Paul Newman, who has recently appeared gaunt in photos and dropped plans to direct a play in his hometown of Newport, Conn., is battling cancer, his longtime neighbor and business partner said yesterday.
Writer A.E. Hotchner, who partnered with Newman to start the Newman's Own salad dressing company in the 1980s, said the 83-year-old actor told him about the disease about 18 months ago. He doesn't say what kind of cancer, but said Newman is in active treatment.
“I know that it's a form of cancer,” Hotchner told The Associated Press. “It's a form of cancer and he's dealing with it.”
Newman issued a statement late Tuesday that he's “doing nicely” but didn't specifically address questions about cancer. A call was placed to his spokesman yesterday seeking comment.
The Oscar winner appeared to have lost weight when he was photographed at the Indianapolis 500 auto race last month.
Hotchner said Newman had an operation a few years ago. “It was certainly somewhere in the area of the lung,” he said.
“He's battling,” Hotchner said. “He's doing all the right stuff. Paul is a fighter. He seems to be going through a good period right now.”
Asked about his prognosis, Hotchner said, “Everybody is hopeful. That's all we know.”
A BOOK ABOUT DAD
Meghan McCain, daughter of the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, is working on a picture book about her father, Sen. John McCain.
Meghan McCain's children's story, currently untitled, will be published by Simon & Schuster the first week of September, around the time of the Republican national convention.
“I am truly excited about the opportunity to write a children's book about my father, who is not only a fantastic dad, but also a great American,” McCain, known for her blog, McCain Blogette, at mccainblogette.com, said in a statement issued yesterday by her publisher.
A BOOK ABOUT SIS
The mystery is solved: Madonna's brother, Christopher Ciccone, is writing a memoir about his sister, to be released in mid-July by Simon & Schuster with a first printing of 350,000, the publisher told The Associated Press yesterday.
The publisher had been promoting a celebrity memoir for July, asking bookstores to order copies without identifying the author or contents.
Persuading stores to make “blind” orders has been tried before. In 2006, William Morrow offered a mysterious tell-all that turned out to be by Princess Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, who had already written about her. Retailers were angered and the book sold poorly.
KING TO GO ON REHAB SHOW
Can they all just get sober?
Rodney King will appear in the next installment of VH1's “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew,” which features famous people dealing with drug and alcohol problems aided by celebrity addiction specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky, the network announced Tuesday.
King, whose 1991 beating by Los Angeles police led to deadly rioting the next year, prompting him to make a famously earnest plea for peace, will appear on the show with “Grease” star Jeff Conaway, former Guns 'N Roses drummer Steven Adler, Rod Stewart's son Sean, and actress Tawny Kitaen.
The network did not specify what substance problem King would be seeking treatment for.
– COMPILED FROM NEWS SERVICE REPORTS
