It is sure to cause a stink with her fans, but pregnant Nicole Kidman has been dumped as the face of perfume giant Chanel.

The 40-year-old actress has been replaced as the face of Chanel No.5 by French beauty Audrey Tautou, best known for her Oscar-nominated title role in Amelie.

It is not known exactly how much the lucrative deal was worth, but sources say it is at least 4.3million.

Kidman has been associated with the fragrance since 2004, when she appeared in a $60million advertisement directed by fellow Australian and Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann.
Meanwhile things are smelling rosy for 29-year-old Tautou who will be reunited with Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet calling the shots for the advertisment campaign.

The dumping of Kidman is the latest blow to hit the Australian's career since her latest films, including Stepford Wives and Bewitched, have been major box office disappointments.

Movie sources have apparently begun to question Kidman's 10million movie price tag following the movie roles.

Botox addicts, beware. OD'ing on rat-poison injections could be harmful to your modeling career. Just ask actress Nicole Kidman, who's being dumped as the face of Chanel No. 5.

The luxury perfume line has named gamine Amelie star Audrey Tautou to replace the pregnant 40-year-old Kidman as their new spokesmodel, beginning in 2009.

Kidman, who has been the face of Chanel No. 5 since 2004, reportedly earned $3.7 million for a three-minute commercial spot directed by acclaimed Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann making her the world record holder for the most money paid per minute to an actor.

The 29-year-old French-born Tautou previously starred in The Da Vinci Code with Tom Hanks. She now joins an elite group of Chanel No. 5 spokesmodels, including iconic sex symbols Marilyn Monroe and Catherine Deneuve . 

Kidman, 40, has been replaced as the face of Chanel No. 5 by 29-year-old Audrey Tatou, who is best known for her Oscar-nominated title role in Amelie.

The pregnant actress has been associated with the fragrance since 2004, when she was directed by Baz Luhrmann in an extravagant three-minute commercial.

The production, which reunited the Australian Moulin Rouge! pair, is believed to be the most expensive commercial of all time at an estimated cost of $60 million.

Meanwhile, Tatou's forthcoming campaign will also serve as a filmset reunion, with Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet calling the shots.

Kidman's Chanel axing is yet another setback in a testing time of her career.  

French actress AUDREY TAUTOU has replaced NICOLE KIDMAN as the new spokesmodel for iconic fragrance Chanel No.5.
The Da Vinci Code star will make her bow in a commercial directed by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jenuet, which is due to air in 2009.
The pair are well acquainted - Jeunet directed Tautou in Amelie and A Very Long Engagement.

About actress Nicole Kidman, her two teenage children Isabella and Connor, whom she adopted while married to actor Tom Cruise.

Perhaps this is why Halperin became mum on the subject of Nicole during my visit to NY to see his film premiere, “His Highness Hollywood.”

Andrew Morton, Ian and I were discussing their two books, comparing similarities on the subject of Scientology, when we brought up Nicole Kidman, Ian suddenly excused himself and disappeared. Apparently he was holding out on us. I clearly need to work on my super-sleuth skillz.

In any case, the Globe’s article reveals Ian met Nicole while working undercover and the two became close enough for her to confide in him her concerns about her ex’s involvement in Scientology and most especially, the decision for their two children to be raised as Scientologists, rather than as Catholics, which both Nicole and Tom were before joining Scientology. 

It has been reported that Nicole Kidman will play the late soul legend Dusty Springfield in a new biopic.

Michael Cunningham, the writer of 'The Hours' who is penning the screenplay, told New York Magazine that Kidman would star in the film.

Of Springfield, he said: "She was a great artist who no one knew what to do with."
He added: "But she is clearly going into history with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones."

Kidman won an Oscar for her performance in the film of 'The Hours'

It's the battle of the dueling Dusty Springfield movies! In one corner, weighing in at...not much...is Nicole Kidman, in a Fox 2000 release written by Michael Cunningham. In the other, weighing in at even less, is Universal's own take, with Kristin Chenoweth attached to star. Will this go the way of the two competing Janis Joplin projects Pink's vs. Renée Zellweger's that produced nothing? Or is it going to be a Capote/Infamous scenario, with more Springfield biopic options than we really wanted in the first place?
Official reason given for Toni Collette's departure from Untitled Sam Mendes Romcom By Dave Eggers and His Wife: "Scheduling delays." She'll be replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal. [Variety]

Collette's pilot for Showtime, meanwhile, is looking like a go, as is Edie Falco's. The beat-maintaining premium network officially ordered a series from British comedian Marc Wootton, and re-ordered Tracey Ullman's (sort of funny, but enough with the hamfisted Andy Rooney stuff?) State of the Union. [Variety]
Renée Zellweger will produce Living Proof for Lifetime, the story of the doctor who developed the breast cancer drug Herceptin 2. It will star Harry Connick Jr., who apparently is now starring in Lifetime movies.
Catherine O'Hara is close to signing on to play the lead in Good Behavior, one of the many pilots Rob Thomas has cooking at various networks. This one is set up at ABC.

Nicole Kidman (pictured) is set to play the late soul legend Dusty Springfield in a new biopic penned by Michael Cunningham, writer of The Hours, in which Kidman portrayed Virginia Woolf; Cunningham told New York magazine that the film will not shy away from Springfield's bisexuality... Comic Johnny Vegas over-stepped the boundaries of taste - and perhaps even broke the law - during a performance at the Bloomsbury Theatre last week. After pulling a woman from the audience, it is alleged in the Guardian newspaper that he stroked her breasts, raised her skirt, ran his hand up her leg and fingered her through her clothes... Peter Phillips's fiancee Autumn Kelly has renounced her Catholic faith and converted to Anglicanism in a move that means the Queen's grandson, who is 11th in line to the throne, can keep his place in the Royal succession... DNA tests have confirmed that remains found in Russia last year belong to the Tsar Nicholas II's 13-year-old heir, Prince Alexei and his youngest sister Maria, executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918... Mia Farrow was briefly questioned at Hong Kong airport this morning before officials allowed her to enter the Chinese territory to give a speech criticising China's relations with Sudan - on the condition that she does not disrupt Friday's Olympic torch relay... Sir Ian McKellen is to reprise his role as Gandalf in the next two JRR Tolkien film adaptations, based on The Hobbit...

that Nicole Kidman will play English pop singer Dusty Springfield in a biopic.

"She was a great artist who no one knew what to do with," Cunningham said. "She was coming into her full powers at the same time the Beatles were," he said, adding that she suddenly found herself the purveyor of a dying torchy genre. "But she is clearly going into history with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones."

Cunningham said the film would include the lonely years in exile from the U.K. in Hollywood, the drinking and the drugging, and the tortured bisexual/lesbian feelings that wove through her checkered career, which ended when she died of cancer in 1999.

Nicole Kidman urged world leaders and ordinary people on Tuesday to join the global fight to end violence against women.

The actress, seven months pregnant and passionately committed to her role as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Development Fund for Women, said the violence was probably the "most widespread human rights violation of our time."

"One in three women will encounter violence in some way, shape or form against them in their lifetime," Kidman told a news conference at U.N. headquarters. "That's an extraordinary statistic. Yet do we ever hear it?"

The 40-year-old Australian star became a goodwill ambassador in January 2006 for the U.N. Development Fund for Women, known as UNIFEM. Its acting executive director, Joanne Sandler, said Kidman wanted to focus on an issue "where she could make a difference."

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