Singer hospitalized after heart attack

Singer hospitalizedafter heart attack
LUCERNE, Switzerland -- American singer Lou Pride was hospitalized after a heart attack, organizers of the Lucerne Blues Festival said Sunday. The Chicago-born bluesman, 54, was taken to the Lucerne Cantonal Hospital, where he was in a stable condition, said festival organizers in a statement. He is set to return to the United States soon, they added. Pride's heart attack forced him to withdraw from the weeklong annual blues festival in this picturesque central Swiss town.
Theater executiveis going Broadway
MINNEAPOLIS -- One of the top executives behind the Guthrie Theater Association's construction of the new Guthrie on the River building is leaving for a job managing a Broadway playhouse in New York City. Associate Manager Mary Ann Ehlshlager's last day will be Tuesday. The new Guthrie, a $150 million Jean Nouvel-designed building on the Minneapolis riverfront, is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2005 and open in 2006.
Ehlshlager said she is leaving the theater as construction is proceeding according to plans. "I have no concerns about the project whatsoever -- everything is on budget and on schedule," she said.
Film director winsslander lawsuit
PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro -- Sarajevo-born film director Emir Kusturica has won a slander lawsuit against a Montenegrin writer who accused him of supporting former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Andrej Nikolaidis, columnist for Montenegrin weekly Monitor, will pay $6,490 to Kusturica for calling the famed director a "media star of Milosevic's war machinery" in a May commentary.
A court in the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica, ruled that Nikolaidis had slandered Kusturica and damaged his reputation, the writer confirmed Saturday.
Nikolaidis said he would appeal the ruling.
Nikolaidis told The Associated Press that "it wasn't my writing that damaged Emir Kusturica's reputation -- the director did it himself by the way he behaved during the Bosnian war." Kusturica left his native Bosnia before the outbreak of the 1992-95 ethnic war and took up self-imposed exile in neighboring Serbia, the dominant republic in then-Yugoslavia.
Kinsey colleaguecalls film 'excellent'
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The new movie about the life and work of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey has received a thumbs-up from one of Kinsey's colleagues.
Paul Gebhard, an 87-year-old who was a member of the late scientist's research team and who is portrayed by Timothy Hutton in "Kinsey," said he likes the film. "For artistic reasons, they took some liberties with facts, but basically, it's an excellent film," said Gebhard, who directed the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction from 1956 to 1982.
Notable death
BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Harry Lampert, the illustrator who created the DC Comics superhero "The Flash" and later became known for his instructional books on bridge, died Saturday. He was 88.
Lampert had been suffering from cancer, according to his family.
He began drawing professionally at 16, inking cartoons at Fleischer Studios in New York for characters such as Popeye, Betty Boop and KoKo the Clown.
Six years later, Lampert created the DC Comics original "Flash Comics 1" in 1940, collaborating with writer Gardner Fox.
After retiring in Florida, Lampert was known as an avid bridge player. He became president of the American Bridge Teachers Association and wrote several books on the subject, including "The Fun Way to Serious Bridge."
Today's birthdays
Judge Joseph Wapner is 85. The U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Howard H. Baker Jr., is 79. Actor Ed Asner is 75. Actor John Kerr is 73. Singer Petula Clark is 72. Comedian Jack Burns is 71. Actress Joanna Barnes is 70. Actor Sam Waterston is 64. Pop singer Frida (ABBA) is 59. Actor Bob Gunton is 59. Director-actor James Widdoes is 51. Rock singer-producer Mitch Easter is 50. Actress Beverly D'Angelo is 50. "Tonight Show" bandleader Kevin Eubanks is 47. Rapper E-40 is 37. Actress Rachel True is 35. Country singer Jack Ingram is 34. Christian rock musician David Carr (Third Day) is 30. Actress Virginie Ledoyen is 28.