ALISON BOSHOFF: The Scottish GP’s daughter who has become Amber Heard’s special friend in her libel case against Johnny Depp
When Amber Heard and Johnny Depp last faced off, at the High Court in London in July 2020, the actress was supported by her girlfriend, film producer Bianca Butti. The couple were pictured walking into court together most days from their suite at the Ham Yard Hotel.
Since then, Butti has left the scene; and Heard has also welcomed the birth of a daughter, Oonagh, by surrogate. She said in court this week that she is ‘both the mom and the dad’ to the infant. However it can be revealed that there is a new rock in her life, who may help to ease that burden: Scottish journalist Eve Barlow.
Barlow, who lives in Los Angeles, has been spotted out and about with Heard and the baby, and friends say the pair have formed a strong bond during this difficult period.
Amber Heard (right) and her partner Bianca Butti arrive at the Royal Courts of Justice in London for a hearing in July 2020
Amber Heard (right) with friend Eve Barlow outside a wine shop in London in August last year
One says: ‘Eve has been a huge support to Amber during the trial. She is an open person and has spoken proudly about their relationship.’
Barlow has been coming to support Heard in court most days, often sitting in the front benches along with her friend’s extended legal team during the case, which has been brought by Heard’s former husband Johnny Depp.
Barlow frequently tweets about Amber’s court ordeal, contending that the legal proceedings give Depp a chance to continue to ‘torture’ and ‘control’ his former wife.
In one Tweet she wrote: ‘The horrible truth is that people love dead victims more than living ones. People are mad that Amber Heard survived.’
Barlow, who comes from Giffnock, a suburb of Glasgow, was the deputy editor of the NME (New Musical Express) and has many celebrity friends. After leaving the publication she started work as a freelance interviewer, speaking with celebrities including Taylor Swift.
She once described herself as a ‘zionist’ on Twitter, where she has 49,000 followers. In an article about anti-semitism, published in Grazia magazine in 2015, she said that her great grandfather Gershwin Berelovitch left Russia in 1904 in search of a country of opportunity and tolerance. Her father, George, is a GP who was made an MBE for services to healthcare. But she wrote that she had gone to LA due to ‘Jew-bashing in the UK’.
Amber Heard and Johnny Depp are in court in Fairfax, Virginia, as a result of an article she wrote for the Washington Post in 2018, about the reaction to her speaking out about domestic abuse. Depp claims libel, and says the article caused him to lose his role as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise. Heard is countersuing, saying that her former husband has carried out a global smear campaign against her.
Spacey is back… as a villain
Kevin Spacey is to star in a micro-budgeted film called Peter Five Eight in which he plays the villain
He may not be attending the Cannes Film Festival, but the shadow of beleaguered actor Kevin Spacey has still fallen across La Croisette this week. A micro-budgeted film called Peter Five Eight — in which Spacey plays a villain — is being offered for international sale at the Marche de Film. Spacey plays Peter, a ‘charismatic man in a black sedan who shows up in a small mountainside community’. He co-stars with actress Rebecca De Mornay, whom Peter targets for information at the urging of his ‘shadowy’ boss Mr Lock. The actor, right, was spotted on set in Dunsmuir, California, smoking a cigarette in July last year. The film is based on a Biblical passage which runs: ‘Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.’Spacey, who continues to deny all allegations of sexual harassment and assault, is preparing a robust legal defence in an imminent court case and is understood to be living quietly in London.
‘I don’t give a hoot for women’s lib!’ Bardot to narrate story of her life
Brigitte Bardot, whose sensual beauty captivated and scandalised the world, has lived as a recluse for decades, after giving up acting in 1973 when she was just 38, because she felt ‘crushed by celebrity’.
These days she lives with her dogs, cats, pigs, geese and a donkey in a cottage by a beach in Saint-Tropez, and is rarely seen.
However BB, as she is known to fans, will be coming out of seclusion at the age of 87 to narrate a definitive documentary about her life on and off screen — and her animal activism.
Titled simply Bardot, the film has been put together by Belgian Bafta-nominated director Alain Berliner and is being made by the British outfit Featuristic Films, in partnership with French Timpel Pictures. Bardot is collaborating fully in all aspects of the picture.
Julien Loeffler, of Featuristic Films, tells me it has taken two years to persuade the star to take part in the feature-length documentary. He said: ‘She will tell the story of her life, and will not hold anything back. It will be a very modern take on her life. Some of her causes have really been adopted by younger generations, who she continues to inspire.’
Bardot granted a phone interview to French Vogue in 2014 in which she said she never wanted to be a sex symbol, or an icon of sexual liberation.
Brigitte Bardot who scandalised the world with her beauty (pictured in 1956 and today) and lived as a recluse for decades is coming out of seclusion
She said: ‘That’s a load of absolute rubbish. I don’t know where they got that from. I don’t give a hoot for women’s lib. And they know where they can put it. As for sexual freedom, women didn’t wait for me to come along to liberate themselves. It’s a total misunderstanding! I never behaved scandalously. I was simply the person I wanted to be.’
She added of her famous dance scene in And God Created Woman in 1956: ‘We were at a party in Cannes, with (director Roger) Vadim and producer Raoul Lévy. All the people were uptight and I was dancing. They came up with idea of adapting that scene to that preposterous plot.’
Married four times, currently to Bernard d’Ormale, former adviser to far-Right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, she still runs her foundation for the protection and welfare of animals.
++Cannes tittle tattle++
There’s buzz in Cannes about some massive mainstream movie projects in the pipeline . . . none bigger than a prequel to The Hunger Games.
Based on Suzanne Collins’ 2019 novel The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, it will tell the story of Coriolanus Snow before he becomes the president of Panem — and he will be played by young British star Tom Blyth. That starts filming this summer, for release in late 2023, with a budget of $200 million.
There’s also excitement about a Dirty Dancing sequel, which will star the original Baby, Jennifer Grey; and tell the story of what happened next in her life. Film-makers are in touch with the estate of Patrick Swayze, as the story will involve his character Johnny in some way.
A rumored prequel to The Hunger Games will be based Suzanne Collins’ 2019 novel The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, telling the story of Coriolanus Snow (pictured) before he becomes the president of Panem
Get ready to turn the volume up to 11! A sequel to the beloved mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap has just been announced.
The original cast — Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest (pictured) — are all confirmed to return for director Rob Reiner, who broke the news in Cannes after a special screening of the 1984 cult film on the beach. Ric Parnell, who played drummer Mick Shrimpton in the first movie, died earlier this month aged 70.
The idea for the new movie came about during lockdown over Zoom.
Reiner said: ‘I’ve never done a sequel, and I never wanted to do one — until now. We enjoy hanging out together and we’re probably not going to get a chance like this to work together again.’
Hopkins, who received a Best Actor Oscar last year, has four pictures due out in 2022, including family drama Armageddon Time, in which he stars opposite Anne Hathaway and Succession’s Jeremy Strong
Having conquered screen and stage, Sir Anthony Hopkins’ latest role sees him hamming it up for the cameras . . . on a fashion shoot. Hopkins, who received a Best Actor Oscar last year, appeared impishly enthusiastic to be advertising the wares of Spanish luxury fashion house Loewe. The 84-year-old shows few signs of slowing down, and only last month dropped his agents at United Talent Agency (UTA) to sign up with their rivals at long-established Creative Artists Agency (CAA). The Loewe campaign looks likely to be the first fruit of their labours, and sees him keeping up with the Insta crowd — co-stars include model Kaia Gerber, 20; Josh O Connor, 31; and Jessie Buckley, 32. But lest you worry that Hopkins is abandoning the day job, fear not. He has four pictures due out this year, including family drama Armageddon Time, in which he stars opposite Anne Hathaway and Succession’s Jeremy Strong. A memoir about growing up in New York in the mid-1980s, it received its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last night. The coming of age drama, written and directed by James Gray, features a character based on Fred Trump, Donald’s father.
There’s a restaurant in Cannes called La Pizza Cresci. Harvey W used to go there. On a wall is a mural with Johnny Depp, Woody Allen and Gerard Depardieu (Woody is playing the clarinet). The mere sight of it causes tooth sucking these days; and it’s putting patrons off their Pistou. Surely it will be gone by 2023 . . .
Bond star Lea Seydoux (pictured) is to take the lead role in a remaking of the erotic fable Emmanuelle. In a deal announced at the Cannes Film Festival this week, it was revealed that director Audrey Diwan will direct Seydoux in a script based on the infamous novel by Emmanuelle Arsan.
It tells the story of a woman’s erotic fantasies; and was famously made into a film starring Sylvia Kristel which made waves for its sexual frankness.
Seydoux is no stranger to love scenes which push the envelope. In Blue Is The Warmest Colour, she featured in a seven-minute lesbian encounter which (it was later revealed) took ten days to film.
She had a subsequent war of words with the movie’s director, Abdellatif Kechiche, and said this week: ‘It was the whole film; not only the sex scenes. The way we shot this film was just insane. The guy is nuts.’
She is in Cannes to promote David Cronenberg’s Crimes Of The Future: a stomach-churning vision of organ harvesting which appears guaranteed to cause outrage, walk-outs — and fainting — when it is screened here on Monday.
Lea Seydoux (pictured) is to take the lead role in a remaking of the erotic fable Emmanuelle
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