Paul McCartney Pays Surprise Visit

By Stephen M. Silverman

09/04/2001 at 01:00 PM EDT

He didn't exactly arrive in a Yellow Submarine, but given the damp weather, Sir Paul McCartney, 59, could have. The ex-Beatle paid a surprise visit to the Venice Film Festival in Italy on Tuesday to see a 13-minute film called "Tuesday" that features his music and his voice, as well as the voice of Dustin Hoffman. Accompanied by his fiance Heather Mills, 33, McCartney showed up in the rainy lagoon city like any well-prepared Englishman -- with a bumbershoot (umbrella) in hand, reports Reuters. He also posed for paparazzi by playing air guitar on the rolled-up umbrella. "Tuesday" is an animated featurette that McCartney actually helped produce. The film held its premiere on Monday in Venice and though McCartney was due to be on hand for the unveiling, he ended up canceling. Instead, noted the news service, he saw "Tuesday" on Tuesday. The short reportedly follows some bizarre events that unfold in a small American town. Elsewhere along the rialto in Venice, Steven Spielberg, 54, won't attend the this week's film festival showing of his and Stanley Kubrick's "A.I., Artificial Intelligence" because his and wife Kate Capshaw's soon-to-be 13-year-old son, Theo, will be having his bar mitzvah, a Jewish boy's right of passage, reports the Italian national paper La Repubblica. Spielberg has sent a seven-minute video to the fest that will deliver a message to moviegoers.