NEW YORK - Idina Menzel, star of the Broadway musical "Wicked," and her husband, actor Taye Diggs have received hateful threats because of their interracial marriage.
The couple was the focus of at least three letters last week in which bodily harm was threatened, the New York Post reported in Monday editions.
Despite the threats, Menzel still performed on Sunday, arriving at the Gershwin Theater under heavy guard. For the matinee, she was accompanied by five plainclothes guards, who remained stationed outside the stage door.
Diggs, who is black and stars in the UPN drama "Kevin Hill," and Menzel, who is white, were wed in January 2003.
Earlier this year, Menzel won a Tony award for her portrayal of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.
Diggs is currently filming a movie in Canada.
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YEEHAW JUNCTION, Fla. - Four members of the Coral Gables police department, including a former member of the 1980s band Menudo, were injured when the van they were riding in overturned on Florida's turnpike.
The officers were members of the department's SWAT team and were returning Saturday from the SWAT Round-up International, a 66-team competition in Orlando.
Miguel Cancel, one of the officers injured in the accident, was a singer with Menudo as a teenager in the 1980s, said Coral Gables police Lt. Paul Miyares.
The four officers - Eduardo Orbe, 29, Edwin Pagan, 32, Eugenio Arencibia, 32, and Cancel, 37 - were traveling south on the turnpike when the rear right tire blew on their van.
The vehicle flipped into the northbound lanes, coming to rest on the northbound shoulder, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
Arencibia and Cancel, who were riding in the back and not wearing seat belts, were ejected, the FHP said. All four were taken to a hospital, and Orbe and Pagan were released.
Miyares said Arencibia had a back injury and Cancel suffered a "severe injury to his left hand."
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NEW YORK - David Banner doesn't want to be just another rapper who strolls into movies, so the Mississippi rhymer has been spending the past few months in Los Angeles, studying acting in preparation for a movie career.
"I'm studying this form of talent," Banner told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "I've had opportunities to be in several major movies, but I don't want to just jump in."
Banner says he's always been interested in an acting career, but growing up, he never knew how to get involved in it.
"Those opportunities are not readily available, coming from urban situations where you don't know much," he said.
Banner, who's known for hits like "Like a Pimp," says he's learned a lot in his studies - and he's able to translate it to everyday life.
"Acting actually teaches you to be more patient with society," Banner said. "As an actor, you're able to break down the psyche of people."
Banner hasn't given up his rap career though. He's working on a new album that he expects to release next year.
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DURHAM, N.C. - Game show host Bob Barker, a longtime proponent of animal welfare, has donated $1 million to Duke Law School to endow a program to teach animal rights law, the school announced Monday.
The Bob Barker Endowment Fund for the Study of Animal Rights Law will support education in animal rights law, including opportunities for students to earn course credit on cases involving compliance with state animal cruelty laws and other forms of animal rights advocacy.
It's similar to funds Barker has established in the past few years at law schools including those at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and UCLA.
"Animals need all the protection we can give them," Barker said. "We intend to train a growing number of law students in this area of the law in the hope that they will ultimately lead a national effort to make it illegal to brutalize and exploit these helpless creatures."
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PRINCETON, W.Va. - Gilligan turned into Santa's helper when former television star Bob Denver and his wife joined a car dealership's toy campaign.
"I think it's all been fantastic. It has only been 45 minutes and we've already done really well," Denver said during Saturday's event, which transformed Ramey Chrysler's lot into an island of toys.
"We normally do this in a smaller way, but we wanted to go all out this year. When I was growing up, I was underprivileged myself and didn't get a lot of toys at Christmas, so this is really important to me," said Jim Ramey Sr., owner of Ramey Automotive Group.
Denver, star of the 1960s TV show "Gilligan's Island," and his wife, Dreama, donated a pickup truck full of toys and a $1,000 check to the Princeton Quota Club. The couple live in the area.
All the toys will go to the Marine Corps League's Toys for Tots campaign. The organization recently received $1,300 worth of toys from Toys-R-Us in Roanoke, Va., and a bakery donated $2,000 worth of toys.
"We're off to a really good start. People really don't know how much this means to us," said Jack Grose of the Marine Corps League.
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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Award-winning rocker Sheryl Crow has been elected to the Missouri Academy of Squires, a ceremonial group dedicated to honoring current and former Missouri residents.
Crow, who was born in Kennett and graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia, hasn't forgotten her hometown roots.
Though the former music teacher has sold millions of albums, Crow also has given benefit concerts, funded local scholarships, donated clothes for charity and pledged funds to help build a new city swimming pool about a block off the town square.
In addition to the Grammy-winning singer, Missouri Gov. Bob Holden announced that nine other people were elected to the academy, including Harris-Stowe State College President Henry Givens Jr., J.E. Dunn Construction CEO Terry Dunn, Kansas city community activist Lali Garcia and former Missouri Congressman Alan Wheat.
The academy was started in 1960 by then-Gov. James Blair Jr. This year's class was the first elected in two years.
On the Net:
Sheryl Crow Web site: http://www.sherylcrow.com/
Kennett Chamber of Commerce: http://www.kennettmo.com/
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LITHOPOLIS, Ohio - The sale of two Norman Rockwell paintings for about $800,000 could come to the aid of a cash-strapped library built by the family that started the Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary.
Christie's in New York auctioned "Grandpa's Christmas Visit" for $119,500 and the "Rewards for Patience" for $701,900. Auction house officials had expected the paintings to bring in between $200,000 and $300,000.
"They were pretty impressive," Christie's spokesman Rik Pike said after last week's sale. "There was plenty of interest in the room and on the phones for both paintings."
The foundation that operates the Wagnalls Memorial Library authorized the sale of the Rockwell paintings to raise money after the library's savings diminished from $10 million in 1998 to $3 million this year. Questions have arisen about what happened to the money, and the Ohio attorney general is investigating.
Carl Spencer, the foundation's executive director, said on Sunday that proceeds will likely be used to reduce the library's debt. Board members will meet next week to decide exactly how the money is used.
The library was built in 1925 by Mabel Wagnalls Jones, the daughter of Adams Wagnalls, co-publisher of the Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary. The library was dedicated to her parents, who grew up in Lithopolis, a village of 600 people about 15 miles southeast of Columbus.
The couple had received the paintings as a gift from Rockwell. The art later went to the foundation.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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