It’s been announced today that legendary actress Beatrice Arthur, star of The Golden Girls, has died at the age 86 the Associated Press reports.

A family spokesman told AP that Bea had cancer and had “died peacefully” at her home in Los Angeles.

Bea’s best-known roles were in popular sitcoms such as Maude and, as mentioned, The Golden Girls, Bea achieved five Emmy nominations and one win.

In a 2005 interview with EW, Bea recalled how she “flipped” when she first read the script for The Golden Girls… “After all of the crap I’d been sent, here was something so bright and adult and fabulously funny” she said… Read more & comment »

Katie Holmes is apparently struggling to cope with the sudden death of her brother-in-law and has therefore found it more difficult than ever to stop smoking.

The 30-year-old actress was spotted by the National Enquirer lighting up at Victoria Beckham’s birthday party in West Hollywood on April 15th, just three days after the death of Joseph Jeffrey Fretti – known as Jeff – who was the 48-year-old husband of Katie’s oldest sister, Tammy.

“Katie has tried to quit and was doing really well, until she got the news that her brother-in-law had died,” said a source.

Katie gave up smoking when she met Tom Cruise, but she’s had several ‘relapses’ since then…

At the SAG Awards in January, she took a ciggy break with Josh Brolin and Sean Penn and it seems she’s been lighting up more and more since Jeff’s death.

Jeff and Tammy had filed for divorce earlier this year, citing “gross neglect, extreme cruelty and incompatibility.”

“Katie was already heartbroken that her sister was going through a difficult split with him,” said the insider. “She loved Jeff.”

Jeff was visiting with his mother in Florida along with his two young sons when she found him unconscious and he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Katie’s spokesperson said Jeff died of heart failure.

Sky News is reporting that a “talented young actress who starred in a long-running TV series has been found hanged two days after the show was axed.”

Apparently the body of Stephanie Parker, 22, was found on “open ground” near Pontypridd on Saturday morning, South Wales Police said.

Stephanie was a regular cast member of the BBC Wales drama, ‘Belonging’ and had played the role of Stacey Weaver since she was 15 years old.

It appears that she hung herself after the final episode of the award-winning series was broadcast last Thursday. The drama show was brought to an end to make way for newer shows… Read more & comment »

Grieving Jack Tweed wants to be buried next to Jade Goody when he dies and the family have reportedly bought a double plot in the churchyard where Jade was laid to rest.

Heartbroken Jack, 21, told friends of his wish to be buried with Jade after he visited her grave following her burial on Saturday.

Wearing dark glasses, Jack took a deep breath and told friends: “If I go I want to be next to Jade so we can lie together for ever… Read more & comment »

The final chapter of Jade Goody’s publicity-fuelled career closes today as the reality TV star will be laid to rest.

Jade’s funeral procession is currently under way after her coffin was taken from the funeral director’s in London and placed in a vinatage Rolls Royce hearse.

Flowers were laid in the street outside funeral director’s F A Albin & Son in Bermondsey, many with warm tributes to the tragic star.

A staff member at F A Albin told Sky News that they’d “never known anything like it, not in 20 years”… Read more & comment »

Bobby and Freddie, Jade's sons

In Jade Goody’s final farewell to her boys via her book, she said she hoped her sons Bobby and Freddie would turn into “fine, upstanding young men”, and she said that their times together were her “most precious memories”, according to The Sun.

She also says that her husband Jack Tweed, mother Jackiey and the boys’ father Jeff Brazier would help bring the boys up between them.

Her message – published in the newspaper – comes from her book called Jade: Remember Me This Way, which is about her life and her final fight with cancer. It’s being published later this month with the profits going to Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Speaking directly to Bobby, five, and Freddie, four, Jade said: “I have asked for this book to be made so that when you are older you can remember just how much fun we had together… Read more & comment »

Publisher Harper Collins has brought forward the publication of Jade Goody’s diary to April 16th.

The book, which is entitled Forever In My Heart, was written in the months prior to her death on Mother’s Day.

It begins from the initial diagnosis of Jade’s cervical cancer and ends with her wedding to Jack Tweed and the christening of herself and her children… Read more & comment »

The Sun reports that Jack Tweed is “to fulfil wife Jade Goody’s dying wish — by getting a tattoo reading ‘Call Me And I Will Answer.’”

Jack, 21, wants the message written “on his rib cage or across his heart” according to the paper.

The couple’s bridesmaids have also said they wish to have the same tattoo… Read more & comment »

A friend of Natasha Richardson has told People magazine that her husband Liam and mother Vanessa Redgrave allowed Natasha’s organs to be donated to others after her death.

The friend told the magazine: “She spent so much time fighting the stigma of AIDS, someone like that would naturally donate her organs.

“At least by donating her organs, something good could come out of the tragedy.”

As soon as Natasha was taken off life support at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, her family reportedly “requested her organs be donated to other patients”… Read more & comment »

Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty has revealed that she gave Jade Goody a “jade green Buddha” as a gift before she died.

And Hello! magazine also reports that Jade’s tragic story has convinced Shilpa to get regular smear tests.

Shilpa told the magazine how the gift was a “symbol of love and peace” and was sent to Jade before she passed away.

Shilpa added, “I just get so emotional talking about it. I’ve been crying non-stop… Read more & comment »