A 36-year-old man has been arrested and charged with attempting to extort $1.5 million from TV titan Oprah Winfrey. A criminal complaint filed in Chicago, Illinois' District Court claims Atlanta, Georgia man Keifer Bonvillain, 36, targeted "a public figure and owner of a Chicago-based company". Local newspapers The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times have named Winfrey as the victim in question. Bonvillain is accused of illegally recording conversations with a Winfrey employee he met at a party over two years ago. The complaint claims Bonvillain emailed the "owner" in October saying he had records of the employee saying unflattering comments about her. Bonvillain is also alleged to have told the associate he would publish a book based on the recordings unless he received a substantial amount of money. After the associate got in touch with the FBI, he agreed to a $1.5 million price for the tapes and offered to meet Bonvillain in a car park. Bonvillain was arrested the following day. Bonvillain has refused to confirm or deny he attempted to extort money out of Winfrey, but says of the charges, "There is nothing to (the charges). It's nothing. It was a big mix-up." The employee in question admits to discussing his employer with Bonvillain, but says, "At no time during any of these telephone conversations did I give Mr. Bonvillain permission to tape record our discussions; neither did Mr. Bonvillain inform me that he was recording our conversations."

Video footage showing tragic Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin dying from a stingray barb to the chest has been destroyed now it's no longer needed by investigators. The footage of Irwin's last moments on 4 September last year was used in a police report and coroner's investigation into his death, but the original copy has now been returned to widow Terri Irwin and all other copies have been destroyed. The tape, reportedly showing Irwin snorkeling above the stingray before it whipped its tail into him, had reportedly been the subject of a million dollar bidding war from several websites. Irwin's manager John Stainton said, "Anything to do with the day that he died, that film is not available." Michael Barnes, the Australian coroner investigating the case, insisted he'd taken "all possible steps to ensure something of such a personal and tragic nature did not fall into the wrong hands". Irwin's last program, Ocean's Deadliest, featuring footage shot in the week before Irwin's death, will be shown for the first time in the US on the Discovery Channel on January 21.

Dame Helen Mirren has been named Best Actress by America's National Society of Film Critics for her role in The Queen, with Forest Whitaker taking the Best Actor prize for his turn in The Last King Of Scotland. Mark Wahlberg won the Best Supporting Actor award for his role in crime drama The Departed, with Meryl Streep as Best Supporting Actress prize for two roles, as a formidable fashion editor in The Devil Wears Prada and as a singer in A Prairie Home Companion. Spanish-language film Pan's Labyrinth, telling the story of a mother and daughter who come to live in an enchanted forest at the end of Spanish fascism, won the Best Picture prize at the 41st annual awards. Paul Greengrass took home the Best Director award for helming United 93, a film about passengers who rebelled against hijackers on the jet that crashed in rural Pennsylvania during the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Veteran British TV presenter Magnus Magnusson has died. He was 77. Magnusson, who was best known for presenting BBC television show Mastermind for 25 years beginning in 1972, announced in October that he had been diagnosed with cancer. BBC director general Mark Thompson says, "For millions of viewers Magnus Magnusson was one of the defining faces and voices of the BBC. To the contestants of Mastermind, he was a tough but always fair question master, but behind this screen persona there was a family man of tremendous warmth and humanity. All our thoughts are with his family at this very sad time, and everyone at the BBC will share their tremendous sense of loss." Magnusson was born in Iceland in 1929, before moving to Scotland as a one-year-old. He was awarded an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in 1989 and is survived by his wife and four children.

The producers of Eddie Murphy's new comedy Norbit are appealing to get a family-friendly PG-13 rating for the film in America. Censors at the Motion Picture Association Of America's Classification And Ratings Board gave the film a hard R rating due to "sex-related humor", but producers insist they're being too harsh. Despite losing their appeal with the MPAA, bosses at Paramount and DreamWorks - the studios behind the movie - plan to continue to work with the ratings board. In the film, funnyman Murphy plays a disgruntled man who schemes to get rid of his larger-then-life wife, also played by Murphy, when he meets the woman of his dreams. Norbit is set for release in America next month.

Double Oscar winner Hilary Swank has vowed to give away the freebies she's picked up at awards shows in recent years as her leading New Year's resolution. The actress feels awful taking home gift bags because when she was a struggling actress she was so broke she had to buy outfits for auditions and take them back to the store the next day. She says, "Now, I'm getting all these free things thrown at me and it's so strange. My New Year's resolution is to get rid of some stuff because I bring it in and I can't get rid of it. With my background, and how I grew up; I didn't grow up with a lot of stuff and now I just have this terrible thing." Swank isn't the only celebrity sparking a backlash against the freebies handed out at awards shows - Edward Norton is campaigning to get gift baskets banned at leading awards ceremonies. In a recent TV interview, he revealed, "A lot of us have talked to the Academy Awards producers about this and I think they're actually going to scuttle the gift baskets and that kind of stuff. I mean the gift baskets, worth amounts of money that a low income family could live on for a year, (are given to) people who have so much already. It gets depressing."

Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka has joined his war with Rosie O'Donnell, branding the comedienne "a bully." O'Donnell upset Trump, the owner of the Miss USA pageant, last month when she ridiculed him on her magazine talk show The View for giving hard-partying, alcohol-abusing beauty queen Tara Conner a chance to redeem herself during a much-publicized press conference. She accused him of bankruptcy and called him a "snake-oil salesman." Trump hit back calling O'Donnell "a crude, arrogant, pushy, disgusting slob," and now Ivanka - the 25-year-old vice president of real estate development at her father's Trump Organization - has weighed in. Ivanka says, "I think it was unfair, it was uncalled for and, quite frankly, there was no reason for it. As my father said, she, too, has had a lot of second chances. You know, there's nothing surprising about the fact that my dad's gonna come back with a vengeance anytime anyone says anything negative against him."

Comedy actor Chris Kattan and model Sunshine Tutt are engaged to be married. The former Saturday Night Live star proposed to Tutt at her grandparents' home in Texas on Christmas Eve. The couple have been dating for just over a year. Kattan, 36, tells People magazine, "Originally I was going to do something very special. I tried to get Bono of U2 to serenade her. That didn't happen. Then I asked Justin Timberlake. No answer. After hundreds of phone calls and text messages, I finally ended up asking one of the members of the group Hanson. He didn't want to get involved."

Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson has rubbished reports she acted like a diva on the set of Justin Timberlake's new music video. The Lost In Translation star teamed up with Timberlake for his new music video "What Goes Around... Comes Around," but the event has been dogged by speculation the actress behaved like a diva throughout. Johansson was said to have thrown a strop when she wasn't allowed to smoke on set, and allegedly said, "How come we have fire dancers, but I can't smoke?" Eating in front of her was also reportedly banned, with her bodyguard telling crew members to go somewhere else if they were going to eat. However, Johansson's publicist Marcel Pariseau has blasted the claims, reports the New York Daily News. He says, "Scarlett is always respectful of other people and never made this statement. Also, Scarlett doesn't have a bodyguard."

Rocker Courtney Love has a new look for the New Year after reportedly undergoing rhinoplasty and lip surgery during a pre-Christmas trip to France. Sources claim the former Hole star visited a surgeon in Paris, who specializes in fixing cosmetic disasters. A friend of Love, who has sported collagen-pumped lips for years, tells America's Us Weekly magazine, "She's happy to have her mouth back." Love fuelled the surgery reports on Thursday night when she arrived at the premiere of Hilary Swank's new movie Freedom Writers looking swollen. Asked if she had undergone surgery in France, Love said, "I'm not going to comment on that tonight. I just think me looking human is cool." Ironically, Love announced she'd be giving up plastic surgery as part of a list of New Year's Resolutions she posted on her website. She vowed, "No more surgery for any reason other than medical until I really need it in my 60s."

Prison Break star Wentworth Miller has hit out at media reports questioning his sexuality, insisting he is straight. The 34-year-old star is still adjusting to life in the spotlight and the intense media scrutiny surrounding his personal life. He explains, "No, I'm not gay. I know these rumors are out there...I'm cool with the fact that they exist, I mean this is about fantasy. Certain people are going to have certain fantasies. If someone wants to imagine me with a woman, or a man or one of each, that's cool with me as long as you keep watching the show."