Actress Paltrow learns of 9/11 "Sliding Doors" moment (Reuters)

VENICE, Italy (Reuters) – Gwyneth Paltrow has received a letter from a woman who believes the actress may have inadvertently saved her life on the day of the attacks on New York nearly 10 years ago.

As the United States prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Paltrow told Reuters she was more closely involved in the events than she had known at the time.

"Basically, what happened was I had gone to a yoga class very early," the Hollywood star said in an interview in Venice to discuss her latest movie "Contagion."

The film, directed by Steven Soderbergh, also features Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law and Kate Winslet, and tells the story of a deadly disease that quickly spreads around the world causing panic.

Particularly in its examination of how governments react to a crisis, some of its themes echo the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers.

"I was on the way home and it was the morning of September 11 -- not that I knew at the time what that meant -- and a girl was jaywalking across the street and we kind of both stopped at the same time and waited a really long time," said Paltrow.

She said she and the woman did "this stop-start thing" for a time and began to laugh before the woman finally went on her way.

"Ten years later I got a letter from her saying that she had been late for work and we had that thing and she went down to the Christopher Street station to catch her train to go down to the World Trade Center where she worked on the 77th floor of the South Tower and the train was just pulling out.

"So had we not had that interaction she feels like her life would've taken a much different course. She called it her 'Sliding Doors moment'," Paltrow added, referring to one of her movies in which the plot follows different paths based on whether or not she catches a subway train.

"It was an extraordinary story and all I could think about is all of the people who had experiences like that that day, but aren't able to reach out because it wasn't a recognizable person," said the 38-year-old Oscar winner.

"She saw it was me so she was able to get me a message, but I think a lot of fates were changed that day obviously and I am very humbly happy to be a part in her story."

Contagion, which is not in the main competition at the Venice film festival, opens in theatres on September 9 and has been well received in early reviews.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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3 Doors Down gets introspective on new album (AP)

By CAITLIN R. KING, Associated Press Caitlin R. King, Associated Press – Fri Aug 12, 11:16 am ET

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Multi-platinum rock band 3 Doors Down is moving forward by looking back.

"The title of this album really kind of hits it on the head, `Time of My Life.' It talks about a lot of things that went on in the past," lead singer Brad Arnold said in a recent interview. "But it talks about a lot of more lighthearted things as well, and (there's) a lot of fun songs on this record, too."

The band had a long history to pull from for this effort. Most of them have known each other for more than 20 years, having grown up together in Mississippi and officially forming in 1995. Their debut album, 2000's "The Better Life", featured the song "Kryptonite" and sold six million copies.

In many ways the group (comprised of Arnold, lead guitarist Matt Roberts, bassist Todd Harrell, guitarist Chris Henderson and drummer Greg Upchurch) wanted to get back to that initial feeling from their early years.

"This being our fifth record, it is really similar to our first record in a lot of ways in that we really approached it with kind of new eyes. ... with a good heart and hungry hearts and ready to do something new," Arnold said of the album, released last month.

"We did things that we normally wouldn't do in the past, and it shows," said Harrell. "You know how every band in their career has that one record, like Rush has `Moving Pictures,' and Def Leppard has `Hysteria'? I think this is our record. I think this is it, because it's by far, to me, the best record we've ever done."

The album's leadoff song, "When You're Young," became the band's 10th top 10 single on the mainstream rock chart.

"I think this song strikes a chord with fans, because everybody can relate to how hard it is to be young, whether you're presently young or whether you're just looking back on how hard it really was," said Arnold. "This song in a way is a mockery of how easy people think it is sometimes and how easy people talk about how it is to be young."

At age 32, Arnold said he thinks of his band mates as brothers. Harrell, 39, agreed and said he feels that 3 Doors Down is finally coming into its own.

"I think the band right now as a whole is probably better than it's been ever. I think we're all a lot tighter," Harrell said. "If you do something as long as we've done it, you can't help but get better at it, you know?"

"As far as where we're at in our lives, I think the band's all great. Everybody's in a good spot right now, and we're just having fun. We're ready to go out and have a lot of fun with the fans," he added.

3 Doors Down are currently on a U.S. tour through October. They just released a new single, "Every Time You Go," and the music video features footage from their European tour earlier this summer.

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Online:

http://www.3doorsdown.com/

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Paris bar honors The Doors; may have to close them (AP)

PARIS – The walls of the Paris bar are plastered with images of Jim Morrison and The Doors, and a bust of the lead singer presides over the beer tap — all part of the owner's lifelong passion for the band. But an attorney for the group doesn't love it madly.

Christophe Maillet said he received a letter from a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based attorney warning that "The Doors do not want to be seen as having approved of your establishment and also the consumption of alcohol."

The April 21 letter — signed by Anthony Keats, The Doors' intellectual property lawyer, and shown Friday to The Associated Press — urged Maillet to remove images of the group from his bar within three months.

Not an easy task.

The walls feature oversized close-ups of Morrison and framed photos and posters of the band. And there's that bust of the flowing-locked singer at the tap.

Morrison, known for a partying lifestyle, died in 1971 at age 27 of heart failure in his bathtub in Paris — just minutes from Maillet's bar. Morrison's grave at Pere Lachaise cemetery remains a pilgrimage site for fans.

Doors lawyer Keats did not respond to email and phone messages Friday about the letter.

The decorations are from Maillet's own collection — the fruit of 25 years as a dedicated fan, he said.

"I found my passion for Jim Morrison at the age of 12," said the soft-spoken bartender. "Then I found a profession that could go along with it.

"Since I started in this business, my goal was to start a bar dedicated to Jim Morrison."

After nearly a decade spent working at other people's establishments, Maillet's dream came true nine months ago when he opened the "Lezard King" — a play on Morrison's nickname, the "lizard king." Because he worried about possible copyright issues, Maillet used the French word for lizard, he said.

On the menu are cocktails of Maillet's own creation that he baptized after Doors' songs: the "Light My Fire" blends rum, Cointreau and citrus juices; the "Roadhouse Blues" mixes tequila, Cointreau and blue curacao.

Maillet won't say how much he invested in the bar located in Paris' hip Bastille neighborhood but said it amounted to his life savings.

Maillet doesn't know what could happen if the legal action goes ahead — the attorney's letter doesn't specify — but he said: "I guess worst-case scenario is that they could close the bar."

Maillet, who does not have a lawyer, wrote The Doors' attorney back but said he hasn't yet received a response.

He said in order to appease The Doors, he'd be willing to add other 1960s and '70s bands to the bar's decoration. The letter also demands that the name of the bar be changed — something Maillet flatly refuses.

He said he knows of about a dozen Doors-themed bars — from Amsterdam to India — and it's unclear whether others have faced similar legal woes.

"I didn't do this to destroy (The Doors') image or to dirty it," Maillet said. "I did it to make them happy."

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Rockers The Doors threaten Paris bar (AFP)

PARIS (AFP) – Lawyers for US rock group The Doors threatened legal action against a Paris bar devoted to the band, saying it did not want to be associated with a drinking establishment, the landlord said Thursday.

"I have received a letter from the lawyers of The Doors who are giving me 60 days to change the bar's posters, its name, the name of its cocktails and the website," Christophe Maillet, manager of the Lezard King bar, told AFP.

"The Doors did not want to be associated with a drinks bar," added Maillet, who opened the venue in September last year.

The bar's name is a tribute to the band's frontman Jim Morrison, who was known as the Lizard King after coining the term in a poem. It serves cocktails named after Doors songs such as "Soft Parade" and "Light My Fire".

"I thought I was doing a good thing, burnishing the image of The Doors," Maillet said. "I didn't ask permission but I suspected they would immediately refuse if I did."

He said he had told the US lawyers he would bend to their demand if they insisted.

Morrison died in Paris of a drug overdose in 1971 and is buried there in the Pere Lachaise cemetery.

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