newsmakers

newsmakers

Singer Alicia Keys gives birth to baby boy

NEW YORK

It’s a boy for Alicia Keys and her husband, music producer/rapper Swizz Beatz.

A representative for Keys said she gave birth Thursday night in New York. The couple have named their son Egypt Dean. It’s the first child for the 29-year-old superstar and the fourth child for Beatz, whose real name is Kaseem Dean. The couple was married July 31.

Swizz Beatz, 31, took time to tweet Friday: “I’m so thankful for everything I been blessed with in my life.”

Singer Mary J. Blige also tweeted her congratulations on the birth.

Hepburn stamps fetch $606,000 for charity

BERLIN

A rare sheet of 10 stamps depicting Audrey Hepburn fetched $606,000 at a charity auction in Berlin on Saturday, two-thirds of which will go to help educate children in sub- Saharan Africa.

The mint-condition sheet of 10 stamps features Hepburn with a coy smile on her face and a long, black cigarette holder dangling from her lips.

Sean Ferrer, 50, Hepburn’s son with actor and director Mel Ferrer, and the chair of the Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund, said he was thrilled that the sale Saturday brought “focus on children in need” but wished the stamps had sold for a higher price.

Two-thirds of the money raised will go to the Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund, and one-third to UNICEF Germany.

The sale brings a profitable outcome to a botched stamp series that should have been destroyed years ago — and evokes Hepburn’s starring role in the 1963 thriller “Charade,” in which the characters chase a set of rare stamps.

The German postal service printed 14 million of the Hepburn stamps in 2001 showing the Belgian-born actress in her most famous role as the ebullient Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Only after the stamps were printed was Ferrer contacted to grant copyright — but he refused, arguing that the image had been altered.

‘Leave it to Beaver’ mom, Billingsley, dies

LOS ANGELES

Barbara Billingsley, who gained supermom status for her gentle portrayal of June Cleaver, the warm, supportive mother of a pair of precocious boys in “Leave it to Beaver,” died Saturday. She was 94.

Billingsley, who had suffered from a rheumatoid disease, died at her home in Santa Monica, said family spokeswoman Judy Twersky.

When the show debuted in 1957, Jerry Mathers, who played Beaver, was 9, and Tony Dow, who portrayed Wally, was 12. Billingsley’s character, the perfect stay-at-home 1950s mom, was always there to gently but firmly nurture both through the ups and downs of childhood.

Beaver, meanwhile, was a typical American boy whose adventures landed him in one comical crisis after another.

Billingsley’s own two sons said she was pretty much the image of June Cleaver in real life, although the actress disagreed.

“She was every bit as nurturing, classy, and lovely as June Cleaver, and we were so proud to share her with the world,” her son Glenn Billingsley said Saturday.