Buzz Briefs: Elizabeth Taylor, Colbert
Elizabeth Taylor Gets To Keep Her Van Gogh
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider a dispute involving Elizabeth Taylor over ownership of a Vincent van Gogh painting. The painting is claimed by descendants of a Jewish woman who fled Nazi Germany.
The painting, worth millions, may be among the estimated 600,000 works of art that belonged to Jews and wound up in Nazi hands between 1933 and 1945.
Van Gogh painted "View of the Asylum" less than a year before his suicide.
Margarete Mauthner, a one-time owner of the van Gogh, left Germany in March 1939, having lost her livelihood and most of her property due to Nazi policies of economic coercion. Relatives of Mauthner, a noted translator and advocate of the arts, say the painting was among the property she lost to the Nazis.
In 1963 while living in London, Taylor bought the painting for about $236,000 at a Sotheby's auction from the estate of a German art collector.
Taylor's lawyers say the record shows the painting was sold through two Jewish art dealers to a Jewish art collector, with no evidence of any Nazi coercion or participation in the transactions.
The family members say they didn't discover they had a possible claim to the painting until 2001.
Mauthner's heirs went to court to recover the artwork, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has ruled that the federal Holocaust Victims Redress Act does not create a private right to sue. Mauthner's relatives also are trying to recover the painting under California state law, but the appeals court ruled they waited too long to act.
Candidate Colbert: S.C.'s "Favorite Son"
"I promise, if elected, I will crush the state of Georgia," the 43-year-old actor-comedian said to the cheering crowd.
Columbia Mayor Bob Coble presented Colbert with a key to the city, declaring him South Carolina's "favorite son." He said the day was to be known as "Stephen Colbert Day."
Colbert, who is from South Carolina, said the state's children should dress up like him for the day. The Comedy Central talk-show host -- who made "truthiness" a commonly heard word -- also proclaimed the dominance of South Carolina's produce.
"Our peaches are more numerous than Georgia's," he said. "They are more juiciful."
He also joked about new construction projects in the capital city, which is trying to bring to its downtown more high-end housing and high-tech businesses that can partner with the university. Colbert said the work means that scientists can live next to their labs.
"If something goes horribly wrong, they will be the first to mutate," he said.
Colbert, host of "The Colbert Report," announced his candidacy earlier this month, saying he would run only in this key primary state. He also said he plans to run as a Democrat and a Republican -- so he could lose twice.
Owen Wilson Speaks On MySpace
Wilson does not delve into the suicide attempt but talks about the making of "The Darjeeling Limited" instead. Wilson discusses his anxieties over traveling to India to make the film. Wilson recalls how he "had to get a whole battery of shots and you have to take malaria pills." While Wilson says he and Anderson never took the pills, co-star Adrien Brody did and experience "terrible nightmares."Photo Essay: Owen Wilson: Comedy Hero