People in the News

SYDNEY, Australia - Russell Crowe is a big rugby fan, and now the Oscar-winning actor wants to buy a team.

Crowe is in negotiations to purchase a club in Australia's National Rugby League, officials of the targeted South Sydney Rabbitohs said Saturday.

The Sydney club won a long court case to be readmitted to the NRL in 2002 after being cut from topflight competition following the 1999 season.

Negotiations could continue for at least a month.

"I'd like to buy the club.... You're actually talking about rugby league fantasy stuff," Crowe told The Australian Associated Press. "Yeah, I'd like to be able to have a situation like they do in America - they have individual owners."

Crowe, born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, won an Oscar for his role in the 2000 movie "Gladiator." His screen credits also include "The Insider," "A Beautiful Mind" and "Cinderella Man."

He has been charged with allegedly throwing a phone at a New York hotel concierge in June.

If convicted of the assault charge, Crowe could lose his right to work in the United States and could face up to seven years in prison. His lawyers are working for a reduction of the charge. The 41-year-old actor is free on his own recognizance.

---

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Trace Adkins had emergency surgery for an abdominal infection after a concert in Morton, Minn., last week.

Doctors said the surgery was successful and Adkins is expected to make a full recovery, his publicist, Schatzi Hageman, said Saturday.

The 43-year-old country singer had been suffering from stomach pain for two days and decided to go to the hospital before heading out to the next stop on his tour, Hageman said. The surgery was Friday.

Concerts in Spencer, Iowa; Hutchinson, Kan.; Ashland, Ohio; and Centreville, Mich., were canceled.

A member of the Grand Ole Opry, Adkins' hits include "(This Ain't) No Thinkin' Thing," "Chrome" and "Then They Do." His latest album is "Songs About Me."

On the Net:

http://www.traceadkins.com/main/

---

LONDON (AP) - Kate Moss acknowledged to the Hennes & Mauritz clothing chain that tabloid allegations she recently used cocaine are true, an H&M spokeswoman said.

Moss, who is to model one of H&M's upcoming clothing lines, apologized and promised in writing to abide by a company policy that models be "healthy, wholesome and sound," spokeswoman Liv Asarnoj said.

H&M decided to keep Moss on, Asarnoj told The Associated Press in a phone interview from the company's headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.

"We strongly disapprove of her action," Asarnoj said Saturday. "We feel that this is very unfortunate."

Asarnoj said Moss had acknowledged the allegations of drug use were true. "That's why she was so regretful," Asarnoj said. "We are giving her a second chance."

Noelle Doukas, who answered the phone at the Storm modeling agency in London, which represents Moss, 31, said no one was available to comment.

The Daily Mirror tabloid printed images from a video that it said showed the model doing five lines of cocaine in 40 minutes at a late-night music recording session.

Her lawyer, Gerard Tyrrell, didn't return a message left at his office Saturday.

---

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The Swedish Film Institute opened its new library on the day Swedish actress Greta Garbo would have turned 100.

"It was mostly a coincidence. The library was ready and we thought it would be nice to open it on Garbo's birthday, a festival day for Swedish film," said Jan-Erik Billinger, the library's director.

The library, Sweden's only special film depository, was opened Sunday and will be accessible to the public.

"We have almost 50,000 books and thousands of film magazines," Billinger said. "There are film manuscripts, public relations material and an extensive archive."

The collection is one of the oldest in Europe and contains some real rarities, among them first editions of most American film magazines from the 1910s, Billinger said.

The library is also equipped with updated electronic search systems that make it possible to access important film libraries all over the world.

The library is also home to a collection of correspondence, sketches, photographs and behind-the-scenes footage from the making of 18 movies by director Ingmar Bergman. The collection was donated by Bergman.

Garbo was born in Stockholm on Sept. 18, 1905.

---

ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. (AP) - After seeing the premiere of Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown," Renee Shaw was pleased that it didn't depict her state in a negative light, even if the film ran a little long for her taste.

"It had a lot of emotion and realism that movies today sometimes lack," said Shaw, 32, a producer with Kentucky Educational Television.

Crowe screened "Elizabethtown" in its namesake city Saturday, the first U.S. showing of the film, which stars Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst.

"This is a personal movie that I knew I had to come here to make," Crowe told those in the theater.

Crowe wrote "Elizabethtown" after returning to Kentucky in 1989 for the funeral of his 65-year-old father, James A. Crowe, who grew up in the Powell County town of Stanton.

The 2-hour, 20-minute version seen Saturday wasn't the final cut, which will be released Oct. 14. Crowe said that he wanted the people here to see a "director's cut" that "is longer and has more soul."

---

TORONTO (AP) - Gavin Hood's film "Tsotsi" nabbed the People's Choice Award at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, topping a list of 335 films despite little media coverage.

"I like the fact that we're running so many good films from around the world and the size of it gives us the opportunity to do that, to run both the big-budget films as well as the young, first-time filmmakers, the discovery films," said Piers Handling, the festival's director and chief executive officer.

"Tsotsi" won on Saturday.

In the eyes of film critic Roger Ebert, the Toronto festival is the most significant in North America because it's held in the fall and represents the formal kickoff to Oscar season. He called this year's event the best Toronto festival he could remember.

The stars did shine at the 10-day festival, including Charlize Theron, Johnny Depp, Cameron Diaz, Heath Ledger, Pierce Brosnan, Reese Witherspoon, Anthony Hopkins, Liam Neeson and Madonna.

"The city's been wonderful," said first-time festival visitor, rapper LL Cool J, who has a dramatic role in the new crime drama "Edison," also starring Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman and Justin Timberlake.

Some of the 40 to 50 films that were sold include "Thank You for Smoking," "Fetching Cody," "Harsh Times," "C.R.A.Z.Y.," "Look Both Ways," "Sunflower, A.K.A. Tommy Chong," "Iberia" and "Headbanger's Journey."

On the Net:

http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2005/home.asp