As a superstar Tom Cruise vaunts his romance with actress Katie Holmes, but Americans are extremely sceptical about whether the feted relationship is true love or an extravagant publicity stunt.
As the Top Gun heart-throb, 42, makes a series of giddy public appearances to proclaim his new love for the 26-year-old actress, fans and media suspect the much-publicized affair has more to do with the upcoming release of two new films starring Cruise and Holmes.
An unscientific poll by People magazine indicated that 63 percent of readers believe the romance is a publicity stunt, while only 37 percent believe the pair are genuinely in love.
"Through all the changes that have swept Hollywood over the years, one thing still endures: strategic love," said a columnist in the New York Times this week.
The coupling of stars to create ballyhoo for a movie, burnish an actor's image, create a name or distract attention from other relationships may not be as common as when the movie studios tightly controlled stars' careers through the 1950s, some publicists and film industry experts assert.
As it happens, Cruise is the star of Steven Spielberg's big-budget War of the Worlds, due for release on June 29, while Holmes, coincidentally, is set to make her big-screen debut in Batman Begins,which opens June 15.
The twice-married Cruise, whose
storied marriage to Australian star Nicole Kidman collapsed in 2001, gave an extraordinary performance as a smitten lover on US television queen Oprah Winfrey's show this week.
In the appearance, an uncharacteristically emotive and exuberant Cruise repeatedly jumped up and down on a sofa, laughed uproariously, threw his hands in the air and yelled: "I'm in love! I'm in love!"
Jackson's latest video
A videotape of the first police interview with Michael Jackson's young accuser can be shown to jurors at his child molestation trial, the judge ruled on Thursday, setting the stage for another face-to-face meeting between the pop star and the 15-year-old boy.
Defense lawyers say if prosecutors show the videotape, in which the boy tells of sexual abuse by Jackson, they will call him back to the witness stand for cross-examination -- along with his mother, a psychologist who interviewed him before police, and the family's then-attorney, Larry Feldman.
Jolie and Pitt didn't do it
Movie sex symbol Angelina Jolie poured cold water on the rumors of a romance with leading man Brad Pitt, telling Marie Claire magazine in an upcoming issue that the two are not intimate. "Absolutely not," the star of the upcoming action flick Mr & Mrs Smith, in which Pitt co-stars, told Marie Claire when asked if she had sex with Pitt.
New American idol
Nearly 30 million viewers tuned in to see country singer Carrie Underwood crowned the latest winner on Fox television's American Idol,capping the most watched season yet for the prime-time talent contest.
The two-hour Idol finale topped the last night of the 2004 to 2005 TV season with 29.4 million viewers overall, including about 15.8 million aged 18 to 49 -- the young-adult audience most coveted by advertisers, Nielsen Media Research reported on Thursday.
Paper, Stiller, Rock
They are old friends who normally praise one another, but when Chris Rock and Ben Stiller don animal hides for their new animated movie Madagascar, the gloves come off. "I don't really admire Ben," said Rock, smiling broadly when asked what he likes best about Stiller's comedy.
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