NEWSMAKERS

NEWSMAKERS

McLean clears up ‘American Pie’ origins

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.

Don McLean says his “American Pie” was written in Pennsylvania, not in an upstate New York bar that has long laid claim to being the place where the young folk musician penned the lyrics to the 1971 chart-topping song.

The Post-Star of Glens Falls says the 66-year-old singer and songwriter told the newspaper last week that contrary to local lore, he didn’t write the song on cocktail napkins at the Tin and Lint in Saratoga Springs. He also says the first time he performed the song wasn’t at Caffe Lena, a famous coffeehouse around the corner from the bar.

McLean says he wrote “American Pie” in Philadelphia and performed it for the first time at Temple University.

“American Pie” hit No. 1 in the Billboard charts in late 1971.

Anne Hathaway is engaged to actor

LOS ANGELES

Anne Hathaway has signed on for a new role: fianc e.

A spokesman for the 29-year-old actress says Hathaway is engaged to boyfriend and fellow actor Adam Shulman.

Publicist Stephen Huvane revealed no other details.

Hathaway is among the stars of the anticipated Batman movie. Hathaway’s other credits include “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Get Smart.”

British film director Ken Russell dies

LONDON

Ken Russell, an iconoclastic British director whose daring films blended music, sex and violence in a potent brew seemingly drawn straight from his subconscious, has died at age 84.

Russell died in a hospital Sunday after a series of strokes, his son Alex Verney-Elliott said Monday.

Russell was a fiercely original director whose vision occasionally brought mainstream success, but often tested the patience of audiences and critics. He had one of his biggest hits in 1969 with “Women in Love,” based on the book by D.H. Lawrence, which earned Academy Award nominations for the director and for writer Larry Kramer, and a “Best Actress” Oscar for the star, Glenda Jackson.

Vindicator wire reports