Chavez shows strength after Cuba cancer treatment

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez strode, sang and gave a rousing speech on Friday in a careful show of vigor after his latest cancer treatment in Cuba fanned rumors he was dying five months before an election.

The socialist Chavez, who had only been seen live in public once in the previous month, addressed the nation after flying back from Havana where he has completed six rounds of radiation therapy.

With Venezuelans watching on live TV for any sign of his condition, Chavez walked with relative ease from his plane, hugged ministers, inspected a military guard and improvised a song at the end of a 20-minute speech.

"I can tell you that in the last few days we successfully completed the radiation cycle, as planned by the medical team," Chavez said in a strong voice.

"I come with great optimism that this treatment will have the effects we hope for, always asking God to help us and give us the miracle of life to keep serving."

The official line in recent weeks has been that Chavez was out of the public limelight due to the effects of radiation treatment, but is on the road to recovery and will soon begin his re-election campaign ahead of the October 7 vote.

But there is speculation, stoked by leaks from pro-opposition journalists citing sources in Chavez's medical team, that his condition may have turned grave.

HIGH STAKES

The implications of that would be enormous for the South American OPEC member nation that Chavez has dominated for the last 13 years without grooming a successor.

Rumors have been flying of a nascent succession struggle among his closest allies. Meanwhile, opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles is struggling to win public attention amid the national obsession over Chavez's condition.

Without giving any clues as to the details of his cancer, Chavez said he must continue "rigorously" following medical instructions in coming days.

"But as the hours and days pass, I'm sure that with God's favor, medical science and this soldier's body, I will get back to where I must be, in the front line of the battle, alongside the Venezuelan people, promoting the socialist revolution."

Such stirring language has helped underpin Chavez's strong connection with Venezuela's poor majority, though critics see it as evidence of his demagogy masking a dictatorial rule.

Opposition politicians say Chavez, who has spent about 100 days of the last year in Cuba since being diagnosed with cancer, has left Venezuela in paralysis.

"He is a president who never delegates anything. Even the most mundane, daily decision in a ministry, people don't dare take decisions if they think they don't have the president's blessing," Capriles ally Maria Corina Machado told Reuters.

"This is a country that is practically paralyzed."

Chavez's condition remains a state secret, with few details divulged beyond the fact he has had three operations in a year to remove two malignant tumors in his pelvic region.

The Venezuelan president declared himself "completely cured" at the end of 2011, only to acknowledge a recurrence of cancer early this year. That has fed skepticism and speculation among Venezuelans over Chavez's future.

The wider region is also watching the saga closely.

Communist-run Cuba depends on subsidized Venezuelan oil to keep its ailing economy afloat, while the United States has long viewed Chavez as its principal foe in the region.

(Additional reporting by Diego Ore; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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Perez Hilton sued over Angelina Jolie ring claim

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Angelina Jolie's engagement ring reportedly set Brad Pitt back a cool $500,000, and it could end up costing Perez Hilton the same.

Gossip blogger Hilton (real name: Mario Armando Lavandeira) has been slapped with a lawsuit after reporting that the man who designed Jolie's ring had previously been found guilty of fraud.

Hilton's report, published April 17 on his Coco Perez offshoot site, claimed that jeweler Robert Procop, who designed the ring with Pitt, had previously been successfully sued for fraud by a customer named Roy Allenstein. Allenstein supposedly discovered that the necklace he purchased from Procop contained only 17.62 carats of diamonds instead of 25.5 carats after having it appraised.

The report goes on to claim that the court awarded Allenstein $89,000 in the suit.

But Procop says that's a lie, and now Hilton has found himself in a real-life court drama.

"The statements that Plaintiff was 'guilty' of fraud in connection with his jewelry business and that a court had awarded a judgment against him for that fraud is libelous on its face," the suit, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles, reads. "Those statements expose Plaintiff to hatred, contempt, ridicule and obloquy and they naturally have a tendency to injure Plaintiff in his occupation as a jeweler and jewelry designer."

Hilton has not yet responded to TheWrap's request for comment.

Procop's attorney told TheWrap that, not only wasn't there a judgment rendered against his client, but there was never a trial alleging that he'd defrauded a customer.

The CocoPerez report was apparently derived from a RadarOnline report, to which it links. That story has been taken down, at the request of Procop's attorney, but according to the attorney it also claimed that a judgment had been awarded against Procop. (RadarOnline, which is not named in the lawsuit, has not yet responded to TheWrap's request for comment.)

According to the suit, Hilton "refused to retract the defamatory statements and take down the article from his web site even after he was informed of their falsity."

Procop is seeking more than $500,000 in general damages, plus special and punitive damages" in a sum sufficient to punish and deter Defendant from engaging in such conduct in the future."

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Second masseur accuses John Travolta of sexual battery

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A second unidentified masseur has joined a $2 million lawsuit against John Travolta claiming the actor sexually assaulted the men in two separate incidents during private massages, according to amended court documents filed on Tuesday.

The second unnamed man, a resident of Georgia referred to as John Doe No. 2 in court papers obtained by Reuters, claimed that Travolta rubbed his legs, touched his genitals and tried to initiate sex at a private appointment at the actor's room inside an Atlanta hotel on January 28.

The allegations echo those of John Doe No. 1, a resident of Texas, who filed the initial complaint late last week and accused Travolta of sexually assaulting him during a private massage at the Beverly Hills Hotel on January 16.

"This second 'anonymous' claim is just as absurd and ridiculous as the first one," said attorney Martin Singer, who represents the Hollywood actor.

"Our client will be fully vindicated in court on both of these absurd and fictional claims."

Travolta's spokesman has called the lawsuit "complete fiction and fabrication."

The plaintiff's attorney, Pasadena, California-based Okorie Okorocha, told Reuters that since the initial complaint was filed last week, he has had many more potential victims come forward with similar complaints.

"I will file for every single victim. Mr. Travolta has been able to evade justice, and he's going to challenge it with me. but I'm not afraid ... I'll stand up to him," said Okorocha.

He said that the men did not go to the police because they did not think the police would believe them.

Travolta, 58, rose to fame in the 1970s on the television sitcom "Welcome Back Kotter," then became a movie star with hits such as "Saturday Night Fever," "Grease," and later, "Pulp Fiction." He has been nominated for two Academy Awards and has been married to wife Kelly Preston since 1991.

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Mohammad Zargham)

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Houston Family Reality Show to Launch Bobbi Kristina Music Career?

At first glance, it seems disturbingly exploitive: Lifetime will soon air a reality show based around the family of Whitney Houston.

But sources tell TMZ the motivation behind this program isn't merely to make money off the singer's tragic death; for Cissy Houston, it's to help boost the career of her granddaughter, 18-year old Bobbi Kristina.

While believing the series will push along the family's "healing process," Cissy is mostly concerned about Bobbi, insiders say, and hopes this will be a showcase for her talents.

Look for the Houston family docu-series to feature a far more serious tone than similar programs such as Keeping Up with the Kardashians and for Whitney's sister, Patricia, to serve as the lead.

Will you tune in?

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Obama-Clooney fundraiser rakes in celebrity dollars

A video featuring cancer-stricken children, their nurses, doctors and parents lip-synching and dancing to the popular Kelly Clarkson song "Stronger" has become an online sensation.

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Jethro Tull's Anderson "Thick As A Brick" and dapper

LONDON (Reuters) - A chat with Ian Anderson - flautist, multi-instrumentalist, founder and wild face of British rock group Jethro Tull - does not go quite as expected.

Yes, there is discussion of his music, the 40th anniversary world tour of the progressive rock classic "Thick As A Brick", and of its 2012 follow up. But there is also a lot more about flutes in space, an unlikely link with the George W. Bush White House - and the importance of prostate examinations.

Anderson, now 64 and dapper rather than the frenzied druid-cum-warlock of yore, is quite clear and animated about the latter. Too many family and friends have died from prostate and colon cancer for him to ignore it.

So much so, in fact, that his current world tour - taking in most of Europe, Israel and more than two dozen stops across the United States -includes a full-fledged skit on the subject, a rallying cry for the audience to get checked plus a visual reminder of those felled by the condition, including cult musician Frank Zappa.

"It is a very serious message," Anderson told Reuters over a beer in railway station pub recently. "If I can get two (in the audience to get a check), I can save lives."

Not that any of this should be taken to suggest that Anderson's current "Thick As a Brick" concerts are overly serious or message-laden. On the contrary, they are a joyful celebration of all that was 1970s prog rock - over-the-top navel-gazing mixed with often sublime musicianship.

A lot of this was evident at a recent, packed concert at London's Hammersmith Apollo, where Anderson was backed by a tight band that included a remarkable sound-a-like singer to help him through the double-tracks of the original.

With impressive agility and age-defying lung power, Anderson cavorted across the stage, keeping the trilling and tutting on his flute going for a couple of hours and leaping from time to time into his trademark one-legged stance.

Some of the rock bite of early Jethro Tull was missing, but it was a crowd-pleaser nonetheless, as was the second half of the show, a performance of "Thick As A Brick 2", a new work bringing the 1972 story into the 21st century.

BOSTOCK REVISITED

Anderson's original "Thick As a Brick" was actually a mild spoof of the prog albums of the time, a response to critics who had labeled Jethro Tull's earlier rock best-seller "Aqualung" as a concept album - something Anderson denies to this day.

But the album, which tells the tale of eight-year old Gerald Bostock who has purportedly written an epic poem, soon entered the pantheon of prog albums.

Its record cover alone, a pretend St. Cleve Chronicle and Linwood Advertiser newspaper, was on the cutting edge of an art form that has all but disappeared with CDs and MP3s.

"It was very much a parody of the prog rock genre of the time," Anderson said. "Some people got it. Some people didn't."

The show - for that is what it is rather than just a concert - brings in video projections, skits and spoof YouTube broadcasts, most of which would have been unthinkable when the original was being cut on vinyl.

This fits well with second half performance, the follow-up work subtitled "Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock?", which looks at how the young poet may have fared 40 years on - banker, soldier, homeless man, ordinary bloke?

Musically, it is entertaining and carries the listener away as any good prog should. A Billboard review went as far as to say it proves "there are still vital sonic statements to be made within the old-school prog-rock realm".

But enough of music. Anderson talked about a broad range of subjects, including his late friend Tony Snow, the George W. Bush White House spokesman who died of colon cancer - another motivation for his one-man campaign for regular health checks.

They met when Snow, an amateur jazz flautist, was a television journalist. Anderson reckons it was Snow, not himself, who was parodied in the film "Anchorman" when the character Ron Burgundy jumps on a stage and does a crazy flute solo.

Proudly, he also talks about how U.S. astronaut Catherine Coleman took his flute to the International Space Station with her - a third of her personal allowance.

Anderson and Coleman played a duet via video link on the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first-man-in-space flight last year.

The Space Flute, as it is dubbed, is now safely on Earth.

(Reporting by Jeremy Gaunt, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Celebrity hair stylist Vidal Sassoon dead at 84

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Vidal Sassoon, hair stylist and fashion world icon who created a natural look in the 1960s and built a multi-million dollar business on his name, has died of apparent natural causes at his home in Los Angeles. He was 84.

The British stylist's scissors spelled the end of the 1950s-era beehive and the bouffant - untouchable hairstyles that owed their existence to lacquer and hair pins - and brought him international fame and fortune.

Sassoon was dubbed a pioneer by many for coming up with so-called wash and wear looks - liberating many women from weekly salon trips to have their hair done.

But as much as he was a genius in the salon, Sassoon was a whiz in business. He began marketing his name, styles and cutting techniques in a worldwide line of beauty salons, hair-cutting schools and later, related lines of hair products.

Still, Sassoon never felt the profession that he put at the forefront of modern fashion received the respect it was owed.

"Hairdressing in general hasn't been given the kudos it deserves," Sassoon told Reuters in 2010. "It's not recognized by enough people as a worthy craft."

"If you get hold of a head of hair on somebody you've never seen before, cut beautiful shapes, cut beautiful architectural angles and she walks out looking so different - I think that's masterful," he said.

Born in London on January 17, 1928, the son of a poor Turkish-Jewish carpet salesman, Sassoon spent eight of his early years in an orphanage after his father abandoned his family. He quit school at 14, and his stepfather agreed to finance his apprenticeship as a hairdresser.

"It was my mother's idea," he once said of his entry into hairstyling. "Her feeling was that I didn't have the intelligence to pick a trade myself."

In 1948, after the partition of Palestine, Sassoon spent a year working on a kibbutz and fighting with the Israeli army. He credited that year with giving him the direction and discipline needed to jump into a full-time career in hair cutting.

BOND STREET AND BOB CUTS

In 1950 he won his first hairdressing competition, and four years later at age 26, opened his first shop in fashionable Bond Street in London's West End.

He had decided that if he could not change hairdressing within a decade he would become an architect, and he drew inspiration from great buildings around the world. But soon, his salon was bursting with women looking for his signature styles that were geometric yet surprisingly natural and easy to shape.

His wispy-short early style was a vast contrast to the teased, brutally coiffed styles of the 1950s, and by 1963, he had created a short, angular cut on a horizontal plane that was the recreation of the classic "bob cut."

At the time, Sassoon was creating his "wash and wear hair" when styling models for fashion designer Mary Quant. Women began fashioning themselves after Quant's "Carnaby Street" style - not only with their hair, but also with white lipstick, severe eye makeup and thigh-high skirts.

His association with Quant put Sassoon at the forefront of pop culture and fashion. His styles also began attracting a male audience when The Beatles adopted Sassoon-inspired cuts with bangs and long locks down to their shoulders.

He gained even greater fame with his hair style for Mia Farrow in 1967 film, "Rosemary's Baby," and the term "a Sassoon" became part of the fashion lexicon in Europe and America.

"I just consider being one of the luckiest people in the sense that creativity came to me and it flowed," Sassoon told Reuters in the 2010 interview.

AUTHOR AND BUSINESSMAN

He diversified his hair-styling interests by writing. In 1967 - at age of 39 - he published an autobiography, "Sorry I Kept You Waiting Madam", and in 1976, with his second wife Beverly, he wrote "A Year of Health and Beauty."

The book was a best-seller, but the marriage soon ended in a much-publicized divorce. His first marriage, to his receptionist Elaine Wood in 1956, had also ended in divorce in 1963.

Overall, Sassoon would marry four times throughout his life and have four children. His eldest daughter Catya died of an accidental overdose in 2002 at age 33.

After building a business with salons and styling products, Sassoon sold the rights to his name to Richardson-Vicks, a U.S. health and beauty supply company, in 1983. At that time his hair products alone were netting Vidal Sassoon Inc about $113 million dollars a year.

Procter & Gamble acquired Richardson-Vicks in 1985, and continued making products using the Sassoon name.

The famed stylist sued Procter & Gamble in 2003, accusing the company of breach of contract and fraud on the grounds that it neglected his brand. The two sides reached a confidential settlement in 2004.

The stylist maintained his British roots despite living in the United States. He was a die-hard fan of the Chelsea soccer team, and in 2009 he was honored by the Queen Elizabeth II when he was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Apart from hairdressing interests, he set up the Vidal Sassoon Foundation to help the needy in educational pursuits both in Israel and abroad.

Sassoon is survived by three children and his wife, Rhonda.

(Reporting by Bob Tourtellotte and Alex Dobuzinskis; Michelle Nichols and Judith Schoolman; Editing by Sandra Maler and Cynthia Osterman)

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