Character actor Schiavelli dies of lung cancer at age 57

Rome – Vincent Schiavelli, the droopy-eyed character actor who appeared in scores of movies, including “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Ghost,” died Monday at his home in Sicily. He was 57.

He died of lung cancer, said Salvatore Glorioso, mayor of Polizzi Generosa, the Sicilian village where Schiavelli resided.

The New York-born Schiavelli, whose gloomy look made him perfect to play creepy or eccentric characters, made appearances in some 150 film and television productions, according to the Internet Movie Database.

In “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” he played the science teacher Mr. Vargas, who was married to the character portrayed by Lana Clarkson.

Schiavelli also appeared as Salieri’s valet in “Amadeus,” as “Cuckoo’s Nest” patient Frederickson, the subway ghost in “Ghost,” the organ grinder in “Batman Returns” and as Chester in “The People vs. Larry Flynt.” He was selected in 1997 by Vanity Fair as one of the United States’ best character actors.

Schiavelli studied acting at New York University’s School of the Arts.

“He was a great friend, a great chef and a great talker,” Glorioso, who has known Schiavelli for almost four years, said in a telephone interview.

Parker, Longoria have run-in with San Antonio police

San Antonio – San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker was cited for impeding traffic and failing to produce a valid Texas driver’s license during a traffic stop in which “Desperate Housewives” actress Eva Longoria was his passenger, police said.

The incident happened early Saturday. According to police, a bicycle officer saw a stopped car impeding traffic and rapped on the hood with his hand.

Parker, who was behind the wheel, questioned why the officer touched the car, and the couple “began screaming in a verbally abusive and demeaning manner,” police said.

Police said Parker then began to drive away, almost hitting a man standing nearby. After being told to stop and get out, Parker showed a French driver’s license, police said.

The officer who wrote the citations said that Parker complained: “This is all the cops do, just mess with people,” and that Longoria shouted from the car: “He’s just a Mexican bike cop! He only wants your autograph!”

Longoria denied making the comment.

‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ author defends movie version

Washington – The author of “Memoirs of a Geisha” is defending the film version amid criticism from some experts in the geisha world.

In a letter to The Washington Post published Monday, Arthur Golden wrote that “no storyteller or journalist is ever exact enough for an expert.”

The movie, based on Golden’s novel, chronicles a girl’s rise from poverty in a Japanese fishing village to life in high society as a geisha – a woman schooled in the art of dance, singing and conversation to be a companion for wealthy men.

The Post ran an article Dec. 15 quoting experts who criticized the accuracy of the costumes and dancing in the film.

“It’s worth bearing in mind that ‘Hamlet’ makes poor Danish history and that ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ grossly oversimplifies the politics and cultures of the Middle East,” Golden wrote. “I don’t mean to say that drama should never concern itself with factual accuracy, only that a work of art must be judged by a higher standard.”

The English-language film also has been criticized by those who felt a movie about Japanese culture should have a Japanese actress in the lead. The movie stars Chinese actresses Ziyi Zhang and Gong Li, and Chinese-Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh.

Huffman says nothing risked when making ‘Transamerica’

San Francisco – Risk? There was nothing to risk for Felicity Huffman in playing a man becoming a woman.

“I’m not a beauty. That’s not my thing. So it wasn’t like I was risking anything,” Huffman said in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle. “What I was risking is whether I could do it. There are many places to fall.”

Huffman, 43, was nominated for two best-actress Golden Globes on Dec. 14 – as Stanley/Bree in the film “Transamerica” and as the beleaguered mom Lynette in TV’s “Desperate Housewives.”

As for rumors of dissension with co-stars Nicollette Sheridan, Teri Hatcher, Eva Longoria and Marcia Cross, Huffman denied them.

“They were waiting for us to fight before we even started airing,” she said. “I mean, it was last year before we even got on the air, and we were reading rags, and I’d say, ‘Look, Nicollette. I’m in a fight with you.”‘

British schoolgirl honored for saving tsunami victims

Paris – A French children’s magazine named as its Child of the Year a British girl credited with saving about 100 tourists at a Thai beach when the tsunami struck last year.

Mon Quotidien, which hits newsstands today, features Tilly Smith on its cover.

Tilly, now 11, had studied tsunamis in her geography class in Oxshott two weeks before going to Thailand on vacation.

On a walk on a Phuket island beach on Dec. 26, 2004, Tilly recognized the signs that a tsunami was coming when she saw “bubbling on the water … and foam sizzling just like in a frying pan.”

She told her parents and alerted staff at the Marriott Hotel, where they were staying. The beach was evacuated minutes before waves struck. The beach was one of the few on Phuket where no one was killed or seriously hurt.