Martha Stewart planned to bump Donald Trump

Martha Stewart plannedto bump Donald Trump
NEW YORK -- Before her version of "The Apprentice" began, Martha Stewart thought she was saying "you're fired" to Donald Trump.
While "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" hasn't done well in the ratings, Stewart initially had much higher hopes -- even that her NBC show would eclipse Trump's original.
"I thought I was replacing The Donald," Stewart says in the Nov. 14 issue of Fortune magazine, on newsstands Nov. 7. "It was even discussed that I would be firing The Donald on the first show."
When did Trump learn that she intended to bump him off his own show? "I don't think he ever knew," Stewart tells the magazine.
Instead, Trump remained for a fourth season, and he has recently suggested that his show has been diminished by Stewart's. Trump's "Apprentice" has been averaging around 10 million viewers a week, down 4 million from last season. Stewart's "Apprentice" is drawing closer to 7 million viewers.
Stewart also reveals in Fortune another unrealized business plan: to buy Kmart. In 2002, while the retail giant was going bankrupt, Stewart floated the idea -- dubbed "Kmartha" -- of buying the company, which sells her Martha Stewart Everyday brand.
Stewart, 64, also says she plans to sell Turkey Hill, her famous Westport, Conn., home. "I hardly ever go there anymore. I don't miss it."
Depardieu says he'sending his film career
PARIS -- Gerard Depardieu told a newspaper that he's ending his film career -- and swears he wasn't drunk when he said it.
"I'm in the process of stopping filming," the Oscar-nominated actor was quoted as saying in weekly Le Parisien Dimanche. "I'm a guy who's leaving! A guy who's not drunk. For once."
Depardieu, one of France's most prolific actors, was speaking on the set of an upcoming French film and is scheduled to appear in a new installment of the "Asterix" series next year, the newspaper said.
But he insisted his career will soon be over.
"I have nothing to lose," the 56-year-old star said. "I have done 170 films. I have nothing left to prove. I am not going to hang on like a jerk."
Depardieu was a leading French actor of the 1980s and 1990s with hits such as "Green Card" and "Jean de Florette." He was nominated for an Oscar for his role in "Cyrano de Bergerac."
Film festival winners
TOKYO -- Helena Bonham Carter and Kichitaro Negishi were among the winners at the Tokyo International Film Festival.
Negishi's "What the Snow Brings," which portrays the lives of two brothers in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, won the $100,000 Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix award Sunday for best film. Negishi and lead actor Koichi Sato also bagged top prizes.
"I wanted to portray the family, which is something of a tradition in Japanese film," Negishi said in his acceptance speech.
Hou Hsiao Hsien, a Taiwanese director whose 1998 film, "Flowers of Shanghai," depicts life in a 19th-century Shanghai brothel, was awarded a special prize named after Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa.
Jin Yaqin and Bonham Carter were named best actresses. The film "Conversations With Other Women," which starred Bonham Carter, also received a special jury award.
Today's birthdays
Newspaper columnist James J. Kilpatrick is 85. Golfer Gary Player is 70. Actress Marcia Wallace is 63. Magazine publisher Larry Flynt is 63. Pop singer-musician Dan Peek is 55. Rhythm-and-blues musician Khalis Bayyan (aka Ronald Bell) (Kool and the Gang) is 54. Country singer Lyle Lovett is 48. Actress Rachel Ticotin is 47. Rock musician Eddie MacDonald (The Alarm) is 46. Rock singer Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chili Peppers) is 43. Pop singer-musician Mags Furuholmen (a-ha) is 43. Rock musician Rick Allen (Def Leppard) is 42. Country singer "Big Kenny" Alphin (Big and Rich) is 42. Rapper Willie D (Geto Boys) is 39. Singer Sophie B. Hawkins is 38. Country musician Dale Wallace (Emerson Drive) is 36. Actress Toni Collette is 33. Actress Jenny McCarthy is 33. Rock musician Andrew Gonzales is 33. Actress Aishwarya Rai is 32. Actor Penn Badgley is 19.