Apparently, he really does have a need for speed. Tom Cruise and his son, Connor, swapped the glitz and glamour of the Oscars for the grit and grunge of NASCAR’s Auto Club 500 in Fontana, California.

Wisely avoiding any Days of Thunder-style spinouts, Tom and Connor (seen above with NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick) chucked a football around with crew members in Jimmie Johnson’s pit box.

How very manly! Here’s hoping our favorite A-list NASCAR dad bought a round of jerky for the house. (Source: E! Online)

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By WENN world entertainment news – Monday, February 25 08:45 am

George Clooney, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford and Jennifer Aniston were among the Hollywood superstars who helped turned the sixth annual Night Before fundraiser into a GBP3 million affair on Saturday.

Past Oscar winners and nominees for this year’s Academy Awards joined the stars at the Motion Picture + Television Fund bash, which was held at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

The GBP3 million raised at this year’s pre-Oscars party brings the total amount of money raised since the event’s inception in 2003 to an impressive GBP15.5 million.

Motion Picture + Television Fund chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg feels this year’s event was so star-studded because the recent Hollywood writers strike really helped movie celebrities see how their colleagues need financial help.

Katzenberg says, “Many people in our industry have faced great challenges the past few months and the support and services provided by MPTF were critical to their being able to support themselves and their families.” (Source: Yahoo! New UK & Ireland)

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While the crowning jewel of award season, the Academy Awards, are Sunday this whole week is full of actors rewarding each other including yesterday’s First Annual Essence Black Women In Hollywood luncheon. Jada Pinkett Smith was one of the women of the afternoon and Will was on hand to present the award to his wife for everything that she has done in Hollywood. Tom and Katie (love her shoes) were there to help celebrate and speak about their friend alongside Kerry Washington, Gabrielle Union and Vivica A. Fox just to name a few. Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee and possible record-breaker Ruby Dee also received an award at the luncheon and who knows, her mantel may be even more full by the end of the weekend! (Source: Popsugar)

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Tom Cruise is planning a “romantic” Valentine’s Day for wife Katie Holmes.

The actor is known for his passionate gestures – including proposing to former Dawson’s Creek star Katie on the top of Paris’ Eiffel Tower – and says this Valentine’s Day will be no different.

He said: “I have plans, and it will definitely be romantic. I’m going to keep the details to myself but it’s going to be fun though!”

Katie, who accompanied Tom to the opening of Los Angeles’ Eli Broad Contemporary Art Museum on Saturday, also spoke about the couple’s 21-month-old daughter Suri.

She said: “Every day she does something new. She’s growing up so quickly!”

Tom recently revealed he will never be disillusioned by love, and hopes to always be a romantic at heart.

He said: “I will never be down with love. Ever. I’m the guy who loves relationships. I love women. I’m very much a romantic and an optimist.”

- BANG! SHOWBIZ (Source: The New Zealand Herald)

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By Michelle Nichols Thu Feb 7, 9:46 AM ET

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Pop star Madonna hosted a celebrity-studded event on Wednesday on the lawns of the United Nations to aid Malawi orphans, the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and — controversially — to inaugurate a new Gucci store.

Actors Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Drew Barrymore, Gwyneth Paltrow and a heavily pregnant Jennifer Lopez were among many stars at the dinner that Gucci Chief Executive Mark Lee said has already raised $3.7 million.

But critics have objected to the use of the U.N. grounds to kick off a Gucci store opening and raised concerns about ties between Madonna’s charity Raising Malawi and The Kabbalah Centre, a body devoted to a mystical form of Judaism followed by the pop star.

The accusations, made mainly by bloggers, appear to stem from the fact that Raising Malawi’s founder Michael Berg is also co-director of The Kabbalah Centre.

“I don’t really pay any attention to that. I am grateful that Gucci has underwritten this event — that’s all that matters to me — their generosity. There’s always controversy surrounding anything that involves change,” Madonna told Reuters.

“I want to put Raising Malawi on the map. I want credibility as a philanthropic organization. I want to inspire people. I don’t want them to just write me a check: I want them to give me a piece of their heart,” she said.

Philippe van den Bossche, executive director of Raising Malawi, said it was “absolutely not true” that any money raised would benefit Kabbalah. He said the organization was a nonprofit, registered, nonsectarian organization intended to provide support for orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi.

GUCCI OPENING “A COINCIDENCE”

A huge tent was erected on the lawns of the United Nations for the event and security was tight. Alicia Keys, Timbaland and Rihanna were due to perform, while comedian Chris Rock was to auction off celebrity events, such as aerobics with Madonna and baseball batting practice with Yankee Alex Rodriguez.

Despite announcing the fundraising event in November as a celebration of the opening of a new Gucci store in New York, Lee said on Wednesday that “it’s a coincidence that we happen to be here and we’re opening an important store on Friday.”

“Really tonight is about the charities and the money we’re raising,” he told Reuters, while Gucci’s Creative Director Frida Giannini said that in the end the dinner was simply a “fundraising event with glamour.”

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who did not attend the event, said on Tuesday that he understood the proceeds would “be used for a proper purpose as agreed between UNICEF and the organizers.”

Gucci, which is owned by French retailer PPR, has paid for the entire event and said all money raised will be split between Raising Malawi and UNICEF.

Madonna’s interest in helping Malawi orphans is personal — she and her husband, director Guy Ritchie, are raising a young Malawian boy they hope to adopt. But the adoption has hit several stumbling blocks since they took him from an orphanage in late 2006 when he was 13 months old.

Rights groups have accused Madonna of using her fame and wealth to circumvent the country’s adoption rules, although the singer has insisted she is following the law. Malawi’s High Court is to hold a hearing this year into whether Madonna and Ritchie are suitable parents and should adopt the child.

(Additional reporting by Sharon Reich and Patrick Worsnip; Editing by Eric Walsh) (Source: Yahoo! News)

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Friday February 8, 09:28 AM
By Splash
Cher has confirmed for the first time she used to date Tom Cruise.

The veteran singer admits she and ‘adorable’ Cruise enjoyed a romance in the 1980s.

“He was just the most adorable man you can possibly imagine. I don’t understand the Scientology thing because I don’t understand it,” she told the Good Morning America TV show.

“Sonny was a Scientologist, I did not understand that either.”

Cher, 61, has announced she is coming out of retirement after three years, for a reported $60m residency at Caesars Palace Casino in Las Vegas.

The singer admitted that she suffers from depression, but that working helps her fight it off.

“When you have depression sometimes you feel like you are completely alone. But Work helps me a lot, I enjoy working, it keeps me moving and keeps me around people.

“You don’t get the chance to go ‘Oh what is life about?’ it keeps you productive.” (Source: Yahoo! xtra Entertainment)

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Celebrating Conor’s Birthday at Cut Steakhouse in LA- January 17, 2008, previews:

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By Alexis Chiu

Originally posted Saturday February 02, 2008 06:40 PM EST

Friends Mourn Heath Ledger in Second L.A. Service | Heath Ledger
Friends and celebrity colleagues – including Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Sienna Miller, Ellen DeGeneres and director Todd Haynes – gathered on the Sony lot in Los Angeles to remember Heath Ledger on Saturday, PEOPLE has confirmed.

The gathering included industry luminaries and those connected to CAA (the agency that represented Ledger), including Cruise and Holmes, who costarred with Michelle Williams on Dawson’s Creek. It comes a week after relatives and close friends – including ex-girlfriend Naomi Watts – paid tribute to the 28-year-old actor at a smaller service at an L.A. cemetery.

Saturday’s service began around noon on the lot, which is closed to the public. Attendees included Miller, Ledger’s Casanova costar, and Shannyn Sossamon, who starred with Ledger in A Knight’s Tale. Speakers included Haynes, who directed him in last year’s Bob Dylan film I’m Not There.

With reporting by JENNIFER GARCIA, ELIZABETH LEONARD and CYNTHIA WANG (Source: People)

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Written by IESB Staff
Friday, 01 February 2008

Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg will shortly begin its second leg of filming in Southern California.

Even though Valkyrie wrapped shooting in Germany late last year, Bryan Singer is prepping to shoot the opening of the movie that is set in North Africa in key Southern California desert locations.

Casting for extras is expected to start soon and filming is expected to start within the next few weeks and wrap by the first week of March.

Superstar Tom Cruise heads an international cast as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, the aristocratic German officer who led the heroic attempt to bring down the Nazi regime and end the war by planting a bomb in Hitler’s bunker. The “July 20 Plot” on Hitler’s life is one of the most heroic but least known episodes of World War Two. Severely wounded in combat, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg returns from Africa to join the German Resistance and help create Operation Valkyrie, the complex plan that will allow a shadow government to replace Hitler’s once he is dead. But fate and circumstance conspire to thrust Stauffenberg from one of many in the plot to a double-edged central role. Not only must he lead the coup and seize control of his nation’s government… He must kill Hitler himself. (Source: IEBS.net)

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