New stamp honors actress Bette Davis

Washington – “She did it the hard way.”

That’s how Bette Davis wanted to be remembered, and a new U.S. postage stamp honoring her does that iron-willed image justice.

The 42-cent commemorative stamp, being released today in Boston, features a portrait of Davis as she appeared in the 1950 film “All About Eve,” in which she played Margo Channing, an aging stage actress battling to save her career as a younger woman schemes to replace her.

Davis was nominated for an Academy Award for that performance.

Indeed, she collected 10 nominations, winning in 1935 for “Dangerous” and in 1938 for “Jezebel,” and was nominated every year from 1938 to 1942.

Taking advantage of her age, she played a demented former child star in 1962’s “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane,” scoring another Oscar nomination.

Davis chose “She did it the hard way” for an epitaph because she viewed a lot of her life as difficult but rewarding. “It isn’t that she was complaining, but that she had persevered … to achieve great things and satisfying things even though it wasn’t easy for her,” explained her son, Michael Merrill, in a telephone interview.

How Jamie Lynn revealed pregnancy

New York – The mother of Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears says Jamie Lynn told her she was pregnant in a note.

Lynne Spears said on NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday that Jamie Lynn – 16 years old at the time – handed her the note and told her to go into the bedroom and read it.

The note said she was pregnant but “everything was gonna be OK, mom” and that she and boyfriend Casey Aldridge were going to raise the baby.

“I thought it was a joke,” Spears said in an interview. “I kept waiting for the punch line.”

Spears said she realized it wasn’t a joke because Aldridge, a pipe-layer from Liberty, Miss., wouldn’t look at her.

“I was just truly in shock and then I started to cry. And then she started consoling me at that point,” said Spears, who writes of Jamie Lynn and her older daughter, Britney, in her new memoir, “Through the Storm.”

Jamie Lynn, who starred in the Nickelodeon series “Zoey 101,” announced her pregnancy last December. She and Aldridge welcomed daughter Maddie Briann in June. The couple are now engaged.

Celebs as kids new faces of Boys & Girls Club

Washington – Who’s that kid?

Denzel Washington, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Martin Sheen, Wesley Clark and Shaquille O’Neal, who attended the Boys & Girls Clubs of America as children, have lent their childhood photos to the organization for a national advertising campaign.

Washington unveiled the “BE GREAT” campaign Wednesday, asking people to volunteer to help at their local clubs.

“What’s going on with children doesn’t worry me. What’s going on with adults worries me. If we are not more committed to these young people … they will go as far as we take them, so the onus is on us, not on the children,” Washington told reporters. “We’ve created this world for them, we are the ones that fall and we are the ones that can rectify it.”

Pitt donates to help save gay marriage

Brad Pitt announced Wednesday that he was donating $100,000 to fight California’s Proposition 8, a November ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to say that same-sex couples cannot marry.

“Because no one has the right to deny another their life even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn’t harm another, and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8,” the actor said in a statement.

Opponents say Proposition 8 will take away important benefits such as health insurance and complicate decision-making related to medical emergencies and other situations in domestic partnerships.

Ryan O’Neal and son arrested in drug sweep

Los Angeles – Ryan O’Neal and his son were arrested Wednesday morning after authorities said they found drugs at the actor’s Malibu home during a routine probation check.

Investigators suspect both men had methamphetamine, but the substances still need to be tested, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputies and probation officers went to O’Neal’s home for a routine check of his son Redmond, who is serving three years of probation after pleading guilty in June to drug possession charges.

Whitmore said in addition to drugs that deputies suspect belong to Redmond O’Neal, deputies also found narcotics in Ryan O’Neal’s living area. Both men remain in custody on $10,000 bail and could be charged with felony possession of narcotics. Both men were released after posting $10,000 bail and could be charged with felony possession of narcotics.

Ryan O’Neal, 67, was nominated for a best actor Oscar for “Love Story.” Redmond, 23, is his son from a relationship with actress Farrah Fawcett.