Winehouse's dad says he thinks seizure killed her (AP)

NEW YORK – Amy Winehouse's father says he believes she died after suffering a seizure related to alcohol detoxification and "there was nobody there to rescue her."

The soul diva, who had fought drug and alcohol problems for years, was found dead in bed at her London home on July 23. Her family says toxicology reports indicated there was alcohol in her bloodstream but it was unclear whether this had contributed to her death at age 27.

Mitch Winehouse said Friday during a taping of Anderson Cooper's new syndicated talk show that traces of the prescription drug Librium, which is used to fight anxiety and withdrawal symptoms of alcoholism, were found in her body.

"Everything Amy did, she did to excess," he said on the show, which is to air as Cooper's debut Monday. "She drank to excess and did detox to excess."

He said he regretted that his daughter — whose most famous song, "Rehab," has her answering "no, no, no" when told to go to rehab — was trying to kick her alcoholism without a doctor's help. He said "the periods of abstinence were becoming longer, and the periods of drinking were becoming shorter. It was heading in the right direction."

The singer, whose other hits include "Tears Dry on Their Own," had suffered seizures during this period and would lose consciousness. Her father admitted he was speculating that this happened on the morning she died and said he should find out more conclusively how she died when a full inquest into her death begins next month.

Years earlier, when Amy Winehouse was on harder drugs including heroin and cocaine, her father said, he would not have been surprised if she had died.

Mitch Winehouse, who is starting his own singing career, was in New York when his daughter's security guard called him in July. Hearing the distraught tone of the security guard's voice, the father said his first words were, "Is she dead?"

Amy Winehouse's breakthrough "Back to Black" album was recently certified as the best-selling disc in Britain so far during the 21st century. The updated take on old-time soul also was responsible for five Grammy Awards.

"When she wasn't drinking," her father said, "she was absolutely on top of the world."

He occasionally dabbed tears from his eyes as Cooper's show ran video clips of her. He said he was comforted by the outpouring of support from her fans. Her mother, Janis Winehouse, said she's had people approach her to thank her for having the singer.

Mitch Winehouse said he blamed the singer's ex-husband, a music industry hanger-on, for introducing her to hard drugs but did not blame him for her death. He said she had not taken drugs since December 2008.

Amy Winehouse's boyfriend at the time of her death, Reg Traviss, said they had spent a quiet evening looking at pictures and watching DVDs two days before she died. They were looking forward to attending a friend's wedding in a few days and were planning a trip to St. Lucia around her Sept. 14 birthday.

He said he struggled to find the right moments to talk to his girlfriend about her drinking without seeming as though he was nagging.

"She was a really clever girl," Traviss said. "She knew what she was doing. I would sometimes choose my moments when there was something that was needed to be said."

Winehouse's family has set up a foundation to raise money to help people beat alcohol and drug addiction. Her father met with British political leaders to seek backing for setting up a drug rehab center in her name.

The foundation officially starts operation next week, and her father indicated that was why he was coming forth to do interviews about her.

Cooper's program donated $50,000 to the foundation, although spokeswoman Laura Mandel said the donation was made after the interview was set up and the booking wasn't contingent upon giving the foundation money.

Amy Winehouse's stepmother and aunt also appeared on Cooper's show.

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The world still thinks Americans are "coolest": poll (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – They may be witnessing their global superpower influence decline in the face of challenges from other emerging players on the world stage, but Americans have been voted the world's "coolest nationality" in an international poll.

Social networking site Badoo.com (http://www.badoo.com) asked 30,000 people across 15 countries to name the coolest nationality and also found that the Spanish were considered the coolest Europeans, Brazilians the coolest Latin Americans and Belgians the globe's least cool nationality.

"We hear a lot in the media about anti-Americanism," says Lloyd Price, Badoo's Director of Marketing. "But we sometimes forget how many people across the world consider Americans seriously cool."

Of course, not all Americans are cool far from it. Some like Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga, Samuel L. Jackson, Johnny Depp and Quentin Tarantino are way cooler than others.

Americans, however, are the dudes who invented cool and who still embody it in many fields from music to movies and TV to technology.

"America," says Price, "boasts the world's coolest leader, Obama; the coolest rappers, Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg; and the coolest man in technology, Steve Jobs of Apple, the man who even made geeks cool."

Brazilians are ranked the second coolest nationality in the Badoo poll and the coolest Latin Americans, ahead of Mexicans and Argentinians. The Spanish, in third place, are the coolest Europeans.

The French are voted cooler than the British, and Canadians cooler than the Belgians. This may come as a relief for Canadians, who are sometimes viewed as chronically uncool.

Or, as Michael Ignatieff, the Canadian politician, once put it: "Paris, Texas stands as a metaphor for broken dreams; Paris, Saskatchewan just sounds ridiculous."

THE 10 COOLEST NATIONALITIES FIVE LEAST COOLEST

1. Americans 1. Belgians

2. Brazilians 2. Poles

3. Spanish 3. Turks

4. Italians 4. Canadians

5. French 5. Germans

6. British

7. Dutch

8. Mexicans

9. Argentinians

10. Russians

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Rehab exec thinks Winehouse wanted to join "27 club" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The co-founder of Passages Malibu treatment center thinks that Amy Winehouse's "membership" in the so-called 27 Club may have been by design, not just an eerie coincidence.

Since the 27-year old British singer's body was found on Saturday, much has been made of the fact that she was the same age as Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix when she died. It's a group that's been dubbed the 27 Club or the Forever 27 Club.

"I think Amy Winehouse may have secretly wanted to be part of the 27 Club," Pax Prentiss, the co-founder of the California rehabilitation center, told TheWrap. "Amy was on a dark path and she may have glamorized the idea of being part of that group."

A preliminary autopsy has yet to determine what caused Winehouse's death, but regardless, Prentiss thinks that the singer never received the kind of treatment she needed for her very public struggles with addiction. He maintains that the centers she attended were focused on getting Winehouse clean instead of dealing with her motivation for turning to drugs and alcohol in the first place.

"I believe she was dealing with deep psychological pain," Prentiss told TheWrap. "To get her sober and keep her sober rather than treat her for alcoholism, you have to go to the root cause. The drinking and the drugs are a symptom of deeper problems."

Prentiss never treated the "Rehab" singer, but he said that based on footage of one of her final stage performances in Serbia, Winehouse appeared to be abusing multiple drugs.

In Winehouse's case, the emotional heartbreak that she mined so beautifully on her multiple Grammy-winning album "Back to Black" was both a tribute to her artistry and a sign of a deeper vulnerability that may have allowed her to access those feelings in her songs, but also led to her undoing.

"I don't know what Amy's issues were, but I do know from experience that artists have a tendency to be sensitive," Prentiss said. "They're talented yes, but the outside world affects them differently and they're prone to turn to drugs in order to cope with the pressures put upon them.

"I think Amy had an image that she was a tough rock 'n' roll girl, but she was delicate, sensitive and she needed help," he added.

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Foster thinks Cannes film can be 'therapeutic' for Gibson (AFP)

CANNES, France (AFP) – Jodie Foster drew cheers at Cannes on Tuesday for her latest film "The Beaver" and said she thought the experience of making it could be "therapeutic" for her troubled star Mel Gibson.

The small-budget drama, directed by Foster and featuring Gibson as a depressed toy company executive who turns to a beaver hand puppet to help him get his life back on track, had a shaky opening at US cinemas this month.

But critics in Cannes, where the film is screening out of competition, embraced the eccentric picture in which two-time Oscar winner Foster plays Gibson's confused wife, showering it with frequent laughs and a warm round of applause at a packed presentation.

Gibson, who has faced allegations of domestic violence and been caught in a string of misogynistic and anti-Semitic rants in recent years, skipped the traditional post-screening press conference but was due to appear on the red carpet for the gala festival screening.

"He won't be talking but he'll be here," Foster, 48, quipped as she fielded reporters' questions in English as well as her fluent French.

Much of the discussion around the film has centred on the unusual overlap between the on-screen storyline and Gibson's off-screen travails, and whether his presence in the film would be box-office poison.

Foster said she had counted Gibson, 55, as a close friend for several years and believed their work together on the movie would help him with his inner demons.

"Anything that you do, that you obsess about and give that much to for six months of your life ... allows you to look deeper at yourself and at the people around you and the fact of what you do has to have some kind of therapeutic, cathartic end," she said.

"I think that he's proud of the movie. I think he's proud of what he's shown and he wants people to see that side of him. He's an incredibly private man yet he shows on screen (something) as deep as you can possibly get. That's our way as actors, I think, of telling people, this is who I really am."

She said his notorious private life clearly fed into the role of Walter, who speaks in a Cockney accent through the beaver puppet at work, at the family dinner table and even in his marital bed to reveal his fears and desires.

"He was definitely the first on my list mostly because he's somebody who really understands how to handle humour and the lightness and the charm of the character but also has a deep understanding of the struggles," she said.

Foster said despite his public image, Gibson was "so unneurotic" as an actor that he was a pleasure to work with and actually quite popular among directors.

"I can't excuse Mel's behaviour -- only he can explain that. (But) I do know the man that I know. He's been a friend for many, many years and somebody who is probably the most loved actor in Hollywood," she said.

"As a friend he is kind and loyal and thoughtful. I can spend hours on the phone with him talking about life. He's complex and I appreciate his complexity and what his complexity brings to his work.

"This is an extraordinary performance and I am nothing but grateful for that and for what he gave to this movie. He just gave from his heart without asking for anything in return."

Foster brushed aside concerns about ticket sales, saying she was confident her "very high-concept" picture would find its audience.

"It's an independent film -- it wasn't designed to be loved by everybody," she said.

"If you gauge your self worth on your box office you will be a very sorry person. I am not my box office."

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A whole country thinks Katie Price is a ropey showgirl

She was only in their country five minutes visiting toyboy Leandro but it appears it was long enough for Argentina to form an opinion of Katie Price. And, we’re sorry Katie, it ain’t overly pretty.

The Argentinians reckon that KP is a British version of one of their ropey, old show girls called Silvia Suller. Here’s a picture of the pretty. 

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