Gal Gadot tapped for Cleopatra

LOS ANGELES » Gal Gadot’s casting as Cleopatra in an upcoming Paramount film has launched a debate about the Egyptian ruler’s ancestry and whether the actress is right for the role.

The film, which will be directed by Patty Jenkins froma script by Laeta Kalogridis, was Gadot’s idea and is being billed as an epic biographical drama.

Gadot, best known for playing Wonder Woman in two Jenkins projects (including the upcoming “Wonder Woman 1984”), is of Israeli descent. She is far fromthe first white woman to play the role: Claudette Colbert, Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor have all portrayed the historical figure in the past. Cleopatra was a descendant of Ptolemy I, a Macedonian Greek who established himself as king of Egypt after the death of his companion Alexander the Great. However, because her mother’s identity is unknown, Cleopatra’s ethnicity remains a mystery.

PASADENA, CALIF. » The childhood home of Eddie Van Halen and a sidewalk outside a nearby liquor store have been turned into memorials to the legendary rock guitarist in his adopted hometown near Los Angeles.

The shrines began popping up shortly after Van Halen’s death from cancer at age 65 last week. The tributes have continued to grow and attract a steady stream of visitors day and night.

VanHalenwas born in theNetherlands, andmoved toPasadena, Calif., withhisparents and older brother Alex when he was 7.

A couple dozen people milled about the nondescript yellow house on Las Lunas Street, swapping memories and snapping photos of the f lowers

and old photos of the guitar virtuoso.

“This way people have a chance to come out and share their feelings,” said Jackie Gibson, whose younger brother was childhood friends with the Van Halens. “We need that right now. We really haven’t had a chance to celebrate with everything being closed down. It’s a time people can come together and heal.”

A pickup stopped in front of the house and its overgrown yard and cranked Van Halen’s music, fittingly shattering the quiet on the otherwise neatly kept block. A shed where the brothers practiced still stands in the fenced-in backyard. They continued living at the house, which is now a rental, for a couple of years after their eponymous debut albumcame out in 1978.

Legend has it that the name Van Halen, seen etched in concrete at the corner of Allen and Villa in Pasadena, Calif., was done by brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen when they lived in Pasadena, Calif., in their younger years.