Private funeral for Irwin

Beerwah, Australia – A private funeral for “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin was conducted on Saturday and plans were for his body to be buried at the family-owned Australia Zoo, several Sunday newspapers said.

Irwin, killed in a stingray attack on the Great Barrier Reef on Sept. 4, had a private service at a funeral home in nearby Caloundra, the Brisbane-based Sunday Mail said.

It also said that the local council had given the family permission to bury Irwin, 44, at the 60-acre zoo that has been owned by the Irwin family since 1970.

“Yesterday’s service was a service for family and good friends, people who were close to Steve in recent years,” the newspaper quoted an unidentified family friend as saying.

Sydney’s Sun-Herald newspaper said Irwin’s father, Bob, planned to hold a press conference today at the zoo to give details of the funeral.

A public memorial service is being planned for later this month.

Hepburn awards presented

Philadelphia – Actresses Lauren Bacall and Blythe Danner have received the inaugural awards of a suburban Philadelphia college’s new center honoring the independent spirit of the late Katharine Hepburn.

Bryn Mawr College launched its Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center with a black-tie gala hosted by ABC News journalist Cynthia McFadden.

The center seeks to honor the life and works of Hepburn and her suffragist mother, also named Katharine Houghton Hepburn – both alumnae of Bryn Mawr – and inspire a new generation of women to follow in their footsteps.

Hepburn was a four-time Oscar winner whose films include “The Philadelphia Story,” “The African Queen,” “On Golden Pond,” “The Lion in Winter,” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

The college bestowed its first two Katharine Hepburn medals on Saturday to Bacall and Danner, the Emmy Award-winning mother of Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow, for embodying Hepburn’s trailblazing ways.

“I was privileged to see her close up and to know her,” said Bacall, wearing a crisp black suit accented by swept-back blond hair. Bacall was a longtime friend of Hepburn, and her son, Sam Robards, was Hepburn’s godson.

Danner said of her medal, “I feel as if I still have a long, long way to go before I earn this.” She applauded Hepburn’s unconventional blend of “femininity and toughness” and “delicacy and backbone.”

Fergie kicked meth habit

New York – Fergie, the female voice of the Black Eyed Peas, says she had to dig deep into herself to kick her crystal meth addiction.

“It was the hardest boyfriend I ever had to break up with,” Stacey “Fergie” Ferguson told Time magazine in an interview for the issue that hits newsstands today.

“It’s the drug that’s addicting,” said Fergie, who has released her first solo album, “The Dutchess.” “But it’s why you start doing it in the first place that’s interesting. A lot of it was being a child actor; I learned to suppress feelings.”

When asked what she does now with those feelings, she said, “I have an hour and a half of performing every night and improvising. If there’s a rafter, I can climb right on.”