The golden gun used by villain Scaramanga in the James Bond movie The Man With the Golden Gun has been stolen from its film studio home, British police said Saturday, according to the BBC.
The prop, one of the most iconic weapons in cinema history, was noticed missing from Elstree Studios, north of London, on Friday, Hertfordshire Constabulary said.
Made for the 1974 film about fictional British spy Bond starring Roger Moore in the title role and Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga, the gun is worth an estimated US$136,000 dollars.
“We were called to Elstree Studios in Borehamwood at 1:25pm after a report of a theft of a prop, which was the golden gun,” a Hertfordshire Constabulary spokeswoman said.
In the movie, Scaramanga uses the gun for numerous assassinations.
The legendary weapon is assembled from a cigarette case, lighter, cuff link and pen.
The latest Bond film, Quantum of Solace starring Daniel Craig in his second outing as agent 007, is due for release on Oct. 31.
Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis Presley’s only child, gave birth to twin baby girls on Oct. 7, celebrity news TV show Entertainment Tonight said on its Web site on Saturday. The girls, whose names were not given, were delivered by cesarean section and weighed 2.7kg and 2.3kg.
A magazine cover photo of Angelina Jolie breast-feeding one of her newborn twins may have turned the superstar actress into a role model for new mothers. The photo, taken by Jolie’s partner Brad Pitt, will adorn month’s issue of W. Other family pictures taken by Pitt in the weeks after the birth in July of twins Vivienne Marcheline and Leon Knox will appear inside.
Jolie, an advocate for adoption, was determined never to get pregnant until Pitt came along and changed her mind, the actress said in a magazine interview. The screen idols, dubbed Brangelina, welcomed the birth of their first biological child, daughter Shiloh, in 2006.
Samantha Who? star Christina Applegate avoided hugs for weeks and hid her cancer diagnosis from nearly everyone working on her hit television program, the actress said in an interview aired on Friday. Applegate, 36, publicly revealed her diagnosis for breast cancer in August and had a double-mastectomy performed.
Pop star Britney Spears plans to set the record straight about her personal and professional woes in a documentary to be aired shortly before the release of her new album Circus in December. In the 90-minute film, Britney: For the Record, Spears talks about her high-profile meltdown, which included stints in rehab and psychiatric hospital units, an ugly divorce, losing custody of her two sons and shaving her head.
Lars Ulrich, the drummer for the heavy-metal band Metallica, is selling a nearly 2.4m wide Jean-Michel Basquiat portrait of a boxer at Christie’s International in New York on Nov. 12.
Christie’s said the 1982 painting is estimated to sell at about US$12 million.
Untitled (Boxer) was among the highlights of a 2005 to 2006 Basquiat retrospective that toured several museums, including the Brooklyn Museum.
Basquiat’s fighter, with a black skeletal face topped with a white crown, raises his gloves in victory.
“It’s a proxy self-portrait,’’ said Brett Gorvy, Christie’s international co-head of postwar and contemporary art. “The black artist as defiant hero.’’
Basquiat’s US$14.6 million auction record was set last year at Sotheby’s in New York with the 1981 Untitled, a ferocious full-length self-portrait. A 1982 portrait of boxer Sugar Ray Robinson fetched US$7.3 million at Christie’s in New York last year.
The artist painted a series of black athletes, including boxers and baseball players. He died in 1988 of a drug overdose.
Experts say Basquiat was at the height of his talent in 1982. “He had a breakthrough,’’ said New York collector Larry Warsh, who owns Basquiat’s work. “His energy popped in those years.’’
Taiwan’s overtaking of South Korea in GDP per capita is not a temporary anomaly, but the result of deeper structural problems in the South Korean economy says Chang Young-chul, the former CEO of Korea Asset Management Corp. Chang says that while it reflects Taiwan’s own gains, it also highlights weakening growth momentum in South Korea. As design and foundry capabilities become more important in the AI era, Seoul risks losing competitiveness if it relies too heavily on memory chips. IMF forecasts showing Taiwan widening its lead over South Korea have fueled debate in Seoul over memory chip dependence, industrial policy and
“China wants to unify with Taiwan at the lowest possible cost, and it currently believes that unification will become easier and less costly as time passes,” wrote Amanda Hsiao (蕭嫣然) and Bonnie Glaser in Foreign Affairs (“Why China Waits”) this month, describing how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is playing the long game in its quest to seize Taiwan. This has been a favorite claim of many writers over the years, easy to argue because it is so trite. Very obviously, if the PRC isn’t attacking Taiwan, it is waiting. But for what? Hsiao and Glaser’s main point is trivial,
May 18 to May 24 Gathered on Yangtou Mountain (羊頭山) on Dec. 5, 1972, Taiwan’s hiking enthusiasts formally declared the formation of the “100 Peaks Club” (百岳俱樂部) and unveiled the final list of mountains. Famed mountaineer Lin Wen-an (林文安) led this effort for the Chinese Alpine Association (中華山岳協會). Working with other experienced climbers, he chose 100 peaks above 10,000 feet (3,048m) that featured triangulation points and varied in difficulty and character. The list sparked an alpine hiking craze, inspiring many to take up mountaineering and competing to “conquer” the summits. A common misconception is that the 100 Peaks represent Taiwan’s 100 tallest
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), alongside their smaller allies the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), are often accused of acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Some go so far as to call them “traitors.” It is not hard to see why. They regularly pass legislation to stymie the normal functioning of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) administration, and they have yet to pass this year’s annual budget. They slashed key elements of the government’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$40 billion) special military budget, and in the smaller NT$780 billion package they did pass, it is riddled with provisions that
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