Portman sports close crop

Cannes, France — “Star Wars” actress Natalie Portman stunned the Cannes Film Festival Sunday with a new skinhead look, reports Scotsman.com.

The 23-year-old beauty has shaved off her hair in preparation for her next role as a freedom fighter in the film “V for Vendetta.”

Her Sinead O’Connor-style skinhead drew gasps from onlookers as she arrived ahead of the world premiere of the sixth and final “Star Wars” movie, “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.”

Portman was joined on the red carpet by costars Hayden Christensen and Samuel L. Jackson, together with director George Lucas. But Ewan McGregor, who plays Obi-Wan Kenobi, will miss the premiere because he is in London rehearsing for West End musical “Guys and Dolls.”

Blame pointed at boys

Santa Maria, Calif. — A security guard at Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch testified Monday that he caught the pop star’s teenage accuser and his brother with a bottle of wine, and a maid told the jury that she saw adult magazines in the brother’s backpack.

Defense attorneys in Jackson’s child molestation trial called the Neverland employees to challenge prosecution claims that it was Jackson who exposed the children to alcohol and adult materials — suggesting instead that the boys found the items on their own.

The defense also attacked the family’s claims of being held against their will, calling witnesses who said there was no hint of captivity when the mother went to a spa for a body waxing or when her children went to an orthodontist to have their braces removed.

Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy in February or March 2003.

Security guard Shane Meredith testified Monday that he found the boys in the wine cellar, which has an entrance behind a juke box in Neverland’s arcade, after noticing that a door was open.

Meredith said he went down the stairs and surprised the boys. “I could see them with a bottle of alcohol. … I told them they needed to get out of that area right now. … They were pretty shaken.”

Meredith noted that the bottle was half-full.