People in the news

‘Screech’ hopes T-shirt sales will help save his home

Port Washington, Wis. – On the front porch of the Port Washington home he may be thrown out of, the actor Dustin Diamond tried to calculate how his kitsch celebrity might stave off a foreclosure.

Millions could remember him from his role as the geeky Screech on the early ’90s sitcom “Saved by the Bell” and its perpetual syndication. Close to 100,000 computers had logged onto his Web site at www.getdshirts.com within a few hours of his appearance on Howard Stern’s satellite radio show. Diamond figured that selling 30,000 T-shirts to save his gray, two-story suburban home might be within reason.

“If the public didn’t care, I as an entertainer wouldn’t have been a success,” he said.

Diamond, 29, faces losing the home under a foreclosure order filed May 4 in Ozaukee County Circuit Court. It demands that he kick up the remaining $250,000 he owes under a land contract, which Diamond said was one of the few options available for him in 2003 because of a bad credit record, which includes a 2001 bankruptcy filing in California.

He works as a ribald stand-up comedian now – asked to tell a joke to a television reporter, he demurred, claiming he didn’t have anything appropriate – and said he gets enough work from it to stay on the road virtually the whole year.

“I’m doing great with my comedy, but this is definitely a low point,” Diamond said. “Real life comes in and affects you.”

Jolie says she was ‘terrified’ during baby Shiloh’s birth

New York – Angelina Jolie, in her first U.S. interview since the birth of her daughter last month, says the experience was frightening.

“You know, because you’re there for the birth, which I wasn’t for my first two kids, you’re just suddenly terrified that they’re not gonna take a first breath,” the 31-year-old actress says in an interview to air Tuesday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” (9 p.m. CDT).

“That was my whole focus. I just wanted to hear her cry.”

Jolie gave birth to Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt on May 27 at a private clinic in the resort town of Walvis Bay in Namibia. The baby, healthy and weighing 7 pounds, was delivered by Caesarean section.

In excerpts of the interview, released to The Associated Press, Jolie says Brad Pitt was in the operating room for the delivery.

“He was in the operating room, yeah, yeah,” she tells Cooper. “And we had amazing doctors. And everybody was so lovely.”

Jolie and Pitt, 42, have since left Namibia with their newborn daughter and two older children: 16-month-old Zahara, adopted from Ethiopia, and 4-year-old Maddox, adopted from Cambodia.

It’s almost time for Newman’s ‘last hurrah’

Saratoga Springs, N.Y. – Paul Newman is considering his final scene.

“I will probably have one film left in me,” the 81-year-old actor said last week. “The last hurrah.”

Newman’s latest role is playing a cantankerous 1951 Hudson Hornet in Pixar’s new animated film, “Cars.”

His film career stretches back to the 1950s and includes “The Sting,” “Cool Hand Luke” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

“It’s time. When it’s time to get out, it’s time to get out,” Newman said.

Newman said he had a project in mind, but would not provide further details.

He was visiting this upstate resort town as part of a fundraising campaign for the Double H Ranch, an Adirondack camp he co-founded for children with cancer, AIDS and other illnesses.

“When we started the camp we had no idea of the profound impact these camps would have on these kids,” Newman said.

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ star, musician set to wed

New York – Katherine Heigl is engaged to musician Josh Kelley, according to People magazine.

The “Grey’s Anatomy” star and her fiance have not set a wedding date, representatives told the magazine.

Heigl, 27, who plays Dr. Isobel “Izzie” Stevens on the hit ABC show, met Kelley, 25, last year when she appeared in a video for his song, “Only You.”

Heigl, a former model, also appeared on the WB’s “Roswell.” Kelley’s third album, “Just Say the Word,” is expected to be released July 24.

Rather’s next gig may be

on Cuban’s channel

New York – Dan Rather, who’s nearing a deal to leave CBS News after 44 years, reportedly is considering an offer from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to do a weekly news program for Cuban’s HDNet cable channel.

Rather, 74, would be the host and producer of the one-hour program, The New York Times reported Friday.

Rather told the Times he had received several offers, including two from what he described as major networks, but said, “What I expect to do, what I hope to do, is bring this HDNet thing to fruition.”

He was approached earlier this year by Cuban, a high-tech mogul and widely known owner of the Mavericks team, which is tied, 2-2, with the Miami Heat in the NBA finals.