Nicholson will be given the honorary Cecil B DeMille award for his "outstanding contribution to the entertainment world".

Last year he received his fifth Globe, for his portrayal of the bitter, neurotic writer in As Good As It Gets.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Peter Fonda, and Italian actor and director Roberto Benigni will host the awards, presented by the Foreign Press Association of Hollywood and usually seen as a reliable indicator of what might win at the Academy Awards.

Meanwhile, John Travolta will also receive an honorary prize at a another ceremony next month.

He will be the first recipient of the Alan J Pakula special prize at the fourth annual Television, Radio and Internet Film Critics awards.

Named after the late director of All the President's Men, the award is for excellence in a role of great political and social importance.

In 1998, Travolta starred as a governor running for President in Primary Colors. He also played a lawyer who dedicated nine years of his life to fighting pollutition in A Civil Action.

Iggy's lust for fashion

Iggy Pop: Performing for Versace

Rock icon Iggy Pop has been signed up to perform at fashion house Versace's winter show during Milan fashion week, which starts on Friday.

Iggy and British group Alisha's Attic will sing for 45 minutes each during breaks in the menswear show on Saturday.

Creative director Donatella Versace said: "For me it's about trying to find a new way to communicate, to put different types of art together, to find common ground and to break down old stereotypes."

Actor Rupert Everett will host the show, to be held in a cavernous nightclub on the outskirts of the city.

Nearly 50 designers will be showing off their collections during the week.

Branagh teams up with Spielberg

Kenneth Branagh: New film with Steven Spielberg

British actor and director Kenneth Branagh has met with Steven Spielberg to discuss details of their forthcoming project The Betty Schimmel Story.

Branagh will direct and star in the film, a true story about an Eastern European woman separated from her childhood sweetheart by World War II.

Believing he died in the Holocaust, she eventually married another man - only to be reunited with him many years later.

Branagh, who appears with partner Helena Bonham-Carter in The Theory of Flight, is also working on a musical version of Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost.

Blue Room man behind the camera

Kevin Spacey: Working with Blue Room director Sam Mendes

Director Sam Mendes, who worked with Nicole Kidman in the stage hit The Blue Room, has temporarily left the theatre to devote his energies to film.

He is currently directing Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, a movie which Mendes describes as "an examination of a marriage".

Spacey, who has recently finished work on Ordinary Decent Criminal in Ireland, returns to Broadway soon in The Iceman Cometh. He recently appeared in the play in London.

Metallica get the Last word

Metallica's James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett with Michael Kamen

Easy listening legend James Last has revealed an unlikely taste in music - he's a closet heavy metal fan.

The 69-year-old bandleader, famous for his arrangements of popular tunes, told Germany's Zeit magazine he always wanted to be a rock star.

"I always liked Deep Purple and think Metallica are great," he said. And when listening to heavy metal at home he likes to play it loud. "It's a real blast," he added.

Luckily for Last, Metallica could be about to move over to his style of music.

The group are teaming up with composer Michael Kamen for two performances with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in April.

Hollywood exports up

Hollywood earned nearly as much overseas as in the United States and Canada last year, according to industry journal Daily Variety.

Foreign ticket sales totalled $6.82bn during 1998, up $97m from 1997. US and Canadian sales were only slightly higher at a record $6.88bn.