People in the news

Walken dresses in drag for Hasty Pudding

Cambridge, Mass. – Christopher Walken sang a song from “Hairspray” and spoofed a “Saturday Night Live” skit Friday night to earn Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award.

At a roast before the presentation, Walken, who serenaded John Travolta last year in the latest film version of “Hairspray,” sang to a Harvard student dressed in drag.

Another cast member of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals at Harvard University, the nation’s oldest undergraduate drama troupe, came on stage banging a cow bell, evoking the “SNL” skit in which Walken played a music producer who called for “more cow bell.”

Walken, who joked afterward that he’d “have prepared or had a couple of drinks” if he had known what was in store, donned a copper-colored bra and brown wig. He couldn’t get into a pair of blue pumps that were supposed to be part of the outfit, doing a dance in his street shoes instead.

The Hasty Pudding roasters also had Walken read the recipe for “hasty pudding,” and asked him to show off his “psychic powers,” a play on his role in 1983’s “The Dead Zone.”

Bai Ling arrested on suspicion of shoplifting

Los Angeles – Bai Ling’s good looks and eccentric outfits have frequently put her picture in celebrity magazines, but that doesn’t mean she can take the magazines for free.

The Chinese actress was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of shoplifting two celebrity magazines and two packets of batteries at Los Angeles International Airport. The items had a total value of $16, said Sgt. Jim Holcomb of the airport’s police department.

The 41-year-old actress was detained by a store employee who summoned police, Holcomb said. She was booked for investigation of misdemeanor shoplifting and released after agreeing to appear in court on March 5.

Ling has appeared in such films as “The Crow” and “Anna and the King” and in the TV series “Lost.”

McCartney divorce case to go into 2nd week

London – The divorce hearing between Paul McCartney and Heather Mills looks set to stretch into a second week, after a judge allotted extra time for the couple’s court case.

The hearing had been scheduled to end Friday, but officials at London’s Royal Courts of Justice said the case before Justice Hugh Bennett would continue Monday.

Mills and McCartney separated in 2006 after four years of marriage and have since traded blows in the media while trying, and failing, to agree on divorce terms.

The hearing was called to decide on Mills’ share of the former Beatle’s fortune, estimated at as much as $1.6 billion. Media reports suggest that McCartney has offered his wife about $50 million and that she is seeking at least double that amount.