Japanese film director Juzo Itami (64), who won national and international fame for films such as Tampopo, Ososhiki (The Funeral), and Marusa no Onna (A Taxing Woman), died on Saturday after jumping from the roof of an eight-storey building. A colleague said yesterday that Itami was driven to suicide by a report about an alleged affair.
Regarded as Japan's second greatest living film-maker after Akira Kurosawa, Itami said in a suicide note: "My death is the only way to prove my innocence." Flash magazine is due to publish today a report alleging he was having an affair with a 26-year-old woman.
Welsh woman Cheryl Tooze (37) is expecting a baby by a boyfriend who was freed after being wrongfully jailed for the murder of her parents. Jonathan Jones was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 1995 at Newport Crown Court, convicted of the murder of Harry and Megan Tooze at their farm at Llanharry.
Since his arrest, Cheryl Tooze campaigned for his release along with his parents Graham and Pauline Jones. The campaign ended last April when Appeal Court judges ruled the conviction unsafe.
Royal couturier Elizabeth Emanuel, whose most famous commission was Princess Diana's wedding gown, says she wants to get back to her jointly-owned company, Elizabeth Emanuel International - although she was declared bankrupt last week.
Three months ago multimillionaire Shami Ahmed (34), who created the Joe Bloggs jeans brand, agreed to provide a vital cash injection into her haute couture business. But yesterday Emanuel reiterated claims that she had been excluded from the business she founded and remains in dispute with Ahmed.