Pitt says he and Jolie are ready for fifth child

Pitt says he and Jolie
are ready for fifth child

VENICE, Italy — Brad Pitt and his partner, Angelina Jolie, are ready for another child, the actor said Sunday as he was promoting his new film. Pitt and Jolie, with children in tow, were in Venice to talk about his film on Western outlaw Jesse James. The movie is competing for the top Golden Lion award at the city’s film festival. Pitt and Jolie already have four children including a 15-month-old girl, Shiloh, born to the couple. Jolie has also adopted three children close in age from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam. Asked by Italian state TV whether they were ready for a fifth, Pitt replied: “Yeah we’re ready.” He did not indicate whether they planned another biological child or if they would adopt. Earlier on Sunday, Pitt told a news conference fatherhood was fun and good for his work, though he’s not getting much sleep. “It’s the most fun I’ve ever had and also the biggest pain ... I’ve ever experienced,” he said when asked what it was like to become a family with four children in a short space of time. “I love it and can’t recommend it any more highly — although sleep is nonexistent.” Having four small children “makes me much more efficient because when I work, I really have to focus. I know I’ve less time to get things done. Actually, I’m quite pleased by it,” said Pitt. “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” stars Pitt, Casey Affleck and Sam Shepherd, and was directed by Andrew Dominik. Pitt described it as “more a gangster film than a Western.” Pitt plays James in the last year of his life as he lapses into paranoia over potential betrayal by accomplices and intimates.

Allen: I’m no influence

VENICE, Italy — Oscar-winning director Woody Allen does not believe he has influenced other filmmakers. Asked Sunday if his decades of work had left a mark, the 71-year-old New Yorker insisted that as far as he could tell, it has not. “Oddly enough, over the years I’ve never felt that I have influenced anyone,” he said. “I don’t mean that to sound like false modesty, but I could always feel the influence of my contemporaries — Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg — but I have never seen my influence on anyone.” Comedians Groucho Marx and Bob Hope also had some influence on him, Allen said at the Venice Film Festival, where his latest movie, “Cassandra’s Dream,” was premiering Sunday out of competition. Starring Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell, the film tells the story of two brothers — one a chronic gambler and the other in love with a beautiful actress — who try to improve their lives but get entangled in a nasty situation. The 71-year-old Allen likened life to “quite a tragic experience,” saying he has a “bleak, pessimistic view on life and man’s faith, the human condition.” “But I do feel there are some extremely amusing oases in that mirage,” he hastened to add.

Glitzy wedding ceremony
for Usher, Tameka Foster

ATLANTA — Usher and Tameka Foster wed in a large, glitzy ceremony Saturday after exchanging vows a few weeks ago in a civil ceremony, a magazine reported. About 200 people attended the dream wedding of the Grammy-winning R&B singer and his new wife, held at a 16th-century-style French chateau resort on 3,500 hilly acres outside Atlanta, People.com reported. Guests dined in the ballroom and ate from a five-tiered white-chocolate-covered wedding cake created by the same bakery that recently did actress Eva Longoria’s confection, the magazine reported. A private ceremony was held Aug. 3 in the office of Usher’s lawyer. The 28-year-old singer and Foster, who is 37, had called off their July 28 wedding amid reports that Foster had checked into a hospital because of problems with her pregnancy. The couple announced their engagement this year and later said Foster was expecting Usher’s first child. She has three children from a previous marriage. A call by The Associated Press to Patti Webster, Usher’s publicist, went unanswered late Saturday, and she did not immediately respond to an e-mail message seeking comment.

Today’s birthdays

Actress Helen Wagner (“As the World Turns”) is 89. “Beetle Bailey” cartoonist Mort Walker is 84. Country singer Hank Thompson is 82. Actress Anne Jackson is 81. Country singer Tompall Glaser is 74. Actress Pauline Collins is 67. Rock singer-musician Al Jardine is 65. Actress Valerie Perrine is 64. Rock musician Donald Brewer (Grand Funk Railroad) is 59. Rock guitarist Steve Jones (The Sex Pistols) is 52. Rock singer-musician Todd Lewis is 42. Actor Costas Mandylor is 42. Actor Charlie Sheen is 42. Singer Jennifer Paige is 34. Actor Nick Wechsler is 29.