Names and faces

Australian actress and campaigner against sexual harassment Cate Blanchett will head this year’s Cannes film festival jury, organizers said Thursday. The appointment of Blanchett, 48, comes months after she expressed her support to the dozens of women who came forward with allegations of sexual assault and harassment against Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul. More recently, she joined the Time’s Up initiative alongside other high-profile actresses including Reese Witherspoon and Emma Stone. The campaign aims to clamp down against sexual harassment and inequality in the workplace. In announcing Blanchett’s appointment, Cannes organizers did not mention the Weinstein scandal or her commitment to the fight against sexual harassment. “I have been to Cannes in many guises over the years; as an actress, producer, in the marketplace, the gala-sphere and in competition,” Blanchett said. “But never solely for the sheer pleasure of watching the cornucopia of films this great festival harbors.” A two-time Academy award winner, Blanchett follows Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, who headed the 70th edition of the festival last year. This year’s star-studded event on the French Riviera will take place May 8-19.

A fiddle that Goodwill believes was once owned by country music legend Roy Acuff is expected to generate thousands of dollars for the charitable organization in the Kansas City area. The Kansas City Star reported that the fiddle was donated anonymously to Goodwill of Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas and is being sold in an online auction at shopgoodwill.com. As of Thursday the high bid was $8,002. The auction is open until 11 p.m. Central time Saturday. Acuff, who died in 1992 at age 89, was the first living inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame, best known for hits such as “Wabash Cannonball” and “Tennessee Waltz.” The fiddle was made by Evart Acuff, Roy Acuff’s uncle, in August 1945 in Maryville, Tenn. It isn’t clear why it was donated to a Kansas City Goodwill store. “We recognized right away that it was something special and we now have it up for auction,” said Gary Raines, who runs Goodwill’s e-commerce program in Kansas City. “We have no information on the owner. They just donated it and moved on,” he said. The fiddle, made of applewood apparently from a tree on a family farm, is now in Raines’ the possession. He said he was confident the fiddle was Acuff’s, even though the certificate of authenticity and other paperwork are copies. The report didn’t explain how Raines reached that conclusion.