Bald Britney Spears sits for new ink at tattoo parlor

Los Angeles – Britney Spears appeared in a tattoo parlor in the San Fernando Valley with her head shaved completely bald.

Video on KABC-TV showed the newly shorn Spears with tiny tattoos on the back of her neck as she sits Friday night for a new tattoo – a pair of red and pink lips.

“She just wanted something real small on her wrist, something dainty,” Max Gott, the tattoo artist at Body and Soul in Sherman Oaks, told the TV station. “She got some cute little lips on her wrist.”

Derrik Snell, who works at the tattoo parlor, said Spears showed up without notice and stayed for about 90 minutes as about 60 fans, photographers and gawkers gathered outside.

“She seemed fine,” Snell said. “I didn’t really notice (the hairdo) at first, she had a hood on when she showed up.”

Before heading to the tattoo parlor, Spears grabbed an electric clipper and shaved her own head at a San Fernando Valley salon Friday night, CNN reported.

“I tried to talk her out of it. I said, ‘Are you sure you’re not having a bad day and tomorrow you’ll feel differently about it? Why don’t we wait a little bit?'” salon owner Esther Tognozzi told the network.

“She said ‘No, I absolutely want it shaved off now.’ Next thing I know, she grabbed the buzzer and she went to the back of my salon and she was shaving off her own hair,” Tognozzi said.

French president decorates actor-director Clint Eastwood

Paris – French President Jacques Chirac inducted American actor-director Clint Eastwood into the Legion of Honor on Saturday, saying he represents “the best of Hollywood.”

The Oscar-winning director was named a knight in France’s elite Legion of Honor.

“France of course wants to pay homage to your immense talent as an actor, your genius as a director and to your place in the world of cinema,” Chirac said in a ceremony in the presidential Elysee Palace.

“You show the complexity of America, in all its grandeur and fragility, with its enthusiastic dreams and its worried questioning,” he said.

Chirac called the 76-year-old director, who is nominated for an Academy Award for directing for his latest film, “Letters from Iwo Jima,” an “exceptional ambassador” for American culture around the world.

“On this side of the Atlantic, dear Clint Eastwood, you incarnate the best of Hollywood,” Chirac said.

Eastwood said he was pleased to receive the “wonderful honor.”

Sylvester Stallone detained by Australian customs official

Sydney, Australia – Sylvester Stallone was detained for hours on arrival at Sydney Airport after officials found prohibited imports in his luggage and that of his entourage.

“That was just a misunderstanding,” Stallone told reporters Saturday at the Sydney premier of the latest in his series of six boxing movies, “Rocky Balboa.”

Australian Customs Service national investigations manager Richard Janeczko did not say what the items were or whose luggage among Stallone’s party they were found in during a routine screening late Friday.

“As a result of having their luggage X-rayed, a number of prohibited items were seized by customs,” Janeczko told Ten Network television news. “Mr. Stallone was allowed to continue with his party and our investigations are continuing.” He gave no other details.

Stallone emerged from the airport hours after his fellow passengers and signed autographs, Ten reported.

Whitaker says filming in Uganda was vital to movie

Kampala, Uganda – Being there helped.

Forest Whitaker said Saturday that his portrayal of Idi Amin in the award-winning movie “The Last King of Scotland” was made stronger by filming in Uganda, where more than 500,000 people disappeared during the brutal dictator’s rule.

Whitaker, who has been nominated for an Academy Award, returned to the country for the East Africa premiere of the film at a Kampala cineplex on Saturday night. The cast and crew were welcomed by traditional drummers wearing black and white monkey-skin headdresses and members of the country’s elite, many dressed in tartan.

“The Last King of Scotland” is the first Hollywood movie to be filmed on location in Uganda and won best British film at this year’s British Academy Film Awards. It deals with the fictional relationship between Amin and his Scottish doctor during the darkest years of the dictator’s rule in the 1970s.

Richard Gere, dad team up for Meals on Wheels promo

Syracuse, N.Y. – Richard Gere appears with his father, a longtime volunteer for the Meals on Wheels Association of America, in the organization’s latest public service ads.

Father and son teamed up for a print ad and a television spot after the association learned that Homer Gere has been a meal delivery volunteer for almost 20 years.

The ad, headlined “My dad teaches me how to act every day,” does not identify Richard Gere, 57, by name.

“We didn’t want to make a big thing of that,” Homer Gere told The Post-Standard of Syracuse, where he lives.

The print ad has so far appeared in issues of Prevention and Sports Illustrated.

Meals on Wheels officials said the actor was enthusiastic when approached about the daylong August shoot. They were working to get the full-page ad placed in other publications and hope the video will be picked up by broadcasters in the spring.