HELEN MIRREN - MIRREN ANGERS HOMETOWN RESIDENTS

DAME HELEN MIRREN has angered locals by criticising her hometown of Leigh-On-Sea in England. The Oscar nominee told a US interviewer last week (begs19FEB07) she hailed "from a little place called Leigh-on-Sea...the armpit of the world." Now residents of the town are bombarding their local newspaper with letters expressing disappointment at Mirren's slur. One letter to The Leigh Times reads: "I, as a local resident, will no longer look kinder on the (one-time) much loved local girl."