NEW YORK -- Security guards had to escort fashion designer Calvin Klein back to his seat at a New York Knicks game after he walked up to Latrell Sprewell and talked to him in the middle of play.\nSprewell was about to inbound the basketball just before the end of Monday night's game against the Toronto Raptors when Klein got up from his courtside seat at Madison Square Garden and approached him. Then he grabbed Sprewell by the arm and struck up a conversation with him.\n"I wasn't nervous," Sprewell said. "I was a little surprised, like, 'Is security going to come over here at some point or what?' I didn't know that was him."\nSecurity did come over and ushered the 60-year-old designer back to his seat. After he sat back down, he yelled, "Sprewell!"\nRepresentatives for Klein did not immediately return calls for comment Tuesday.\nSprewell declined to divulge what Klein said to him. The Knicks defeated the Raptors 100-90.
\nBrody cites old friend in Academy Award speech
NEW YORK -- They weren't watching the Oscars, but it wasn't long before Ada and Thomas Zarobinski heard that best-actor winner Adrien Brody mentioned their son, a U.S. soldier stationed in Kuwait, in his acceptance speech.\nThe Queens couple was listening to news of the war in Iraq when a neighbor told them that Brody, who received the award for playing a Holocaust survivor in "The Pianist," ended his remarks with a goodwill message for Tommy Zarobinski.\n"There are feelings of both happiness and sadness," Ada Zarobinski told Newsday in Tuesday's editions. "Because I wish my son was here to see Adrien's success."\nBrody received a standing ovation for his emotional speech, in which he urged the audience to "pray for a peaceful and swift resolution" to the war.\n"And I have a friend from Queens who's a soldier in Kuwait right now, Tommy Zarobinski, and I hope you and your boys make it back real soon," he said.\nBrody, who grew up in Woodhaven, and Zarobinski, a native of Rego Park, attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Performing Arts together, where Brody studied acting and Zarobinski studied drawing.\nThe two, who grew up like brothers, "would cut school together and do all sorts of pranks -- just like regular kids," Thomas Zarobinski Sr. said.\n"Here he is making the Oscars for the first time in his life, and he's talking about my son," Zarobinski told the Daily News. "That's amazing."\nTommy Zarobinski, 31, joined the Army National Guard in 1996 and has been stationed in Kuwait since November, Newsday said.
\nSzpilman kin praises Roman Polanski's 'Pianist'
WARSAW, Poland -- The son of the Polish Holocaust survivor whose story was the subject of Roman Polanski's Oscar-winning film "The Pianist" hailed the awards as a tribute to the victims of World War II.\nAcademy members "appreciated the fate that befell my father, the total degradation of a well-known artist under war conditions," said Andrzej Szpilman, a physician who lives in Germany.\n"The awards are a homage to World War II victims," he said by phone from Los Angeles, where he attended Sunday's Academy Awards.\nThe film tells the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jewish pianist who survived the Holocaust with the help of Poles and a Nazi officer after he escaped the Warsaw Ghetto.\nIt was the surprise winner of three Oscars: best director for Polanski; best actor for Adrien Brody, who starred as Szpilman; and best adapted screenplay for Ronald Harwood.\nPolanski, 69, didn't attend the ceremony because he faces arrest if he returns to the United States, resulting from 1977 charges of having unlawful sex with a minor.\nPolish film director Andrzej Wajda, the recipient of an honorary Oscar in 2000 who directed Polanski as a young actor in the 1950s, hailed the film's success.\n"I am happy because I was not expecting such a triumph. Polanski received due satisfaction," said Wajda.
\nDirector Bille August \nto receive Andersen Prize
COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Film director Bille August will receive the 2003 Hans Christian Andersen Prize, said the mayor of the city where the fairy tale writer was born.\nThe $571,430 prize was awarded to August, who directed "Pelle the Conqueror." The film, starring Max von Sydow, won the Oscar for best foreign-language film in 1989.\nAugust, who's Danish like Andersen, is making a film about the writer's life. \n"I imagine really big stars for the roles," he said.
