A Law unto himself

With Guy Richie's forthcoming 'Sherlock Holmes' dominating the covers of this month's film magazines, it's nice to see that one of its stars is pulling his weight in terms of ensuring some extra press coverage. Best of all, Jude's done it the only way he knows how - by using 'Little Jude'.

It was announced by the shag-happy actor's people this week that "Jude Law can confirm that, following a relationship last year, he has been advised that he is to be the father of a child due in the fall of this year." Which doesn't really come as any kind of surprise to anyone who's been following Jude's patchy career.

Having successfully squandered all the industry buzz and goodwill that surrounded him at the start of the decade, Jude is now known primarily for his below-the-belt behaviour.

First there was the affair with Sienna Miller that saw him leave wife Sadie Frost for the alleged 'actress'. Then, once they were happily engaged, Jude decided to sleep with the nanny that Sadie had hired for their kids, which saw dictionary editors around the world frantically rewriting the entries for 'poetic justice'.

Sensing that perhaps this wasn't going to enamour him to an already cool public, Jude chose to apologise to Sienna via a statement to the Press Association. And she bought it, for a while at least. Eventually Sienna and Jude split at the end of 2006, a parting of ways which I'm quite sure had nothing to do with Sienna having finally scored some half-decent reviews of her own for her role in Factory Girl.

Displaying all the brash confidence of Dickie Greenleaf, the self-absorbed playboy he portrayed in The Talented Mr Ripley, Jude spoke to the Telegraph in 2007 and announced that he was happy that his past mistakes had been aired so publicly: "I learnt my lesson and I ain't going to f***ing do it again."

So the announcement of this surprise pregnancy must have had the gods of Irony and Fate rubbing their hands together with glee that they have such a willing pawn to play with.

Still, after so much bad luck with the wrong type of women, it's nice that he's been able to focus his energies on a budding bromance instead, with co-star Robert Downey Jr, no stranger to public mistakes himself. Playing Watson to Downey's Holmes, Jude may finally have found his ideal partner. So you see - happy endings do happen, even in Hollywood.