In brief: Bacall blasts Tom Cruise

Lauren Bacall, the Hollywood legend and former wife of Humphrey Bogart, has turned her famously caustic tongue on fellow actor Tom Cruise. "Tom Cruise is a maniac. I can't understand the way he conducts his life. When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise," she says in an interview with Elle magazine. And she is equally scathing about how the Scientologist promotes himself in TV interviews, adding. "His whole behavior is so shocking. It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable. I think it's kind of a sickness"............ Katie Price, aka the model Jordan, will take part in the Horse of the Year dressage event today at the NEC in Birmingham. Price, 30, has begun to compete in dressage events, learnt to play polo and has written equestrian books aimed at children called Katie Price's Perfect Ponies. She was also recently unveiled as the face of Hoof, a campaign run by the British Equestrian Federation, which aims to encourage inner-city children to take up riding in time for the 2012 London Olympics............. Actor David Tennant has been praised for his performance in a new production of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost in Stratford-upon-Avon. According to the Guardian's Michael Billington, his comedic role as Berowne "confirms Tennant's Shakespearean status"................ More than 10,700 people have signed a petition on the social networking site Facebook to get Sacha Baron Cohen, in his Borat incarnation, to sing the Kazakhstani national anthem when England play its national side at Wembley on Saturday. The comic, who now lives in Los Angeles, has politely turned down the request............. Salman Rushdie has been honoured by University College, Dublin, with an award that commemorates the Irish writer James Joyce. Accepting the James Joyce Award, which has also been given to the ex-footballer Gary Lineker, Rushdie said that he said that the writer had taught him the "daring of language"............ Liz Hurley's saftey-pinned Versace dress, which the actress wore when she accompanied ex-boyfriend Hugh Grant to the 1994 premiere of his film Four Weddings and a Funeral, has been voted the greatest red carpet party gown of all time. Also featured in the poll, which was conducted by the department store Debenhams, was Audrey Hepburn's white flower patterned Givenchy dress, which she wore to the 1954 Oscars ............. Angelina Jolie has been photographed by Brad Pitt as she breastfeeds in a set of portraits for an American fashion magazine W. The actress sits with the top of her blouse pulled down, exposing her breast, which is covered by the tiny fingers of one of her suckling twins............. Martti Ahtisaari, Finland's former president, has won the Nobel Peace Prize, rewarding his long career of peace mediation work including a 2005 accord between Indonesia and rebels in its Aceh province......... ·