Justin Bieber tops Lady Gaga to rule Twitter

(Reuters) - Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber with his hordes of fans known of Beliebers became the King of Twitter on Tuesday, topping fellow pop star Lady Gaga as the user with the most followers.

Data from TwitterCounter.com showed that the 18-year-old Canadian singer jumped into the lead with 33.33 million followers, topping Lady Gaga's 33.32 million and ending her two-and-a-half year rule of the microblogging site.

A spokesman from TwitterCounter.com said Lady Gaga has held the top slot on Twitter since August 2010 when she overtook U.S. pop star Britney Spears.

Bieber rose to fame as a baby-faced pop star singing love songs such as "Baby" after being discovered on YouTube in 2008. He has released two No. 1 albums in the past 18 months - the holiday-themed "Under the Mistletoe" and "Believe."

Bieber was named by Forbes magazine in 2012 as the third-most powerful celebrity in the world and his huge following on Twitter was cited as a reason why marketers need to take notice of the 140-character micro-blogging site.

Lady Gaga has dropped to second in Twitter followed by singer Katy Perry in third with 31.49 million followers then Rihanna and Barack Obama with 26.17 million followers. Britney Spears has slipped to sixth place.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith; editing by Patricia Reaney)

(You can see the Twitter top 100 list http://twittercounter.com/pages/100)

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Singer Shakira, soccer star Gerard Pique welcome baby

(Reuters) - Singer Shakira gave birth to her first child, a boy, on Tuesday in Barcelona, the Colombian pop star said on her website.

The "Hips Don't Lie" singer and her boyfriend, the Spanish soccer player Gerard Pique, named the six-pound, six-ounce (three kilograms) boy Milan.

"Milan (pronounced MEE-lahn) means dear, loving and gracious in Slavic; in Ancient Roman, eager and laborious, and in Sanskrit, unification," the star said in a statement posted on her website.

"Just like his father, baby Milan became a member of FC Barcelona at birth," the couple joked in a statement. Pique is a defender for Spanish La Liga runner-up FC Barcelona.

Shakira, 35, announced her pregnancy in September after bowing out of a performance in Las Vegas.

The couple last week asked fans to donate gifts such as mosquito nets and vaccines to help needy children in an online baby shower. Shakira is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

Shakira has signed on to be a judge on the upcoming season of the hit singing contest "The Voice," which is broadcast by U.S. network NBC. She and R&B singer Usher will replace judges Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green.

The singer fist met Pique, 25, in 2010, but only confirmed that they had been in a relationship in March 2011.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Elaine Lies)

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Actress Lake Bell finds her directorial voice "In A World"

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) - In a world where men rule the voice-over industry, actress Lake Bell brings a tale of women versus men and old versus new in her directorial debut comedy.

"In A World," which premiered at the Sundance Film festival this week, follows voice-over artist Carol (Bell) attempting to follow in the daunting footsteps of her father (Fred Melamed), a famous and respected voice who is struggling to stay relevant as new talent emerges.

Written and directed by Bell, 33, who is best known for supporting roles in movies such as "No Strings Attached" and "What Happens in Vegas," "In A World" is a quirky comedy with an unlikely heroine.

Bell talked to Reuters about the struggles of being in the voice-over world, her disdain for women with "sexy baby" voices, and what her superhero power would be.

Q: What drew you to the voice-over world for your film?

A: "I always envisioned that I was going to be one of the great voice-over artists. I thought I was going to kill it when I got to Hollywood. Since I was a kid, I loved accents, I collected them ... I would manipulate my voice to make people laugh all the time. I liked this idea of being a blind voice - you could be any ethnicity, you could be from any country, you could be any race. I thought it was so cool that you wouldn't be judged by who you are."

Q: Your character, Carol, has to struggle with being a woman trying to break into the male-dominated world. Is that echoing the real-life industry?

A: "I started getting into the idea of the omniscient voice, the people who announce and tell you what to buy or how you should think about things, they help form your opinions. These random people from the sky, they always were male, and I thought it was an interesting subject to attack because why aren't there any ladies? What are we, not omniscient? Are we not God?"

Q: How much of your own career struggles are reflected in Carol's story?

A: "What's interesting about Carol's message is that she is a woman trying to find her voice, literally and also figuratively. As a filmmaker, I'm definitely embarking on this really beautiful journey of finding what my comedic voice is or what my filmic voice is.

"I'm lucky enough to have friends who took a chance on me and be in this film with me and respect me enough to let me direct them to do something different than maybe they've ever done before. There's definitely parallels in feeling like I'm finding my own voice."

Q: Was this an autobiographical film for you?

A: "It's not anymore. Draft one is autobiographical, but by draft 25, it's something else after so many rewrites, it takes on its own life. That's what's so cool about writing, you never know where it's going to lead. I often like to write when I'm acting in something else because then I can show up and be part of the machine and be around creative people, and then come home and go off into different worlds in my head."

Q: What do you want people to take away from watching this?

A: "I would hope in a fantasy world that the message is, people would somehow become aware of their own voice and respect it, because it's a privilege. Women are plagued by the "sexy baby" vocal virus that is taken on, that is rampant in this nation. I just think that people should take themselves more seriously and give themselves a little more credit."

Q: Do you have a dream role you'd like to play?

A: "The dream role is that I'm a superhero. I want to be a superhero ... I want to have a superhero outfit because I like dressing up a lot. That would be fun."

Q: What would your superhero power be?

A: "Right now, it'd be quelling the 'sexy baby' (voices) of the world and extinguishing them."

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Christopher Wilson)

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Whitney Houston's mother wonders if she could have saved singer

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Whitney Houston's mother has told People magazine that she questions her skills as a parent and wonders if she could have saved her superstar daughter from the drug use that played a role in her death.

"Was I a good mother?" Cissy Houston, 79, was quoted as telling the celebrity magazine in an advance excerpt released on Wednesday from the magazine's Friday edition.

"I still wonder if I could have saved her somehow. But there's no book written on how to be a parent. You do the best you can."

Whitney Houston drowned accidentally in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub on February 11, 2012, after taking cocaine and after a well-chronicled battle with drug addiction. She was 48.

Cissy Houston, a singer in her own right, talked to People about her daughter's personal life and career while promoting her upcoming memoir, "Remembering Whitney."

In the memoir, Cissy Houston says she was not aware of the early "partying" days of her daughter, known to the family as "Nippy."

"I had no idea about Nippy's 'partying.' And the truth is, back then I didn't really want to know about it," she writes, according to excerpts released to People.

Cissy Houston also discussed her daughter's ex-husband Bobby Brown, who has had his own substance abuse problems and run-ins with the law. "He didn't help her, that's for damn sure," Houston told the celebrity magazine of Brown.

The Grammy-winning singer left behind her only child, Bobbi Kristina, 19, who was hospitalized twice with anxiety after her mother's death.

Last fall, Cissy, Bobbi Kristina, the singer's brother and sister-in-law starred in a 14-episode reality show for cable channel Lifetime about their struggle to cope after Houston's death called "The Houstons: On Our Own."

Houston told the magazine she was "worried" about granddaughter Bobbi Kristina and "trying to make sure she doesn't (follow the same path)" as her famous mother.

Cissy Houston's interview with People, and excerpts from her memoir, can be found in the issue which reaches newsstands on January 25.

(Reporting By Zorianna Kit; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Claudia Parsons)

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Beyonce lets others do talking on lip-synch drama

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Beyonce's lips remained sealed on Wednesday over her headline-making rendition of the U.S. national anthem at President Barack Obama's inauguration, leaving others to do the talking over whether she lip-synched to a pre-recorded track.

Celebrity magazine Us Weekly quoted a source saying the Grammy-winning artist was disappointed by the controversy she stirred by singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Monday's solemn ceremony using a backing track - and drew a comparison to late Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti.

As some of America's singing stars offered sympathy and understanding, an inaugural official, who declined to be identified, told CNN that Beyonce "did not sing live."

"Because she didn't have time to rehearse with the U.S. Marine Band, she decided to use her recording with the Marine Band," the official told CNN on Wednesday.

The U.S. Marine band said in a statement on Tuesday that no one in the band "is in a position to assess whether it was live or pre-recorded."

Us Weekly meanwhile quoted a different, also unidentified source, as saying "She did sing, but used a track."

"She didn't think there was anything wrong with it," the source told the celebrity magazine's website on Wednesday.

"Pavarotti has done it! It was freezing out, and if she messed up just one note, that would have been the story ... Everybody uses these tracks, and the music director advised it," the Us Weekly source added.

Pavarotti lip-synched his last performance, at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, because of the bitter weather and his failing health, according to orchestra conductor Leone Magiera in a 2008 book. The Italian tenor died in 2007 of pancreatic cancer at age 71.

Beyonce's publicist has declined to comment on the furor, but Aretha Franklin and Jennifer Lopez chimed in with their support.

"When I heard the news ... that she was pre-recorded I really laughed," Franklin, 70, who sang live at Obama's first inauguration in 2009, told ABC News.

"I thought it was funny because the weather down there was about 46 or 44 degrees and for most singers that is just not good singing weather ... she did a beautiful job with the pre-record ... next time I'll probably do the same."

Lopez told Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" on Tuesday that many performers resort to using pre-recorded tracks.

"You know, sometimes it happens," Lopez said. "When you're in certain stadiums and in certain venues, they do pre-record things because you're going to have that terrible slapback."

Beyonce, 31, was giving her first major public performance since giving birth to a baby in January 2012. On Sunday, she had posted on Instagram photo of herself in a recording studio holding the sheet music for "The Star-Spangled Banner."

She is due to take the spotlight again next month by performing, live, at the February 3 Super Bowl halftime show.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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Booker winner Mantel says play next "logical step"

LONDON (Reuters) - Double Booker prize-winning author Hilary Mantel said the characters in her historical novels about the rise of Thomas Cromwell will take the next "logical step" to a stage adaptation at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) this year.

Mantel said in a video interview on the RSC website this week that she has always longed to give "solid form" to her depictions of Cromwell, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in her "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies" books.

"From the moment I started writing Wolf Hall the characters were fighting to be off the page," Mantel said in the video.

The 60-year-old Mantel said she was delighted to have playwright Mike Poulton, whose works have garnered some of the theatre world's top awards, recreate her novels for the stage.

"He's the man who knows about the stagecraft," she said. "I'm the one who knows the characters inside out."

The first woman and first Briton to win the Booker twice for her novels set in Henry VIII's court said she has been inspired by the RSC since the age of 15 when she went alone to its Stratford-upon-Avon home and watched four plays in three days.

"It was a shaping experience, so it really is a dream come true for me to have the opportunity to see the RSC present my plays," she said.

Mantel is working on a third novel in the trilogy.

The RSC also said on Wednesday that David Tennant will star in the title role of "Richard II" in winter 2013, making his return five years after a turn as Hamlet which earned him a best Shakespearean performance trophy at the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards in 2009.

"Both plays will be directed by Royal Court Associate Director Jeremy Herrin, making his RSC directing debut," RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran said.

The world premiere of "Wendy & Peter Pan" by Ella Hickson and directed by Jonathan Munby will round out the winter season, the RSC said.

Tickets for the RSC's winter 2013 season, which begins in October 2013 and runs until March 2014 will go on sale for members on February 11 and for the wider public on March 18, the RSC said.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; editing by Patricia Reaney)

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Veteran showman Dick Van Dyke reflects on lifetime's work

(Reuters) - From "Mary Poppins" to "Night at the Museum" and his own long-running TV comedy, Dick Van Dyke has done it all during a show business career spanning seven decades.

On Sunday, Van Dyke, 87, gets a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles, just a year after his 1960s "Dick Van Dyke Show" co-star Mary Tyler Moore received the same honor.

Reuters spoke to Van Dyke about his career, his thoughts on today's comedies and being a newlywed in his 80s.

Q: Was it really as much fun working on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" as it seemed?

A: "It was just absolutely wonderful. (Co-star) Morey Amsterdam used to say it was like going to a party every morning. It was the perfect improv group. I think it was the best five years of all of our lives."

Q: Do you have a favorite episode?

A: "'Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth,' where Mary gives away that Alan Brady, Dick's boss (played by show creator Carl Reiner) is bald, is one that comes to mind. I tend to like the ones that I had the most fun on, and I think the one I recall immediately is 'Where Did I Come From?,' the story of Richie's birth, and all the hijinks that happen with the nervous father. A lot of crazy things happened, a lot of slapstick, which, of course, I love to do. It was a farce, but I just had so much fun on that one."

Q: How have sitcoms changed since "The Dick Van Dyke Show's" run from 1961-66?

A: "I think the big change is that 10 minutes of every 30 are commercials. We had 28 minutes to tell our story. Today they get 20 minutes. It's just a one-line joke and a canned laughter, and a one-line joke and a canned laughter. I won't say it's bad, it's just that I have trouble understanding it.

"It seems to me that relationships are what's missing. I think back to 'All in the Family,' when you knew what those relationships were and the comedy that came out of that. Today it's just one line after another, and they seem to try to cover too much in the way of story in a short time. Then I think they signal when they're trying to be funny, and the minute I catch someone trying to be funny, then I won't laugh."

Q: What do you watch on television?

A: "I have to admit, I don't get the comedies today. Maybe it's just my vintage. Actually I stick pretty much with the news, and I love 'Jeopardy!' I watch Al Jazeera. They have news that you can't find anywhere else. They do great documentaries, too."

Q: Do children tend to recognize you from your earlier roles in film classics such as "Mary Poppins" (1964), or for your more recent work in the 2006 family film "Night at the Museum"?

A: "It's just thrilling. I get little kids who recognize me from 'Mary Poppins,' and it just delights me because it's our third generation. I was in the market the other day and a woman said to her daughter, 'Honey, that's the man who played Bert.' And she ran over to her little brother and said, 'I just met Bert's grandpa!' So to be recognized by kids is just wonderful. Kids have all seen 'Mary Poppins,' almost every family has a copy of it, and the children have come up and sung all the words from the songs of 'Mary Poppins' for me. It's amazing."

Q: You're a member of the barbershop quartet, Dick Van Dyke and the Vantastix. Where do you perform?

A: "We sing mostly at fundraisers and benefits. We also sing the opening theme song from "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Morey Amsterdam wrote the lyrics, but I don't think they've ever been published. I sing with guys half my age in the group, so they keep me young. A couple years ago we sang at Ford's Theater for the president, so that was a big thrill for us."

Q: You married makeup artist Arlene Silver last February. You two met at the SAG awards seven years ago. How's married life treating you?

A: "Absolutely wonderful! She sings and dances, so there is a lot of that going on around our house. She's a joy and she just lights up my life!"

(Reporting by Jill Jacobs in New York; Editing by Eric Kelsey and Eric Beech)

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"Black Swan" choreographer named dance director of Paris ballet

(Reuters) - French dancer Benjamin Millepied, who was the choreographer of the film "Black Swan," was on Thursday named director of dance at the Paris Opera Ballet, one of the world's oldest and most prestigious dance companies.

Millepied, 35, who last year married the Oscar-winning star of "Black Swan," Natalie Portman, with whom he has a son, will take up his new role in October 2014.

The announcement by the director of the Paris Opera, Nicolas Joel, ended months of speculation over the successor to Brigitte Lefevre, director of dance at the Paris Opera since 1995, who plans to retire at the end of the 2013-14 season.

The same position was held for several years by Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who died in 1993.

A statement from Paris Opera said Millepied was born in Bordeaux and trained at the Lyon Conservatory.

He joined the School of American Ballet as a teenager before joining New York City Ballet where he became a principal dancer in 2002.

He was both the choreographer and a dancer in the 2010 film "Black Swan," a psychological thriller that received five Academy Award nominations and won Portman the best actress award.

Millepied retired in 2011 to focus on choreography and moved to Los Angeles where he founded the L.A. Dance Project, which made its debut last September.

Millepied is also the new face of Yves Saint Laurent's men's fragrance "L'Homme Libre" - French for "The Free Man" - and also features in ads for Air France.

Almost all the 150-plus dancers in the Paris company are trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School with admittance to the corps de ballet decided by an annual competition.

Lefevre joined the Paris Opera Ballet School when she was 8 years old and entered the corps de ballet aged 16, so Millepied's appointment came as a surprise to many.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Eric Walsh)

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It's a "Mini-Buble" for singer Michael Bublé and wife

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Canadian jazz singer Michael Bublé and his Argentinian actress wife, Luisana Lopilato, are expecting their first baby together, Lopilato said in a video posted to YouTube on Thursday.

The video shows what appears to be an ultrasound of a fetus with the words "Mini Buble !!!" attached to the image. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-Q0tUPjPDFo

A written statement that also is part of the 21-second video says, "We're having a baby Bublé!!!"

Bublé, 37, is a three-time Grammy Award winner known for such songs as "Haven't Met You Yet," "Home" and "Save the Last Dance for Me."

He and Lopilato, 25, were married in 2011. She has starred in such Spanish-language television series as "Chiquititas, la historia" and "Rebelde Way" and has also worked as a model.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis, editing by Jill Serjeant and David Brunnstrom)

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Actor Burt Reynolds reportedly in intensive care with flu

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - American actor Burt Reynolds is battling the flu in the intensive care unit of a Florida hospital, CNN reported on Friday.

The "Smokey and the Bandit" actor arrived at the unnamed hospital with dehydration and was later transferred to intensive care, Reynolds' manager, Erik Kritzer, told CNN.

"He is doing better at this time," Kritzer was quoted as saying on Friday afternoon. "We expect, as soon as he gets more fluids, he will be back in a regular room."

Reynolds, 76, is famous for roles in 1970s movies including "Deliverance" and "The Longest Yard." More recently, he won a Golden Globe award for his role as a porn king in 1997 film "Boogie Nights."

Reynolds had heart bypass surgery in 2010.

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Xavier Briand)

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