Movie tough guy Jason Statham's new role - as a house builder, writes RICHARD EDEN
He has an almost unrivalled talent for delivering terminal justice with fists or firearms — on screen. So perhaps it's unsurprising that Jason Statham earned £32 million last year... as much as Leo DiCaprio.
But never assume Statham, who lives in a dazzling £7.5 million house in Chelsea with his equally dazzling fiancee Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, takes anything for granted.
I can disclose that the 56-year-old, who's been admiringly described as 'the last action star', has started a new venture, as founder and sole director of Little Marsh Construction.
Its business is categorised as 'construction of domestic buildings'. Statham's representatives, based in Los Angeles where his career exploded into global stardom, do not comment on this intriguing development or on the kind of projects that Little Marsh will tackle.
But it's difficult to imagine any other major British film star following suit.
He has an almost unrivalled talent for delivering terminal justice with fists or firearms — on screen. So perhaps it's unsurprising that Jason Statham earned £32 million last year... as much as Leo DiCaprio (pictured)
But never assume Statham (pictured), who lives in a dazzling £7.5 million house in Chelsea with his equally dazzling fiancee Rosie Huntington-Whiteley , takes anything for granted
Jason Statham pictured with Rosie Huntington Whiteley attending the Fast X film premiere in May last year
Statham's life has always been free from convention. Far from dreaming of a place at drama school, he spent from the age of 14 onwards on the streets of London, often outside Harrods.There he learned to emulate his father — known as 'Nogger' — selling jewellery of less than illustrious provenance.
The most adroit salesmen, like Nogger and his allies, Peckhead Pete and Colin the Dog, entranced passers-by with artful presentation.
'We'd display it in boxes and we'd wrap it up in tissue paper. We'd place it in their palms: 'Here you are, madam!' ' Statham has recalled.
It was the authenticity of Statham's street presence — and the physicality which saw him selected for England's diving squad for the 1990 Commonwealth Games — that persuaded Guy Ritchie to cast him in his 1998 box-office hit, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.
'I got £5,000 for doing Lock, Stock. And then, for Guy's next movie, Snatch, I got £15,000,' Statham has reflected, adding that he 'would have done them for free'.
Those days are far behind him — but what he describes as a 'peasant mentality' endures.
'When you're kicking around and you ain't got no money,' he has said, 'that don't feel too good.'
Difficult to imagine that Little Marsh's customers will make the mistake of paying late.
Dame Judi Dench once made a documentary about her passion for trees.
Now the Oscar-winning actress, 89, says her social media influencer grandson, Sam Williams, 27, resembles one she planted in her garden to mark his birth.
'They just look alike,' she says, adding: 'I don't think he'll be offended if I say that as it's such a beautiful oak.'
Dame Judi Dench (pictured) once made a documentary about her passion for trees
I wanted to smash opponents admits tennis ace Sharapova
She won Wimbledon aged just 17 and retired in 2020 with £30 million in prize money — but the secret to tennis star Maria Sharapova's success is a lonely one.
'It was really hard to make friends and at the core I was a very tough competitor,' she reveals. 'They could have been the nicest opponent in the world, but I had to think they were a terrible human being even though they were extremely nice to me.'
Now, she is engaged to a friend of Prince William and Prince Harry, British entrepreneur Alexander Gilkes.
'I call him my husband because I feel like he's my husband but we're not officially married,' she says. They took their toddler Theodore to Wimbledon before the tournament.
Maria Sharapova pictured with her son and Alex Gikes at Wimbledon
As lovesick Will Thacker in romcom Notting Hill, Hugh Grant watched Julia Roberts' Anna Scott on screen at West London's Coronet cinema.
Now the luvvie is heartbroken over the impending loss of his local picturehouse.
'Fulham Rd cinema closing after 94 years. Strangely unbearable,' tweets a devastated Hugh, 63. 'Let's all sit at home and watch 'content' on 'streaming'.
While scrolling. Miserable face emoji,' he laments. The most recent film Hugh has starred in, Unfrosted, skipped cinemas and came out on Netflix earlier this year . . .
Baronet's daughter is a crushing bride!
To hell with tradition! Third Baronet Sir William Dugdale's daughter, Clemmie, surprised her wedding guests this weekend when she stripped down to her lingerie at the reception, crushed the wedding cake with her bare hands and fed it to herself with gusto.
Her friend Bella Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort, shared a photo of the bride online in the aftermath of the cake smashing. 'More eccentric wedding attire,' she wrote.
Clemmie, 31, is an actor by trade, or as her Instagram profile reads: 'Borderline attention seeker but really talented.' Her new husband, Orson Oblowitz, is a film director with an equally idiosyncratic online profile.
The bio on his webpage (written in the third person) reads: 'The only point of this website is to convince people to give him [Orson] work so he can afford more tattoos and feed Margarita, his pet chihuahua.'
A match made in heaven?
Third Baronet Sir William Dugdale's daughter, Clemmie, surprised her wedding guests this weekend when she stripped down to her lingerie at the reception, crushed the wedding cake with her bare hands and fed it to herself with gusto
Clemmie, 31, is an actor by trade, or as her Instagram profile reads: 'Borderline attention seeker but really talented.'
Notting Hell as restaurant to stars closes
Stop all the clocks…Notting Hill is in mourning. E&O, the London enclave's cult restaurant — arguably more famous for customers such as Kate Moss, Sienna Miller and Victoria Beckham than its Asian cuisine — is no more.
'The windows have been blocked off with hideous steel shutters,' a local tells me. 'It's closed for good.'
Bleak news for Moss, who has recently been seen around more often. Will she now scuttle back to the Cotswolds and her Blue Maran chickens?
Stop all the clocks…Notting Hill is in mourning. E&O, the London enclave's cult restaurant — arguably more famous for customers such as Kate Moss (pictured), Sienna Miller and Victoria Beckham than its Asian cuisine — is no more
The biblical expression 'Oh, how the mighty have fallen' may now apply to ebullient comedienne Ruby Wax who admits fame is very addictive.
'Eventually you're weaned off it like heroin. You're not famous any more and you feel much better, but you can't get a table in a restaurant . . . I used to!' despairs Wax, 71.
