Making wishes come true

Delray Beach, Fla. – Sean “Diddy” Combs made a surprise visit to Chris Evert’s charity tennis tournament to meet a teenage cancer patient.

For Chalon Keen, 17, of Sunrise, who has been fighting for two years a cancer that creates tumors in her muscle cells, Saturday’s visit was a dream come true.

Chalon, a patient at the Chris Evert Children’s Hospital at Broward General Medical Center, met Combs through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Ava Keen, Chalon’s mother, said her daughter cried the whole time. The meeting lifted the teen’s spirits as she and her family prepared to travel to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to undergo tests for a possible bone marrow transplant.

“I was just so choked up, she was so excited,” Ava Keen said.

Evert’s annual event has raised more than $13 million to fight drug abuse and help neglected and abused children in south Florida.

‘Munich’ revisits terror

New York – Steven Spielberg is taking on terror.

His latest film, “Munich,” centers on the aftermath of the killings of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany.

“I don’t think any movie or any book or any work of art can solve the stalemate in the Middle East today,” Spielberg tells Time magazine in its Dec. 12 issue. “But it’s certainly worth a try.”

Eric Bana (“Troy”) stars as a Mossad agent who leads a secret Israeli squad assigned to assassinate 11 Palestinians suspected of planning the killings.

“We don’t demonize our targets,” Spielberg says. “They’re individuals. They have families. Although what happened in Munich, I condemn.”

Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner would not reveal the identity of the man Bana portrays, whom they interviewed at length.

“There is something about killing people at close range that is excruciating,” Spielberg tells the magazine. “It’s bound to try a man’s soul.”

“Munich” co-stars Geoffrey Rush, Daniel Craig and Mathieu Kassovitz. It is due out Dec. 23.

Save the elephants

Los Angeles – Former “Golden Girls” actress Betty White joined more than 100 people rallying in front of the Los Angeles Zoo to try to keep the pachyderm exhibit from being closed.

The demonstration Saturday came in response to a study ordered by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to determine whether the exhibit should be shut down. Animal rights activists called for the study, saying the elephants need more acreage.

Several zoos nationwide, including San Francisco’s, have closed their elephant exhibits.

But fans say the Los Angeles Zoo’s elephants – Billy, Gita and Ruby – are treated well. White, one of the zoo’s commissioners, said removing the animals would deny children the opportunity to learn about them.

“They see these gorgeous animals and they know we must not let them perish off this Earth,” White said. “You don’t get that off a documentary.”

As part of the study, an elephant expert examined the zoo’s enclosure. City officials said the study should be ready soon.

Career resuscitation

Los Angeles – For singer Rick Springfield, it’s a little strange to be back on his old soap-opera stomping grounds.

“I don’t know if there has ever been a character that reoccurred after 23 years,” he says.

Springfield is back as Dr. Noah Drake on “General Hospital,” a role he first played in the early 1980s, when his hit song “Jessie’s Girl” was a radio staple.

The singer-actor was looking for innovative ways to promote his new album, “The Day After Yesterday,” and started pursuing guest appearances on several soaps. “General Hospital” liked the idea of his return but asked him to leave the band at home.

“I thought about it,” Springfield says, “and it seemed like it was too good an opportunity to miss.”

He made his first appearance Friday and is set to be in about a dozen episodes. He’ll save the singing for his tour dates in Japan this month and in the United States next year.

For better or worse

Shock rocker Marilyn Manson married his longtime girlfriend Saturday in Ireland, People magazine’s Web site says.

Brian Warner – Manson’s real name – took Heather Sweet to love and cherish in front of about 60 guests at Castle Gurteen, the home of a friend in Kilsheelan, County Tipperary.

Sweet, 33, is a burlesque dancer who uses the stage name Dita Von Teese. She and Manson dated for four years, and he proposed at their Los Angeles home in March 2004, People reported.

It’s the first marriage for both.

Unbecoming behavior

Los Angeles – Lawyers for the Live 8 poverty-relief show have sued the Trimspa diet firm over the behavior of spokesmodel Anna Nicole Smith and for allegedly not paying a $320,000 promotional fee to be part of the July 2 telecast.

The suit, filed last week in Los Angeles and uncovered by the Smoking Gun Web site Friday, seeks at least $500,000 in damages.

Live 8 lawyers contend that Smith was “intoxicated and scantily clad in revealing attire that was totally inappropriate for a broadcast that would be seen by millions of people in the United States and then rebroadcast throughout the world.” The suit says she “damaged Live 8’s reputation and goodwill in the entertainment industry by her unbecoming and erratic behavior.” Attorneys for the defendants were not available for comment.