Bids hit £1.5m for Liz's story

Whether it's making movies or making babies, Liz Hurley is set to continue as one of the best-paid actresses in Hollywood.

It emerged today that the 36-year-old, who is seven months pregnant, is the subject of a bidding contest between magazines worldwide, all trying to buy the exclusive rights to cover the birth of her child which is due in April.

Deals on the table include an unprecedented £1.5 million to cover the pregnancy, birth and up to two years of Hurley's life as a mother. It will also give the celebrity magazine first bite at a wedding should she marry in that time. The figure - 50 per cent more than David and Victoria Beckham got from OK! for their wedding - rocketed from £600,000 after other titles became involved.

Hurley, concerned over the financial security of her unborn child, has been courting magazines. She has stalled on offers over recent weeks in the hope that her lawyers and those of Steve Bing - the US businessman she insists is the father - will come to a multi-million-pound maintenance settlement.

Bing, who split with Hurley around the time she announced the pregnancy, maintains the baby may not be his. It is believed DNA tests will establish who the father is.

Last night, close friends of Hurley said she was "looking radiant" and in an "upbeat mood" about the fact that a deal with Bing's lawyers was close. If that happens, all magazine bets are bound to be off.

OK! magazine is thought to be the front-runner, but Hello! and others in the US are also believed to be in the frame. Hurley is such hot property that publishers believe syndication of the story and pictures worldwide would more than recoup the £1.5 million.

The race to land Hurley started a year before she even became pregnant. Since September 2000, when she and Bing started dating, Hello! and OK! have monitored the relationship with a view to securing the exclusive on any engagement, wedding or birth. This is common practice in the celebrity world.

One magazine insider said: "We have a long relationship with Liz, which goes back to when she was dating Hugh Grant. As far as saleability goes, she's about as hot as it gets. When you are close to people like that, the chances are that, if there is a pregnancy announcement, they'll be quite willing to go with you for the story."

The real chase began after the pregnancy was announced in November last year. OK! was on the phone to Hurley's agents at Simian Films the day the story broke. The details of any deal are a closelyguarded secret. Only two people on OK! are believed to know: editor Nic McCarthy and publisher Richard Desmond. At Hello! all ideas must go through Spanish owner Eduardo Sanchez-Junco. Perhaps it is no coincidence OK! has run Hurley's "My Pregnancy" interview.

With her bump bigger by the day, the actress said: "When I saw my sister five months' pregnant I laughed because she was so much bigger than me. Now of course everyone's crying with laughter at me."

With her bump worth more than a million, Hurley may have the last laugh.