The golden gun used by villain Scaramanga in the James Bond movie The Man With the Golden Gun has been stolen from its film studio home, British police said Saturday, according to the BBC.
The prop, one of the most iconic weapons in cinema history, was noticed missing from Elstree Studios, north of London, on Friday, Hertfordshire Constabulary said.
Made for the 1974 film about fictional British spy Bond starring Roger Moore in the title role and Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga, the gun is worth an estimated US$136,000 dollars.
“We were called to Elstree Studios in Borehamwood at 1:25pm after a report of a theft of a prop, which was the golden gun,” a Hertfordshire Constabulary spokeswoman said.
In the movie, Scaramanga uses the gun for numerous assassinations.
The legendary weapon is assembled from a cigarette case, lighter, cuff link and pen.
The latest Bond film, Quantum of Solace starring Daniel Craig in his second outing as agent 007, is due for release on Oct. 31.
Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis Presley’s only child, gave birth to twin baby girls on Oct. 7, celebrity news TV show Entertainment Tonight said on its Web site on Saturday. The girls, whose names were not given, were delivered by cesarean section and weighed 2.7kg and 2.3kg.
A magazine cover photo of Angelina Jolie breast-feeding one of her newborn twins may have turned the superstar actress into a role model for new mothers. The photo, taken by Jolie’s partner Brad Pitt, will adorn month’s issue of W. Other family pictures taken by Pitt in the weeks after the birth in July of twins Vivienne Marcheline and Leon Knox will appear inside.
Jolie, an advocate for adoption, was determined never to get pregnant until Pitt came along and changed her mind, the actress said in a magazine interview. The screen idols, dubbed Brangelina, welcomed the birth of their first biological child, daughter Shiloh, in 2006.
Samantha Who? star Christina Applegate avoided hugs for weeks and hid her cancer diagnosis from nearly everyone working on her hit television program, the actress said in an interview aired on Friday. Applegate, 36, publicly revealed her diagnosis for breast cancer in August and had a double-mastectomy performed.
Pop star Britney Spears plans to set the record straight about her personal and professional woes in a documentary to be aired shortly before the release of her new album Circus in December. In the 90-minute film, Britney: For the Record, Spears talks about her high-profile meltdown, which included stints in rehab and psychiatric hospital units, an ugly divorce, losing custody of her two sons and shaving her head.
Lars Ulrich, the drummer for the heavy-metal band Metallica, is selling a nearly 2.4m wide Jean-Michel Basquiat portrait of a boxer at Christie’s International in New York on Nov. 12.
Christie’s said the 1982 painting is estimated to sell at about US$12 million.
Untitled (Boxer) was among the highlights of a 2005 to 2006 Basquiat retrospective that toured several museums, including the Brooklyn Museum.
Basquiat’s fighter, with a black skeletal face topped with a white crown, raises his gloves in victory.
“It’s a proxy self-portrait,’’ said Brett Gorvy, Christie’s international co-head of postwar and contemporary art. “The black artist as defiant hero.’’
Basquiat’s US$14.6 million auction record was set last year at Sotheby’s in New York with the 1981 Untitled, a ferocious full-length self-portrait. A 1982 portrait of boxer Sugar Ray Robinson fetched US$7.3 million at Christie’s in New York last year.
The artist painted a series of black athletes, including boxers and baseball players. He died in 1988 of a drug overdose.
Experts say Basquiat was at the height of his talent in 1982. “He had a breakthrough,’’ said New York collector Larry Warsh, who owns Basquiat’s work. “His energy popped in those years.’’
My friends and I have been enjoying the last two weeks of revelation after revelation of the financial and legal shenanigans of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head and recent presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). Every day brings fresh news — allegations that a building had purchased with party subsidies but listed in Ko’s name, allegations of downloading party subsidy funds into his personal accounts. Ko’s call last December for the regulations for the government’s special budgets to be amended to enforce fiscal discipline, and his September unveiling of his party’s anti-corruption plan, have now taken on a certain delightful irony.
The number of scandals and setbacks hitting the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in such quick and daily succession in the last few weeks is unprecedented, at least in the countries whose politics I am familiar with. The local media is covering this train wreck on an almost hourly basis, which in the latest news saw party chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) detained by prosecutors on Friday and released without bail yesterday. The number of links collected to produce these detailed columns may reach 400 by the time this hits the streets. To get up to speed, two columns have been written: “Donovan’s
President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision for Taiwan to become an “AI island” has three conditions: constructing advanced data centers, ensuring a stable and green energy supply, and cultivating AI talent. However, the energy issue supply is the greatest challenge. To clarify, let’s reframe the problem in terms of the Olympics. Given Taiwan’s OEM (original equipment manufacturer) roles in the technology sector, Taiwan is not an athlete in the AI Olympics, or even a trainer, but rather a training ground for global AI athletes (AI companies). In other words, Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem provides world-class training facilities and equipment that have already attracted
Nothing like the spectacular, dramatic unraveling of a political party in Taiwan has unfolded before as has hit the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) over recent weeks. The meltdown of the New Power Party (NPP) and the self-implosion of the New Party (NP) were nothing compared to the drama playing out now involving the TPP. This ongoing saga is so interesting, this is the fifth straight column on the subject. To catch up on this train wreck of a story up to Aug. 20, search for “Donovan’s Deep Dives Ko Wen-je” in a search engine. ANN KAO SENTENCED TO PRISON YET AGAIN,