Angelina tackles 'The Sun' over claims about adopted daughter

The actress has been angered by reports in The Sun that Jolie's adopted daughter was not, as she believed, an orphan.

The newspaper claimed last week that it had tracked down Zahara's mother to Ethiopia, where they found 18-year-old Mentewab Dawit alive and interviewed her.

Yesterday, Jolie was insisting that the story in The Sun is untrue and that Zahara's mother is dead. The star of Tomb Raider had already been in touch with her London-based solicitors, Schillings, to discuss bringing a legal action against the paper for invasion of privacy.

The Sun is standing firmly by its story. A spokesman said: "We have not been notified of any legal action against us and we stand by the story absolutely."

Meanwhile, Jolie's solicitor confirmed that he is in discussions with his client over the report: "I've not yet been issued with instructions to commence legal actions," he tells me. "But I am speaking to her again this afternoon."

Jolie, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations, has been subject to persistent speculation about her friendship with Brad Pitt, with whom she has been close since they filmed Mr and Mrs Smith together last year.

Pitt subsequently split up with his wife and fellow actor Jennifer Aniston, and has since been photographed at Jolie's home in Buckinghamshire.

* Last week, Keith Richards made a public apology to Mick Jagger for saying his lead singer has a "small cock".

Now he has raised the ire of a group of dancing girls, hired by the Rolling Stones' tour organisers to decorate the stage behind the band, after he refused to play in Boston if they were used.

"Organisers hired 25 gorgeous professional female dancers, outfitted them with costumes and paid for their transport," says a source. "But Keith didn't like the idea of sharing the stage with the beautiful young things."

According to the New York Daily News, Richards, far left, threw a "hissy fit" and said "no girls, or no show", so the dance troupe was dispatched to New York, by bus.

All this will do little to patch up differences between Jagger and Richards. Jagger had just congratulated the dancers on their dress rehearsal, and would undoubtedly have frowned at the thought of squandering the $100,000 that the whole thing cost.

An official spokesman says: "Every tour they try ideas, and make decisions on what works."

* Paul O'Grady is the victim of an impersonator, and isn't happy. Someone purporting to be the Liverpudlian transvestite comedian was yesterday contacting newspapers - including Pandora - by telephone and e-mail.

"There's a new show which is on the verge of being commissioned by ITV, but which they are dragging their heels on," he wrote.

"It's called A Lady for O'Grady and the format is simply me looking for a wife. Basically, I want to get this deal done, so perhaps you could say Sky are now also interested and are offering me £150,000 for it. That ought to spur ITV into action."

Yesterday, O'Grady as his alter ego Lily Savage, was eager to set the record straight. "The last thing I want is a wife," he tells me, immediately.

* Losing a job is always hard, and never more so than when you are a big man in the fickle world of fashion.

"I could not send an e-mail because I had three assistants, so I never had to learn," says Tom Ford, who stepped down as creative director of Gucci last year after he was unable to negotiate a new contract with its parent company, Pinault-Printemps-Redoute.

"I hadn't shopped online. I don't think I was a contemporary person any longer - I hadn't been in a grocery store in years."

Ford is unlikely to have too much time to spend pushing his shopping trolley around the local supermarket, however, as he is now launching a range of sunglasses and fragrances under his own name, and working on scripts for Hollywood films in his spare time.

* Although not as famous as his Hollywood namesake, the British comedian Will Smith is enjoying some success. Having performed at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, he has a book, called The Joy of No Sex, published today.

"It's a spoof on The Joy of Sex, about finding out what activities to replace it with," he tells me. "There was a bit of a bidding war among publishers for the book. I think there were three that wanted it: Penguin, Ebury, and HarperCollins.

"Anyway, we decided to go with Penguin because when we met them, the man in charge of marketing it came into the meeting completely naked, to show how much he liked the book. It would have been rude to turn him down after that."

pandora@independent.co.uk