Kate Winslet Could Become Oscar’s Biggest Losing Actress. Plus: Kate’s Sisters

If Kate Winslet loses on Sunday, she’ll be tied with legendary character actress Thelma Ritter and fellow Brit Deborah Kerr for Oscar’s biggest losing actress. She’s been nominated six times – four times as Best Actress (for Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Little Children, and The Reader) and twice in the Supporting category (for Sense and Sensibility and Iris).

Kerr, who passed away in 2007, was nominated six times in the Best Actress category: she was nodded for Edward, My Son, From Here To Eternity, The King and I, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, Separate Tables, and The Sundowners. Kerr’s sexy and mature performance in 1953′s From Here To Eternity was definitely more Oscar-worthy than Audrey Hepburn‘s charming but hardly strenuous work in Roman Holiday, but the “babe factor” was at work even back then. (Hepburn was 24 when she won; Kerr was a comparatively ancient 32.)

This year, the “babe factor” will most likely work in Winslet’s favor. Unless that little nipper Anne Hathaway has something to say about it…

In other news:

• Winslet’s sisters, Beth and Anna, both actresses, live in their famous sibling’s shadow.(Daily Mail)
• Dev Patel may have gotten the girl in real life, too: word has it he’s dating Slumdog co-star Freida Pinto, who is six years his senior and totally smokin’ hot. (Telegraph)
• Ricky Gervais has scripted Hugh Jackman‘s Oscar lines.(BBC)
• Apparently, missing early episodes of Doctor Who are hidden in Zimbabwe, but the country’s dictator, Robert Mugabe, won’t allow them to be retrieved. The Sun reports, “President Mugabe has banned the Beeb from setting foot in his country. And diplomatic relations are also extremely tense – meaning researchers are unable to get into the nation’s TV vault.” Why were the episodes there? “Zimbabwe is understood to have bought the first season of the show when it was still a British colony known as Rhodesia. It starred William Hartnell and ran from 1963 to 1964. The Beeb suspects the historic series, together with later episodes not held anywhere else in the world, may still be locked away.” I say the BBC sends in Russell T. Davies. The notoriously ruthless and homophobic dictator would meet his match in the most powerful gay man in British television.
• BBC has issued a warning: beware of false Timelords.
• Jade Goody‘s fiancé Jack Tweed, who has been released from prison, will have his curfew extended on their wedding night.(Guardian)
• Romeo and Cruz Beckham are little benders like their Papa.(Daily Mail)
• Kings of Leon bandmates (and cousins) Caleb and Matthew Followill reportedly came to blows backstage at the BRITS. There are two different accounts of what went down. A source told The Sun: “Matthew has been struggling with the attention all the other members of the band are getting – especially from girls. He’s always the last one to be asked for an autograph. He hasn’t been feeling as much a part of things, especially at big events like the Brits. Caleb was winding him up all night, unintentionally, and all of a sudden something snapped and they just went for each other.” The Mirror reports that it started with a love spat: “Jared Followill‘s girlfriend spotted her bassist bloke chatting up a girl in Alesha Dixon‘s band. Fuming with rage she started chucking water all over the place, soaking the poor girl from head to toe. And then it all kicked off.”
• Mathew Horne is dating Sabilla Findlay, personal assistant to Miranda Richardson.(The Sun)
• Horne and his Gavin co-star James Corden re-enact the Demi Moore/Patrick Swayze pottery-spinning sex scene in Ghost.(The Sun)
• Here’s the trailer for Horne and Corden’s Lesbian Vampire Killers.
• Who is Estelle‘s boyfriend? She told The Mirror: “He came with me to the Grammys. But he was in the background.” And he “works in the movies.” Damn, I hope it’s not Eddie Murphy.
• The troubled trifecta: Lily Allen, Lindsay Lohan, and Rihanna all have matching tattoos.(The Sun)
• Kelly Groucutt, bassist for ELO, has died at age 62.(NME)
• Four stars for the new Prodigy album from The Times‘ Pete Paphides. “The album works at a basic irreducible level, as all great pop does. You hear it once, and you want to hear it all over again. It is, quite simply, the big, brilliant, dumb rave album we have secretly wanted them to make for the past ten years.”
• Pet Shop Boys have done everything else in their 25-year-plus career – why not do a ballet?(BBC)
• Christopher Nolan – the Irish author, not the Dark Knight director – has died at 43.(Guardian)