Washington, Crowe: Co-stars, teammates

New York – There was no power struggle between Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe on the set of their new crime drama, “American Gangster.” Instead, they worked as a team when filming their scenes together.

“It’s not about a heavyweight fight,” Crowe said in an interview with AP Television News. “What it is, is much more like two (guitarists) playing together, two people singing together.”

“American Gangster” is based on the life of Frank Lucas, played by Washington, who became filthy rich in the 1960s by smuggling heroin into New York.

Crowe portrays a police officer who investigates Lucas and his dirty dealings.

“If you can blend, if you can harmonize and you can sing together still from two completely separate points of view, now you are talking,” said Crowe, 43, who won an Academy Award in 2001 for “Gladiator.” He also received Oscar nominations for his roles in “The Insider” and “A Beautiful Mind.”

Washington said he felt less pressure to perfect his role in “American Gangster” than he did for 1992’s “Malcolm X” because the real-life Lucas put him at ease.

Court won’t consider Taylor’s painting case

Washington – The Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider a dispute involving Elizabeth Taylor over ownership of a Vincent van Gogh painting. The painting is claimed by descendants of a Jewish woman who fled Nazi Germany.

The painting, worth millions, may be among the estimated 600,000 works of art that belonged to Jews and wound up in Nazi hands between 1933 and 1945.

Van Gogh painted “View of the Asylum” less than a year before his suicide.

Margarete Mauthner, a one-time owner of the van Gogh, left Germany in March 1939, having lost her livelihood and most of her property due to Nazi policies of economic coercion. Relatives of Mauthner, a noted translator and advocate of the arts, say the painting was among the property she lost to the Nazis.

In 1963 while living in London, Taylor bought the painting for about $236,000 at a Sotheby’s auction from the estate of a German art collector.

Taylor’s lawyers say the record shows the painting was sold through two Jewish art dealers to a Jewish art collector, with no evidence of any Nazi coercion or participation in the transactions.

The family members say they didn’t discover they had a possible claim to the painting until 2001.

Mauthner’s heirs went to court to recover the artwork, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has ruled that the federal Holocaust Victims Redress Act does not create a private right to sue.

Culp’s elephant exhibit complaint goes forward

Los Angeles – Robert Culp’s lawsuit alleging that the Los Angeles Zoo mistreats elephants can go forward.

Judge Reginald A. Dunn has rejected arguments by the city that the complaint filed by the 77-year-old actor and real estate agent Aaron Leider lacks a legal basis.

Culp and Leider want to stop the zoo from building a $40 million elephant exhibit. They accuse zoo authorities of withholding medical care from elephants and keeping them cramped in small places, and don’t want the zoo to keep any elephants.

Lawyers for the city argued Monday that the pair’s complaint was political, not legal, but the judge rejected that argument and refused to dismiss the lawsuit.

Donovan, Lynch plan meditation school

Edinburgh, Scotland – Donovan, famous for ’60s pop hits such as “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “Mellow Yellow,” has announced plans to open the Invincible Donovan University, where students will adhere to the principles of transcendental meditation.

“I know it sounds like an airy-fairy hippie dream to go on about ’60s peace and love,” said the 61-year-old singer, who was born Donovan Leitch in the Maryhill area of Glasgow. “But the world is ready for this now, it is clear this is the time.”

He said the university will be located in either Glasgow or Edinburgh.

Donovan discovered transcendental meditation while visiting India and guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968.

“The Maharishi told me during that 1968 visit that I should build a university in Edinburgh. I went to my room and drew a beautiful dome-shaped place of learning,” he said Friday.

“I didn’t know what to do because I couldn’t do this on my own. But then I met David Lynch, who told me about the positive effects of TM in education. Although it’s taken me 35 years, I will do what the Maharishi told me to do.”

Donovan and Lynch, Oscar-nominated director of “Blue Velvet,” “Mullholland Dr.” and “The Elephant Man,” are part of a tour to promote transcendental meditation as a means of reducing violence, crime and stress in schools and colleges.

Bob Dylan exhibit goes on display at museum

Chemnitz, Germany – An exhibition of a unique collection of artworks by Bob Dylan, including variations of previously published drawings and sketches, has opened at a museum in this eastern German city.

Visitors flocked to the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz museum Sunday to see the 170 colored versions of pictorial motifs by Dylan called “The Drawn Blank Series.”

The exhibit consists of drawings that Dylan produced between 1989 and 1992 and published in a book. Curator Ingrid Moessinger had 332 of the works specially reprinted and painted, and Dylan then selected 170 works for display.

“Bob Dylan selected the works for the exhibit himself,” Moessinger said.

The pictures show scenes from daily life: portraits of women and men, still lifes, cityscapes and other places that Dylan, 66, observed during his travels.