Entertainment News Round Up: France bids, Oscar winner Ben Affleck, Director Boyle

Following is a summary of current entertainment news briefs.

France bids adieu to Aznavour, pays tribute to Armenian roots

France bid farewell to Charles Aznavour on Friday in a tribute that reflected the late singer's status as a national icon at home as well as the country of his roots, Armenia. Pallbearers carried Aznavour's coffin into the courtyard at Les Invalides military museum in Paris, where Napoleon is buried, to the sound of haunting music played from a duduk, an oboe-like wind instrument native to Armenia.

Ben Affleck, out of rehab, calls addiction a lifelong struggle

Oscar winner Ben Affleck said on Thursday he had completed a 40-day residential alcohol rehab program but said that battling addiction "is a lifelong and difficult struggle." Affleck, 46, who also went to rehab in 2017 and 2001, said in a posting on his Instagram account that he remained in outpatient care, and thanked his family, friends and fans for their support.

'We just got Banksy-ed': balloon girl painting self-destructs at the sale

A painting by mysterious British artist Banksy shred itself into pieces at the moment it sold for more than 1 million pounds at a London auction on Friday. Onlookers gasped and laughed after the bottom half of "Girl with Balloon", one of Banksy's best-known works, was sucked into a shredder hidden in its frame as the hammer fell, auction house Sotheby's said.

Director Boyle calls on Britons to mark Armistice Day with beach art

Oscar-winning film director Danny Boyle has called on Britons to mark the upcoming centenary since the end of World War One by sketching out sand silhouettes on UK beaches in memory of the millions of people who lost their lives in the conflict. The "Pages of the Sea" project will see artists etch out large portraits of people killed in the 1914-18 conflict during low tide on Armistice Day on November 11 at various beaches around the country.

Opera singer Montserrat Caballe dies in Barcelona, aged 85

Montserrat Caballe, who took opera into the pop charts by singing "Barcelona" with Freddie Mercury three decades ago, died aged 85 on Saturday. The Spanish soprano, who was born in the Catalan capital, had been in ill health for a number of years and was admitted to hospital in mid-September, a hospital official said. She died in Sant Pau hospital in Barcelona.

'M*A*S*H' star Alan Alda to get lifetime achievement award

Alan Alda, the "M*A*S*H" TV star with a long career on stage and screen, will receive the annual lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild, the actor union said on Thursday. Alda, 82, who announced in July that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, will receive the honour at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards dinner in Los Angeles on Jan. 27.

Promise fulfilled 25 years on in TV film 'My Dinner with Herve'

When journalist Sacha Gervasi set out to do an interview with diminutive French actor Herve Villechaize, best known for playing an evil henchman in Bond film "The Man with the Golden Gun," he had no idea that it would become a 25-year mission to get the story published. Now, Gervasi's night-long interview with Villechaize is finally seeing the light of day in HBO film "My Dinner with Herve," with "Game of Thrones" star Peter Dinklage as the 3-foot-11-inch (1.19-meter) tall Villechaize.

Onetime rap mogul Marion 'Suge' Knight sentenced to 28 years for manslaughter

Former rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight was sentenced in a Los Angeles courtroom on Thursday to 28 years in prison for manslaughter in the death of a man he ran over with his pickup truck outside a hamburger stand in 2015. The sentence appeared to forestall any chance of a future recording business comeback for Knight, 53, known as much for repeated run-ins with the law as for his career as a hip-hop executive promoting the likes of Snoop Dogg, Dr Dre and Tupac Shakur during the 1990s.

'Jersey Shore' star Sorrentino sentenced to eight months for tax evasion

Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, star of the reality television show "The Jersey Shore," was sentenced to eight months in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to tax evasion. Prosecutors said Sorrentino, 37, and his brother, Marc Sorrentino, 39, who was sentenced to two years, had hidden millions of dollars Mike made from the MTV series "Jersey Shore."

(With inputs from agencies.)