‘Bama Belle is Mrs. America

Honolulu Alabama youth pastor Kristi Leigh Phillips was crowned Mrs. America at the 26th annual pageant.

Phillips, 25, of Montgomery, will represent the United States at the Mrs. World competition Dec. 15 in Bucharest, Romania.

“I’m a little southern belle from Alabama, and going to Romania is something I probably would never have got to do. So I’m very excited,” Phillips said after she was crowned Friday.

Phillips and her husband, Brian, have a 2-year-old daughter.

Charity Kelly, 26, of Blaine, Minn., was first runner-up.

The Mrs. America pageant will be broadcast Oct. 12 on the Pax TV network.

Star-powered endorsement

Detroit Macomb County Prosecutor Carl Marlinga’s run for Congress is getting Hollywood support: an endorsement from Robert Redford.

Marlinga’s first paid advertisement is a testimonial from Redford, who is deeply involved in environmental issues. It began airing on radio last week, the Detroit Free Press reported Saturday.

Redford touts Marlinga’s record as a fighter for a cleaner Lake St. Clair and urges voters to protect Michigan’s environment.

Marlinga, a Democrat, faces Republican Secretary of State Candice Miller on Nov. 5 for the new 10th Congressional District.

Childhood, interrupted

London The baby son of actress Angelina Jolie was discharged from a Liverpool hospital on Friday after three days of treatment for an undisclosed minor injury, a spokeswoman for the actress said.

Maddox Jolie was admitted to the Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool, northwest England on Tuesday after suffering what the hospital described as a very minor injury. No details of the injury were released.

Jolie, 27, who won a best-supporting-actress Oscar in 2000 for “Girl, Interrupted,” has filed for divorce from actor Billy Bob Thornton, with whom she adopted their son from a Cambodian orphanage.

Chance meeting changes attitude

Knoxville, Tenn Olivia Newton-John said a chance meeting with a breast cancer survivor changed her perspective on her own disease.

A woman she met in a restaurant bathroom told Newton-John that’s she’d survived cancer 20 years earlier.

“That one person made such a difference to my life. It was like, ‘Oh my goodness,” she said. “She had it 20 years ago, and they didn’t have such a good treatment then. If she can be fine, then I can be fine.”‘

Newton-John, 54, disclosed in 1992 that she had been diagnosed with the disease and is now healthy.

She told a group at Thompson Center Survival Center last week that a positive attitude and support make all the difference.

Newton-John co-starred with John Travolta in the 1978 film “Grease.” Her song hits include “I Honestly Love You.”