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felicia-cat-hardy · 3 years

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20 Asian American Musicians To Add To Your Playlist Now

Over the past several years, the K-pop industry in the U.S. has grown exponentially. The fan enthusiasm behind bands like BTS has drawn parallels to The Beatles, and so many K-pop groups have received the same passionate reception. The attention is well-deserved, but Asian artists represent a multitude of musical genres (even just within the K-pop industry) — a fact that should not be overlooked. Whether you're a fan of indie rock, R&B, hip-hop, or dance music, you won't want to sleep on these Asian American musicians.

Asian artists have recently received some long-deserved recognition in the entertainment industry, primarily in film. In 2020, Bong Joon-ho's Parasite won big at the Oscars. The following year, Youn Yuh-Jung won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Minari, which also scored The Walking Dead alum Steven Yeun a nomination for Best Actor. However, there's still plenty of work to be done within the music landscape to ensure equal representation is achieved.

BTS, most notably, has seen unprecedented success in the U.S. Still, despite being invited to attend the last three Grammys, they've yet to take home an award, highlighting the discrepancy between their immense success and the Recording Academy's willingness to acknowledge it. Additionally, Asian artists have a harder time landing record deals. As American Idol alumni Paul Kim explained to The New York Times, he was blatantly told by industry execs he would have been signed to a label faster had he not been Asian.

By streaming these artists, you're not only supporting them and their art, but you're subsequently showing industry insiders just how valuable they are. Consider this list sonic proof Asian artists are making exceptional, diverse music that can't be boxed into one genre or sound. Each of these artists prides themselves on breaking boundaries and creating their own rules. You may have heard of a few, but many have been flying under the radar for far too long. Your ears will thank you soon enough.

Melissa Polinar

Polinar got her start in the late 2000s when viral YouTube covers paved the way for success. While artists like Justin Bieber and Lennon & Maisy were sharing music covers, Polinar focused on posting her original music — and her soulful vocals were a hit. In 2019, the Filipino-American songwriter actually re-recorded one of the songs that propelled her career forward, "Try," on its 10-year anniversary.

Eric Nam

Born and raised in Atlanta, Nam moved to Korea to pursue music because he felt he had a better chance of succeeding there. “Even if you look at American Idol, or X-Factor, or The Voice or anything, it was always difficult to see an Asian or an Asian-American make it to a certain point,” Nam told TIME in November 2019. Today, Nam is a highly visible and respected name in the K-pop industry. While he's very proud of his K-pop success, he considers himself a pop singer first. He hopes to grow his success stateside and told TIME, "I want people to hear my music and say, 'I don’t know who this person is,' and I could be Black, white, Latino, Asian — it doesn’t matter, but it’s just a great pop song."

Clinton Kane

Kane's got every making of a great singer-songwriter, and his lyricism will make a fan out of loyal Ed Sheeran or Sam Smith listeners. The Filipino-American singer's impressive vocal range captivates, and his emotion-driven lyrics will melt your heart. One of his more popular tracks, "Chicken Tendies," has upwards of 2 million views and is a must-add to your heartbreak playlist.

Jhené Aiko

As a mixed-race Japanese, Creole, Dominican, and European woman, Aiko has proudly championed her diverse roots throughout her accomplished career. The R&B singer is a six-time Grammy-nominated artist and is well respected within the industry for her philanthropic endeavors. She launched the WAYS foundation in 2017, an organization dedicated to helping cancer patients and their families.

Steve Aoki

Steve Aoki is hardly a newcomer to the EDM scene, but as one of the most prominent DJs in the industry, and one of the biggest Japanese DJs ever, it would be a crime to leave him off this list. Aoki even has his own record label and, in 2016, Netflix released I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, a documentary about his career.

Karen O

As the lead singer for the rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Karen O has solidified her spot as a rock music legend. Not only is the Korean-American singer's discography with the band a must-listen for any rock music fan, but her 2019 album with Danger Mouse, Lux Prima, earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance.

H.E.R.

Hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area, H.E.R. (aka Gabi Wilson) has become one of the most prominent names in R&B. At just 23 years old, the singer-songwriter already has four Grammy wins and 13 nominations. Along the way, she's never shied away from praising her Filipino mother and Black father, Agnes and Kenny Wilson, for giving her the unique perspectives that propelled her musical success.

Toro Y Moi

Toro Y Moi is actually one person (Chaz Bear) and he's become the unofficial king of chillwave. Born to a Filipino mother, the South Carolina native later relocated to California to further his music career. If you need some chill vibes on your playlist, Bear's got you covered.

Ruby Ibarra

Ibarra is a Filipino-American rapper from San Lorenzo, California who also dabbles in spoken word poetry. Her music is meaningful in more ways than one. A number of her songs touch upon her experience as an Asian American woman. In April 2021, she released a powerful song and video called "Gold" with Ella Jay Basco, which exposed the harmful effects of the skin whitening industry.

Ella Jay Basco

You may recognize Basco from her appearance in Birds of Prey, but her music is not to be slept on because it's making major waves. Her song "Gold" with Ruby Ibarra highlights her Filipino heritage. As she told People, "From top to bottom, we wanted to make sure that our Asian-American community was represented with this project."

Mitski

Meet your new favorite alt-rock queen. Mitski's dreamy melodies appeal to the indie-rock crowd more than anything, and, if you're a sucker for a sad bop, this Japanese-American songstress has plenty of those stacked up.

Yaeji

Yaeji was born in Flushing, Queens in 1993 and grew up between the U.S. and Korea. Since she moved around so much as a kid, she found friendship on the internet, where she first connected with the bossa nova, jazz, and Korean indie music that drove much of the Korean DIY scene. She soon returned to the States to attend college, where she discovered a love for producing and DJing. Now, she meticulously blends hip-hop elements with her house-driven sound for a listening experience that is unlike anything else.

Hayley Kiyoko

Kiyoko has been given the nickname Lesbian Jesus since she’s so outspoken about LGBTQ+ representation in the music industry. The Japanese-American singer is a true trailblazer and her pop music genius has landed her hits with Kehlani, MAX, and AJR.

Jay Park

Park is an industry heavyweight. The Seattle native got his start in the K-pop industry as part of the band 2PM, but he went solo in 2009. Today, not only does the star have dozens of hits under his belt, but he has two record labels of his own that specialize in R&B and hip-hop music: AOMG and H1ghr. Park uses his superstar status to give others the spotlight, and he's put his support behind other artists like GOT7's JAY B and Yugyeom, and Raz Simone. Whether you're a self-proclaimed K-pop stan, or you're just recently getting acquainted with the genre, Park's discography is required listening.

Jin Au-Yeung

Born and raised in North Miami Beach, Florida, the Chinese-American rapper, aka MC Jin, has some seriously impressive accolades under his belt. After becoming popular among his musical peers for his epic freestyles, he was signed to Ruff Ryders in 2002 at just 19 years old, becoming the first Asian American solo rapper to be signed to a major record label in the U.S. He's since parted ways with the label and now travels back and forth between the U.S. and Hong Kong, seeing success in both places. In May 2021, the rapper released a single called "Stop the Hatred" with Wyclef Jean to raise awareness about hate crimes toward Asian Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Olivia Rodrigo

Rodrigo needs no introduction, but I'll do it anyway: This Filipino-American actress-turned-singer-songwriter's mega-hit debut single "drivers license" was unavoidable in January 2021. Its heartbreakingly relatable lyrics about a crush moving on with someone else struck listeners to their core and immediately soared to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also went viral on TikTok, before making its way into a Saturday Night Live sketch. Rodrigo's songwriting skills have fans likening her to industry heavyweights like Taylor Swift, so it's no surprise her debut album, Sour, is one of the most highly-anticipated albums of summer 2021.

Run River North

Run River North is not just one musician, but three. The band formerly known as Monsters Calling Home is an indie rock band from Los Angeles. The group has an eclectic sound that draws inspiration from each member: Daniel Chae, Alex Hwang, and Sally Kang.

ZHU

When ZHU first entered the electronic music scene, he used an alias and remained anonymous. By 2014, the artist also known as Steven Zhu was ready to share his identity with the world. ZHU got his start in San Francisco, California, but has made his mark on the EDM scene globally.

Darren Criss

Criss rose to fame starring on the television series Glee and he's since proven himself to be a true triple threat. His work can be seen across TV, film, and music. In September of 2018, Criss became the first Filipino-American to win an Emmy in the lead actor category for his portrayal of Andrew Cunanan in FX's The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. He’s also got several full-fledged EPs under his belt.

Amber Liu

Amber Liu (also known mononymously as Amber) is of Taiwanese descent and grew up in Los Angeles. She made a big splash when debuting as a member of the K-pop girl group f(x) in September 2009, but has since gone solo. Her 2019 solo track "Other People" racked up millions of streams, and she’s gearing up to drop her first album of 2021, called y?, very soon. In the meantime, she’s continuing to grow her superstar following on social media, where she has 5 million Instagram followers and over 2.3 million on Twitter.

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lastsonlost · 4 years

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“‘Little Women’ Has a Little Man Problem.”

So reads the headline for an article on Vanity Fair’s website this month about the latest screen adaptation of the beloved Louisa May Alcott novel. The film has been lauded by critics and ostensibly possesses many of the qualities awards voters look for: an A-list cast (including Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet and Meryl Streep); a respected actress-turned-director (Greta Gerwig); and beloved source material.

But so far it has been noticeably underrepresented during awards season — two Golden Globe nominations and zero Screen Actors Guild nods — and Vanity Fair described the audiences at early advance screenings as “overwhelmingly comprised of women.” One of its producers, Amy Pascal, told the magazine she believes many male voters have avoided it because of an “unconscious bias.”

While the box office numbers following its release on Wednesday suggest the movie has found a decent audience — it placed third, behind the new “Star Wars” and the latest “Jumanji,” on opening day — that unconscious bias has seemed to trickle down to the casual male viewer as well, if Twitter is any indication. The New York Times critic Janet Maslin recently tweeted her surprise at the “active hostility about ‘Little Women’ from men I know, love and respect.”

She also described the movie’s “problem with men” as “very real.” Someone tweeted in response: “It’s not a ‘problem.’ We just don’t care.”

In 2019, this attitude seems like history repeating itself. When Ms. Alcott’s book was first published in 1868, it was an instant success — it was favorably reviewed by many of the top magazines and has never gone out of print — but that made it an outlier. At that time American women’s novels were not most critics’ idea of “serious” writing. While their female British counterparts — Jane Austen and Fanny Burney, for example — were considered giants on the literary landscape, in the United States a different spirit ruled.

The predominantly white and male guardianship of the literary and intellectual high ground tended to view the essential American story as a solo confrontation with the wilderness, not a love triangle or intimate domestic saga. Nineteenth-century men of letters “saw the matter of American experience as inherently male,” the literary critic Nina Baym wrote in her 1981 essay “Melodramas of Beset Manhood.” It was a complete negation of women’s points of view, not just an artistic dismissal.

That doesn’t mean American women’s fiction wasn’t popular — like “Little Women,” Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” could barely keep up with demand after its 1852 publication. But that widespread appeal was used to slight the genre out of hand and further relegate it to the status of mere entertainment. As Ms. Baym noted, Nathaniel Hawthorne, for one, complained in 1855 about the “damned mob of scribbling women” whose inexplicably popular work he feared would hurt his own book sales.

There’s some truth in the notion that women strove to write works that would sell — Ms. Alcott herself said she wrote “Little Women” “at record speed for money” while men toiled away on epics like “Moby-Dick” that would fail to generate much income. This was in large part born of necessity; women had far fewer opportunities to earn decent money, usually forced to unskilled labor. Who wouldn’t write a book for money?

In some ways, we live in a different, more progressive era where recent onscreen stories by and about women have been highly regarded: the Emmy-winning “Fleabag”; the crowd-pleasing “Hustlers,” which outdid expectations at the box office and could lead Jennifer Lopez to her first Oscar nomination; “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” about a romance between two women in 18th-century France, which was nominated for the Palme d’Or, the highest prize at Cannes, this year. It’s not as if men have shunned these women-led stories.

It may be that on its surface, “Little Women” doesn’t seem as fresh and progressive, comparatively. Maybe men feel it’s too familiar — the book has been turned into a movie no fewer than seven times, including a little-seen version released just last year. But in an era when sequels and remakes clog the film landscape (many of them male-centered), it’s hardly an exception.

Or perhaps the movie’s marketing undersold just how inventive Ms. Gerwig’s adaptation — which takes many interesting creative liberties, such as ditching the linear narrative — is. The bucolic imagery in the trailer underlines the cozy, even slightly sappy aspects of Ms. Alcott’s book: the March sisters with their flowing locks and billowing gowns, looking as though they just stepped out of a John Singer Sargent painting. Knitting around a fire. Lots of dialogue centered around whom the young women will marry (in England, the second half of the book was called “Good Wives”). Some may feel the story is solely about getting a husband.

But the book has always been about more than this; in the character of Jo March (played in this iteration by Ms. Ronan), Ms. Alcott created a rebellious, tomboyish heroine eager for adventure. “I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy,” Jo declares in Chapter One. “And it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman!” From afar “Little Women” may look like a standard 19th-century romance, but Jo is ready to subvert conventions from the start.

Ms. Gerwig’s film inhabits this spirit throughout. As in the book, the March sisters are intellectually curious, avid readers and artistically inclined, eagerly performing Jo’s melodramatic plays. Amy eventually goes to Europe to pursue a career in art, Beth excels at piano, Meg shows talent as a performer. In a pivotal scene late into the movie, Jo tries to describe to her mother what writing means to her and why she isn’t defined by wifely feelings. Women, she says, “have minds and they have souls as well as just hearts.”

There’s reason to believe this new “Little Women” has appeal beyond a predominantly female audience. Several male film critics have given enthusiastic reviews, and on Wednesday Ms. Maslin tweeted her belief that male opposition has receded now that the movie is out. “Men are loving it,” she wrote. “Even ones who said they wouldn’t go.”

Yet that this concern even existed to begin with is disheartening. If many men haven’t wanted to give it a chance because they don’t think it’s meant for them, we still have a way to go in considering all kinds of narratives about women to be deserving of thoughtful attention.

We can turn to a much-canonized American male writer, David Foster Wallace, for a vivid phrase not far off from Jo’s cry to her mother: Fiction writing “is what it is to be a [expletive] human being.” That’s what “Little Women” is — a plea for women to be seen as human beings.

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SO Let me see if I got this straight. People who are in fanatical support of a movie that has nothing to do with men, who's target audience isn't men and was never marketed to men seem to think it's mens faults but it bombed.

WHY DO THESE PEOPLE THINK MEN ARE OBLIGATED TO JUST GIVE UP THEIR MONEY?

Men that don't only one there Financial labor.

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tell-mi · 4 years

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Always Best - Prologue

A Niall Horan fanfic. May include mature language along the chapters. And some smut sometimes. Have fun reading.

8th August 2019

"Giiirl are you finished?" Selena screamed across the living room of your flat. Her, Julia and you were just about to go out to the birthday party of Shawn. As the young Pop-Elite you have been friends for a damn long time with the girls. Growing up as a young child star and growing into the most successful actress, singer/songwriter and producer of your age. The girls just kept you grounded and you were so happy for having them. "Coming!" You screamed back while applying the last bit of lipgloss on your lips. Grabbing your little neon pink purse which matched your sweet new sandals you just bought with the girls you were about to go!

"Vamos ladies!"

The three of you entered the little lounge in the club all tangled in your arms all giggling and happy. You cannot hide the few glasses of champagne which already floated in your systems. You just had a little pre-party at your flat before and over chit-chatting and goshing over the hot male actors of your new series you lost a little bit track of keeping it low with the alcohol.

***

"Shaaawnie, babe, Happy Birthday to you! I love you my sweetest little baby biy" You threw your hands around Shawns back and congratulate him. "Nikky, hey. Thanks!! Looks like someone had a early party for me, Huh?" He gave you a sweet smooch on your cheek and let go of you. "Let's drink one!" "Surely, where is Cami, by the way?" You've asked in your tipsy state. Camilla and Shawn were the cutest couple you have known. Shawn just gave you a nod with his head towards your right side. "She's with the guys over there." He was all smily while squeezing your waist and turning you around. "Hey Nikky?" "Huh?" You didn't even listened to Shawn anymore, because your cautiousness was all about one handsome, blue eyed lad. Your best friend since ten years. "Sure that, Shawnie" you wiggled yourself free from his hand on your waist and peck his nose while you already head into Niall's direction. You felt a grip on your wrist which slightly pulled you back. "Don't play party crashers with Niall, please" Shawn begged in a whiney tone which let you chuckle to yourself.

***

"Look who has found back to us after a year of playing famous chick!" Nialls face couldn't hide the big ass smirk he had while laughing about his own joke. He handed you a bottle of beer and embraced your whole body in the softest hug you had for about a lifetime. "Jealous of me?" You half whispered into his neck. A smile never got lost from your lips. You two stood there for a little longer than normal, with your hands delightful caressing your backs. The hug lasted longer than every hug you had received from him over all the years. You missed each other deeply and you knew that none of you wanted to be the one who backed away first. "You smell really good" was the first thing which slipped through your mouth as he loosened the hug for a bit. You could feel his whole body shaking from a huge giggle which just escaped his mouth. Damn, you've missed that laugh. It was the only laugh which always managed to make you smile and laugh along too. You cannot help and still hold your hands on his arms. Did they got bigger? Your eyes met his peaking blue ones. Damn, those were the most beautiful eyes you have seen in your whole life. You could have sworn that they got more beautiful since you have seen him the last time. Niall himself stared deeply in your eyes as well and your could have sworn he bend in a little bit. A strange feeling grew inside of you. Could it really happen that you missed your best friend too much than one would miss a friend? "Uh, thanks, I guess. You don't smell bad either." He grinned straight in your face which made you slap his chest. "Asshole!" You chuckled while he fake gutted held his chest with one hand.

Over the last year you were very busy with your Emmy winning series which you were producer and actress of. The year before Niall was dating Hailee and therefore he had less time for his best friend. The two of you grew apart and lost track of each other for more than one and a half year. Just met twice at an award show or something similar. Only a few month ago you started texting each other like in old times. He was the first one who made a step towards you. You've just posted some new stills of your music video which was rather hot and he commented it with a flame emojy. That action made you smile and so you sent him a few funny messages and you two began to talk to each other on a regular base again. You've sent each other funny pictures or some music you just listened to. Just like in old times. But something still felt strange. You were too happy and to enthusiastic to meet your best friend again. For two days you've had a weird feeling in your tummy which didn't let you sleep or eat. You were just to exited to see him in person again. Something has changed, you just need to find out what exactly it was.

#niall horan #niall fanfic #niall fluff #friends to lovers

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xanderhttps-blog · 4 years

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✱ jung yoonoh/jaehyun. he/him. cismale. — i know that alexander ‘xander’ kim is one of the roses . which makes sense because the twenty-two year old’s parents are hollywood royalty known for their world-renowned oscar, golden globe, emmy, and grammy winning parents. rumors say that they are the rebel of the group , but who knows if that’s true . + violent outbursts towards paparazzi, expensive cars that you never drive, and throwing around a ridiculous amount of cash.

TRIGGER WARNING(S): alcoholism, depression, parental death

hi there , my name’s ness and i’ve surprised myself by writing this up so quick . i’m twenty-one years old , use the pronouns she/her , and currently live in the est ! i’ll be playing alexander , or xander , and he’s a brand new muse but i’ve got a solid background set up for him . i have some connection ideas below and if you see one you’re interested in then don’t hesitate to give this post a like or hit me up on discord @ tired, but trying™#0666 , i can’t wait to start interacting with y’all ! ♡

so, since this is a group about the children of celebrities i’ll tell you about his parents first. (M/N) was a struggling actress with a job as a waitress, (F/N) Kim was a hot new guitarist and lead singer of the group whom had a cult following and even won a grammy within the first year of their big break. long story short, they stumbled into each other’s lives one night by chance and it was love at first sight. (F/N) helped (M/N) get her big break and was her biggest supporter while she kept his feet on the ground while his head was in the clouds. after her first breakout role, the lead of a romantic drama, she quickly rose to stardom and became well adored by the public. despite her success which started to eclipse even that of his band, he was encouraging nonetheless. however, (F/N)’s insecurities started to rise as her manager told him his “rockstar” image wasn’t good for hers and constantly made him feel as if he were holding her back.

alexander was born shortly after they married and this was the happiest time of their lives. the two settled into a domestic lifestyle and things seemed to be calm aside from the pressure of (M/N)’s manager wanting her to get back onscreen. however, everything changed when xander was just three years old and his father dislocated his wrist in an accident, the doctor told him he’d never be able to play guitar again. he fell into a deep depression and began self-medicating with alcohol, passing away after suffering from alcohol poisoning just two years later a week after alexander’s fifth birthday. the media went into a frenzy after (F/N) passed away and (M/N), grieving in her own way for the love of her life, threw herself back into project after project.

a five year old alexander had just lost his dad and suddenly his mom was around less and less, having no complete comprehension of what was going on. he grew up defiant with no father or fatherly figure and a mother that was too busy filming to be around, just a nanny whom was very lenient and allowed him to do whatever he wanted. he’d had his first sip of liquor and smoked a cigarette by the age of fourteen. he was arrested for underaged drinking and driving while under the influence shortly after getting his license. since he was the son of a late but famous grammy winning musician and an award winning mother, the spotlight was on him always. not only that, but he felt that he could keep his father alive and feel closer to him by following in his rebellious yet destructive footsteps — and that’s how he took on the label as the rebel of the roses.

he’s simply a rebel without a cause to the public and media, another one of hollywood’s spoiled children that does what they want because they simply can get away with it. he still drinks in copious amounts, smokes so many cigarettes that he’ll probably be diagnosed with lung cancer before he’s thirty, and punching overbearing paparazzi that get way too close to comfort. in truth, alexander is a troublesome man trying to hold onto the hearsay about the famous “(F/N) Kim” since he has no memories of him and is still mourning that loss of a father he never knew.

POSSIBLE CONNECTION(S)

frienemies

ride or die

brother from another mother

sister from another mister

friends with benefit(s)

enemies with benefit(s)

exes, bad or good terms

unrequited crush

will-they-won’t-they

drinking/party buddies

confidant

#roses:intro

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go-redgirl · 5 years

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Diahann Carroll, Pioneering Actress on ‘Julia’ and 'Dynasty,’ Dies at 84

She also landed an historic Tony Award, plus an Oscar nomination for her performance in 'Claudine.'

Diahann Carroll, the captivating singer and actress who came from the Bronx to win a Tony Award, receive an Oscar nomination and make television history with her turns on Julia and Dynasty, has died Friday. She was 84.

Carroll died at her home in Los Angeles after a long bout with cancer, her daughter, producer-journalist Suzanne Kay, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Carroll was known as a Las Vegas and nightclub performer and for her performances on Broadway and in the Hollywood musicals Carmen Jones and Porgy & Bess when she was approached by an NBC executive to star as Julia Baker, a widowed nurse raising a young son, on the comedy Julia.

She didn't want to do it. "I really didn't believe that this was a show that was going to work," she said in a 1998 chat for the website The Interviews: An Oral History of Television. "I thought it was something that was going to leave someone's consciousness in a very short period of time. I thought, 'Let them go elsewhere.' "

However, when Carroll learned that Hal Kanter, the veteran screenwriter who created the show, thought she was too glamorous for the part, she was determined to change his mind. She altered her hairstyle and mastered the pilot script, quickly convincing him that she was the right woman.

Carroll thus became the first African-American female to star in a non-stereotypical role in her own primetime network series. (Several actresses portrayed a maid on ABC's Beulah in the early 1950s.)

Baker, whose husband had died in Vietnam, worked for a doctor (Lloyd Nolan) at an aerospace company; she was educated and outspoken, and she dated men (including characters played by Fred Williamson, Paul Winfield and Don Marshall) who were successful, too.

"We were saying to the country, 'We're going to present a very upper middle-class black woman raising her child, and her major concentration is not going to be about suffering in the ghetto,' " Carroll noted.

"Many people were incensed about that. They felt that [African Americans] didn't have that many opportunities on television or in film to present our plight as the underdog … they felt the [real-world] suffering was much too acute to be so trivial as to present a middle-class woman who is dealing with the business of being a nurse.

"But we were of the opinion that what we were doing was important, and we never left that point of view … even though some of that criticism of course was valid. We were of a mind that this was a different show. We were allowed to have this show."

Julia, which premiered in September 1968, finished No. 7 in the ratings in the first of its three seasons, and Carroll received an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe for her work.

As the sultry fashionista Dominique Deveraux — the first prominently featured African-American character on a primetime soap opera — Carroll played a much edgier character for three seasons on ABC's Dynasty and its spinoff The Colbys, delightfully dueling with fellow diva Alexis Carrington Colby (Joan Collins).

While recuperating after starring on Broadway in Agnes of God, Carroll had found herself digging Dynasty — "Isn't this the biggest hoot?" she said — and lobbied producer Aaron Spelling for a role on his series.

"They've done everything [on the show]. They've done incest, homosexuality, murder. I think they're slowly inching their way toward interracial," she recalled in a 1984 piece for People magazine. "I want to be wealthy and ruthless … I want to be the first black bitch on television."

Carroll made perhaps her biggest mark on the big screen with her scrappy title-role performance in Claudine (1974), playing a Harlem woman on welfare who raises six children on her own and falls for a garbage collector (James Earl Jones).

The part was originally given to her dear friend, Diana Sands. But when Sands (who had played Julia Baker's cousin on several episodes of Julia) was stricken with cancer, she suggested Carroll take her place.

"The producers said, 'How can she do this role? No one would believe she could do it," Carroll said. "I remember the headline in the paper: 'Would you believe Jackie Onassis as a welfare mother?' … The very coupling of the name Jackie Onassis and Diahann Carroll is very interesting, if you think about it. There question was, how do we make anyone believe that she has [six] children? And to be nominated for an Academy Award, to do that, it was the best, the best."

Carol Diahann Johnson was born in Fordham Hospital in the Bronx on July 17, 1935. Her father, John, was a subway conductor when she was young, and her mother, Mabel, a nurse. She won a scholarship to the High School of Music & Art, where Billy Dee Williams was a classmate.

At 15, she began to model clothing for black-audience magazines like Ebony,Tan and Jett. Her dad disapproved at first, then began to reconsider when she told him she had earned $600 for a session.

Her parents drove her to Philadelphia on many weekends so she could be a contestant on the TV talent show Teen Club, hosted by bandleader Paul Whiteman. And then she won several times on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts program, where she first billed herself as Diahann Carroll.

After enrolling at NYU to study psychology, she appeared on the Dennis James-hosted ABC talent show Chance of a Lifetime in 1953 and won for several weeks. One of her rewards was a regular engagement to perform at the famed Latin Quarter nightclub in Manhattan.

Christine Jorgensen taught her how to "carry" herself onstage, she said, and she moved in with her manager, training and rehearsing every day. She soon was singing in the Persian Room at New York's Plaza Hotel and at other hotspots including Ciro's, The Mocambo and The Cloister in Hollywood, The Black Orchid in Chicago and L'Olympia in Paris.

She soon dropped out of college to pursue performing full-time and was brought to Los Angeles to audition for Otto Preminger's Carmen Jones (1954), landing the role of Myrt opposite the likes of Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge.

At the end of 1954, she made her Broadway debut as the young star of the Truman Capote-Harold Arlen musical House of Flowers. Walter Kerr in The New York Herald Tribune called her "a plaintive and extraordinarily appealing ingenue."

She was cast to play Clara in Preminger and Rouben Mamoulian's movie adaptation of Porgy and Bess (1959), but her voice was considered too low for her character's Summertime number, so another singer dubbed for her.

She met Sidney Poitier on that film, thus beginning what she described as a "very turbulent" nine-year romance with him. (Carroll then had first non-singing movie role, playing a schoolteacher opposite Poitier, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in 1961's Paris Blues).

She would become renowned for her phrasing, partially a result of her studying with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

In 1963, she earned the first of her four career Emmy noms for portraying a teacher yet again on ABC's gritty Naked City.

Richard Rodgers spotted her during one of her frequent singing appearances on Jack Paar's Tonight Show and decided to compose a Broadway musical for her. After scrapping the idea to have her portray an Asian in 1958's Flower Drum Song, he wrote 1962's No Strings, a love story revolving around an African-American fashion model (Carroll) and a nebbish white novelist (Richard Kiley).

His first effort following the death of longtime collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II, it brought Carroll rave reviews and a Tony Award, the first given to a black woman for best actress in a lead role of a musical.

Soon after hosting a CBS summer replacement variety show in 1976, she retired from show business and moved to Oakland. Landing the role of Dominique — the half-sister of John Forsythe's Blake Carrington — in 1984 put her back on the map in Hollywood.

She told the show's writers: "The most important thing to remember is write for a white male, and you'll have the character. Don't try to write for what you think I am. Write for a white man who wants to be wealthy and powerful. And that's the way we found Dominique Deveraux."

More recently, Carroll had recurring roles as Jasmine Guy's mother on NBC's A Different World, as Isaiah Washington's mom on ABC's Grey's Anatomy and as a Park Avenue widow on USA's White Collar. She also appeared in such films as Eve's Bayou (1997) and on stage as Norman Desmond in a musical version of Sunset Blvd.

She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2011.

Carroll recorded several albums during her career and wrote the memoirs Diahann, published in 1986, and The Legs Are the Last to Go: Aging, Acting, Marrying, Mothering and Other Things I Learned Along the Way, in 2008.

She was married four times: to Monte Kay, a manager and a casting consultant on House of Flowers; to Freddie Glusman, a Las Vegas clothier (that union lasted just a few weeks); to magazine editor Robert DeLeon (he died in an auto accident in 1977); and to singer Vic Damone (from 1987 until their 1996 divorce). She also had a three-year romance with talk-show host David Frost.

In addition to her daughter, survivors include her grandchildren, August and Sydney.

Duane Byrge contributed to this report.

________________________________________________

OPINION: May Diahann Carroll rest in peace! She was a great actress for many years.🙏

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starringemiliaclarke · 5 years

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Emilia Clarke on Why Game of Thrones Is the Perfect Form of Escapism + HQ Scans

As Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke created a warrior queen for the ages. Her legend can be told on the walls of caves or on T-shirts at Comic-Con. But behind the Valkyrie wigs and very testy dragons, Clarke has an inspiring origin story of her own.

A valley sprawls before her, rich with every color of green in the kingdom, reaching out to a twinkling city, which borders the infinite sea. Her hair (tinted not with peroxide, but tiny flecks of actual gold) glows with a radiance that makes the setting sun so jealous it hides behind the surrounding mountains, and the evening sky blushes. She is Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of the Andals, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. Everything in sight belongs to her.

Just kidding! She is Emilia Clarke, sitting high above Beverly Hills in a glass mansion rented for a magazine cover shoot. So high up that passing aircraft rattle the bones of the house and those inside it. So high up that you can see Santa Catalina Island in the distance, peeking out from behind a curtain of fog. She laughs about something the makeup artist says, and the last of the evening light bounces off of her cheekbones and shoots into the camera lens.

We are in the sky to talk about Clarke’s reign as one of the most preeminent television actresses of our time, as Daenerys on Game of Thrones. But first, I have a few questions about her abandoned career as a jazz singer.

Clarke’s default emotion is joy — her resting heart rate seems to be just below that of someone seconds after winning a medium-expensive raffle prize — but it quickly congeals into theatrical horror when I reveal that I know that she is a casual but talented singer of jazz music.

When she was 10, Clarke was an alto in a chorus that she describes as “very churchy.” Then a substitute teacher introduced her class to jazz. “I just innately understood it,” she explains. “I was always sliding up and down the notes. Every time, the [chorus] teacher would be like, ‘Quit sliding, just sing that note and then that one and that’s it. Stop trying to fuck with it.’ Then this [jazz teacher] was like, ‘Fuck with it. That’s the point.’ ” Fast-forward a couple of decades, and Clarke was singing “The Way You Look Tonight” at the American Songbook Gala in New York, honoring Richard Plepler, erstwhile CEO of HBO. Nicole Kidman was there, too, and that is the story of Emilia Clarke, a very famous singer.

Just kidding, again! That is the story of Emilia Clarke, extremely famous actress, and it is not even the beginning. Game of Thrones, the HBO fantasy epic that has captured the global zeitgeist for most of the past decade, has entered its ultimate season. Since the show premiered in 2011, Daenerys’s searing platinum blonde has been branded into the brains of every living person with cable access, so much so that she has become as recognizable an action figure as Princess Leia. Every autumn, legions of Americans don Grecian-style dresses and carry stuffed dragons to Halloween parties in homage. Kristen Wiig even appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in a full Daenerys getup. This phenomenon exists in part because it’s a relatively easy costume to assemble, but more likely because Game of Thrones is the most popular TV show in the history of TV shows.

It’s also just one of three popular entertainment franchises Clarke has participated in. Last year: Solo: A Star Wars Story, as a paramour of Han Solo. Two years before that: the fifth Terminator movie, beside Arnold. She was also Holly Golightly in a short-lived Breakfast at Tiffany’s production on Broadway. None of those projects were particularly successful — but none of that matters, to a remarkable degree, because what matters is: The people love Daenerys.

They love a character whose series arc begins with her indentured servitude as a warlord’s concubine and ends, most recently, with her fighting for sovereignty over a league of nations and for a throne made of swords. They love how fictional languages drift from her mouth like dancing smoke, and how her searing-white mane retains a fearsome curl, even in or near battle. They love the whole dragons thing.

The people would love Emilia Clarke, too, if only they knew who she was. During the first few seasons of Game of Thrones, Clarke was able to fool the general public into believing she was very regular civilian Emilia Clarke, because Daenerys was blonde, and Clarke was not. Now, she says, recognition happens more frequently. Particularly Stateside.

For reasons I cannot fathom, Americans feel more entitled to command the attention of celebrities. “People are like, ‘UH-melia CLORK!’ ” she says, in perfect American. In London, people are prone to whisper about her as she passes by. “ ‘Was that Emilia Clarke?’ ”

“I move like a shark when I’m in public,” she says. “Head down. I think I’ve got quite bad posture because of it, because I’m determined to lead a normal life. So I just move too quickly for anyone to register if it’s me or not. And I don’t walk around with six security men and big sunglasses and a bizarre coat. I really try to meld in.” It gets worse when the show is being promoted, but otherwise, she says, it’s not so bad.

“I move like a shark when I’m in public. Head down…I’m determined to lead a normal life, so I just move too quickly for anyone to register if it’s me or not.”

Her best efforts aside, anonymity may be a pipe dream. The show is as decorated as a Christmas tree in a craft store. Game of Thrones has won a Peabody and 47 Emmys, the most of any television drama in history. The show marries critical praise with popular success, then it mercilessly slaughters those who have come to celebrate this union and receives even more acclaim (“The Rains of Castamere,” season 3, episode 9). The plotlines are famously convoluted. Luckily, we have an entire web’s worth of episode explainers, encyclopedias designed specifically for the Westeros universe, and a self-explanatory Funny or Die segment called Gay of Thrones, starring Jonathan van Ness.

When Mad Men first aired, television bloggers dutifully unpacked its symbolic elements, and millennials celebrated the show’s style with Mad Men–themed parties that were really just ’60s-and-one-red-wig-themed parties. Game of Thrones is basically an economy of its own. Since the show premiered, tourism to Croatia, whose coastal port Dubrovnik stands in for the fictional city of King’s Landing, has nearly doubled. Game of Thrones–themed weddings are so popular that it is almost impossible not to attend them — in 2016, Clarke accidentally walked into one that was occurring at the same hotel where she and the cast were staying during filming. (It was not a canonical wedding, and no guests were harmed.)

Game of Thrones has also earned one of the most important pop culture accolades of the century: The attention of Beyoncé Knowles. I believe it is her favorite TV show, and this is why.

Exhibit A: Jay-Z reportedly gave her a prop dragon’s egg from the set, at great personal expense. Exhibit B: At an Oscars after-party this year, Beyoncé approached Clarke (“voluntarily,” according to the actress) to introduce herself. “I watched her face go, ‘Oh, no, I shouldn’t be talking to this crazy [woman], who is essentially crying in front of me,’ ” remembers Clarke. “I think my inner monologue was, ‘Stop fucking it up,’ and I kept fucking it up.”

“I was like, ‘I just saw you in concert.’ And she was like, ‘I know.’ ” Clarke also mentions that Beyoncé complimented her work but declines to share specifics.

Why are people (more specifically, everybody) and goddesses (more specifically, Beyoncé) all obsessed with a show about some dragons and lots of dungeons?

“The show is sensationalist in a way,” Clarke explains, in an effort to describe a TV series that features twins having sex and a child’s defenestration in the very first episode. It doesn’t matter — Clarke’s conversational style is so intimate and emphatic that basic facts feel like sworn secrets. When she smiles, she does so with every single muscle in her face. “It’s the reason why people pick up gossip magazines. They want to know what happens next…. You’ve got a society that is far removed enough from ours but also circulates around power. How that corrupts people and how we want it, and how we don’t want it.”

In other words, Game of Thrones’ value proposition is creating a rich other world for people to experience a prestige, high-production version of pure, horny, violent, unbridled drama. It is, according to Clarke, pitched perfectly: “I think it caught Western society at exactly the right moment.”

“I don’t know about you,” she says, “but when I watch something, it’s escapism. I’m feeling crappy; I’m just sad, moody, depressed, upset, angry, whatever it is. I know that distraction is what makes me get better. Distraction is what really, really helps me.” She laughs and then quickly pivots to a caveat: “I’m sure that’s not what a therapist would advise.”

It is at this point that Emilia Clarke leans in very close, her breath knocking at my sideburn, and explains to me the bombastic and devastating ending to the most important TV show of the decade.

Wow — just kidding once more. But, uh, while we’re on the topic, how is this whole thing going to end?

It was not hard to root for the Breaker of Chains, until recently. Now we’re seeing the gentle unspooling of her character, and flickers of a dangerous prophecy that she will ascend the throne only to follow in her father’s footsteps and burn it all to the ground. For a while, Daenerys seemed like the Lawful Good ruler, but we have had the great pleasure of watching how power can pervert people. (Nate Jones, at Vulture, leads a thrilling discussion of this very topic.) (Also, if Daenerys were to rule the Seven Kingdoms, only to go nuts, we might at the very least have a spinoff to look forward to.)

Clarke will never say. Throughout 10 or so years in the public eye, her interviews have been peppered with the same handful of charming personal details from her career — the service jobs she worked prior to making it, dancing the funky chicken during her Game of Thrones audition — which feels a lot like walking a vast beach and finding the same series of 10 seashells.

Then, in March, some very different treasure washed ashore when The New Yorker ran the most illuminating profile of Emilia Clarke to date. It was written by Emilia Clarke.

If I am truly being honest every minute of every day I thought I was going to die.

In it, Clarke revealed that she had suffered two near-fatal brain aneurysms during the early seasons of Game of Thrones. The first hit her mid-plank during a training session, and not long after, doctors discovered a second that required them to open her skull for a risky operation. The recovery period was, to her, more painful than the aneurysms. “If I am truly being honest,” she wrote, “every minute of every day I thought I was going to die.” She also announced her charity venture, SameYou, which seeks to provide rehabilitation for young people recovering from brain injuries.

The second time we talk, it is the day before the Game of Thrones New York premiere, and Clarke is at a morning fitting, surrounded by a coronation’s worth of gowns. It’s early, and a passing cold has fried the edges of her voice. But her words still vibrate with so much joy, it’s like she doesn’t even notice. She’s just happy to be here, wherever she is.

Source

Emilia Clarke on Why Game of Thrones Is the Perfect Form of Escapism + HQ Scans was originally published on Enchanting Emilia Clarke | Est 2012

#articles #emilia clarke #gallery #magazines #news #photos #scans #game of thrones #game of thrones cast #GOT cast #daenerys targaryen #me before you #terminator

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hoynovoy · 3 years

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acsversace-news · 6 years

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In summer 1997, Gianni Versace was on top of the world. His fashion empire was worth $807 million, encompassing 130 boutiques worldwide. After a period of ill health the Italian designer was fit and happy. And, after coming out in the early Nineties, he was content in a long-term relationship with Antonio D’Amico, a model. Life in his mansion on Miami Beach was good.

Then, on July 15, Versace, aged 50, was shot dead in a seemingly random attack on a morning walk along Ocean Drive. His killer, Andrew Cunanan, committed suicide with the same gun eight days later — it transpired that Versace was his fifth murder victim. The fashion world was in mourning.

But the wider world, while shocked by this senseless killing, soon moved on — in one sense, the loss was eclipsed by the death, six weeks later, of Diana, Princess of Wales.

That might have been that, had it not been, 20 years later, for the current TV vogue for true-crime dramas, and for the efforts of London novelist-turned-screenwriter Tom Rob Smith.

Smith, author of the thrillers Child 44 and The Farm, and creator of 2015’s BBC2 thriller London Spy (starring Ben Whishaw), wrote the scripts for The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. It’s the second volume in the US television anthology series overseen by the hugely prolific and successful Ryan Murphy (Glee).

The eight-part dramatisation, coming to BBC2 on Wednesday, stars Édgar Ramírez (Zero Dark Thirty) as Versace, singer-turned-actor Ricky Martin as his boyfriend, Glee alumnus Darren Criss as the disturbed and damaged Cunanan, and Penélope Cruz as the designer’s sister, Donatella. It’s the follow-up to The People vs O.J. Simpson, the 2016 mini-series which was a ratings and critical smash, winning nine Emmys and two Golden Globes.

“With O.J., everyone knew all the minutiae,” says Smith. “They had to unpick that to tell a story people didn’t know. This is a story where people only know a fragment.”

Hence, he says, beginning his drama at the end: the murder, told via an eight-minute opening scene in the first episode. Beyond hooking viewers with that graphic, curtains-up incident, Smith wanted to “get to the heart of Versace”. His primary resource was Vulgar Favours, a book about the assassination by journalist Maureen Orth.

“There isn’t that 500-page, warts-and-all biography on Versace. You feel that gap because he’s such an extraordinary figure. The things he overcame, how he changed fashion — it’s so monumental. You can’t imagine Alexander McQueen without Versace.”

Filming took place in Miami, much of it in Versace’s home, which is now a hotel. Veracity was key to the production, meaning they wouldn’t shoot in Los Angeles.

“The sea is different in Florida, the beaches are different,” notes Smith, 39, gesturing to the view: we’re talking in a hotel by the Pacific in Santa Monica, where Smith lives with his partner, Ben Stephenson. Formerly Controller of BBC Drama Commissioning, he now heads the television division at J.J. Abrams’s nearby Bad Robot production company. The couple have been here together for two years, and Smith — dressed in pricey-looking, beach-ready shorts and shirt — jokes that the kale juice he’s ordered “is very California”.

“The palm trees are different too,” he continues. “But it turned out that Versace preferred LA palm trees — they’re thinner and straighter. Miami ones are rugged. So he had LA ones driven across the country and planted at his home. I guess they’re easier to organise in a line around a pool.”

By coincidence, cast and crew were filming in the house on the 20th anniversary of the murder. “It was a strange time. One of the things I’m proud of is we celebrate Versace — we try and reclaim this sense of his legacy.”

“I wanted to contrast Cunanan — someone who is full of potential but has these missteps, and ends up this destructive suicidal, terrorist-like force, ripping down other people’s success — and someone who has just as many obstacles in life, yet builds this vast empire and has this loving relationship.”

It’s surely, then, a frustration that the Versace family have denounced the drama as a “fiction”. But Smith expected as much — they made similar comments when Orth’s book was published. Their stance put Cruz — a personal friend of Donatella — in a tricky position.

“Penélope had a real sense of the language of Donatella. She was involved in changing some of the line structure in the script, and the syntax.”

“We’re giving Penélope a heroic role. Donatella understands in this story that Cunanan is not just trying to take her brother’s life — it’s an attack on his legacy. And he’s trying to destroy the company. If this information comes out about her brother, then the company is in danger.”

“We’re not telling that as a piece of gossip. We’re doing it as this interesting narrative that this one man overcame that [illness]. But then he was struggling with the fact that if he told the world he had HIV/Aids, the company would have been worth nothing. This devaluation of all his life’s work — and what an injustice that is.”

Does the story have resonance for Smith? “This is a story of how you survive if you’re gay. Homophobia makes you think: how will I navigate the world? Growing up I never had a moral shame about being gay, I just thought I couldn’t be a success — all these avenues would be closed down to me.”

Smith, who was educated at Dulwich College and Cambridge, didn’t come out until he was 22, working as a storyliner on Family Affairs. An actress asked if he was gay. He said no. “I thought, ‘I can’t have other people know me better than I know myself’.”

He has, then, empathy for the Versaces and how the assassination of Gianni — and the secrets it revealed — impacted on the family. And he’s hopeful that Donatella might still come round.

“If they’re not going to watch it — which is completely understandable — hopefully they’ll understand that there is real love for them and their brother who achieved so much. I’d hope at least they’d hear that from someone — maybe even Penélope.”

#acs versace #evening standard #tom rob smith #interview #article #february 2018

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tabloidtoc · 4 years

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Life & Style, October 5

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: George and Amal Clooney’s $1 billion divorce battle

Page 1: Photo Flash -- the Academy of Country Music Awards hosted by Keith Urban featured performances by Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton, Tim McGraw, Trisha Yearwood, Marren Morris, Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood

Page 2: Contents

Page 4: The Top 10 Kaitlyn Dever Looks

Page 6: Tyra Banks’ disastrous Dancing With the Stars debut -- fans are calling for ABC to bring back Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews and are criticizing everything from Tyra’s wacky wardrobe to her awkward interviews

Page 8: Kelly Clarkson is recording a brand-new album about her devastating divorce from Brandon Blackstock and while she has found the process to be very therapeutic her ex-husband is worried over what she might reveal about their relationship on the record, everyone was shocked when Anna Faris announced that she was leaving Mom following seven seasons of the hit comedy and although she insists she simply wants to pursue other projects her unexpected exit may have come after clashing with co-star Allison Janney -- Anna and Allison were always close but things changed when Allison kind of took over as the star of the show and won two Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series while Anna never even scored a nomination, Reese Witherspoon is trying to mend Ryan Phillippe’s strained relationship with their daughter Ava Phillippe after the pair had a mysterious falling out -- Ava regularly posts loving statements about her mom on social media but nothing about her dad and while Ryan follows Ava on Instagram she hasn’t followed him back -- Reese isn’t asking Ava to become BFFs with her dad but she is insisting that Ava make more of an effort with him

Page 10: The Week in Photos -- Prince William and Kate Middleton at Brick Lane’s famous Beigel Bake

Page 12: Addison Rae led a dance tutorial for American Eagle’s Back to School campaign, Lisa Vanderpump’s husband Ken Todd took her and her dog shopping at Chanel, Olivia Culpo shared a series of steamy pics from her tropical getaway with Carolina Panthers player Christian McCaffrey

Page 15: Jennifer Lopez dined alfresco with friends in downtown Manhattan

Page 16: On the Move -- Alessandra Ambrosio played volleyball in Santa Monica, shirtless Gavin Rossdale played tennis in Studio City, Jessie James Decker and her husband Eric Decker on a morning jog in Nashville

Page 18: Say What?! Kendall Jenner on wanting to follow in decathlete dad Caitlyn Jenner’s gold-winning footsteps as an equestrian, Katy Perry on fiance Orlando Bloom, Kate Winslet on panicking about having to return to the set of Mare of Easttown soon, Kristen Wiig on landing her dream role in Wonder Woman 1984, Selena Gomez who’s dated the likes of Justin Bieber and The Weeknd

Page 22: Cassie Randolph got a temporary restraining order against Colton Underwood after their shocking split took a nasty turn -- she claims that the former Bachelor sent her harassing texts at all hours of the day and stalked her whereabouts even planting a tracking device on her car following their breakup in May

Page 23: Armie Hammer wasted no time moving on from his estranged wife Elizabeth Chambers having been linked to Rumer Willis and Josh Lucas’ ex Jessica Ciencin Henriquez since filing for divorce in mid-July -- initially Elizabeth wanted the divorce to be amicable but she’s had a change of heart after seeing Armie flaunting his women right under her nose -- Armie is heir to the Armand Hammer oil fortune worth an estimated $200 million plus a successful movie career but he didn’t sign a prenup before marrying Elizabeth in 2010 and she is fuming and out for revenge

Page 24: Cover Story -- George and Amal Clooney’s marriage crumbles -- after trying everything from therapy to a trial separation, George and Amal prep to go their separate ways

Page 28: Cardi B and Offset’s split -- fights and lies and other women -- it’s over after three-and-a-half rocky years for the rap power couple

Page 30: Khloe Kardashian betrayed by her sisters -- not all of the Kardashian-Jenner siblings were on board with the decision to pull the plug on their longtime E! reality show and Khloe is devastated and fuming on top of being heartbroken

Page 32: Housewives Hot Bodies at 40, 50 and 60 -- Lisa Rinna, Luann De Lesseps, Gizelle Bryant

Page 33: Melissa Gorga, Ramona Singer, Kyle Richards

Page 34: Who Lives Here? Matthew Perry

Page 36: Entertainment

Page 37: Star Review -- Val Chmerkovskiy, As Seen On-Screen -- Kelly Ripa wore a white short-sleeved midi dress on a recent episode of Live With Kelly and Ryan which was FARM Rio’s Embroidered Tucano Wrap Dress costing $285

Page 38: Beauty -- Fall fragrance fix -- Lucy Boynton for Chloe Eau de Toilette Rose Tangerine

Page 40: Diva or Down-to-Earth? Kendall Jenner and Hailey Baldwin shop for groceries -- down-to-earth, Justin Bieber requires a stylist -- diva, Sonja Morgan cleans her carpets -- down-to-earth

Page 42: Social Stars Posts of the Week -- Amber Heard and her dog, Bindi Irwin and Chandler Powell, Bruce Willis

Page 44: Horoscope -- Libra Hilary Duff turned 33 on September 28, They’re Not Together But They Should Be -- Cancer Michelle Rodriguez and Scorpio Gerard Butler

Page 46: Made Ya Look! Farrah Abraham celebrates her graduation from film school with daughter Sophia

Page 48: What I’m Into -- Cassadee Pope

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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Golden Globes Nominations: What to Watch For

Will Netflix dominate with ‘The Irishman’ and ‘Marriage Story’?

LOS ANGELES — It is Netflix’s world. Hollywood just lives in it.When nominations for the 77th Golden Globes are announced Monday morning, Netflix is expected to dominate the film categories to a jaw-dropping degree. The streaming giant has only been a competitor on the film side of the Globes since 2016, when it received a sole nomination for Idris Elba in “Beasts of No Nation.” This time around, handicappers at Gold Derby, an entertainment honors site, predict that Netflix will receive at least 18 nominations in the 11 film categories alone.“The Irishman,” Martin Scorsese’s lavish gangster yarn, and “Marriage Story,” Noah Baumbach’s unnerving portrait of divorce, will almost certainly receive best drama nominations, with Fernando Meirelles’s Vatican succession dramedy “The Two Popes” possibly taking a third slot. Those Netflix movies and others from the service, including the Eddie Murphy vehicle “Dolemite Is My Name,” are expected to monopolize the actor, supporting actor and screenplay categories.Sprinkle in expected nominations for films from Amazon Prime Video (“The Report,” “Late Night”), and a cascade of TV entries from Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV Plus and possibly even Disney Plus (“The Mandalorian”), and it could be the year that streaming services and their seemingly bottomless checkbooks topple the Hollywood power structure: Out with the old.Or not.The group behind the Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has shed some of its reputation for eccentricity, but it still makes calculated choices — spreading nominations far and wide to ensure that every studio boss attends; honoring younger stars in an attempt to boost ratings. Members continue to split their top film prize into two categories, drama and comedy-musical, often in bewildering ways. Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” will compete as a comedy, perhaps landing a nod alongside the Nazi-themed “Jojo Rabbit.” Because what is funnier than the Manson murders and the Holocaust? In another puzzler, especially for an awards contest adjudicated by journalists from overseas, foreign-language films are ineligible for the marquee best-picture categories. So don’t look for much guidance on the Oscar hopes for Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell,” one of the few bright spots in indie cinema this year ($17.6 million in ticket sales), or “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho’s acclaimed tale of economic inequality ($18.3 million).In truth, the Globes do not predict much. The press association only has about 90 voting members; roughly 9,000 film industry professionals vote on the Academy Awards. The top winning films at the Globes have only gone on to win the Oscar for best picture 50 percent of the time over the last decade. (They matched last year, however. “Green Book” was the big winner at both ceremonies.)NBC will broadcast the Globes on Jan. 5. Organizers decided to bring back the British comedian Ricky Gervais for a fifth time to host. Here are five more things to consider before Globes nominations are unveiled starting at 8 a.m. Eastern time.

The nominations could give films a shot in the arm.

The Globes are mostly coveted as marketing tools. Studio advertising executives will immediately roll out new TV commercials and digital billboards based on the nominations. Multiple nods for Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” could help Sony generate interest in the film’s Christmas Day release in theaters. Ditto for Clint Eastwood’s “Richard Jewell,” which looks at the bombing at the 1996 Olympics and arrives from Warner Bros. on Friday.As a stop on the road to the Oscars, the Globes could focus fresh attention on Taron Egerton, who seemed like a lock for the best actor race in the first half of the year for his risk-taking performance as Elton John in “Rocketman.” But now that heavy hitters like Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro have entered the fray, he finds himself in the middle of the pack. Similarly, Globe voters could push Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”), Alfre Woodard (“Clemency”) and Lupita Nyong’o (“Us”) deeper into the Oscar conversation.

The male acting races will be competitive.

Ahh, the year of the man. It seems strange given the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements.But take a look at this year’s films. The number of notable male performances is rather staggering. Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”), De Niro (“The Irishman”) and Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”) are favorites for best actor in a drama, but where does that leave Antonio Banderas (“Pain and Glory”), Jonathan Pryce (“The Two Popes”), Adam Sandler (“Uncut Gems”), Christian Bale (“Ford v Ferrari”) and Paul Walter Hauser (“Richard Jewell”)? Best actor in a comedy or musical is only slightly less competitive. Murphy is a lock for a nomination for his outrageous “Dolemite” performance, as is DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”). Egerton (“Rocketman”) should nab a nod. Vying for the remaining two slots are Daniel Craig (“Knives Out”), Himesh Patel (“Yesterday”), Shia LaBeouf (“The Peanut Butter Falcon”) and Roman Griffin Davis, the young “Jojo Rabbit” star.

Get ready to scratch your head over the best comedy and best drama categories.

Remember when the press association deemed the Matt Damon stranded-in-space odyssey “The Martian” a comedy? This kind of thing happens when studios try to game the system, submitting films and stars in categories sized up as more winnable. The press association received so much ridicule when “The Martian” was named best comedy in 2016 that members amended the rules to state that “dramas with comedic overtones should be entered as dramas.”That didn’t stop A24 from submitting its jeweler thriller “Uncut Gems” as a comedy this year. The press association bounced it to the drama group. But Sony’s submission of “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” as a comedy was allowed to stand.

A nomination for ‘Cats’ could be a boon for the movie.

“Cats,” set for release by Universal on Dec. 20, should be a shoo-in for best comedy or musical. But the filmmakers have been scrambling to finish the movie … err, make the fur visual effects less traumatic than they were in that infamous trailer. To make the movie eligible for consideration, Universal showed voters a rough version last week.Does the foreign press association go out on a limb and include “Cats” in the (meow) mix? It could certainly boost ratings to have Taylor Swift walking the red carpet, even if she leaves her Bombalurina tail at home. But voters could also be opening themselves up to disparagement.

The TV contenders include Baby Yoda.

The big question in the television categories is whether two new streaming services, Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus, can break into the best drama race.Globes voters have never been very keen on the “Star Wars” franchise, but Disney Plus hit a critical and cultural nerve last month with “The Mandalorian,” which introduced Baby Yoda. Apple’s centerpiece series, “The Morning Show,” received middling reviews from most critics, but there has recently been a backlash to the backlash. The soap, which stars Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, has a 94 percent approval rating among Rotten Tomatoes users.Globes voters have a habit of falling in love with new shows — they like to be seen as cultural arbiters — but more established series may be impossible to resist. “Succession” wrapped up its rapturously reviewed second season on HBO in October. “Game of Thrones” has never won best drama at the Globes — it has won a record-tying four times at the Emmys — and it will have one final Globes shot this year. “The Crown,” which won best drama at the Globes in 2017 and has adroitly reimagined itself with a new cast, is also a favorite. And don’t count out “Killing Eve,” “Big Little Lies” or “Pose.”On the comedy front, Amazon’s “Fleabag” and its creator and star, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, are the heavy favorites. The show already won big at the September Emmys ceremony. Not that many people noticed: the Emmys hit a new ratings low, attracting just 6.9 million viewers. Honoring “Fleabag” would also be a redemption move for Globes voters; last time around they inexplicably named “The Kominsky Method” best comedy.Best actress in a drama is another category to keep an eye on. It could shape up as a battle of the titans: the Oscar winners Olivia Colman (“The Crown”) and Nicole Kidman (“Big Little Lies”), the Emmy winner Jodie Comer (“Killing Eve”), the singer-actress Zendaya (HBO’s druggie “Euphoria”) and Aniston, who last won a Globe in 2003 for “Friends.”John Koblin contributed reporting from New York. Source link Read the full article

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onaudiopost · 7 years

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30 Years Later, ‘The Golden Girls’ is Still the Most Progressive Show on Television

“I had to write ‘Golden Girls’…I’ve never gotten excited about a network idea before, but this was compelling. I could write grown-ups.” — Susan Harris, creator of ‘The Golden Girls,’ September 1985

Picture it: Hollywood, 1985. The first episode of The Golden Girls airs, introducing the world to Blanche Devereaux, Rose Nylund, Sophia Petrillo, and Dorothy Zbornak. The show attracted more than 25 million viewers, becoming the highest-rated program of the week and consistently ranked in the top 10 sitcoms during its run. Over the course of seven seasons, the show racked up 68 Emmy nominations, 11 wins, and is one of only 4 shows in TV history whose principal actors all won Emmys for their roles. Despite Hollywood’s obsession with youth, The Golden Girls is still beloved by audiences thirty years after its premiere.

Beyond the fact that the show is extremely well-written and well acted (thanks to Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White), The Golden Girls also stands out for being one of the last sitcoms where progressive values were part of the show’s DNA.

In an interview with Out Magazine, show creator Susan Harris explained, “We liked to tackle — not outrageous issues — but important issues. Things that I knew that people went through that hadn’t been addressed on television.” Harris was no stranger to shows that incorporated political story lines, having previously worked on Norman Lear’s groundbreaking All in the Family, and having written the historic abortion episode for Maude, which won her the Humanitas Prize — an award for film and television writing that promotes human dignity, meaning, and freedom. It is not surprising then that Harris brought this tradition to the writer’s room of The Golden Girls each week. The following are just some of the reasons why, after 30 years, The Golden Girls is still the most progressive show on television.

A Feminist Show

The very premise of The Golden Girls — four women navigating life after marriage and finding companionship in one another — is feminist in nature.While the women exchange quips and get into fights, the overarching message of the show focuses on the importance of chosen family, and women supporting other women. Further, we see the women enjoying life after marriage. Over the course of the series, we see the characters focus on career ambitions, new hobbies, and more often than not, their unapologetic enjoyment of sex. So much so that the blog Refinery29 recently tallied how many men each character slept with (naturally, Blanche had the most at 165). What made their love lives particularly important was the fact that television shows rarely portray older women as sexual beings.

The very premise of The Golden Girls — four women navigating life after marriage and finding companionship in one another — is feminist in nature.

“Television is always several steps behind life. When do you see passionate older people on television?” Susan Harris told The New York Times in a 1985 interview shortly after the show’s premiere. “There is life after 50. People can be attractive, energetic, have romances. When do you see people of this age in bed together? Eventually on this show, you will. It’s kind of pathetic that this show is television’s baby steps.’’

And the impact this had on audiences was clear. During an episode of The Phil Donahue Show, an adoring caller thanked guests Bea Arthur and Betty White for making her “feel 52 and gorgeous.” And the Winter 1989 issue of Media & Values magazine included survey responses from middle aged viewers of the show, such as one woman who responded, “I like this program because it gives me hope that there’s life after 50!” Beyond the message of female empowerment, the fact that the characters were older was significant in and of itself for the unprecedented portrayal of aging on television.

Portrayals of Aging

“Probably the single most effective product to come out of Hollywood in terms of turning around the cultural stereotypes about older women was the hugely popular and successful television show The Golden Girls in the late 1980s and early 1990s,” activist Ai-jen Poo wrote in her book Aging with Dignity. “Those four women, each with her own distinct history and personality…shattered the silence and the invisibility around aging in the most hilarious and endearing ways.”

While the entertainment industry pressures actresses to go to great lengths to maintain or restore their youth, The Golden Girls embraced aging and all the humor, wisdom, and vulnerability that comes with it.

This is evident in the episode “Rose Fights Back,” when Rose is cut off from her deceased husband’s pension plan and must find a new job. She is soon faced with age discrimination and the fear of not being able to make her rent. In a poignant scene, Rose discusses often seeing an older woman digging through the trash. She tells the other ladies, “I wondered, what did she do to get herself into a fix like that? I thought, well, she must be lazy, or she must be pretty stupid to let something like this happen to her. The truth is: she’s me.”

In another episode, Sophia makes a friend, Alvin, at the Boardwalk, but soon discovers that he has Alzheimer’s disease. She tells Dorothy, “people think if you live to be my age you should be grateful just to be alive. Well, that’s not how it works. You need a reason to get up in the morning and sometimes even after you find one, life can turn right around and spit in your face.”

Gay Rights

While the show’s message about women and aging is tied to its premise, The Golden Girls was often ahead of its time on other social issues. Twenty-four years prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic ruling on marriage equality, The Golden Girls defended same-sex marriage before it was a mainstream position. In this episode, Blanche’s brother Clayton pays a visit and announces that he is engaged to his partner, Doug. In one scene, Sophia perfectly explains marriage equality to an upset Blanche:

In an interview with Vulture, show writer Marc Cherry recalled, “We were young writers, and we got to say a little something about gay rights and how gay people see themselves. It was about two men getting married, which is something people at the time didn’t talk about. And it was a really funny episode.”

Off the screen, the actresses were dedicated to advancing the cause of gay rights. At the height of the AIDS epidemic, which tragically hit the gay community, Estelle Getty was a staunch AIDS activist. In a 1989 interview, she explained, “I’ve been in show business all my life, and the majority of my friends are gay…A lot of my friends have died from AIDS.”

The show tackled the stigma surrounding AIDS head on in the episode “72 Hours,” and worked to counteract the myth that it was a gay disease or punishment. In the episode, Rose finds out she may have contracted the disease from an operation, and grows increasingly scared and angry. In one scene she exclaims, “This isn’t supposed to happen to people like me…I’m a good person!” Blanche argues back, “AIDS is not a bad person’s disease, Rose. It is not God punishing people for their sins.” The scene manages to be both humorous and raw.

Confronting Race

Much like the show did with gay rights, The Golden Girls confronted issues related to race in honest ways, rather than the imaginary “post-racial” interactions many sitcoms favor today. In one episode, Dorothy’s son Michael announces he’s getting married to Lorraine, a black singer in his band. The news causes Dorothy to cringe and cry out “Oh God,” but she recovers to explain that her race doesn’t matter. The scene portrays the complexity of prejudice, and dispels the idea that racism is something only “bad people” are guilty of — a recognition that is necessary in order to truly overcome prejudice.

Rarely is America’s complicated history with race woven into a sitcom storyline, much less as part of a white character’s backstory.

In another episode, we are introduced to Blanche’s “Mammy” from growing up, Viola Watkins. When Viola reveals that she had an affair with Blanche’s father, she explains, “In another time and place, we would have been married. But at that time in the South, it wasn’t an option.” The episode highlighted how often white children grew attached to their black caretakers, while underscoring the racial animosity that existed around them. Rarely is America’s complicated history with race woven into a sitcom storyline, much less as part of a white character’s backstory.

Disability Visibility

One subject matter that most television shows ignore altogether is disability. The Golden Girls, however, had multiple episodes revolving around characters with disabilities, usually as part of the women’s love lives. In these episodes, the women are forced to confront their own prejudices and misperceptions around what it means to be a person with a disability.

According to Lawrence Carter-Long, an expert on disability and media, “The best writing about disability focuses on character. Not a rehash of the same two-dimensional tragic or heroic movie-of-the-week stillness we’ve all seen a hundred times before.”

This sentiment is perfectly demonstrated in the episode “Stand By Your Man.” Blanche is nervous about dating Ted, a man in a wheelchair, played by Hugh Farrington, an actor who was paraplegic in real life. In the episode, Blanche gets past her prejudices and discovers that Ted is no different than anyone else, for better or worse. After learning that he has a wife, she says, “It never dawned on me that you could be a jerk in a wheelchair.”

In another episode, Rose is dating Jonathan Newman, a doctor at the grief center where she works. Rose is initially embarrassed to reveal their relationship because Jonathan is a little person, but she is determined to make it work. In the end, however, Jonathan breaks things off with Rose because she isn’t Jewish.

Fighting Poverty

Finally, as someone who does research and advocacy around fighting poverty, I am often frustrated by the myths and stereotypes that persist in film and television. The Golden Girls is not one of those shows. On many occasions, the show discusses poverty, but there is no better scene that demonstrates how well they did on the subject than in the episode “Have Yourself A Very Little Christmas,” when the ladies volunteer at a church to serve Christmas dinner to the homeless. They soon discover that Dorothy’s ex-husband, Stan, is among the people in need. The Church’s Reverend goes on to perfectly explain how poverty is an experience (rather than a moral failing, which is often the message), how public policy plays a role, and closes the scene with a direct jab at then-President Ronald Reagan:

REVEREND AVERY

You’d be surprised how many people are only two or three paychecks away from being on the street. The suddenly poor are all around us. Once you’ve been knocked down like that, it’s very hard to recover.

DOROTHY

What’s going to happen to all these people?

REVEREND AVERY

I don’t know. There’s no affordable housing, the rents keep going up and up, and the minimum wage has been held down.

ROSE

Seems so unfair.

REVEREND AVERY

Well, that’s because it is. There are three million homeless, hungry people in this country.

BLANCHE

What bothers me is, those people out there are being fed today because it’s Christmas, but what will they eat tomorrow?

REVEREND AVERY

When the great communicator talked about his vision of a city on a hill, I wonder if it included people sleeping on gratings in the street.

Over the past few years, many politicians have credited television for advancing their views on gay rights. And a growing body of research confirms that “as we grow emotionally attached to characters who are part of a minority group, our prejudices tend to recede.” In other words, television has the power to change the world. This makes what The Golden Girls accomplished even more critical. While the show wasn’t perfect on every issue, particularly on perpetuating hurtful plot lines around trans characters, The Golden Girls was an unapologetically progressive show. The show gave visibility to older women while using this unique platform to champion a number of progressive ideals that often go untouched by television shows. Not only is this level of progressivism unmatched on the small screen, the entire show was made possible by the understanding that older actresses have value and women can be funny.

The strength of the characters, the incorporation of storytelling, and punch lines delivered with a simple facial expression are among the many devices that make The Golden Girls one of the funniest sitcoms of all time. But it’s progressive message makes it one of the most important.

As a loyal fan, I’ll be celebrating the show’s 30th anniversary with my favorite episodes and a slice of cheesecake.

#television

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londonfoxglove-blog · 5 years

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TOP 5 Music Events, The O2, London, Autumn 2019

Book your Stay near to The O2 Arena: Airbnb / Booking.com

1. KHALID 17-18 SEPTEMBER 2019

International multi-platinum-selling artist Khalid has announced two shows at The O2 on Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 September 2019 as part of his headline ‘Khalid Free Spirit World Tour’. The news follows the release of his highly anticipated new album ‘Free Spirit’, which is out now via Columbia Records and Right Hand Music Group.

An AEG Presents event, the five-time Grammy Award nominee is set to kick start his UK tour at The O2, a monumental musical milestone having only just released his sophomore album.

Since releasing his debut hit single ‘Location’ in 2016 which went on to go quadruple platinum, Khalid has continued to cement his global status as one of music’s most promising breakout stars. Already accumulating a stellar array of awards and wins from the likes of MTV, Billboard and BET, his UK tour offers his legion of loyal fans a chance to experience his latest musical offering.

Buy your ticket HERE.

Book your Stay near to The Arena: Airbnb / Booking.com

2. JOHN MAYER 13-14 OCTOBER 2019

GRAMMY Award®-winning artist JOHN MAYER has added U.K. and European dates to his 2019 World Tour, stopping at The O2 on Sunday 13 and Monday 14 October 2019.

His latest single - “I Guess I Just Feel Like” – debuted Friday, 22 February and charted in 17 markets including Norway, Sweden, and The Netherlands. The song, written and produced by John, will be one of many massive hits that will be featured on this tour, such as last year’s “New Light,” “Gravity,” “Love on the Weekend,” “Heartbreak Warfare,” “Daughters,” “Waiting on the World to Change,” “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” and many more, these “Evening with John Mayer” concerts will feature two sets of music spanning his entire recording career. There will be no opening act.

Singer/songwriter John Mayer has won seven GRAMMY® awards and has earned a record seven U.S. #1s on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart and 25 entries on the Hot Rock Songs chart, the most for any solo artist. In 2018, he released the Gold-certified “New Light,” while working on his eighth solo album, the follow-up to 2017’s critically acclaimed The Search for Everything. For the third consecutive year, Mayer toured with Dead & Company in 2018, who played to over 500,000 people on its third and largest tour. Additionally, he launched ‘Current Mood,’ his highly regarded Instagram Live show on Sundays, which some have dubbed, “the best way to start the week on a high note, maybe even the only way.”

Buy your ticket HERE.

Book your Stay near to The Arena: Airbnb / Booking.com

3. ARIANA GRANDE 15-16 OCTOBER 2019

Multiplatinum superstar ARIANA GRANDE expands her upcoming The Sweetener World Tour into Europe. She will stop at The O2 on the 17, 19 and 20 August, and the 15 and 16 October 2019.

2018 marks yet another historic year for GRANDE. She concluded a banner twelve months with the distinction of being named Billboard’s “Woman of the Year” and receiving a pair of GRAMMY® Award nominations in the categories of “Best Pop Vocal Album” for her latest album Sweetener and “Best Pop Solo Performance” for “God Is A Woman.” Simultaneously, her recent single “thank u, next” bowed at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and smashed the record for “Most Spotify Streams for a Song By A Female Artist in a Single Week.”

Buy your ticket HERE.

Book your Stay near to The Arena: Airbnb / Booking.com

4. CHER 20-21 OCTOBER 2019

The legendary Cher is heading to the UK in 2019 for her first live dates in over 14 years. The multi-talented Oscar, Emmy and GRAMMY Award-winning icon, is set to delight UK fans when she plays at The O2 on Sunday 20 October as part of her Here We Go Again World Tour.

Cher, who holds the UK Record for the biggest selling single of all time by a female artist for Believe, will treat audiences to an array of hits from her huge repertoire as well as new songs from the Dancing Queen album – Cher’s tribute to the music of ABBA – which is out now.

Cher commented, “I’m very excited to bring this show to the UK. It was the first country to embrace Sonny & Cher, and it’s where we created and had our first success with ‘Believe’. It’s really my second home.”

Following the recent global success and rave reviews for Cher’s role in the Mamma Mia 2 – Here We Go Again film, the multi-award winning singer, actress and show-stopping performer will be sure to thrill her fans when she arrives here next year.

Launching her career in the 1960s as part of Sonny & Cher, the iconic superstar made unprecedented strides in what had long been a male-dominated industry and continues to reign supreme as one of the world's greatest entertainers. A worldwide superstar for more than five decades, Cher has sold more than 100 million records and conquered more challenges than a handful of other talents combined – recording, concerts, film, Broadway acting, television and directing. In 2018, Cher returned to the big screen with a stunning performance in the mega-hit film Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again followed by the release of her new album inspired by the movie, Dancing Queen.

Buy your ticket HERE.

Book your Stay near to The Arena: Airbnb / Booking.com

5. JOHN LEGEND 25 OCTOBER 2019

Multi-platinum selling, Oscar, Golden Globe, Emmy and 10-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter John Legend is the first headliner confirmed for this year’s BluesFest, which returns to The O2 in London this October. Making his first appearance in London since 2017, the Ohio-born soul star will perform a career-spanning greatest hits set including music from 2015’s Darkness & Light on Friday 25th October for what will be his only UK show of the year.

John Legend: “I’m really happy to be returning to London to perform at The O2 for this year’s BluesFest. My shows in London are always extra special and I look forward to seeing everyone in October!”

Also joining the line-up for this year’s event, which runs from Wednesday October 23rd to Sunday 27th, are Neo-soul star Raphael Saadiq and iconic American singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones

With three Grammy wins and no less than fifteen nominations amongst his catalogue of critically-acclaimed music, Raphael Saadiq has collaborated with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Joss Stone and Jay-Z. Starting out in the rhythm and blues trio Tony! Toni! Tone!, the US singer songwriter has since produced songs for the likes of Mary J. Blige, Whitney Houston, John Legend and Solange Knowles.

Rickie Lee Jones is a two-time Grammy Award winner whose inimitable style blends blues, pop, rock, jazz and folk. Over the course of an illustrious five-decade career she has collaborated with the likes of Tom Waits, Randy Newman, Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald and Dr John and her most recent album Kicks was released earlier this year to widespread critical acclaim.

Saadiq and Jones will perform headline sets at indigo at The O2 on Saturday October 26th and Sunday 27th respectively.

Buy your ticket HERE.

Book your Stay near to The Arena: Airbnb / Booking.com

+1 THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS 30 NOVEMBER 2019

The Chemical Brothers follow the release of their hugely acclaimed ninth album No Geography with the announcement of their biggest ever UK headline show, stopping at The O2 on Saturday 30 November 2019.

Support on the band’s November tour comes from very special guests James Holroyd and 2ManyDJs. Prior to those shows, The Chemical Brothers release a new single and announce the release of a special deluxe edition their classic third album.

Eve Of Destruction is the opening track on No Geography and has been a staple of the band’s DJ sets for the last two years. A relentless groove that gives way to a jacking house chorus, it features vocals from Norwegian singer Aurora and Japanese rapper Nene. The single is released ahead of their headline slot at Glastonbury Festival this month; a stunning visual for the track has been created by the band’s long term collaborators Adam Smith and Marcus Lyall.

Buy your ticket HERE.

Book your Stay near to The Arena: Airbnb / Booking.com

Source: https://www.theo2.co.uk/events/category/music

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ovalpaste1-blog · 5 years

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Donald Glover gets a majorly mod real estate upgrade in La Cañada Flintridge

Though we don’t write about it often, the decidedly suburban community of La Cañada Flintridge is one of Yolanda’s favorite towns in SoCal. Located northeast of Glendale — up where the SGV meets the Crescenta Valley — this wealthy area borders the pristine Angeles National Forest. As we’ve previously mentioned, Yolanda had a very close (and sadly now deceased) relative who long lived in La Cañada. So much of our childhood was spend in the city, back about a million years ago. But we digress.

Welcome to La Cañada (photo: Mike Kobeissi)

Though many La Cañada peeps are rich — there have been $10+ million mansion sales recorded there — the area does not draw many celebrities. The community is too far-flung from traditional Hollywood haunts for most entertainers. Still, there are a handful of notable residents: Oscar-winner Gore Verbinski, acclaimed actress Angela Bassett, funnyman Adam Carolla and TV actress Diane Farr.

Another famous person who calls La Cañada home — though it hasn’t yet been publicized — is the multi-talented actor/singer/writer/comedian/producer/DJ Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino.

The award-winning Mr. Glover

Since at least April 2016, when he purchased a multi-million dollar mid-century residence in the sleepy town, Mr. Glover has bunked up in the notorious LCF. And apparently he likes it so much that he’s already elected to throw down millions for a residential upgrade out yonder. More on the real estate in a minute — first, let’s talk about Mr. Glover himself.

Born at Edwards Air Force Base but bred in the Deep South — the suburbs of Atlanta, to be specific — 35-year-old Mr. Glover has emerged as one of the most talented and creative members of young Hollywood. His first success came through the pen — in 2006, he graduated from NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in dramatic writing.

At some point in the mid-aughts, when he was still in his early 20s, Mr. Glover sent Hollywood producer David Miner unsolicited samples of his work, including a spec script that he had written for The Simpsons. Miner and Tina Fey were impressed by Glover’s creative writing skills and invited him to join the NBC sitcom 30 Rock as a screenwriter, a job he would retain for several years.

Since then, Mr. Glover’s red-hot career has spanned the width of the entertainment industry — as a singer/rapper, he’s won a Grammy and hit #1 on the Billboard charts with This is America. As an actor, he’s won Primetime Emmys for his starring role on Atlanta — a show he also created. He’s also got two Golden Globes and five Writers Guild of America Awards to his name.

Yolanda could continue to list Mr. Glover’s accolades until the sun creeps below the horizon. But suffice to say that whether his work appeals to your personal tastes or not, the guy is indisputably talented.

Donald Glover and his partner Michelle White

Mr. Glover and his longtime girlfriend Michelle White now have two young bambinos, so it makes sense that they’d want to upsize their residential circumstances. And with the money rolling in, Mr. Glover recently felt flush enough to splash out nearly $4.2 million — $4,188,000, to be exact — for a rather stunning property very near his current digs. In fact, the new place actually lies on the very same hillside street as the old house — it’s just a half-mile down the winding road.

Originally built in 1983, the huge modern house was designed by acclaimed architects Buff & Hensman and is fused almost entirely from concrete and glass. Within those soaring walls are a mansion-sized 6,848-square-feet of living space — and Yolanda absolutely loves all of it. Reagan-era ’80s moderns were so difficult to do right, kids; but on those rare occasions when the architects made it work, they created timeless showstoppers. Like the one displayed here today.

In fact, one of Yolanda’s all-time favorite architects — Mexico-based Ricardo Legorreta — specialized in modern homes of this era and created some of its very best examples. Mr. Legorreta is responsible for one of Yolanda’s favorite homes in all of LA: Casa Shapiro, Brentwood Park — but as usual, we digress.

Though the La Cañada house is very large, it remains all but invisible from the street out front, tucked back at the end of a long driveway and surrounded by a dense canopy of mature oak trees. The property spans a full 4 acres of land, large enough for even A-list celebrity-sized egos.

The house has been admirably preserved over the past 35 years and was sold to Mr. Glover by the original owners — a married Chinese couple named Allen & Kate Yuen.

Features of the main rooms include double-height ceilings, brownish tile floors, and slab-sided walls just aching for a world-class contemporary art collection. And the enormous glass windows are really quite stunning, though we imagine Consuela will curse Mr. Glover’s name every time she hauls out the ladder to spray Windex on those monsters.

There’s a lovely outdoor loggia overlooking the forested year, an elegant dining room and a family room with a giant wet bar. The kitchen is the one room that could definitely use a complete gut job — imagine how many food scraps are stuck in the grouting on those tile countertops. Yuck!

With 6 beds and 7 baths, the structure has plenty of space for a growing family. The master suite features a bedroom sitting area, private outdoor terrace, a walk-in closet and bathroom with built-in soaking tub.

There are numerous outdoor living spaces scattered throughout the multi-acre estate. Enjoy al fresco dining by the gardens, sunbathe on the concrete terrace, sip champagne by the oversized pool.

As previously mentioned, Mr. Glover’s old La Cañada house — which he still owns — happens to be on the very same street as his new one. The far more modest (but also stunning) mid-century ranch is secreted down a long driveway on a full acre of land.

The glassy abode has 3,279-square-feet of living space and a huge outdoor terrace with a pool and built-in firepit. Spectacular views — this place actually has much better vistas than the new house — take in the Angeles National Forest and its magnificent mountains.

Records show that Mr. Glover used a blind trust to pay $2,744,250 for this property in April 2016. And while Yolanda assumes he will soon attempt to unload the stylish spread, it is not currently listed.

But as they say, these things are only a matter of time.

Listing agent: Janice McGlashan, Coldwell Banker Donald Glover’s agent: Andrew Morrison, REDWOOD

Source: https://www.yolandaslittleblackbook.com/blog/2019/01/09/donald-glover-house-la-canada-flintridge/

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sserpicko · 5 years

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Oscar: How Each 2018 Best Picture Nominee Got Here

There can only be one winner, but each of the Best Picture nominees overcame creative, financial and logistical hurdles to get this close to the finish line. Here are their war stories.

Black Panther

Fifty years ago, the phrase ‘Black Panther’ carried more political baggage than it does today, immediately summoning up images of a militant African-American revolutionary, named after by the controversial civil rights party founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, in 1966. Created by Stan Lee in a bid to deliver the world’s first non-stereotype black superhero, the comic book of the same name materialized around the same time. Unusually, The Black Panther wasn’t an alter ego—it was the formal title for T’Challa, King of Wakanda—but Lee described the overlapping of names as “a strange coincidence”, adding that “maybe if I had it to do over again, I’d have given him another name”. The sensitive politics of the next two decades might explain why the character lay dormant as a movie property until 1992, when Wesley Snipes began work on the concept, eventually securing support from Columbia in 1994.

Directors John Singleton and Mario Van Peebles showed interest, but the project stalled, only to be resurrected by Marvel Studios in 2005, when then-CEO Avi Arad announced it as one of ten new films on the company’s slate. This time development moved forward at a faster pace: a script was commissioned in 2011, and by 2013, elements of the story began to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the character, played by Chadwick Boseman, debuting in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. Ava DuVernay was briefly attached, then F. Gary Gray, and finally Creed director Ryan Coogler agreed to take the helm. Marvel President Kevin Feige acknowledges that it was a slow but sure process, and defends the timescale. “The only way we ever wanted to do this project was the right way,” he says, “and that meant finding a filmmaker who had something personal to say, who had a vision and could take this character into another arena, and showcase the power of representation on a canvas of this size.” —Damon Wise

BlacKkKlansman

When Jordan Peele pitched Spike Lee on the story that would become BlacKkKlansman, and lead to the iconic filmmaker’s first Oscar nomination for directing, Lee was sure he was making it up. “It was one of the greatest pitches ever,” Lee recalls. “Black man infiltrates Ku Klux Klan. That’s high concept. I said, ‘I’ve seen this a million times, it’s the Dave Chappelle skit.’ He went, ‘Nah, nah, this is real.’”

And real it is, even though Lee’s film bends the truth here and there to offer an engine to a story that seizes on the rhetorical parallels with the violence in Charlottesville last year, takes a sideways glance at the legacy of DW Griffith and Gone with the Wind, and revels in its 1970s setting to play on the tropes of Blaxploitation movies. Ron Stallworth, a black police officer in Colorado Springs, really did infiltrate the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. And really did interact with one-time Grand Wizard David Duke.

Lee turned to an old collaborator to play Stallworth. John David Washington was six years old when he was given a line in Lee’s Malcolm X. Reunited for BlacKkKlansman, Lee kept Washington away from the real Stallworth until the table read, determined that he find his own version of the character in prep. “It was my thinking that he would meet Ron and want to walk like him, talk like him,” Lee says. “It wasn’t like Malcolm X. No one knew who Ron Stallworth was, and that gives you freedom.”

Lee casts aside criticism of the film’s forthright allusions to current politics. “These are dangerous times. The film had to end the way it did,” he says, with footage of the Charlottesville rally and a tribute to Heather Hayer, who was murdered there.

And it took the commitment of all of his collaborators, including nominee Adam Driver and the iconic Harry Belafonte—a key player in the Civil Rights Movement—to fully realize it. “This film, the teamwork was amazing. We were like the Golden State Warriors, or the New York Knicks. We didn’t have to sit around saying, ‘Oh this is such an important film and we have to…’ It wasn’t even discussed. Everybody knew what we had to do.” —Joe Utichi

Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody is the miracle Oscar nominee this year. Typically when a production is mired with on-set problems, its doom is inevitable, but in the year-plus wake of director Bryan Singer’s firing, Bohemian Rhapsody has had immense luck, with the producers determined to buck sour Singer headlines, after he clashed with Oscar nominated star Rami Malek. Graham King shepherded Bohemian Rhapsody for eight years, and nothing was going to stop it now.

Sacha Baron Cohen expressed interest in the project early on, but dismissed it when King opted against a warts-and-all biopic.

Then King’s partner had a sense that Emmy-winning Mr. Robot star Rami Malek could do the trick, and indeed he did, with a dedication that went to masochistic measures.

“I told Graham King if he gave me this role, I’d bleed for it, and he showed me a picture of blood on the piano keys after the final day of our Live Aid shoot,” Malek says.

Editor John Ottman gets proper credit here with his first Oscar nomination, working with the producers to hammer an impressive first cut, before Dexter Fletcher stepped in for Singer to finish a handful of scenes. While a director always gets credit for a final cut, Bohemian Rhapsody is an example this season that there’s no ‘I’ in team.

The press has repeatedly asked the production team for their thoughts on Singer in the wake of the film’s success, especially on Golden Globes night when it won for Best Motion Picture, Drama and Best Actor.

King waved off the question, but Malek answered, “There was only one thing we needed to do: celebrate Freddie Mercury. He is a marvel. Nothing was going to compromise us. We’re giving him the love, celebration and adulation he deserves.” —Anthony D’Alessandro

The Favourite

It took two decades for Deborah Davis’s script for The Favourite to make it to screen. A searing three-hander based on the true history of the British Queen Anne and the two women who fought for her affections, Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham, it was a tough sell even for a market in Britain that specializes in costume drama. A film in which three women rule the roost over their male counterparts, fall in love—and graphic lust—with one another and scheme their way to dominance? Whatever to make of that?

But Davis knew she had something groundbreaking, and producers Ceci Dempsey, Lee Magiday and Ed Guiney weren’t prepared to let the project go without a fight. In an inspired move, they showed the script to Yorgos Lanthimos, whose twisted and unique earlier features, including Dogtooth, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer seemed like an odd fit for a story based in true history. And yet, working on the script with Australian writer Tony McNamara, Lanthimos found a lens on the story through his own fascination with the more awkward aspects of human interaction.

“I was intrigued in trying to create these three very complicated and complex characters for women, and work with three great actresses,” Lanthimos says. “It was in my mind thinking you never see that: three female strong leads.”

For Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone, the three actresses cast in these roles, all of whom picked up Oscar nominations, it was just as enticing a prospect. Lanthimos started them off with an unconventional rehearsal period, challenging them to play trust exercises, tie themselves up in knots and say one another’s lines.

“It’s strange and not strange,” Stone notes. “By the end, I think one of the most effective aspects of it was that we all felt very, very close to each other. We all touched each other, embarrassed ourselves in front of one another, and became more reliant on one another.” —Joe Utichi

Green Book

Nick Vallelonga had been carrying the story for Green Book in his head ever since he was five years old, and yet it was not until his 50s that he was able to see his dream become a reality. The plot came directly from a period of his father’s life, when, in the early ’60s, Tony “Lip” Vallelonga was hired by an African-American classical pianist named Don Shirley to be his driver and bodyguard during a potentially dangerous concert tour of the racially segregated southern states. “Even as a child, it struck me as something you’d see in a movie,” says Vallelonga. There was only only one problem: even though both subjects gave him their blessing, they also made Vallelonga give his word that the film would not be made in their lifetimes. After Tony and Don passed in 2013, within just three months of the other, Vallelonga began to map out this extraordinary road trip.

To help shape the script, Vallelonga turned to writer/actor Brian Currie. Then, two years later, during a chance encounter, Currie outlined the project to Peter Farrelly, and the idea stuck. “Home run!” exclaimed Farrelly. Together, all three began shaping the production, which passed through Focus Features and Participant Media before landing at Universal, with Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali as the leads. The result was Farrelly’s first non-comedy outside of the long-running partnership with his brother Bobby. “People had asked me over the years, ‘Do you think you’ll ever do a drama?’” Farrelly says. “And my answer was, ‘Sure, when it happens,’ because I never really planned. I probably should have, by the way, because I look at Rob Reiner’s career, and he was so smart. He did Spinal Tap, and then he did The Sure Thing, and then he goes off to do Stand by Me and A Few Good Men. He showed he could do everything. But we were just doing what came into our universe next, and we never really planned it. I didn’t plan this, but finally this dropped into my lap—I heard the story, and I thought, I gotta make this.” —Damon Wise

Roma

Alfonso Cuarón’s ode to his childhood in Mexico City, and in particular the domestic worker who helped made him, Roma was non-negotiable. “I had to do the film,” he says. “I told Carlos, my brother, ‘I don’t know if anybody is going to care about or like this movie. I have to do it because it’s something I need to do.’”

The notion started to form more than a decade ago, as Cuarón finished up 2006’s Children of Men. But there had been threads drawn from his youth in other projects—in his heralded Y Tu Mamá También, a voiceover for Diego Luna’s character tells a backstory that isn’t far off from Cuarón’s own—and he felt driven by a desire to tap more directly into that past.

Cuarón teamed up with Participant Media, who greenlit the $15 million the filmmaker needed; a tall order for a film that he knew he had to shoot primarily in Spanish, and in black-and-white. But so slavish was his desire to draw all this from his own very specific memories that Participant CEO David Linde would become one of the first and last people to ever see a script during production. He had intended to tap Emmanuel Lubezki to shoot the film, but ‘Chivo’ was unavailable when the dates finally set, and so Cuarón served as his own DP. He instructed his heads of department directly to get the details exactly as he saw them, rather than have them riff on the script. He gave his actors only what they needed for the scenes they shot, and then, only moments before they shot them. In the film’s lead, Cuarón found Yalitza Aparicio after an exhaustive search of Mexico. She was training to be a teacher when she heard about the audition. She is now an Oscar nominee.

Still, it was only after the process was completed that Cuarón understood the real challenge of Roma. With no stars, his black-and-white, Spanish-language opus was not built for the current realities of global theatrical distribution. Netflix came on board in April, when the film was looking set to debut at Cannes, and the controversy surrounding the streamer’s stance on theatrical put paid to a slot at the festival. It later debuted at Venice. But Cuarón is determined Netflix was the right home. “Our viewing habits are changing,” he says. “The challenge is now, how we can adapt ourselves, but present something that you believe is amazing and great cinema? It’s not so much about, ‘Let’s impose this kind of cinema on audiences.’ It’s also the conversation with them about how they want to watch.” —Joe Utichi

A Star Is Born

It’s hard to overstate the difficulty of shooting on stage in the middle of a music festival. Yet the cast and crew of A Star Is Born pulled off exactly that, with only a four-minute window for director and star Bradley Cooper to perform.

Serendipitously, it worked out thanks to the star of the film’s 1976 version. Kris Kristofferson happened to be playing Glastonbury on the planned shoot day, and offered a window of time in his own set.

“Bradley jumps on stage,” producer Lynette Howell Taylor recalls, “and says, ‘Hi, I’m Bradley Cooper. I’m here to perform a song from A Star Is Born, but you won’t be able to hear it. Please just look like you’re excited.’” With his vocal feed cut, only the front few rows could hear some of what Cooper sang. “We didn’t want the music to leak out.”

“There were many minutes along the way where we were running and gunning,” adds producer Bill Gerber, “But that one in particular wasn’t just a logistical threat, it was also incredible for Bradley to go from playing in controlled situations to all of a sudden literally singing live in front of 80,000 people.”

Gerber had been on the project since its early days, when, before timing got in the way, Clint Eastwood had been set to direct, with Beyoncé in the Lady Gaga role. Casting Gaga was initially a stretch for Warner Bros., Gerber says. “Even though Bradley and I were really blown away by the chemistry, the studio still wasn’t 100% sure. But to their credit, they said, ‘Do a test, spend what you have to spend, and let’s see.’”

During that test, Gerber saw the magic happen. “Bradley picked her up, and they walked out the doors of her house onto her lawn, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. They looked at each other and it was undeniably brilliant. I thought, well, there’s our Gone with the Wind moment.” And the rest, of course, is history. —Antonia Blyth

Vice

Adam McKay probably wouldn’t have made Vice, his irreverent biopic of former Vice President Dick Cheney, if he hadn’t fallen ill for a couple of weeks at the end of 2015. The director had recently finished up The Big Short, an arch look at the financial crisis of 2008, and followed it immediately with a worldwide publicity tour, then a punishing awards season schedule. The net result was that McKay got sick, and while he was shivering with a particularly evil flu, he looked up at his bookshelves. “People give you books through the years,” McKay told the ACLU, “and you just shove them up there and don’t really think about them. And there was one about Dick Cheney, and it kind of struck me, like, ‘Wow, the book of history is about to close on that guy.’ I mean, you don’t really hear his name mentioned that much anymore, and you don’t hear [George] W. Bush’s name really mentioned, but, holy cow, those were a rough eight years.”

McKay started reading the book and found he couldn’t put it down. “I was amazed by what a large, epic American tale Cheney’s life story is—how far back it reaches, how many monumental moments in history he was around for. He had this Zelig-like presence in the ’70s through the ’80s. And then of course, I was amazed by how brilliant he was at manipulating the system.” The final impetus to tell Cheney’s story came in 2016. “Somewhere along that line,” recalled McKay, “Donald Trump got elected, and all of a sudden we started hearing people say, ‘Hey, I kinda miss George W. Bush. He wasn’t that bad, him and Cheney.’ And I really felt like I had to make the movie. I was like, ‘This is crazy that people are saying this.’ And that was it. We were off to the races.” —Damon Wise

Source: deadline

by Joe Utichi and Damon Wise and Anthony D’Alessandro and Antonia Blyth

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