NEW YORK -- Life after Elvis is far from heartbreak hotel for the Presley women.
In the August issue of Vogue, three generations of Presleys - Priscilla, her daughter, Lisa Marie, and Lisa Marie's daughter, Danielle Riley - candidly discuss their lives.
Lisa Marie, Elvis' daughter turned pop star, expressed relief that her teenage daughter, who uses her middle name, Riley, hadn't turned out like Paris Hilton.
In April 2003, Lisa Marie said similar things about Paris and her sister, Nicky, to the Los Angeles Times: "Those two are the epitome of what my mother raised me not to be. I don't know what they've done. Maybe it's the bleach that fascinates people." (The Hiltons didn't return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment on Monday.)
Priscilla, the famed ex-wife of Elvis, isn't so quick to judge.
"Some celebrities' children have done very well, and some are still struggling," the 59-year-old tells the magazine. "It's a very difficult position to be in."
Riley, Lisa Marie's daughter from her marriage to Danny Keough, is just beginning a modeling career. The teen remains unfazed by the innate Presley fame. "My mom isn't famous to me. She's just my mom," she said.
Lisa Marie, 36, is working on her second album, a follow-up to 2003's "To Whom It May Concern."
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NEW YORK -- David Letterman's Worldwide Pants Inc. is producing its first film, an independent feature based on Comedy Central's cockeyed cautionary tale, "Strangers With Candy."
Amy Sedaris played a middle-aged dropout who returns to high school in the TV series, which ran from 1998-2000. The film also stars "Strangers With Candy" co-creators, writers and stars Steven Colbert and Paul Dinello.
The film, which has the working title, "Strangers With Candy: The Movie," is being directed by Dinello.
"Amy Sedaris is one of a handful of folks who actually make me laugh," Letterman said in a statement Tuesday. "I have no doubt her film will be as appealingly peculiar and funny as she is."
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- First it was Middle-earth, now New Zealand is turning into Narnia.
Prime Minister Helen Clark has visited the set of upcoming film "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe," adapted from the second installment of C.S. Lewis' seven-book fantasy series, the New Zealand Herald newspaper reported Tuesday.
"Narnia," directed by New Zealander Andrew Adamson, whose previous films include "Shrek" and "Shrek 2," is another boost for the New Zealand movie industry, which is riding high on the box-office success of Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
Clark watched the movie's young British stars playing a cricket match on the grounds of a house in the northern city of Auckland.
The newspaper named the actors as Georgie Henley, 9, of London, who plays the lead character, Lucy; Skandar Keynes, 12, who plays Edmund; Anna Popplewell, 15, who plays Susan; and William Moseley, 17, who plays the eldest brother, Peter.
Their names have been kept secret as filming has taken place at locations around Auckland during the past month. The movie is slated for a Christmas 2005 release.
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PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- Reacting to criticism from "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling and human rights groups, the Czech government ordered the removal of caged beds from psychiatric facilities.
"The minister ordered that all caged beds be removed immediately, and beds with nets by the end of the year," Aneta Kupkova, a Health Ministry spokeswoman, said Tuesday.
The move came a day after President Vaclav Klaus received a letter from Rowling protesting the practice in the Czech Republic.
Critics have said the beds, fitted with cages or nets to contain difficult patients, are barbaric.
Amnesty International and the Council of Europe have protested repeatedly against their use, and Rowling's letter was the final straw prompting Health Care Minister Josef Kubinyi to act, Kupkova said.
Of a total of 9,657 beds in Czech psychiatric facilities, about 100 have nets and only 20 have bars, she said.
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NEW ORLEANS -- Christopher Reeve and scores of actors are fighting New Orleans' soggy heat in different ways.
Reeve, directing a TV movie about a paralyzed girl's successful fight to return to school, has to spend as much time as possible in an air-conditioned trailer he calls his "Bat Cave," watching monitors.
"When you have a spinal cord injury, your thermoregulatory system goes totally haywire," he said.
The movie is based on the book "Miracles Happen: One Mother, One Daughter, One Journey," by Brooke Ellison and her mother, Jean Ellison.
Brooke Ellison, now a doctoral student in cognitive neuroscience, was 11 and heading to the first day of seventh grade in Long Island, N.Y., when a car hit her and broke her neck.
The screenplay has 60 speaking parts; Vanessa Marano plays Brooke at 11 and Lacey Chabert is the college-age Brooke. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays her mother.
"We're working on a modest budget, couldn't afford to shoot in New York, and didn't want to take the product out of the country," Reeve said."
Still, dealing with New Orleans' heat and humidity has been a challenge, he said.
"It's been a difficult shoot because every day we're dodging the raindrops," he said.
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LOS ANGELES -- Actor Tim Allen, one of Hollywood's most dedicated car nuts with a collection including Ferrari and Porsche nameplates, insists he's "still a guy from Detroit" with a stable of vehicles dominated by American cars.
Cadillac, Plymouth and Ford nameplates are well represented in his garage, with special focus on a 1956 F-100 Ford pickup truck that has a fully chromed, 1,100-horsepower Chrysler Hemi engine poking out of the hood.
It elicits the most boisterous testosterone-induced rants from the former ABC-TV "Home Improvement" star who will be seen in the Sony Pictures holiday release "Christmas With the Kranks."
"This is my work truck," Allen deadpans in the latest issue of Celebrity Car magazine, hitting newsstands on Thursday. Allen has a lifelong fascination with performance.
"My father started me on this," Allen said. "Every new car he got, even this big Ford station wagon, as soon as he got them home he'd change the manifold and put on glass packs (custom mufflers)."
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OKLAHOMA CITY -- Dust Bowl troubadour Woody Guthrie's portrait will be hung Thursday at the state Capitol.
Guthrie wrote hundreds of songs after leaving Okemah, Okla., as a teenager, including the folk anthem, "This Land Is Your Land."
He is best known for speaking to the plight of displaced Americans during the 1930s with such songs as "Hard Travelin"' and "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You." His "Oklahoma Hills" is the official Oklahoma State Folk Song.
Artists from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen have called Guthrie a major influence on their careers. His son, Arlo, was an important musical figure in the 1960s and 1970s with such songs as "The Battle of New Orleans," and "Alice's Restaurant," the comedic saga made into a movie.
Artist Charles Banks Wilson chose Guthrie as the subject when asked to do another Capitol portrait, said state Sen. Charles Ford of Tulsa, president of the Oklahoma Senate Historical Preservation Fund.
The Oklahoma Gazette, the largest weekly newspaper in Oklahoma, is raising money for the portrait and Wilson is donating his fee to the fight against Huntington's Disease, officials said.
Guthrie died in 1967 in New York of Huntington's Disease, a degenerative brain disorder.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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