Madonna was named the biggest money maker in music in 2012 on Friday, with a world tour helping her take home up to $34.6 million and highlighting the earning power of live performances as the industry increasingly goes digital. The 54-year-old Material Girl topped Billboard Magazine's annual list of 40 top money makers for the second time after earning an estimated $32 million - 93.5 percent of her revenue - from her 88-date "MDNA" tour, 2012's biggest tour. Madonna, who also led the list in 2008 due to tour income, was the only woman in the top 10 with last year's winner, Taylor Swift, who fell to 15th place as she did not tour in 2012. In second place in the music magazine's list was Bruce Springsteen whose $33.4 million revenue was also primarily driven by touring, playing to sold-out stadiums and arenas. More»

There were no "wardrobe malfunctions" but stars at the 55th Grammy Awards were not covering up either, despite being asked to dress "appropriately." Presenter Jennifer Lopez, wearing a black off-the-shoulder Anthony Vaccarello gown slit up her thigh on one side, joked about her attire. "As you can see, I read the memo," said the diva who caused a stir a few years ago when she appeared at the Grammys in a Versace gown with a neckline that dropped below her navel. "You inspired the memo!" said her co-presenter Pitbull, getting a big laugh from the audience. Broadcaster CBS last week issued a memo asking that Grammy performers and presenters keep their breasts, buttocks and genitals covered up. More»

Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan and her music entrepreneur husband, Emilio, are developing a new Broadway show based on their lives, the show's producer said on Tuesday. The couple is working with the Nederlander Organization on the show that will trace their lives from leaving Cuba to international stardom. "The Estefans' journey of success, led by raw talent and passion, is captivating as it drove them from relative obscurity to global sensations," Jimmy Nederlander, the organization's president, said in a statement announcing the deal. Estefan, one of the most successful Latin crossover stars, fled Cuba with her family as a toddler. She met her husband in Miami and became the lead singer of his band, which was renamed the Miami Sound Machine. The couple married in 1978. More»

Iran hostage drama "Argo" won its second big award in two days on Sunday, boosting its chances of winning a best picture Oscar next month in a race that had been considered wide open."Argo" won best cast ensemble, the top prize, at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, while Daniel Day-Lewis and Jennifer Lawrence took lead acting honors. On Saturday, "Argo" won the Producers Guild Award - a key measure of Hollywood sentiment - beating "Lincoln," "Les Miserables," and "Silver Linings Playbook," which are all Academy Award best picture contenders. "There was absolutely no way I thought we would win this award," the film's director and star, Ben Affleck, told reporters backstage after the SAG win. "Argo" is the true story of the rescue of U.S. diplomats stranded in Tehran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. More»

Sci-fi director JJ Abrams will head up the seventh Star Wars film, Lucasfilm owner Walt Disney Co has said. Star Wars creator George Lucas said he was the "ideal choice" to direct the movie - due out in 2015 - adding "the legacy couldn't be in better hands". It will be scripted by Oscar-winning writer Michael Arndt. Abrams, who co-created Lost and directed the Star Trek reboot, said he was "more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid". In October, Disney announced it had bought Lucasfilm for $4.05bn (£2.5bn) and was committed to three new films. Former Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who will produce the films, said Abrams was "the perfect director to helm this". "Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise - he understands the essence of the Star Wars experience," she said in a statement. More»

British rock singer Morrissey was hospitalized in metro Detroit with a suspected bladder infection, further disrupting his U.S. tour, his representative said on Saturday.  Morrissey, former lead singer for the 1980s alternative rock band The Smiths, checked into Beaumont Hospital on Friday in the suburb of Royal Oak, Michigan, said his spokeswoman Lauren Papapietro. Due to an illness in his band, Morrissey, 53, had already canceled his Thursday night show in Flint, Michigan, postponed the Friday night performance in Minneapolis and another engagement set for Saturday night in Chicago, Papapietro said.  She declined to say whether Morrissey has been released from the hospital, but said further details would be made known.  Morrissey, whose hits include "First of the Gang to Die" and "Irish Blood, English Heart," toured North America last fall, played some shows in Australia and New Zealand in December and came back to perform in the United States earlier this month. Upcoming shows include venues in Nashville, Atlanta and Las Vegas. More»

Singer Shakira gave birth to her first child, a boy, on Tuesday in Barcelona, the Colombian pop star said on her website. The "Hips Don't Lie" singer and her boyfriend, the Spanish soccer player Gerard Pique, named the six-pound, six-ounce (three kilograms) boy Milan. "Milan (pronounced MEE-lahn) means dear, loving and gracious in Slavic; in Ancient Roman, eager and laborious, and in Sanskrit, unification," the star said in a statement posted on her website. "Just like his father, baby Milan became a member of FC Barcelona at birth," the couple joked in a statement. Pique is a defender for Spanish La Liga runner-up FC Barcelona. Shakira, 35, announced her pregnancy in September after bowing out of a performance in Las Vegas. More»

Violinist Vanessa-Mae has put music on hold for a year and is rehearsing for a new role - skiing for Thailand at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in February 2014. Vanessa-Mae, 34, is in training with the aim of competing in at least five internationally recognized events to qualify for the giant slalom and possibly the slalom at the Sochi Olympics. "People are surprised when they see me skiing - a classical violinist, Oriental, who has lived in the city all her life," Vanessa-Mae told Reuters in a telephone interview. "But it has been my dream to be a ski bum since I was 14. This is something I am determined to do." The violinist is a British citizen but she also holds a Thai passport. She was born in Singapore to a Chinese mother and a Thai father but she was brought up in England when her mother remarried a Briton. More»

After a remarkable run with leading roles in films such as "The Dark Knight Rises" and "Inception," actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt stepped behind the camera to direct "Don Jon's Addiction," a raunchy comedy that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. "Don Jon's Addiction," which Gordon-Levitt also wrote and stars in, leads a slate of films about sex on this year's Sundance roster. The film follows the story of Jon, a handsome young man who is unable to maintain a relationship, due to his addiction to pornography. When Jon meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), a beautiful but high-maintenance woman obsessed with Hollywood romantic comedies, and Esther (Julianne Moore), an emotionally fragile widow, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery. Gordon-Levitt, 31, a former child star who has risen through the ranks of television and independent film to become one of Hollywood's most bankable actors, said he thought it would be "hilarious" to pair a porn addict with a woman addicted to romance films. More»

Barbra Streisand will add the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Chaplin Award to her roster of honors, in recognition of her achievement as a director, writer, producer and film star, the group said on Friday. Streisand, who shot to fame in the 1960s on Broadway and as a major recording star, will receive the honor at the 40th Annual Chaplin Award gala in New York on April 22 which will feature celebrity guests and a host of film and interview clips. "The Board is very excited to have Barbra Streisand as the next recipient of The Chaplin Award," Ann Tenenbaum, The Film Society of Lincoln Center's board chairman, said in a news release. "She is an artist whose long career of incomparable achievements is most powerfully expressed by the fact that her acclaimed 'Yentl' was such a milestone film." More»