family who created the classic TV shows Marcus Welby, M.D. and , has died in California at the age of 93. He died on Saturday of congestive heart failure at his home near Los Angeles. The son of Herman J Mankiewicz, co-writer of Citizen Kane, his uncle was Joseph Mankiewicz, director of All About Eve and other classic films. After graduating from Columbia University in 1942 and serving in army intelligence, Don Mankiewicz became a staff writer for the New Yorker, before moving to TV in the 1950s. In 1967, he wrote the pilot for the TV detective drama Ironside, starring Raymond Burr as a private investigator confined to a wheelchair, which ran for eight seasons and 199 episodes. Two years later, he created the medical drama Marcus Welby, M.D., starring Robert Young as a kindly family doctor. — AP
Hayek celebrates Lebanese heritage
Hollywood star Salma Hayek described the movie version of Lebanese author Kahlil Gibran's spiritually-uplifting book The Prophet as a "love letter to my heritage" as she launched the animated film during her first visit to Lebanon, her ancestral homeland. She said the adaptation was a "personal film" because her Lebanese grandfather loved The Prophet. "Through this book, I got to know my grandfather. Through this book, I had my grandfather teaching me about life," she said. Visiting Lebanon had allowed her to realise an old dream of visiting the birthplace of Gibran, the actress said. The film, which opened in Beirut on Monday, features the voices of Hayek, who also produced the movie, along with Liam Neeson, Alfred Molina and Frank Langella. A collection of poems and prose, originally written in English, The Prophet has been translated into more than 40 languages since its publication in 1923. The movie is entirely animated, with dreamlike fantasy sequences, each created by a different animator, telling Gibran's stories from the book. — AFP
