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LONDON – Shiver me timbers! Actor Johnny Depp shocked a London school by answering a pupil’s fan letter and visiting classes dressed as his character from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie series, teachers said Friday.

Depp, 47, responded after 9-year-old Beatrice Delap sent a letter pleading for help in leading a mutiny against her teachers at Meridian Primary School in Greenwich, a district in southeastern London.

Dressed as his character Captain Jack Sparrow, Depp performed pirate songs and dances for the pupils during the visit with four other cast members on Wednesday.

The actor is currently filming “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” at the nearby Old Naval College, an opulent 17th-century seafaring center designed by architect Christopher Wren – whose other works include London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral.

In her letter to Depp, Delap wrote: “We are a bunch of budding young pirates and we’re having trouble mutinying against the teachers! We’d love it if you could come and help!”

Teachers said they encourage pupils to write for a real audience in classes. “This just goes to show it can reap great rewards,” acting head teacher Jo Graham said.

“The children across the whole school greeted Captain Sparrow with great applause and sang him their own pirate song,” the school said in a message on its website. “The event was great fun and the whole school are delighted to see that such creative writing for a real audience and purpose can lead to great things.”

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MEXICO CITY (AFP) – The eldest son of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, reputedly the world’s richest man, will marry this weekend in Mexico City, joined by tycoons and top politicians, media reports said.

Carlos Slim Domit, 43, will wed Maria Elena Torruco, the grandchild of a film actress and daughter of a tourism entrepreneur, on Saturday, according to La Reforma daily.

Slim Domit, a racing car enthusiast and the eldest of six children, has been romantically involved with Torruco for nearly 10 years.

Carlos Slim, 70, knocked Bill Gates from the top of the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires this year with an estimated fortune of 53.5 billion dollars.

US tycoon Warren Buffett, number three this year in Forbes, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon were expected to attend Saturday’s ceremony in a luxury hotel in the Mexican capital, reports said.

Slim Domit heads the board of Telefonos de Mexico, or Telmex, Mexico’s main fixed-line phone provider.

The bride and groom registered for wedding gifts at Sears department store, part of Slim’s retail group, requesting gifts including an ice-making machine for more than three thousand dollars, according to Poder magazine.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Michelle Williams will play Marilyn Monroe in a new movie based around the iconic actress’s 1956 film shoot in London opposite Sir Laurence Olivier, producers said on Friday.

Williams, 30, who earned an Oscar nomination for her 2005 role in “Brokeback Mountain” and also appeared in “Shutter Island”, stars as Monroe alongside a British cast that sees Kenneth Branagh as Olivier, Julia Ormond playing actress Vivien Leigh and Judi Dench in the role of British screen veteran Dame Sybil Thorndike.

“My Week with Marilyn” chronicles a week in the life of Monroe as she escapes her Hollywood routine and is introduced to the pleasures of 1950s Britain by an assistant on the set of “The Prince and the Showgirl”.

British actor Derek Jacobi, and young stars Dominic Cooper and Emma Watson of “Harry Potter” fame, will also appear, with Simon Curtis directing.

Work on the co-production between BBC Films, Trademark Films and the Weinstein Company has already started at Britain’s Pinewood Studios, producers said.

The movie is the second planned film treatment of Monroe — still one of the world’s best-known sex symbols more than 40 years after her death.

Australian Naomi Watts is due to play Monroe in the Hollywood movie “Blonde” based on U.S. writer Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 fictional biography of the star. “Blonde” is expected to start shooting in early 2012.

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BUSAN, South Korea – Indian superstar Aishwarya Rai says shooting two versions of the same movie simultaneously on a recent set posed the toughest challenge of her career. Promoting the twin releases “Raavan” and “Raavanan” at South Korea’s Pusan International Film Festival, the actress reflected on the unique experiment in Indian cinema. Attempting to reach out to speakers of both Hindi and Tamil, veteran director Mani Ratnam shot each scene once in each dialect based on the same story of a police officer whose wife is abducted by gangsters.

Adding to the challenge, Ratnam tweaked the cast for the two versions. While Rai appears in both, her husband Abhishek Bachchan skips the Tamil production. Tamil star Chiyaan Vikram takes on different roles in the two movies.

“I must say this is by far the most challenging experience of my career,” Rai told a news conference Friday.

Rai said it was difficult to capture the same chemistry for the same scene twice.

“The thing about cinema is it’s not about the number of takes that you take to get the right shot, but it’s about all elements coming together. … When that magic happens, you know you’ve got it. And then immediately you’ve got to go again because the light can change, the conditions can change,” she said.

Rai added it was a physically taxing shoot that involved filming in heavy rain in the jungle.

“It was demanding. It was challenging — but creatively extremely satisfying. It was a high,” she said.

The actors raved about the reception they received in Pusan, with Bachchan noting with delight that they were asked a question by a South Korean fan in Hindi.

“When you say anything, they go ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh.’ It’s so nice because they feel so much and they are able to express it. As artists, you want to reach the audience. You want to have a rapport with the audience. There’s nothing more wonderful than actually standing on stage and having such an appreciative audience,” Vikram said.

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MIAMI – The Miami Police Department  encouraged residents to report gang activity — with a website banner depicting two gangsters bearing a striking resemblance to rapper Jay-Z.

The graphic depicting the Jay-Z lookalikes and three other figures had been removed and was no longer on the website Friday.

The Miami New Times first blogged about the graphic Thursday on its website.

Police spokeswoman Kenia Reyes told The Associated Press on Friday that the drawing was inadvertently done. She would not say how long the graphic was on the website or provide details about how Jay-Z’s image ended up in the graphic.

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NEW YORK – HBO says Al Pacino is set to star as legendary record producer Phil Spector in a TV film to be written and directed by David Mamet (MAM’-eht).

The film will tell the story of Spector, who long ago recorded such acts as the Beatles, Cher and the Ramones. Now, at age 70, he’s serving a prison sentence of 19 years to life for murder. He was convicted for the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson.

The 70-year-old Pacino starred in the HBO film “You Don’t Know Jack” earlier this year as Jack Kevorkian, who served time in prison for assisting in the suicide of a terminally ill man.

The as-yet-untitled Spector film is in the early stages of development, HBO said. The project was first reported by The New York Times.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Faith Hill grew up with Tammy Wynette’s  music, belting out classics such as “Stand by Your Man” when she was 12 years old — even though Hill probably didn’t quite understand what it truly meant.

Now the country superstar wants to make sure other young girls, and music fans in general, are as acquainted with the “First Lady of Country Music” as she was.

Hill has lent her voice to a new exhibit on Wynette at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

“I’m sure there are a few that are aware of Tammy and listen to her music, but you can’t have too many,” said Hill, who narrates a film on Wynette. “Especially with the next generation developing and creating their music, I think it’s important they hear Tammy Wynette.”

Wynette, who died in 1998 at age 55, was the prototype for today’s female country music star. Wynette was one of the first artists to put on a contemporary live show with costume changes and colorful outfits, some of which are on display at the museum.

The exhibit runs through June 12, 2011, along with hundreds of other items from Wynette’s voluminous collection of personal memorabilia. She wore wigs and elaborate jewelry and her style was copied not only around Nashville but across the nation.

She lived a tumultuous life that brought tabloid attention along with the adulation of her fans. And her humble beginnings belied a big personality who could take command of any room.

“She was always so down to earth and so friendly, always there to talk and visit with you,” Reba McEntire said. “And great songs. My gosh, the songs that she sang would touch your heart in a heartbeat, and she was always so identifiable. When she started singing most times when the song started you knew that was a Tammy Wynette song. You never had to guess who was singing that song.”

It was “Apartment No. 9″ that hooked author and professed “record hound” Jimmy McDonough on Wynette. He’d never heard anything like the singer’s voice and his curiosity about Wynette eventually led him to write a biography, “Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen,” released last March. Like Hill he thought it was time to take a closer look.

“There’s just something compelling about her voice,” McDonough said. “And I felt in the pantheon of country singers — it’s great the Country Music Hall of Fame is doing this thing — but in recent years you hadn’t heard a lot of Tammy. She sort of faded in the background and I think largely that’s because certain associations people make, especially with her main song, ‘Stand by Your Man,’ which is a much more complex record once you really look at it and listen to it than I think people give it credit for.”

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NEW YORK – Denise Richards is writing a book for those who find life a little complicated.

Gallery Books announced Friday the actress and former model is working on an inspirational memoir about “her personal struggles.” The memoir, currently untitled, is scheduled for release in July and Gallery says it will “touch on universal themes of love and loss, as well as marriage, divorce, and motherhood.”

The 29-year-old had two children with Charlie Sheen, whom she divorced in 2006 amid allegations that Sheen was using drugs and had threatened her with violence. Richards’ films include “Wild Things” and “The World is Not Enough” and she stars in the reality series “Denise Richards: It’s Complicated” on the E! network.

Gallery is an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

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SAN FRANCISCO – California’s ballot measure to legalize marijuana has a new friend: Facebook co-founder Sean Parker has given $100,000 to back the proposal.

Parker’s donation was reported in Proposition 19 campaign finance filings this week.

And he’s not the first big Proposition 19 donor with ties to the social networking site. Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz has made two donations totalling $70,000, including a $50,000 contribution last month.

Neither Parker nor Moskovitz are still with Palo Alto-based Facebook, but both still have ownership stakes. Recent estimates put the value of the privately held company as high as $33.7 billion.

“What’s interesting here is that (Parker) is a member of the generation that really gets it,” said Stephen Gutwillig, a spokesman for the Drug Policy Alliance, the main beneficiary of Parker’s contribution. “We think he’s pivotal to the future of drug policy reform in the country.”

The 30-year-old served as Facebook’s first president and helped transform the company from dorm-room project to big business. Parker and Moskovitz have become household names since the recent release of “The Social Network.” The film chronicling the contentious origins of Facebook was No. 1 at the box office last week.

Pop musician and actor Justin Timberlake plays Parker in the movie, which portrays him as a hotshot who convinces Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to push out his friend from the burgeoning company.

In a recent Vanity Fair profile, the media-shy entrepreneur is described as a computer-programming prodigy with an uncanny knack for anticipating online trends and a penchant for designer clothes and partying.

At age 19, Parker helped develop Napster, the music-sharing software that turned the recording industry upside-down. He is now a partner at Founders Fund, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.

Parker did not immediately respond to e-mails seeking comment.

About $1.5 million of the $2.4 million raised so far in support of Proposition 19 has come from the measure’s main sponsor, Oakland medical marijuana entrepreneur Richard Lee. The only other six-figure donation not from Lee came from adult entertainment entrepreneur Phil Harvey, who gave $100,000.

Parker’s donation came shortly after the Yes on 19 campaign committee reported having meager cash on hand heading into the final weeks before the election. The money from Parker and Harvey went to a separate committee to fund the Drug Policy Alliance’s work on behalf of the measure.

Much of the money will go toward a get-out-the-vote campaign targeting young voters and voters of color, Gutwillig said.

Facebook recently came under fire from some marijuana advocates who claimed it was turning away advertising on the site in support of Proposition 19. Facebook said in a statement that company policy prohibits images of drugs, drug paraphernalia or tobacco in paid advertising but that ballot measure supporters were still free to advertise using different images.

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MARQUETTE, Mich. – A Michigan couple convicted of trying to extort $680,000 out of “Glee” actor John Stamos were each sentenced Friday to four years in prison.

Allison Coss and Scott Sippola were hoping to receive sentences of less than two years in prison, but U.S. District Judge R. Allan Edgar ordered a stiffer punishment.

They were convicted in July of conspiracy and using e-mail to threaten a person’s reputation. Coss, 24, and Sippola, 31, threatened to sell old photos of Stamos with strippers and cocaine to the tabloids unless he paid up.

The FBI said such photos didn’t exist. Edgar agreed and said Coss lied about the photos during her testimony at the summer trial in Marquette, in the state’s Upper Peninsula.

Stamos met Coss in Orlando, Fla., in 2004 when she was 17 years old. It was shortly after he had separated from his wife, supermodel Rebecca Romijn.

Coss testified that Stamos snorted cocaine, sat nude in a hot tub with the scantily clothed teenager, and made sexual advances as they kissed while lying on a bed. He denied it.

Stamos, 47, starred on “ER” and “Full House” and now plays a dentist on Fox’s hit musical “Glee.” He was not in court Friday but a statement from him was read aloud. He called the couple’s actions “reprehensible.”

“The defendants’ strategy consisted of lying and inventing stories at trial in a bid to confuse and incite the jury,” Stamos wrote. “I was forced to watch (Coss) slander me at trial with impunity while the press reported their fabricated allegations.”

Coss was crying and too upset to speak to the judge before getting her sentence, which was near the low end of the guidelines. She and Sippola were chained at the wrists and ankles as they were taken away by deputy marshals.

In a court document filed this week, Sippola apologized and said his “conduct was awful.”

“I sought to exploit my knowledge of the personal weaknesses of a perfect stranger for my own undeserved financial gain,” he said. “I would be angry and hurt if that had happened to me and I am certain that Mr. Stamos feels that way towards me.”

Coss and Sippola were arrested last December at an Upper Peninsula airport after Stamos reported the extortion attempt to authorities.

Investigators said they had more than one scheme before settling on photos. At trial, Coss admitted sending e-mails under another name claiming to be a teen impregnated by the actor.

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