Print

Mail

wiki links

Planet Pop

J.K. Rowling outed Dumbledore. PHOTO:AP

J.K. Rowling has revealed a secret about one of the main characters in her Harry Potter books: the wizard Dumbledore is gay.

The best-selling author made the confession Friday evening in Carnegie Hall in New York when a young fan asked her if the headmaster of the fictional Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy ever fell in love.

"My truthful answer to you ... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay," said Rowling, whose comments were posted on the Potter fan Web site TheLeakyCauldron.org.

She said Professor Dumbledore had fallen in love with the wizard Gellert Grindelwald, but was crestfallen as Grindelwald turned his talents to the dark arts.

Dumbledore was "drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him," she said.

During a script reading for the sixth Harry Potter film, the author corrected a reference to Dumbledore waxing nostalgic about a female flame, she said.

"I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, 'Dumbledore's gay!' Rowling said.

Her revelations about Dumbledore drew a "prolonged ovation," according to the fan Web site.

"If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!" she told her fans.

In the Potter films, Dumbledore was played by the late Richard Harris and then by Michael Gambon.

Rowling, 42, who has become a billionaire from the Potter phenomenon, was on a US book tour and Friday's event was for 1,000 fans who won tickets in a sweepstakes organized by the US publisher of her books, Scholastic.

The first in the boy wizard series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, was published in 1997 and the final and seventh novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, broke records after going on sale in July.

Folk singer Yusuf Islam hopes to return to the US in December to record a song inspired by his deportation three years ago, he said on Friday.

Islam, who changed his name from Cat Stevens after he became a Muslim in 1978, was denied entry to the US "on national security grounds" in September 2004. His inbound flight was diverted to Maine and he and his daughter were taken off the plane. Islam had been planning to record in Nashville with country artists, including Dolly Parton.

Apparently no longer considered a terrorist, the peace activist's visa situation has been cleared up, and he later returned to the US to promote his 2006 comeback Another Cup, his first mainstream pop album in 28 years.

The 59-year-old London resident has started work on a follow-up, and has written a song about "my little excursion" called Boots and Sand. Another attempt at Nashville is in the cards.

"I'm planning hopefully to drop in there and finally close that circle (in) December," Islam said.

Parton will "not necessarily" be on the record, "but she'll be implied in the lyric," Islam said.

The album is off to a cracking start, and Islam is rocking out a little after buying an electric guitar, a Stevie Ray Vaughan Telecaster manufactured by Fender. For most of his career, he was content to strum an acoustic, but he said his son has been encouraging him to experiment.

Veteran Hollywood director Brian De Palma has lashed out at what he calls the censorship of his new film about Iraq and the chilling effect of corporate America on the war.

De Palma's film, Redacted, is based on the true story of a group of US soldiers who raped and killed a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdered members of her family. It has stunned audiences for its shocking images and rattled American conservative commentators before its US opening next month.

But De Palma says he is upset that the documentary-style drama - its name derived from his view that news coverage of the war has been incomplete - has been censored.

The film's distributor, Magnolia Pictures, ordered the faces of dead Iraqis shown in a montage of photographs at the end of the film be blacked out.

"I find it remarkable. Redacted got redacted. I mean, how ironic," De Palma, who made his name directing violent films like Scarface and The Untouchables, said in an interview.
This story has been viewed 1038 times.