NEW YORK (AP) – Ellen Barkin’s jewelry, more than 100 pieces that included her wedding ring from her marriage to Revlon billionaire Ron Perelman, has fetched $20.3 million at auction.

A hush came over the packed Christie’s sales room Tuesday evening when the auctioneer announced the sale of the ring, a wide band set with four rows of bell-cut diamonds topped in 18-carat gold.

It sold for $130,000, surpassing a presale estimate of $50,000. The auction house did not disclose the buyer’s name.

Among the other 103 lots, ranging from period jewels and gemstones, a 22.76-carat diamond ring was purchased by a private American collector for $1.8 million – the highest price of the night.

Christie’s said the 52-year-old film star was “thrilled” with the outcome of the sale.

The $20.3 million total “makes Ellen Barkin’s collection the highest single-owner jewelry sale of the past 15 years in the U.S. and also places it among the top four ever worldwide,” said Rahul Kadakia, head of Christie’s jewelry department.

All prices include the auction house’s commission.

Barkin and Perelman married in 2000 and divorced six years later. The billionaire chairman of Revlon Inc. has a net worth of more than $6 billion.

Barkin is currently filming “Ocean’s Thirteen” with George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Her other film credits include “The Big Easy” with Dennis Quaid and “Sea of Love” with Al Pacino.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Actress Ruta Lee was honored Tuesday with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, where she once worked as an usher and candy girl.

Lee, 70, said it was her lifelong dream to have a star on Hollywood Boulevard.

“It’s the pot at the end of the rainbow,” she said as she was joined by her family and friends, including Debbie Reynolds and Alex Trebek, who hosted the mid-1970s game show “High Rollers” with Lee.

Lee got her start in show business in 1953 when she played a teenager in an episode of television’s “The Adventures of Superman.” She later appeared in “Funny Face” with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn, as Tyrone Power’s secret love in “Witness for the Prosecution,” and as Frank Sinatra’s leading lady in the Rat Pack comedy “Sergeants 3.”

She has also had roles in numerous television shows, including “The Twilight Zone,” “Gunsmoke,” “Bonanza” and “The Love Boat.”

NEW YORK (AP) – All it took was daddy’s little girl to turn David Bowie from a rock star into the voice of a cartoon.

Bowie will be a guest on Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants,” playing a character called Lord Royal Highness in a show that will air next year.

Bowie, 59, said his 6-year-old daughter, Alexandria Zahra, is a huge SpongeBob fan and they watch the show together. He wrote in his blog that he’s “hit the Holy Grail of animation gigs.”

“We, the family, are thrilled. Nothing else need happen this year, well, this week anyway,” Bowie said.

Bowie, who received a lifetime achievement honor at the Grammys this year and whose songs include “Fame,” “Young Americans” and “Space Oddity,” was previously the voice of Boz in David Cage’s 1999 “Omikron: The Nomad Soul.” He plays inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming movie “The Prestige,” in theaters Oct. 20.

SHANGHAI, China (AP) – The Culture Ministry has canceled rapper Jay-Z’s planned debut in China, citing his “vulgar” lyrics, a state-run newspaper reported Wednesday.

The rap icon, whose real name is Shawn Carter, was scheduled to perform on Oct. 23 at Shanghai’s Hongkou Stadium.

“Some of Jay-Z’s songs contain too much vulgar language,” Sun Yun, of promoter KS Production Co., was quoted as saying in the Shanghai Daily newspaper.

The New York rapper’s use of profanity and songs about drug dealers, pimps and violence apparently offended China’s culture czars despite their recently allowing groups with sexually suggestive songs, such as the Rolling Stones and the Black Eyed Peas, to perform in Shanghai.

A call to a representative for the rapper early Wednesday went unanswered.

ATLANTA (AP) – Anna Nicole Smith’s lead attorney in the Bahamas said Wednesday he has withdrawn as counsel for the reality TV star, citing disagreements on matters of strategy and concerns about her conduct.

Michael Scott said he was unsettled by Smith’s decision to exchange vows with her boyfriend even before she made funeral arrangements for Daniel Smith, her 20-year-old son who died Sept. 10. People magazine bought photos of the ceremony, which was not a legal wedding and was held aboard a catamaran on Sept. 28 in waters off Nassau, Bahamas.

“A disagreement on a commercial transaction made it difficult for us to remain as counsel,” Scott told The Associated Press over the phone.

A Nassau funeral home has been holding Daniel Smith’s embalmed body while awaiting further instructions from the family. He died while visiting Smith in a Bahamas hospital where she had given birth to a daughter three days earlier.

Bahamian police investigating Smith’s death expect to submit their report as early as this week to authorities who will determine whether a jury inquest is necessary.

Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist who conducted a private autopsy, concluded that he died from a lethal combination of methadone and two antidepressants.

Scott, who was also the lawyer for Daniel Smith’s estate, said he decided to withdraw effective Tuesday after consulting with his partners. He said he has notified Anna Nicole Smith in writing.

“It was not really an amicable parting,” said Scott, reached on his cell phone in Florida.

Scott cited disagreements with Smith’s boyfriend and longtime attorney Howard K. Stern, who says he is the father of Anna Nicole’s newborn daughter.

There were “strong differences of opinion between myself and Howard over strategies,” said Scott, who declined to elaborate, citing attorney-client privilege.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Before she takes on the Oscars, Ellen DeGeneres is going to frolic with some coastal wildlife.

The 48-year-old comedian will become a “virtual seal” who heads up an environmentally conscious flock on the California Bay as part of a new Web site. The site includes an animated seal named after DeGeneres that promotes wildlife preservation as it shimmies along a cartoon seashore.

“I just think (seals) are adorable,” she said. “I’ve always loved animals and I want to do anything I can to help.”

DeGeneres is lending her famous name to Dawn Saves Wildlife, a Web-based program to educate visitors about how they can help save the environment and protect aquatic animals from pollution.

Site visitors can become virtual pelicans, penguins, ducks or seals and form “flocks” with their friends as they learn simple sea-saving steps such as recycling used motor oil and disposing of cooking grease in sealed containers.

The site aims to reach one million visitors, said DeGeneres, who will host the 79th Academy Awards gala on February 25.

“All these things are so easy,” she said, “that if we all did them, it would make such a huge difference.”