Horse dukes out actress

Coeur D’Alene, Idaho Actress Patty Duke remained in a hospital Friday after suffering a concussion and skull fracture earlier in the week when she tried to apply fly spray to a horse in her barn.

Duke, 55, who lives in northern Idaho with her husband, Michael Pearce, was listed in fair condition at the Kootenai Medical Center’s Intensive Care Unit.

Sheriff’s deputies quoted Pearce as saying that he left the barn while Duke was about to apply the spray to a 2-year-old filly in one of the stalls, heard a thump and his wife cry out.

When he got back inside the barn, Pearce told deputies he saw Duke on the floor of the stall. The horse was “excited and nervous and startled but not attacking,” Pearce was quoted as saying.

Duke won a best-supporting actress Oscar in 1963 for “The Miracle Worker.”

‘Dirty, Pretty’ wins raves

Venice Director Stephen Frears’ new movie, “Dirty Pretty Things,” about the underbelly of immigrant life in England, drew strong reviews at the Venice Film Festival.

Frears, director of “Dangerous Liaisons” and “High Fidelity,” said his latest movie is a story he couldn’t turn down.

“I read the script and it was clearly an account of my country that I hadn’t read before,” he told a news conference Friday. “I knew it was absolutely original, no one had done anything like this.”

The film tells the tale of an illegal immigrant from Nigeria who shares an apartment with an asylum-seeking Turkish woman played by Audrey Tautou, who made her name in the French hit “Amelie.”

Reward offered in bridge arson

Winterset, Iowa Robert Waller, author of the best-selling novel “The Bridges of Madison County,” has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the person responsible for burning down one of them.

State fire investigators say arson was the probable cause of Tuesday night’s fire that destroyed Cedar Bridge. Investigators have removed several charred samples that will be tested for accelerants, said Sgt. Robert Hansen, spokesman for the state fire marshal’s office.

“I have lost an old and dear friend with whom I have spent many quiet hours,” Waller said in a statement released by the Madison County Sheriff’s Department.

The 119-year-old bridge was where the lead characters in Waller’s novel, farm wife Francesca Johnson and photographer Robert Kincaid, planned a rendezvous.

‘First Love’ singer finds love

Tokyo Japanese pop star Hikaru Utada, whose debut CD, “First Love,” set a domestic sales record, has married the director of her music videos.

Utada, 19, and Kazuaki Kiriya, 34, filed their marriage papers at a government office.

In a letter posted Friday on her Web site, Utada said she met Kiriya while working on the videos and cover photographs for her second album, “Distance.”

“There are probably many people who are wondering why I am getting married at this young age,” she wrote. “My decision came from a natural feeling of wanting to live my life with the one I love.”