Actress creates Elizabeth Taylor Endowment Fund

Los Angeles – Chronic back problems haven’t turned Elizabeth Taylor into a shrinking violet.

The winner of two Academy Awards was swathed in her trademark jewels when she made a regal public entrance to dedicate the new UCLA Clinical AIDS Research and Education Center.

The 73-year-old actress, using a wheelchair, wore a jeweled butterfly barrette in her hair, dozens of bracelets adorned her arms and an enormous diamond lit up her left hand.

It was all for a good cause. In front of an intimate crowd that included rocker Tom Petty and actress Carrie Fisher, Taylor cut a red ribbon to signify the center’s official opening Friday and announced the creation of the Elizabeth Taylor Endowment Fund, which will support the center through grants and private donations.

“Acting is, to me now, artificial,” Taylor, who won Oscars for 1960’s “Butterfield 8” and 1966’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, told The Associated Press. “Seeing people suffer is real. It couldn’t be more real. Some people don’t like to look at it in the face because it’s painful. But if nobody does, then nothing gets done.”

“I can’t sit back and be complacent, and none of us should be. I get around now in a wheelchair, but I get around,” she said.

She helped establish the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985 and created the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991.

The two organizations have raised a combined $243 million to fund research and improve the lives of people with HIV and AIDS.

Armstrong still puzzled by fame from walk on moon

Cincinnati – One small step on the moon was easy compared to celebrity for Neil Armstrong.

The first man to walk on the moon is still puzzled by the fame that event brought him.

“Friends and colleagues, all of a sudden, looked at us, treated us slightly differently than they had months or years before when we were working together,” the Apollo 11 astronaut told “60 Minutes” in an interview to be broadcast today. “I never quite understood that.”

Armstrong, 75, rarely grants interviews. He agreed to one last month just before his authorized biography, “First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong,” hit bookstores.

On July 20, 1969, Armstrong, then 38, stepped onto the moon with the famous words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Since then, he has taught at the University of Cincinnati and served on corporate boards, while rejecting interview requests.

In an e-mail response to The Cincinnati Enquirer, Armstrong said he reluctantly agreed to the book with author James R. Hansen, an Auburn University professor and former NASA historian.

“Many individuals whose opinions I value have urged me to find a way to put my story in print,” Armstrong said. “I concluded a biography would be superior to an autobiography.”

Ferrell admits regret to high school actors

Greensboro, N.C. – Actor Will Ferrell shared one regret as he surprised winners of the State High School Play Festival.

“I regret the fact that I didn’t participate in high school drama in any fashion,” Ferrell, 38, told students. “You are way ahead of where I was, so congratulate yourselves for that.”

The students screamed when Ferrell walked onto the stage at Greensboro College on Friday night.

“It’s Will Ferrell! I love you, Will!” the students yelled.

“I love you, too!” he yelled back.

Ferrell handed the festival’s top honors to Union Pines High School in Cameron and Parkwood High School in Monroe. The festival was part of the fall gathering of the N.C. Theatre Conference.

Ferrell, a former “Saturday Night Live” star whose film credits include “Elf” and “Bewitched,” had come from Charlotte, where he is filming a NASCAR comedy.

Ferrell’s cousin, Katie Carter, who is a member of the conference board, arranged the visit.

Parton to break ground on entertainment complex

Roanoke Rapids, N.C. – Dolly Parton will take part in a groundbreaking ceremony this coming week for a planned entertainment complex planned in northeastern North Carolina.

The ceremony for the $129 million project is scheduled Friday in Roanoke Rapids, where the entertainment complex will be constructed along Interstate 95, organizers said.

Parton’s brother, country-gospel entertainer Randy Parton, plans to operate the complex. Officials hope it will be the first of a number of similar operations in the region.

Grand Ole Opry members Jeannie Seely, Jim Ed Brown and others will also attend the groundbreaking ceremony.

The 1,500-seat Randy Parton Theater is scheduled to open in April 2007 as the centerpiece of a planned 800-acre music and entertainment district at the complex.

The hope is to follow the lead of places such as Branson, Mo., and Pigeon Forge, Tenn. – off-the-beaten-path tourism successes – and make the town on the Roanoke River a hot spot for live entertainment.

Trump’s company agrees to sell casino, hotel for $253M

Gary, Ind. – Donald Trump’s casino company agreed to sell its Lake Michigan riverboat casino and hotel in Gary to The Majestic Star Casino LLC in a $253 million deal.

The sale of the casino comes as Trump Entertainment Resorts works on its reorganization after filing for bankruptcy protection last year. Trump has operated the Gary casino since it opened nine years ago.

Las Vegas-based Majestic has a neighboring casino in Gary and the two companies have a joint venture that owns the dock, entrance pavilion and restaurants that the two riverboats share.

James B. Perry, president and chief executive officer of Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., said the sale would give the company money to reduce debt and invest in its Atlantic City, N.J., resorts.