AMANDA PLATELL: I can't believe everyone's missed the devastating hidden detail in Meghan's moodboard. It tells you everything about her and Harry's marriage
On the face of it, the montage of photos that the Duchess of Sussex shared on Instagram to celebrate her seventh wedding anniversary on Monday was a conventional enough selection of precious family moments.
But scan Meghan's 'love story mood board' more closely and a fascinating insight into her psyche emerges.
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Daily Mail
4 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Casualty hunk 'dating another BBC co-star' just months after 'drifting apart' from his Call The Midwife colleague who played his on-screen wife
A Casualty hunk is reportedly dating another on-screen co-star, just months after splitting from his Call The Midwife girlfriend. Actor Olly Rix is said to be romantically involved with Anna Chell, 28, who stars in the BBC medical drama as nurse Jodie Whyte. Olly, 40, plays handsome clinical lead consultant Flynn Byron on Casualty and was introduced to viewers earlier this year. A source close to Olly said he is in a 'really good place' and is enjoying his 'blossoming romance' with Anna. They told The Sun: 'After finding himself uncomfortably thrust into the spotlight towards the end of his time on Call the Midwife, Olly's in a really good place at the moment. 'Over the last year he's quickly settled into his new role on Casualty, got a new home in Cardiff where the drama is filmed, and is enjoying a blossoming romance with Anna. 'Devotees of the drama will no doubt be analysing their scenes together to see if there are tell-tale hints of chemistry between them - assuming they haven't already spotted signs.' MailOnline has contacted representatives for both Olly and Anna for comment. Olly took to social media on the weekend to reveal he had been spending time with Anna as they enjoyed a masonry class together. They could be seen engraving one another's names onto stone. Prior to landing a role in the emergency department, Olly played Helen George's on-screen husband Matthew Aylward in Call The Midwife. The pair later became close off-screen, though 'drifted apart' with Helen, 41, spotted on celebrity dating app Raya in September 2024. Olly and Helen were said to be supporting each other through their respective breakups when they grew close. It was revealed that Helen had split from her partner Jack Ashton in July 2023 after seven years together, whilst Olly separated from his girlfriend Natasha Fagri at a similar time. In November of that year Helen was spotted leaving Olly's home just hours after he was spotted returning with two coffees An insider said at the time: 'It's been a tricky year for both Helen and Olly. They have been spending a lot of time together on set, walking their dogs together and chatting a lot. 'They both have respect for each other as actors and they are supportive of each other and dedicated to their roles on the drama. The changes in their relationships have caused a lot of upheaval.' However, a spokesperson for Helen hit back: 'Yes, she went to visit a friend for a cup of tea - like all friends do - and as we have always said, there is nothing more to this.'
Telegraph
11 minutes ago
- Telegraph
How John Travolta went from $20 million to £128 a film
If you had been one of the millions of cinemagoers who watched Look Who's Talking in 1989, you would have hardly have predicted that it was a cursed film. Yet now, three and a half decades later, unfortunate fates have befallen its three lead actors. Kirstie Alley died in 2022, after a series of personal and professional disasters. Bruce Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia around the same time and retired from acting, leaving his lasting legacy as the films he made in his heyday, rather than the immediately forgotten low-budget B-movies he specialised in for the last years of his career. And as for John Travolta? Well, he's still working, and still making pictures. Except, for his own dignity, it might be time that he stopped doing so. If you have not seen the 71-year-old Travolta's latest film High Rollers, then don't worry, nobody else has either. It has received the most nominal of theatrical releases imaginable in the UK, and may well have made about the same kind of money that 2023's Mob Land grossed when it came out: an unimpressive $171 (approximately £128) from three screens. It is the kind of quickie that the actor has been specialising in for years, to negligible artistic or financial impact. In fact, it is the swiftly made sequel to another film, 2024's Cash Out, which stars him as the same character, mastermind professional thief Mason Goddard. However this one does, a third picture in this series has already been filmed, between March and April this year, and will probably be released early in 2026, if not before. In 2018, one of this newspaper's writers, reflecting on Travolta's apparently moribund career, reflected that 'He's a relic of a different time, and struggling to find his place in a world that has evolved far beyond him.' This has been the case for many actors who once bestrode the heights of Hollywood like colossuses but have now been reduced to appearing in the most derivative and poorly made pap imaginable. (The lack of quality inherent in Cash Out and High Rollers might be best expressed by its director Randall Emmett, to whom we shall return, working under the pseudonym 'Ives', as if in shame. Don't worry, Mr Emmett, you will not be forgotten.) It is generally a given that the star system has collapsed (Tom Cruise and, if F1 does the business, Brad Pitt aside). A-list actors who once commanded $20 million (approximately £14.9 million) a picture without blinking (as Travolta once did) have either had to endlessly reprise their best-known roles (hello, Harrison Ford), quietly retired from cinema (we're looking at you, Mr Nicholson) or have continued to work in ever-worsening projects. Still, even by these miserable standards, Travolta seems to have thrown himself in at the shallow end with gusto. One of the many low points came when he played the mobster John Gotti in a curiously indulgent biopic that portrayed a mass-murdering gangster as a charming, essentially decent family man, to critical and audience disbelief alike. It is one of the relatively few mainstream pictures to have an uncoveted 0 per cent rating on the reviews aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, meaning it has not received a single positive review. Only slightly better received was the Fred Durst directed and co-written stalker drama The Fanatic, in which Travolta played an autistic man obsessed by his favourite film star. As one of the most famous figures in Hollywood, you might have expected the actor to bring an unusual degree of empathy and knowledge to the role. But as the New York Times remarked of The Fanatic, it 'delineates the border that separates the merely stale from the genuinely rancid'. Since 2018, he has made eight films including Gotti and The Fanatic, and one curious short offering, The Shepherd, based on a novella by the late Frederick Forsyth, and in which he fleetingly appears as the eponymous shepherd, a ghostly WWII pilot guiding other airmen to safety. Still, the Iain Softley-directed, Alfonso Cuarón-produced mini-feature is infinitely more watchable than just about anything else that he has appeared in over the same period, harnessing what remains of his movie-star charisma to diverting effect. Otherwise, his pictures are more of the same; braindead action and crime films that manage to rope Travolta in alongside other actors, who are paid a lot of money for a few days' work and to put their name above the title. These have included Willis, who cannot be blamed for putting together a retirement fund, Morgan Freeman and even Robert de Niro, whose appearance in the 2013 thriller Killing Season (opposite Travolta, naturally) may have represented a nadir in the career of the man who once appeared in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. But since then, de Niro has gone on to reunite with Scorsese and be Oscar-nominated, as well as to be charmless and monosyllabic in interviews. His co-star, by way of contrast, continues his inexorable decline into mediocrity. You'd call him the Doug McClure of contemporary cinema, but at least McClure was having fun in his B-movies like Warlords of Atlantis and At The Earth's Core. Travolta, meanwhile, is stuck far beneath the earth's core, in endless, awful dross that represents a kind of cinematic hell. The man responsible for keeping him in this eternal bondage is Emmett, whose company Emmett/Furla Oasis Films has become synonymous with a bait 'n' switch technique known as the 'geezer teaser'. The idea is that audiences are lured into watching a picture with a well-known lead, usually a Willis or Travolta, but these actors have only been hired to work for a couple of days, and are on screen for a matter of a few scenes and 10 minutes or so. (One obvious giveaway – in higher-budget films, too – is that the actor appears on the same set for all their scenes, in only slightly different costumes.) While Emmett, aka 'the Tasmanian devil', as his business partner once called him, has been involved with some artistically respectable pictures (including Scorsese's Silence), most of his output is poorly made rot that has negligible appeal to anyone apart from the terminally bored or the pathologically undemanding. As for the A-list actors paid huge amounts to appear in his terrible pictures, Al Pacino, who earned $6 million (approximately £4.4 million) for 19 days of work on American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally, cheerily set out his own estimation of Emmett when he sent him an email – which subsequently leaked. 'Let's do this Randall. I'm not going for the A's or the B's,' Pacino wrote. 'I'm going for something between C and B. I don't like Ds.' Still, Pacino is a bona fide cinematic legend, whereas Travolta these days is an increasingly pitiable figure. His Nineties heyday of Pulp Fiction and Face/Off is long since gone, and the last cinematic release of any note that he appeared in was Oliver Stone's modestly successful 2012 picture Savages, in which he had a supporting role as a corrupt DEA agent. He has had occasional flurries of visibility since then, admittedly. There was a major appearance in 2016's The People vs OJ Simpson as the attorney Robert Shapiro, for which he was Emmy and Golden Globe nominated. At his best, Travolta was always better playing an anti-hero, or an outright villain, than he ever was a good guy. In most of his most memorable roles, there's something off-the-leash about him, and as Shapiro, his line readings and over-the-top theatrics gave him his most enjoyable part since 2001's Swordfish. Few would dispute Travolta's acting ability, more his choice in projects, which presumably stems from a lavish lifestyle that includes his own Boeing 737, parked outside his capacious Florida mansion. But after a while, there is only so much money one man can need. Appearing in Cash In – sorry, Cash Out – is not going to make any existential difference. In 1978, after his first flurry of success with Grease and Saturday Night Live, Rolling Stone was sufficiently confident in the future career of the young Travolta to declare that 'He will be revered forever, in the manner of Elvis, James Dean, [and] Marilyn Monroe.' Had Travolta retired from cinema in, say, 1999, this reputation would still be intact. But he made the catastrophic decision to celebrate his Scientology faith with the all-time-disaster Battlefield Earth in 2000, which did nothing for his credibility and turned him into a laughing stock. In retrospect, it seems incredible that he was still able to play leading roles in mainstream pictures like Tony Scott's remake of The Taking of Pelham 123 and Hairspray. The unlovely legacy of Battlefield Earth – recently voted the worst picture ever made by IMDB users – still hangs over him to this day. It is also true that the actor has suffered some significant personal losses; his son Jett died in 2009 and his wife, the actress Kelly Preston, died of breast cancer in 2020. Most would feel sympathy for him if he chose either to step away from film altogether or to concentrate on taking small, interesting roles with talented directors. It is easy to imagine Paul Thomas Anderson or Christopher Nolan offering Travolta a career-resurrecting role, albeit one in which his considerable vanity might be stripped away from him. Instead, his next part in a film anyone might have any interest in seeing is in the musical romantic comedy That's Amore, in which Travolta stars opposite Katherine Heigl – 25 years his junior – as a lifelong bachelor who meets and falls in love with a troubled woman. It has been described as 'a present-day Marty', and has some potential, especially if Travolta and Heigl make for a convincing on-screen duo. Yet even here there are difficulties. The film, which is written and directed by the Oscar-winning Green Book screenwriter Nick Vallelonga, was shot in late 2022, and is still awaiting a release date. It was not helped by 2023 legal shenanigans that saw dozens of crew members sue for hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. Until such things are settled, Travolta's potential chance of a comeback is sitting on a shelf somewhere. At least there's always the possibility of self-parody. In December 2023, he appeared in a Capital One advert that managed to imagine what Saturday Night Fever's Tony Manero would be doing if he turned into Santa, and it had more wit and charm in its brief span than in any film he's made that runs a hundred times the length. The actor seldom gives interviews these days – less out of unreachability and more because he has little noteworthy to promote – and his Instagram account is mainly devoted to pictures of his family, including his daughter, the actress and singer Ella Bleu. There have been occasional complaints of unsavoury behaviour, but any court cases brought against him have been consistently dismissed. Although his public eccentricities – referring to singer Idina Menzel as ' Adele Dazeem ' during the Oscars, for instance, and planting an enthusiastic kiss on a stone-faced Scarlett Johansson – are well known, they are the stuff of hilarity, rather than cancellation. Still, he keeps himself busy, after a fashion, when he isn't spending a few weeks at a time making appalling films. He was seen at the Paris Olympics with Ella last year, where – naturally – he flew himself in on his private jet, and later uploaded a brief 'what I did on my holidays' montage to his Instagram account. He has befriended the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, for reasons best known to himself. In his first wilderness period in the Eighties, Travolta famously danced with Princess Diana at the White House in 1985, so there is at least precedent of sorts for this association. (Although it remains to be seen whether Harry and Meghan ever find themselves taking up the Scientology that Travolta is said still to practice.) Celebrity gossip has linked him with Sex and the City actress Kristin Davis. Some may not care what Travolta does next, and certainly, he has exhausted the patience of all but his most loyal admirers. But Hollywood loves a comeback, and the actor's return in 1994 with Pulp Fiction was one of the most spectacular in Hollywood. Tarantino remains consistent in his admiration for Travolta as an actor, praising his performance in Brian de Palma's Hitchcockian thriller Blow Out a matter of a couple of months ago, and there have been rumours that the filmmaker is keen to cast his former Vincent Vega in whatever his final film turns out to be. Whether he can manage to rise from direct-to-streaming death for a second time, courtesy of Tarantino or another A-lister, or whether he's stuck in the Randall Emmett closet for all eternity remains to be seen.
Daily Mail
11 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Royal Ascot punters 'moved like professional fighters' during brawl in front of shocked onlookers and were 'part of the same group', says man who filmed viral footage of scrap
The man who filmed a viral punch-up between two racegoers on Ladies' Day at Royal Ascot has described how the pair moved like 'professional' fighters as a pal acted as their referee while they traded blows. Jermaine Kingsman, 34, shot the widely seen footage of two men in grey and cream suits engaging in a bloody brawl after 'squabbling' on the edge of the Bandstand Lawn at Ascot last Thursday. The footage has since spread across social media and has been viewed millions of times by viewers horrified at the sight of the man in the cream suit, left bloodied after being slammed face-first into the ground during the brutal and shocking scrap. Jermaine - known to pals as Jem - says he was stunned to witness the fight at around 3.30pm during his first ever visit to Ascot - and is convinced at least one of those scrapping was a professional fighter based on his moves. Mr Kingsman, who owns his own clothing business, has even offered the bloody-nosed man a free suit after the clip blew up his inbox. 'That guy in the grey, I don't know who he is or what martial arts training he's done, but it looks like he's a professional boxer,' he told MailOnline. 'I've never seen anything like it - he was landing clean punches. He didn't miss a single punch. Pardon my French, but he beat the s*** out of that kid.' The 34-year-old and his friends had only just arrived half an hour beforehand, hours after the gates had first opened, when they saw the two men squaring up. Do you know the men seen fighting? Email: He believes the pair had been drinking before a disagreement broke out between the pair, who were part of the same group. 'It starts at 10.30, doesn't it? So people drinking from 10 in the morning, sun's out, birds around and gambling? It's a recipe for disaster,' he said. 'There was a bit of an argument going on between the lads. We weren't close enough to see what they were actually arguing about, but they were squabbling, and it looked like they were part of the same group. 'All their friends were around them and just letting them crack on and have a fight. You can see it in the video - there's a lad there who looks like he's being the referee.' In jaw-dropping scenes of violence, the men are seen trading blows, the man in grey swinging his entire body into the punch as he leaps and squats like a boxer, light on his feet. As they lay into one another, a man in cream trousers and waistcoat and a black shirt is seen putting his arms towards the pair, as if ready to separate them at any moment. 'It was like he was making sure it was some kind of even straightener (fair fight) - he was just letting them have it out and making sure no one else got involved,' Mr Kingsman said. 'I'm all for people having a good time but I've seen a lot of fights go the wrong way, people getting involved, people rushing in, but that was almost old school. It was madness.' As the fight continues to unfold in front of shocked onlookers, the man in cream then head-charges his opponent in grey, clutching at his body before he is thrown to the floor face-first and hit in the head with another punch. Rolling onto his back and struggling to his feet, the man in the cream suit is seen bleeding heavily from his face, onto the lapels of his jacket. He wipes the blood from his face onto his hand before smearing it on the leg of his suit. The fight then cooled off, Mr Kingsman said. He was seen wiping the blood from his face and onto his suit. Mr Kingsman has offered to replace the suit, free of charge 'After that the lads just broke up. I don't know where the security was but then they just separated and went about their business, to be honest,' he continued. 'That video's gotten five, six million views on Twitter. I think the video has gone viral because of the way that guy (in the grey) was fighting.' Mr Kingsman, from east London, was equally amused because the cream suit the man in the video was wearing looked eerily similar to one he sells through his own startup clothing business, SUITD. It's so similar, in fact, that he is willing to provide the scrapping racegoer with a replacement suit from his range, free of charge. 'If I find out who the guy was, I'll give him a free suit. I think that's the least I could do after what he's gone through,' he added. Ascot Racecourse said the individuals involved had been removed after the fight took place. Organisers of this year's festival had rolled out a 'zero-tolerance' operation to keep the peace after some 36 people were arrested in 2024, with alleged offences ranging from assault to drink-driving and possession of Class A drugs. There were also concerns over dehydration and heatstroke at this year's festival amid a heatwave that saw scores of people report to the course's medical centre over the course of the weekend. A spokesperson previously said of the incident: 'We operate a strict behavioural management policy and take a zero-tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour. 'Both individuals were apprehended and ejected, with one requiring medical treatment on site.' Thames Valley Police is continuing to appeal for information in connection with the scrap last week. No arrests have been made. A spokesperson for the force said: 'We are aware of an affray that has taken place inside Ascot Racecourse on Thursday (19/6). 'An investigation into the circumstances surrounding this incident are ongoing, and we would ask anyone who recognises the people in the video to please come forward, as they may have vital information to assist us with our investigation. 'Anyone with information or footage should call us on 101 quoting reference 43250306653 or report online via our website. 'Alternatively, you can also call the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.'
