Ryan joins Oscars show

Meg Ryan will be a presenter at the 75th annual Academy Awards.

It will be the second Oscar show appearance for the actress whose film credits include Hanging Up and You've Got Mail.

Two films starring Ryan - Against the Ropes and In the Cut - are due for release later this year.

The awards ceremony will take place at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre on Sunday 23 March.

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US Idol star dropped

A finalist on hit US reality show American Idol has been kicked off the programme after it was found she posed topless on a porn website which claimed to feature underage girls.

Frenchie Davis, 23, had been tipped as a possible winner of the TV talent quiz, based on the British Pop Idol format.

"Issues arose from her background check that the producers and the network felt forced them to disqualify her," a Fox spokesman.

Viewers will see her replaced by an alternative contestant from 25 February.

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Baxendale may 'quit acting'

Cold Feet star Helen Baxendale says she is considering quitting acting to devote more time to her family.

The 33-year-old, who starred in Friends in 1997 as Ross' girlfriend Emily, says she has reached "an impasse" in her career after finishing filming the final series of Cold Feet.

She says being an actress keeps her away from home and her two children Eric, 18 months, and Nell, four, she has by partner David Elliot.

"I really don't feel much of a pull to go back to work," she told Now magazine.

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Berlinale honours French star Aimee

French movie legend Anouk Aimee is being honoured on Thursday by the Berlin Film Festival for a career which has spanned 70 films and more than a half-century.

Festival director Dieter Kosslick said the 70-year-old merited an honorary Golden Bear for being "one of the great European stars to whom we owe so many unforgettable moments on the screen".

Born into a French theatrical family, Anouk is most well-known for her roles in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2.

US director Robert Altman gave her a role in his 1994 satire Fashion satire Pret A Porter.

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Cruise helps rural school

Actor Tom Cruise has helped raise almost $8,000 (£5,000) to build an outside shelter for a rural New Zealand school.

Cruise called radio station Edge in New Plymouth, New Zealand, after it offered to pay $2,745 (£1,700) to anyone who persuaded the star to phone in live on air.

The actor, who is in the country filming The Last Samurai, persuaded the radio station to donate almost $4,000 (£2,500) to the Urenui junior school which he then matched.

He said he had heard about the school's fund-raising attempt by keeping his "ear to the ground" in the area where he has been filming on location for four months.

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Baby for Beautiful Mind stars

Jennifer Connelly and Beautiful Mind co-star Paul Bettany are expecting their first baby.

The two stars, who married only two months ago, had earlier denied they were expecting.

The couple started their relationship after meeting on the set of A Beautiful Mind, for which Connelly won a best actress Oscar last year.

Connelly, 32, already has a five-year-old son, Kai, from an earlier relationship with photographer Dave Dugan.