Celebrity Gossip, February 11: Top actor to quit stage after admitting he struggles to learn lines

The 74-year-old actor, who has suffered panic attacks after forgetting his lines, admitted the painstaking struggle to remember the script is behind his heart-breaking decision.

He told The Sunday Times: “It’s a horrible thing to admit but I can’t do it. It breaks my heart. It’s when the script’s in front of me and it takes forever to learn. It’s frightening.”

Sir Michael, who made his professional stage debut in Othello in Dublin in 1962, previously relied on an earpiece with a prompter on the other end.

“There was a girl in the wings and I had a plug in my ear so she could read me the lines,” he recalled.

“And after about an hour, I thought, this can’t work. You can’t be in theatre, free on stage shouting and screaming and running around, with someone reading you your lines.”

Michael said he will continue to work in film and television.

KATY PERRY has lashed out at “unethical” paparazzi for invading her and her family’s privacy.

The Roar singer, who performed By The Grace Of God as an anti-violence anthem at the Grammy Awards, took to Twitter to voice her opinions about photographers who take pictures outside her home without her consent.

“Remember internet it’s literally ILLEGAL to post pictures of me at my house w/my family that unethical paparazzi have taken on long lenses,” she wrote.

She added that the unofficial images shouldn’t be shared either, posting: “Any distribution or purchase of these type of photos anywhere is extremely against my will & is an endangerment to me & my family’s privacy.”

Katy was up for two Grammy gongs - best pop duo/group performance for Dark Horse and best album for Prism - but lost out to A Great Big World and CHRISTINA AGUILERA and SAM SMITH.

BILL NIGHY has revealed he is plagued by thoughts about his own mortality.

The 65-year-old actor, who reprises his role as retired ex-pat Douglas Ainslie in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, admitted he constantly thinks about death.

“I probably think about death 12 times a day,” he told The Observer Magazine. “I measure my life in Champions Leagues. How many do I have left?”

He added: “What do we hope for? Go to bed and don’t wake up, I suppose.”

Bill, who has been filming the Dad’s Army movie and appeared in Pride and I, Frankenstein, also said he has no plans to stop working.

“I’m hoping not to retire,” he said.

In The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the sequel to the 2012 surprise hit, he gets to ride around Jaipur on a motorbike with DAME JUDI DENCH on the back for the second time.

“I’m still hopeless on a motorbike,” Bill admitted. “Took 17 takes. I don’t know why they didn’t use a stunt rider in long shot.”