SKY News - X Factor: Melanie Amaro Crowned First Winner Of US Version Of Simon Cowell's UK X Factor Hit, Dec 23, 2011

"Melanie Amaro has been crowned the first winner of the US version of The X Factor.
The 19-year old ballad singer, whose voice drew comparisons to Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, beat runner-up Josh Krajcik to land a $5m (£3.1m) recording contract.
Amaro will also take a starring role in a new advertisement for Pepsi.
She had been tipped to win after an impressive rendition of Beyonce's hit "Listen" in Wednesday's live show.
Last night, she dropped to her knees and wept with joy, speechless at her victory."

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BBC News - Duke of Edinburgh in hospital following chest pains, Dec 23, 2011

"The Duke of Edinburgh has been taken to hospital in Cambridgeshire after suffering chest pains, a Buckingham Palace spokesman has said.

Prince Philip, who turned 90 in June, was taken from Sandringham to the cardiothoracic unit at Papworth Hospital for "precautionary tests".
The Royal Family had been gathering at Sandringham, a traditional royal retreat in Norfolk, for Christmas.
The BBC's Peter Hunt said it was not clear if he will stay in overnight.
Our correspondent said the Greek-born prince was in strikingly good health and there had been no suggestion of ill health."

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SLATE MAGAZINE - The Good Ex-Wife: A celebration of TV’s sudden spate of divorced and separated mothers, Dec 23, 2011

"Julianna Margulies, of The Good Wife, portrays one of the many divorced or separated mothers on TV today
Turn on your TV tonight. Or tomorrow. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking network or cable TV, quality or schlock. The odds are good you will see a divorced mother. On TV, if nowhere else, divorced and separated moms are the demographic of the day: Cougar Town, Breaking Bad, Parenthood, Mad Men, Californication, Damages, Hung, The Good Wife, and now I Hate My Teenage Daughter all feature divorced or divorcing mothers. The marital backstories run the gamut from happily sharing custody to abandonment by a deadbeat dad (usually a musician), to newly separated (with the lingering possibility of reconciliation), to remarried."

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ALTFG - Dialect Coach Robert Easton Dies: Henry Higgins of Hollywood Coached Anne Hathaway, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Travolta, , Dec 23, 2011

"Actor and dialect coach Robert Easton, known as the "Henry Higgins of Hollywood," died of "natural causes" on Friday, Dec. 16, in the Los Angeles suburb of Toluca Lake. Easton was 81.

Even if he never coached My Fair Lady/Pygmalion's Audrey Hepburn, Julie Andrews, or Wendy Hiller, according to the Los Angeles Times obituary Easton's dialect students included Anne Hathaway, Liam Neeson, John Travolta, Patrick Swayze, Ben Kingsley, Charlton Heston, Arnold Schwarzenegger (who learned to talk with a Russian accent, as per the Times), and Forest Whitaker, who learned to talk like Idi Amin Dada for his Oscar-winning role in The Last King of Scotland."

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NY TIMES - Doe Avedon, Fashion Model and Actress, Dies at 86, Dec 23, 2011

"Doe Avedon, a bookish beauty reluctantly transformed into a high-fashion model at the hands of a visionary photographer, Richard Avedon — a story that inspired the 1957 musical “Funny Face,” about a bookish beauty (Audrey Hepburn) reluctantly transformed into a high-fashion model at the hands of a visionary photographer (Fred Astaire) — died on Sunday in Los Angeles. She was 86."

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LA TIMES - John Chamberlain obituary: American sculptor dies at 84, Dec 23, 2011

"By Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times Art Critic

John Chamberlain, a prolific American sculptor whose use of crushed automobile sheet metal became his signature during a career that spanned half a century, died Wednesday in New York City. He was 84.
Reportedly in poor health, he had been working on a retrospective exhibition scheduled to open Feb. 24 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, his second at the Manhattan institution. The artist's death was announced by his wife, Prudence Fairweather, although no cause was given."

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NY TIMES - Don Sharp, Director, Dies at 89 - Revived Hammer Horror Films, Dec 23, 2011

"Don Sharp, a veteran film director who had never watched a horror movie until Hammer Films — the English studio described, usually admiringly, as dripping cinematic blood — enlisted him in the mid-1960s to helprevivify its presentation of Gothic terror, died on Sunday. He was 89.

British Film Institute
Don Sharp, right, on the set of "Rasputin: The Mad Monk" in 1965, with Richard Pasco.
Hammer announced the death, but did not give a cause or a location.
To aficionados like Martin Scorsese, Hammer’s vampires, monsters, werewolves and exposed bosoms were the perfect escape, particularly in Technicolor. The joke that Hammer started with a title and a lavish poster and then figured out the story was pretty much true."

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International Business Times - Scarlett Johansson Speaks Out on Nude Photo Leak, Marriage, Gossip [VIDEO], Dec 23, 2011

"Notoriously secretive actress Scarlett Johansson spoke out last week about her personal life, her divorce with Ryan Reynolds and her nude photo leak earlier this year.
In September, a number of nude pictures of Johansson were leaked on the internet. The pictures had been taken from her cell phone. The alleged hacker who was arrested in October was charged with accessing her email account as well as the accounts of other celebrities like Christina Aguilera."

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