People talk 7/7/03

Knowles, Twain take part in charity concert

LONDON -- Beyonce Knowles, Shania Twain, Craig David and David Gray were among a host of singers who took to the stage in London's Hyde Park for an open-air concert to raise money for disadvantaged children.

More than 100,000 tickets were sold for Sunday's "Party in the Park," which is expected to raise more than 1 million pounds (US $1.6 million) for the Prince's Trust, the charity headed by Prince Charles.

Charles was guest of honor at the concert attended largely by teenagers. "Last year I gave him an option of not coming but he was absolutely insistent. He wants to come and people want him to come," said Tom Shebbeare, chief executive of the Prince's Trust. "He's the rocking prince."

'Starting over' starts over in new zone

CHICAGO -- The producers of the reality television show "Starting Over" are doing just that.

They've moved the show's production to a different neighborhood in Chicago, after angry residents of the original upscale neighborhood sued to keep the show from filming there.

"There's more than one great house in Chicago," said Jim Johnston, one of the show's producers.

The show that features six women looking to "reinvent their lives" moved to a mansion on the city's North Side.

Producers sent a letter to residents of the newly selected neighborhood, outlining a code of conduct for the program, and neighbor Angela Turley said she's satisfied.

"They seem to be nice people and they've enhanced the garden quite a bit," she said. "We just want to be told what's happening in advance."

The reception is a far cry from the one producers received when they started to set up shop in a Gold Coast neighborhood.

Residents there complained to city officials that the show might attract unsavory characters.

Their lawsuit alleged that Bunim/Murray Productions, which also has produced MTV's "The Real World," violated zoning law because it is a commercial enterprise.

The program is scheduled to debut this fall on NBC.

Nick Cassavetes writing movie script

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Screenwriter and director Nick Cassavetes is writing a movie about a fugitive drug dealer, saying details of the case hit close to home.

Jesse James Hollywood, 23, is wanted for allegedly ordering the 2000 execution of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz in the San Fernando Valley in retaliation for an unpaid drug debt.

Cassavetes said his teenage daughter briefly went to the high school that Hollywood and Markowitz attended.

"I guess this story just hits close to home because it could have been my own daughter," he said. "It was in my back yard."

He sees the story as depicting the intersection of the drug underworld and middle-class suburbia.

"I think it bears true to how things can go wrong so fast and then there's no turning back, only the wreckage of people's lives," Cassavetes said.

Kevin Connolly is set to direct the film. Actors Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio will produce it and help arrange financing, but won't appear in the as-yet untitled film, Cassavetes told the Santa Barbara News-Press for a story published Saturday.

Production should begin by year's end, he said.

U.S. author wants Indian TV series halted

NEW DELHI, India -- An Indian court halted the broadcast of a television series, allowing an appeal by U.S.-based author Barbara Taylor Bradford, who says it violates the copyright of her work.

Judges Ajoy Nath Roy and Jasyatosh Banerjee ruled Thursday that an injunction granted against the broadcast by a lower court would continue. They also said they wanted to read Taylor's book "A Woman of Substance" and watch the series "Karishma -- The Miracle of Destiny," which the author says is lifted from her book.

The series is produced by Sahara Media Entertainment, one of India's largest producers of entertainment programs.

Bradford came to India in May to get the 260-episode series banned from the air a few days before it was to be broadcast.

-- From wire reports