Phone Hacking Scandal: Hugh Grant Settles News of the World Claim

LONDON – Hugh Grant has settled his claim against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. publishing division News International, winning substantial damages.

The actor's solicitor told The Guardian he plans to donate the undisclosed amount of cash won to Hacked Off, the organization fighting for stricter press regulation.

Grant, the public face of the campaign and a director, secured the damages payout after the News Of The World phone hacking scandal fallout.

Murdoch's News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary, published the Sunday tabloid until its closure last year.

STORY: Jon Stewart: I'll 'Never' Ask Hugh Grant Back on the 'Daily Show'

Grant's solicitor Mark Thompson told The Guardian his famous client will donate the money to the Hacked Off campaign for press reform, of which he is a prominent backer, along with an additional personal donation.

"Hugh Grant has today settled his claims for damages and other legal remedies arising out of the unlawful activities of News of the World journalists and others over a number of years," said Thomson in the newspaper Friday. "News Group Newspapers have agreed to pay him a substantial sum by way of damages. He has instructed us to donate all of his damages plus an additional payment from him to the Hacked Off campaign for a free and accountable media. This will be done as soon as payment is received."

Thomson said a statement would be made in open court "shortly in the new year."

Grant was one of 178 people suing the publisher in a second wave of civil litigations lodged in the high court this autumn.

He is among more than 20 people who have settled their claims out of court since October.

Grant first mooted the possibility of legal action over phone hacking in May last year after he said he was shown evidence by police that his phone had been hacked.

The actor appeared before the Leveson inquiry into media ethics last year and told the judge that hundreds of celebrities and actors would forgo damages and apologies if newspapers would "just make an undertaking never to mention their names again."

Grant also fronted a Channel 4 documentary about the tabloids on the eve of the publication of the Leveson report in November and has subsequently pledged to campaign for a new press law until the general election in 2015.

He said the Hacked Off campaign was "going nowhere, and will go nowhere and will be there for the forseeable future to ensure there is no cosy stitch-up for the eighth time running."

"They are not going to turn the face against the united views of the public who are very clearly on our side and on the side of the victims," he added.

Murdoch closed down The News of the World in July last year as the phone hacking scandal engulfed it.

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Dyan Cannon book recounts life with Cary Grant (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – It was a fairy tale romance that turned in to a stormy marriage, and now Dyan Cannon has chronicled her relationship with Hollywood legend Cary Grant in her new book, "Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant."

With an age difference of over 30 years, the duo had a magical courtship in the 1960s that eventually gave way to the dark side of Grant after they were engaged. Following three years of marriage and not long after the birth of their daughter Jennifer, the couple divorced and Cannon suffered a nervous breakdown.

Cannon, now in her early 70s, sat down with Reuters to talk about her former late husband and what she's learned about love over the years.

Q: Why focus the book just on your years with Cary?

A: "I've been offered so much money over the years to write a kiss and tell, which this is not. I wanted this to be a helpful book, an inspirational book. It's really about the little things that happen in our relationships that tear us asunder, so I felt people would benefit from most of this."

Q: Is there an underlying message you wanted to relay?

A: "One of the biggest messages is that it is wonderful to love and to serve and to give. It's wonderful to try and make people happy, but it's impossible to do so."

Q: What was the biggest challenge in writing this book?

A: "I know how people feel about Cary -- they love him. I didn't want people to lose the stars in their eyes about him. I wanted people to love him more at the end of this book than they did before. This book humanizes him. They'll understand what formed him. And I had such compassion for what formed him. But I also suffered a breakdown. So balancing all that was my biggest challenge."

Q: There must have been a lot of stories to sort through.

A: "I didn't know what to put in and what to leave out. The first (draft) was so out of balance. The second time around it started to take shape. The third time I thought, 'Maybe I've got it now.'"

Q: Cary was a big proponent of LSD use and wanted you to do it with him. But for you it was a disastrous experience. Do you think Cary had a drug problem?

A: "Absolutely not. With specificity, no. He thought LSD was his gateway to God, to peace, to that turmoil that wouldn't leave him alone. He thought it helped him, but I don't think it did. If it did, it gave him a peace that enabled him without being tormented 24 hours a day."

Q: Were you able to have a friendship after the divorce?

A: "We were polite."

Q: Was it hard getting your career back on track afterward? Did studio executives have to choose sides?

A: "Maybe some people for a moment. But Mike Frankovich was a good friend of Cary's. He was the head of Columbia Pictures and he chose me for 'Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice' (which earned Cannon an Oscar nomination). So no, not really."

Q: When Cary passed away in 1986 at the age of 82, did that affect you at all?

A: "I was amazed at how I mourned him. I couldn't believe how hammered I was by his death, how deeply I felt his loss. I loved him so dearly, but some of that love had to get pushed down through all the pain."

Q: Was he the greatest love of your life?

A: "I've known a lot of wonderful men. I've known a couple of jerks. And I think the best is yet to come (laughs). I do. Because I understand love now. That's why I can say I'm a whole, satisfied, complete woman. But up to now, I've certainly had no experience with anybody like I had with Cary. I loved him and he loved me. I was the only woman in the world that he trusted enough to have a baby with. That's a big deal to me."

Q: Your daughter, Jennifer, has a three year-old son, Cary Benjamin. Do you see traits of Cary in her or in little Cary?

A: "More with the grandchild. There's traits in Jennifer that remind me of Cary -- wonderful traits. But the little guy, he's something else!."

Q: Will you write another book to encompass all the other aspects of your life?

A: "I'm not sure about writing another book. I've had offers but writing a book is the hardest thing I've ever done. I'd like to write and perform a one-woman show with other people as a part of it. I've talked to a friend of mine, we're contemplating it and I've made a lot of notes. But as far as a second book about my career and things that happened to me? I'm not motivated to do that."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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Dyan Cannon book recounts life with Cary Grant

1 of 3. Actress Dyan Cannon poses for a portrait at her home in West Hollywood, California October 12, 2011. It was a fairy tale romance that turned in to a stormy marriage, and now Dyan Cannon has chronicled her relationship with Hollywood legend Cary Grant in her new book, ''Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant.'' With an age difference of over 30 years, the duo had a magical courtship in the 1960s that eventually gave way to the dark side of Grant after they were engaged. Following three years of marriage and not long after the birth of their daughter Jennifer, the couple divorced and Cannon suffered a nervous breakdown.

Credit: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

By Zorianna Kit

LOS ANGELES | Fri Oct 14, 2011 5:00pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It was a fairy tale romance that turned in to a stormy marriage, and now Dyan Cannon has chronicled her relationship with Hollywood legend Cary Grant in her new book, "Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant."

With an age difference of over 30 years, the duo had a magical courtship in the 1960s that eventually gave way to the dark side of Grant after they were engaged. Following three years of marriage and not long after the birth of their daughter Jennifer, the couple divorced and Cannon suffered a nervous breakdown.

Cannon, now in her early 70s, sat down with Reuters to talk about her former late husband and what she's learned about love over the years.

Q: Why focus the book just on your years with Cary?

A: "I've been offered so much money over the years to write a kiss and tell, which this is not. I wanted this to be a helpful book, an inspirational book. It's really about the little things that happen in our relationships that tear us asunder, so I felt people would benefit from most of this."

Q: Is there an underlying message you wanted to relay?

A: "One of the biggest messages is that it is wonderful to love and to serve and to give. It's wonderful to try and make people happy, but it's impossible to do so."

Q: What was the biggest challenge in writing this book?

A: "I know how people feel about Cary -- they love him. I didn't want people to lose the stars in their eyes about him. I wanted people to love him more at the end of this book than they did before. This book humanizes him. They'll understand what formed him. And I had such compassion for what formed him. But I also suffered a breakdown. So balancing all that was my biggest challenge."

Q: There must have been a lot of stories to sort through.

A: "I didn't know what to put in and what to leave out. The first (draft) was so out of balance. The second time around it started to take shape. The third time I thought, 'Maybe I've got it now.'"

Q: Cary was a big proponent of LSD use and wanted you to do it with him. But for you it was a disastrous experience. Do you think Cary had a drug problem?

A: "Absolutely not. With specificity, no. He thought LSD was his gateway to God, to peace, to that turmoil that wouldn't leave him alone. He thought it helped him, but I don't think it did. If it did, it gave him a peace that enabled him without being tormented 24 hours a day."

Q: Were you able to have a friendship after the divorce?

A: "We were polite."

Q: Was it hard getting your career back on track afterward? Did studio executives have to choose sides?

A: "Maybe some people for a moment. But Mike Frankovich was a good friend of Cary's. He was the head of Columbia Pictures and he chose me for 'Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice' (which earned Cannon an Oscar nomination). So no, not really."

Q: When Cary passed away in 1986 at the age of 82, did that affect you at all?

A: "I was amazed at how I mourned him. I couldn't believe how hammered I was by his death, how deeply I felt his loss. I loved him so dearly, but some of that love had to get pushed down through all the pain."

Q: Was he the greatest love of your life?

A: "I've known a lot of wonderful men. I've known a couple of jerks. And I think the best is yet to come (laughs). I do. Because I understand love now. That's why I can say I'm a whole, satisfied, complete woman. But up to now, I've certainly had no experience with anybody like I had with Cary. I loved him and he loved me. I was the only woman in the world that he trusted enough to have a baby with. That's a big deal to me."

Q: Your daughter, Jennifer, has a three year-old son, Cary Benjamin. Do you see traits of Cary in her or in little Cary?

A: "More with the grandchild. There's traits in Jennifer that remind me of Cary -- wonderful traits. But the little guy, he's something else!."

Q: Will you write another book to encompass all the other aspects of your life?

A: "I'm not sure about writing another book. I've had offers but writing a book is the hardest thing I've ever done. I'd like to write and perform a one-woman show with other people as a part of it. I've talked to a friend of mine, we're contemplating it and I've made a lot of notes. But as far as a second book about my career and things that happened to me? I'm not motivated to do that."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

View the original article here