Today's entertainment news: Sheen's boss says star off the show to save his life

Also: a Kardashian hits the road with her hubby; Smita Patil foresaw Bachchan's Coolie accident; and Ram Gopal Varma to make film based on Mumbai attacks.

Charlie Sheen’s executive producer from Two and a Half Men weighs in on Sheen’s departure from the show. Chris Pizzello / AP Photo
Powered by automated translation

When the Charlie Sheen-led meltdown on the US television hit Two and a Half Men got to a toxic peak earlier this year, the situation was so bad the show's executive producer offered to quit.

At the time, Chuck Lorre, 59, thought bowing out was the only solution, he told the latest issue of TV Guide. And while producers, rather than the stars, are often the ones to leave shows when tensions rise, his reasoning was a little different: as Lorre, CBS and Warner Bros watched Sheen's condition worsen, they feared he would die.

"[The studio and network] chose to make a moral decision as opposed to a financial one," Lorre told the magazine. "But people were really frightened that they were signing off on what could have had devastating consequences. This was not a game. This was drug addiction writ large. This was big-time cocaine and in his own words, an 'epic drug run' that could have ended with either his death or someone else's."

One Kardashian reality show may follow couple to Texas

Khloe Kardashian is standing by her man. The E! reality show Khloe & Lamar looks set to move shooting from California to Texas as one half of the reality couple, Lamar Odom, was traded this week from the Los Angeles Lakers to the Dallas Mavericks - and his wife is set to follow.

"I ride or die for my Lam! It's where I go ... It's who I am with :)" Kardashian tweeted recently, after the basketball player was nearly traded to another team and before he decided to be released from his contract.

The show of support is in contrast to squabbling seen in the new season of another Kardashian show, Kim & Kourtney Take New York, due to hit screens in the UAE on January 1. In one of the episodes, older sister Kim resists her now-estranged hubby Kris Humphries, also a professional basketball player, in his desire to move back to his home state of Minnesota.

Actress foresaw Bachchan's Coolie accident

The actress Smita Patil had a premonition of the accident in Manmohan Desai's 1983 film Coolie that threatened Amitabh Bachchan's life, the actor revealed in a Twitter tribute to Bollywood's most celebrated art-house actress.

Paying homage to the actress on the anniversary of her death this week, Bachchan wrote "Smita Patil's death anniversary today .. how time flies .. was shocked beyond belief .. a soft gentle countenance, yet tough beliefs."

The 69-year-old actor, who shared screen space with Patil's son Prateik in Prakash Jha's Aarakshan this year, said the actress had telephoned him days before the accident in Coolie after a nightmare she had.

"Smita had premonition of my Coolie accident .. had called for the first time ever in Bangalore to ask if I was well .. had bad dream," Bachchan wrote on Twitter.

While shooting an action sequence for Coolie, blows from the powerful Puneet Issar sent Bachchan into the intensive care unit - and continue to trouble him, even years later. At the time, the actor's hospitalisation prompted an unprecedented outpouring of emotional support from his fans across India.

In 1982, Bachchan paired with Smita in Prakash Mehra's Namakhalal and again in Ramesh Sippy's Shakti - both films remembered by cinema lovers for his powerful performances. Four years later, at the age of 31, Patil suffered a brain haemorrhage and died in 1986, just days after her son Prateik's birth.

Ram Gopal Varma film based on Mumbai attacks

The Bollywood filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma, who has a reputation for making movies based on contemporary events, announced yesterday that his next film would be based on the 26/11 terror attacks.

"26/11 is one of the dates that no Indian will ever forget," Varma said in a press release. "The three days 24/7 live telecast of the terrorist carnage had people's eyes glued to the TV sets across the world. But my attempt now would be not only to capture on film the physical aspect, but also the behind-the-scenes aspect of what exactly happened."

He said his film would begin from the moment the Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Kasab and his nine accomplices hijacked the fisherman Amar Singh Solanki's trawler in the high seas, and end with his capture by the Mumbai policeman Tukaram Ombale on the night of 26/11 at Girgaum Chowpatty.

"This will be intercut with what the various gallant police officers did in their attempt to get the situation under control," Varma said.

The filmmaker last made Not a Love Story, starring Mahie Gill and based on the 2008 murder of Neeraj Grover, a television producer. Mumbai police arrested a Kannada starlet Maria Susairaj, and her Navy officer fiance Emil Jerome, in connection to the crime.

Varma said the journalist Rommel Rodrigues, the author of Kasab: The Face of 26/11¸ would assist him during the making of the film - although the film is not based on the book.