People talk 9/1/02

Directors to be honored at Marrakech festival

CASABLANCA, Morocco -- Movie directors David Lynch, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola will be guests of honor at next month's Marrakech International Film Festival.

Scorsese, who filmed scenes for "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "Kundun" in Morocco, will be given the country's highest award, the Wissam alaouite, by King Mohammed VI at the Sept. 18-22 festival, organizers said.

Ten films will be shown in competition at the festival in the southern city of Marrakech.

Scorsese's upcoming 1860s mob tale, "Gangs of New York," stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis and Cameron Diaz.

At a news conference Thursday in Casablanca, French actress Jeanne Moreau, who will preside over the jury, praised the event's cultural diversity.

TBS filming movie about JFK Jr.

LOS ANGELES -- Two unknown actors will play John F. Kennedy Jr. and actress Daryl Hannah, who dated Kennedy, in an upcoming TBS movie.

Kristoffer Polaha will play the son of the late U.S. president in "America's Prince: The JFK Jr. Story," based on Christopher Andersen's 2000 biography, "The Day John Died," TBS said Friday.

Polaha has appeared in TV episodes of "Angel," "Roswell" and "That's Life."

Tara Chocol, whose credits include episodes of "Sex and the City," "ER," "Judging Amy" and "The Practice," will play Hannah.

The movie is scheduled to air this December or in January 2003.

Earlier, TBS announced that Jacqueline Bisset would play Kennedy's mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Portia de Rossi would portray Kennedy's wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy.

Kennedy, his wife and her sister Lauren Bessette died in July 1999 when his plane crashed off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.

Sophia Loren attends Venice Film Festival

VENICE, Italy -- Sophia Loren's tears may not have been caught clearly on camera, but Italian newspapers splashed the wet drops across their pages nonetheless.

Arriving at the Venice Film Festival opening on Thursday for her son Edoardo Ponti's feature-film directorial debut, Loren was greeted with warmth by a loving crowd of fans to whom she blew a kiss and called out, "Grazie, grazie" -- "Thank you, thank you."

The Roman daily La Repubblica was more intent on telling its readers of "Venetian tears for mama Sophia," saying the role of mom sent her into sobs. Milan's Corriere della Sera's headline announced: "The Festival starts with Sophia's tears."

Venice's Gazzettino was a little more circumspect, saying "Some swear to have seen her 'cry,' while others minimize it, saying, 'Sure, she got a little teary-eyed.' Sophia moved? Could be."

Moore, Reynolds enjoy Southern hospitality

GRIFFIN, Ga. -- The cameras have been rolling in this middle Georgia town for a made-for-TV movie tentatively titled, "Miss Lettie and Me," starring Mary Tyler Moore and Burt Reynolds.

It's the story of a reclusive woman in Sawyer, a fictional Georgia town, and how her life changes when a 9-year-old niece she has never met comes to live with her.

"And it's how her stone heart melts to embrace the family she has left," producer Beth Polson said.

The film is scheduled to air Dec. 8 on TNT.

"It's a charming small town -- a small Southern town," Griffin Mayor Joanne Todd said this week. "We have renovated our downtown and made it pleasing to visitors to our community. Plus, we have historical buildings that can set the stage."

Polson, winner of four Emmy Awards, has produced dozens of films with an underlying positive message.

Book chronicles senator's personal struggles

NEW YORK-- Another possible presidential candidate has a book deal. Sen. John Edwards has signed to write about his years as a lawyer in North Carolina.

"The work will be a combination of courtroom drama and personal struggle that combine to give an important lesson about the power of individual citizens, the strength of family and the meaning of justice," said a statement issued Friday by publisher Simon & Schuster.

The book, not yet titled, is scheduled for release in 2003.

Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat, has been widely cited as a possible presidential candidate in 2004. Other possible contenders with books coming out include Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat from Connecticut and Gore's running mate in the 2000 campaign.

-- From wire reports