Mary-Kate Olsen is reportedly on the verge of dropping out of university, just weeks after starting life as a student. The teenage actress/entrepreneur has been spending time in Los Angeles, 2,642 miles from New York University and the Manhattan apartment she shares with her sister Ashley, according to newspaper the New York Daily News. A source tells columnist Lloyd Grove, "She's moved back to LA, and might be staying indefinitely. She may not go back to school. Ashley says she's not sure if Mary-Kate wants to come back. They talk on the phone all the time." A representative for the family admits Mary-Kate - who only recently checked out of hospital, where she was treated for an eating disorder - has been in Los Angeles, but insists she will return to college. Michael Pagnotta says, "She's been in LA for a few days and she's coming back in a few days. I think she'll be there for about a week. She's there on personal business. She had some things she wanted to take care of."

Bernie Mac's hit sitcom The Bernie Mac Show has been put on hiatus, while the comedian battles exhaustion. Mac spent much of the summer simultaneously shooting Ocean's Twelve and Guess Who, while also promoting the movie MR 3000, before heading back to the set of The Bernie Mac Show. And now that he's exhausted, bosses at Regency TV and Fox have decided to temporarily halt production on the sitcom - which had already suffered delays due to Mac's schedule - and give the star a four-week break before picking back up again. As a result, the show will not return to American screens on 3 November as originally planned, reports website Eurweb. Fox says in a statement, "Bernie should be fully recovered in a matter of weeks, production will then resume, and the series will return to the schedule."

American Psycho star Christian Bale was so determined to beef up to play Batman just six weeks after playing an emaciated machine operator in The Machinist he made himself sick by gorging on pizza and ice-cream. The actor lost a third of his body weight for The Machinist and only had a few weeks to bulk up to impress producers as a potential Caped Crusader in Batman Begins. He recalls, "It was only about six weeks between finishing The Machinist and doing the screen test for Batman Begins. The director, Christopher Nolan, asked me to try and put on as much weight as I could because he would find it very difficult to convince the studio to cast me if I was a beanpole. In doing so I overdid it because I was enjoying gorging. I was ignoring advice about taking it slowly because my stomach had shrunk, and I should just go with soups. I was straight into pizza and ice-cream and eating five meals in a sitting. My stomach expanded really quickly. I got very sick during that time but I enjoyed getting sick. I didn't mind it at all. In that short amount of time I did actually go from 121 (pounds) right back up to 180 (pounds) which is way too fast so that resulted in some doctor visits to get things sorted out."

Former Growing Pains star Tracey Gold appeared in a Los Angeles court yesterday to plead not guilty to three felony counts stemming from a drink-driving charge. The actress escaped unhurt when she lost control of her vehicle on a Californian highway last month, but her husband and children were injured. She was subsequently charged with driving with an excessive blood alcohol level and felony child endangerment, which carries a maximum punishment of five years in jail. Her lawyer Blair Berk says of her client, "She's taking this matter very seriously. Thank you for all the enquiries of concern about her family. They're doing great."

Troubled rock chick Courtney Love is looking for a younger lover to help her straighten her life out. The 40-year-old former Hole frontwoman is trying to get her act together following a number of brushes with the law and a self-confessed drug problem - and she's convinced "doing a Demi Moore" will help her. According to reports Love is asking friends to set her up with "eligible boys" between the ages of 18 and 30.

Sexy actress Marisa Tomei decided to skip the screening of her new movie Alfie at its London premiere on Thursday-because she wanted to eat Chinese food instead. The Oscar-winning beauty admits that while she happily graced the red carpet alongside co-stars Jude Law and Sienna Miller at the event, she refused to actually watch the film. She explains, "I haven't seen it yet. I get too nervous, actually. I went to the premiere and then I left for Chinese food and then I returned for the party. It was nerve-wracking with so many people. But Susan Sarandon, who's also in the movie, was saying that she likes to stay and watch it with a lot of people, but I feel vulnerable like that." Tomei insists she'll watch the movie just once and then "that's it".

Late President Ronald Reagan's daughter is suing the Salvation Army for breach of contract, accusing the group of reneging on a speaking engagement because she supports stem cell research. According to the complaint filed last week in New York's Manhattan Supreme Court, author Patti Davis signed a contract to speak at a Salvation Army event in Santa Rosa, California, on November 19. But one day after appearing on American TV show Primetime Live in August, the Salvation Army told Davis' booking agent that it no longer wanted her to speak at the event and that neither her $15,000 fee or a $7,500 cancellation charge would be paid. Her lawyer Lawrence Fabian says, "They said (it) was against their policy and position." A lawyer for the Salvation Army, Michael Watters, insists the lawsuit is without merit because "there was no binding contract". Davis supports stem-cell research because she believes it would have helped her father, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

French sixties siren Brigitte Bardot is celebrating after a Paris court threw out a defamation lawsuit against her. Radio Courtesy host Marc-Olivier Fogiel infuriated the ...And God Created Woman actress during a May 12, 2003 broadcast, when he insisted she talk about her controversial best-selling book Un Cri Dans Le Silence (A Cry In The Silence). Bardot, 70, was convicted in June of inciting racial hatred in her 2003 book with her comments comparing Muslims to "invaders, cruel and barbaric". On Monday the Parisian court ruled Bardot had been provoked into calling Fogiel "a little jerk". Judge Nicolas Bonnal agreed that "the expression little jerk seemed injurious" toward the presenter. Bonnal added, "There is a direct relationship between provocation and injury, appearing proportional to it. The injury can be excused."

Nicky Hilton is hoping to follow in the footsteps of her pioneering great- grandfather Conrad Hilton - by opening her own hotel. Nicky, younger sister of socialite Paris Hilton, is eager to try her hand at the hotel business herself - and she has her sights set on American gambling capital Las Vegas as the place to do it. She says, "I would love to open a boutique hotel in Vegas. I've talked about it with people. I would design the place."

Britney Spears has reportedly used a two-year-old photograph on the cover of her new greatest hits album - because she's unhappy with the way she looks now. According to sources, Spears' head was airbrushed over an old body shot for the front of her Greatest Hits: My Prerogative CD. But she's still not happy with the result. She is quoted in British magazine New! saying, "I look like a porn star. And why the blonde hair? I am so over being blonde."