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.’’
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