Actor Brad Renfro found dead at 25

Los Angeles – Actor Brad Renfro, whose career began promisingly with a childhood role in “The Client” but rapidly faded as he struggled with drugs and alcohol, was found dead Tuesday in his home. He was 25.

Paramedics pronounced him dead at 9 a.m., said Craig Harvey, chief investigator for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. The cause of death was not immediately determined, Harvey said, but an autopsy could be conducted as early as today.

Renfro had reportedly been drinking with friends the evening before his death, Harvey said.

Renfro’s lawyer, Richard Kaplan, said he did not know whether the death was connected to any problems with addiction.

“He was working hard on his sobriety,” Kaplan said. “He was doing well. He was a nice person.”

The actor served 10 days in jail in May 2006 after pleading no contest to driving while intoxicated and guilty to attempted possession of heroin.

A native of Knoxville, Tenn., Renfro’s film career began when he was 12, acting opposite Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones in “The Client.” His other credits included “Sleepers,” “Deuces Wild,” “Apt Pupil” and “The Jacket.”

Oprah Winfrey gets own TV network

New York – Oprah Winfrey is getting her own TV network. OWN – for Oprah Winfrey Network – will debut next year in nearly 70 million homes with cable and satellite, part of a deal announced Tuesday with Discovery Communications. It will replace the Discovery Health network.

The announcement builds a media empire that already includes the top-rated TV talk show, a magazine, a satellite radio network, a Web site and TV movies made under her banner.

“This is an evolution of what I’ve been able to do every day,” Winfrey said. “I will now have the opportunity to do this 24 hours a day on a platform that goes on forever.”

Unauthorized biography of Cruise hits stores

New York – A biography and 4-year-old video of Tom Cruise are calling attention to the actor’s belief in Scientology.

Andrew Morton, author of “Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography,” published Tuesday by St. Martin’s Press, alleges that the 45-year-old actor ranks second in command in the Church of Scientology.

“This is a fair, evenhanded treatment of Tom Cruise’s life,” Morton said Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show. “He’s a man who deserves attention.”

The church responded with a 15-page statement, calling the book “a bigoted, defamatory assault replete with lies” and saying Cruise “is a Scientology parishioner and holds no official or unofficial position in the Church hierarchy.”

Rogers & Cowan, the publicity firm that represents Cruise, issued a statement criticizing Morton for not interviewing “one person who has known or worked with Tom” in the past 25 years. The statement also derides Morton for writing “outlandish and malicious lies to sell books.”

The book’s publication comes as a 2004 video of Cruise extolling Scientology’s virtues made its way to the Internet. The video was still on gossip Web site Gawker.com on Tuesday.

Cruise is shown speaking in great detail about the religion. “It’s rough and tumble, and it’s wild and woolly and it’s a blast,” he says. “It’s a blast. It really is fun, because … there is nothing better than … going out there and fighting the fight and, suddenly you see, things are better.”

Harvard magazine honors Paris Hilton

New York – Paris Hilton is heading to Harvard.

The 26-year-old actress-socialite has been named Harvard Lampoon’s “Hastiest Pudding of the Lampoon Award,” the comedy magazine said Tuesday.

She will visit Harvard on Feb. 6 to accept her award, said Regent Releasing, the company that’s distributing her new comedy, “The Hottie & the Nottie.”

Hilton, whose body of work includes “House of Wax” and TV’s “The Simple Life,” stars as the attractive best friend to an ugly duckling in the new comedy, slated for release Feb. 8.

She also co-stars in the upcoming horror musical “Repo! The Genetic Opera!” which she began filming in Canada after serving a 23-day jail sentence in Los Angeles last June for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.

Keillor sues neighbor to block garage addition

St. Paul, Minn. – Humorist Garrison Keillor and his wife have filed a lawsuit intended to stop their next-door neighbor from building a two-story addition they say would block their access to light and air.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in Ramsey County District Court by Keillor, the host of “A Prairie Home Companion” and creator of fictional Lake Wobegon, and his wife, Jenny Lind Nilsson.

They want neighbor Lori Anderson to stop building the 1,900-square-foot addition to the home she has owned since 1999. She lives there with fiance Paul Olson.

Both homes are in St. Paul’s Ramsey Hill historic district.

Keillor released the following statement through his spokesman, David O’Neill: “My wife and I live in a historic St. Paul house in a historic neighborhood, and this gives us an obligation to defend the house and the neighborhood against violations of the beauty of Ramsey Hill.

“A two-story stucco addition eight feet from the western wall of our house is a violation of it,” the statement said.