An historic photograph from the early 1950s has emerged which reveals a couple of schoolboy chums who were destined for fame.

Two of Liverpool's favourite sons - music legend John Lennon and comic Jimmy Tarbuck - are pictured side-by-side on the seaside snap taken by teacher Fred Bolt at Port Erin on the Isle of Man.

Lennon was to find fame with the Beatles some 10 years later, while "Tarby" shot to stardom as the host of TV's Sunday Night at the London Palladium when he was still in his 20s.

Sadly, Mr Bolt died aged 86 on Monday, but before his death he said: "Jimmy was a lively boy always very jokey and talkative, but he was quite well behaved and I have followed his career with interest."

He added: "I remember John Lennon as a very personable boy."

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Pitt lines up for Rat Pack remake

Hollywood star Brad Pitt is negotiating to join George Clooney in the remake of classic Rat Pack comedy Ocean's Eleven.

US entertainment paper Variety reports that Pitt has already met with Steven Soderbergh, who will be directing the Warner Bros film.

Other stars linked to the movie - about a group of friends who plan to rob a casino - include Johnny Depp, Julia Roberts and Mike Myers. The original 1960 film starred Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin

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Brit Bale's American accent struggle

American Psycho star Christian Bale used a US accent for the film - even when the cameras weren't rolling.

The actor said he wasn't comfortable switching from his English accent to a US one "so I kept it up all the time on the set and that really helped".

He added that changing accents also meant using different muscles which led to a build-up of saliva. "I wanted to sort that problem out before I sprayed the entire cast."

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Blethyn's merry Sundance

Secrets & Lies star Brenda Blethyn's latest movie has been snapped up for £2.5m at the Sundance Film Festival - one of the highest prices to be paid there so far.

Written by and also starring Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson, Saving Grace is about a poor widow who is forced to farm marijuana to make a living.

The film, which also stars Martin Clunes and was directed by Nigel Cole of Cold Feet fame, went to Fine Line after it out-bid Miramax and USA Films.

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McGregor 'stalks' Judd in new movie

Star Wars actor Ewan McGregor took method acting to new levels for his latest movie, according to its director Stephan Elliott.

Elliott was talking about McGregor's role as a British agent tracking a serial killer, played by Ashley Judd, in Eye Of The Beholder.

"To get into character Ewan followed Ashley when she was shopping. He even took Polaroids looking through her window," the director said.

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Saucy Benny was Aherne's hero

Comedy actress Caroline Aherne says that Benny Hill was her childhood hero and that she loved naughty comedy.

"I didn't really understand it," she tells Family Circle magazine. "But I thought it was dead, dead naughty, and it was the first time I'd really seen my dad laugh, when we watched Benny Hill."

The star of BBC TV hit The Royle Family also reveals that she camped out to see the Pope when he visited the UK in the early 1980s: "I didn't know I was that much of a Catholic, but it really did feel like something special."

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Swank's gift of a role

Hollywood's hottest young actress Hilary Swank is to co-star with Keanu Reeves and Cate Blanchett in the movie, The Gift.

The 25-year-old, who won a Golden Globe award last week for Boys Don't Cry, starts filming in Savannah, Georgia next week.

She will play the wife of Reeves in the story about a woman who has extra-sensory perception, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

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Popular children's author dies aged 101

Author-illustrator Kathleen Hale, creator of the much-loved children's books about Orlando the Marmalade Cat, has died aged 101.

Miss Hale died on Wednesday in Bristol, according to her publishers, Frederick Warne and Co.

The large picture books, filled with brightly coloured illustrations full of detail and whimsy, ran to 19 books and were published from 1938 through to the 1950s. She supervised new printings of most of the titles in the 1990s.

Miss Hale, who was made an OBE in 1976, spent most of her youth as a struggling artist among the bohemians of 1920s London, where she was at one time part of the circle of sculptor Jacob Epstein and painter Augustus John.

The adventures of Orlando and his wife Grace were a product of the second half of the author's life.