Shirley Temple Black marks 80th birthday

Shirley Temple Black marks 80th birthday

SAN FRANCISCO — Shirley Temple Black quietly celebrated her 80th birthday this week after breaking her arm in a fall at her suburban San Francisco home.

Rick Ross, her Los Angeles-based attorney, says the former child star is doing fine. She turned 80 on Wednesday.

Black was the top box-office draw in the U.S. from 1935 to 1938. Her best-known films include “Curly Top” and “Little Miss Marker.”

After retiring from the big screen, she held a number of diplomatic posts, including U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia. Black lives in the San Francisco suburb of Woodside.

NBC reporter sues ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’

LOS ANGELES — The Canadian reporter known as the “Scud Stud” during the 1991 Gulf War has sued the makers of “Charlie Wilson’s War” over footage used in the Tom Hanks-Julia Roberts movie. Arthur Kent, whose live NBC reports on Iraq’s Scud missile attacks on Saudia Arabia made him a celebrity, claims in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that filmmakers violated his intellectual property rights.

The lawsuit claims Universal Studios and other companies used segments of a 1986 news program Kent made about the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan without his consent. It seeks an injunction against distributing the movie, among other provisions, in addition to unspecified damages.

The 2007 film, directed by Mike Nichols, also starred Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams.

Del Toro to direct ‘Hobbit’ and sequel

LOS ANGELES — Guillermo del Toro is directing “The Hobbit” and its sequel, New Line Cinema announced Thursday. The 43-year-old filmmaker will move to New Zealand for four years to make the films back-to-back with executive producer Peter Jackson. Del Toro wrote and directed “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which earned six Oscar nominations in 2006 and won three awards.

He is also the director of the upcoming sequel “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” whose monsters bear the unmistakeable surreal vision of the Mexican-born filmmaker.

Jackson and Walsh called del Toro “a cinematic magician who has never lost his childlike sense of wonder.

Jackson co-wrote, co-produced and directed the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which won 17 Oscars and 30 nominations.

Today’s birthdays

Actor Jack Klugman is 86. Actress Anouk Aimee is 76. Announcer Casey Kasem is 76. Actress Judy Carne is 69. aSinger Ann Peebles is 61. Singer Kate Pierson of The B-52’s is 60. Singer Herbie Murrell of The Stylistics is 59. Actor Douglas Sheehan (“Knots Landing”) is 59. Guitarist Ace Frehley (Kiss) is 57. Singer Sheena Easton is 49. Actor James Le Gros (“Ally McBeal”) is 46. Bassist Rob Squires of Big Head Todd and the Monsters is 43. Singer Mica Paris is 39. Singer-guitarist Travis Meeks of Days of the New is 29. Singer-guitarist Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy is 24.