Names and faces
■ Tokyo police have arrested a man who allegedly attacked a car carrying Japanese entertainment icon Takeshi Kitano with a pickax, though nobody was injured, according to media reports. The 74-yearold director and actor, also known by his stage name Beat Takeshi, was in the car with his driver and was just leaving the compound of TBS television network after his weekly live talk show Saturday night, TBS and other Japanese media reported Sunday. The suspect allegedly smashed Kitano’s car several times with a pickax, demanding Takeshi get out of the car, TBS reported. A security guard called police and the suspect was arrested at the scene, reports said. The suspect is a man in his 40s and was also carrying a knife with a 4-inch blade, according to media reports, including Kyodo News and TBS. On Monday, Tokyo police refused to confirm the reports, though they did say that a suspect was arrested on suspicion of illegal possession of weapons. TBS said the suspect told police that he got angry after he was ignored in June when he kneeled down before Kitano’s car seeking help to let him join the entertainment industry. Police are investigating the suspect’s motives, reports said. Multi-talented Kitano is also active as a comedian, actor and writer. He won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for “Hana-Bi” in 1997 and has also directed other popular films including “Zatoichi,” “Sonatine,” and “Outrage.”
■ Three years ago, in private and surrounded by family, Stanley Tucci fought back — and won — against cancer. The 60-yearold actor revealed in a new interview that he had been diagnosed with a tumor at the base of his tongue that was too big to operate on, and instead required high-dose radiation and chemo. Former model, Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning actor told Vera Magazine that “I’d vowed I’d never do anything like that, because my first wife died of cancer, and to watch her go through those treatments for years was horrible.” His first wife, Kate Spath-Tucci, died of breast cancer in 2009 at the age of 47. Most of the time, Tucci said, his family was by his side, including wife Felicity Blunt, twins Isabel and Nicolo, 20, and Camilla, 18, from his first marriage and 5-year-old Matteo and 2-year-old Emilia, whom he shares with Blunt. For six months, he was on a feeding tube. “I could barely make it to the twins’ high school graduation.” Now, the New York native said, the cancer is unlikely to return, but its effects are permanent.