Is it blood dripping from The Weeknd’s face? Or is it Max Factor? It could be Hershey’s chocolate syrup!
Anyway, here’s the six minute title track from his forthcoming album “After Hours” which will hit us on March 20th. He’s already had two hit singles from the album.
Where was former Hollywood wife Diandra Douglas on the night her ex-father-in-law, Kirk Douglas, was buried in Los Angeles? Why, dancing at the 65th Viennese Ball in New York, of course. So were plenty of other fabulous New Yorkers including Star Jones, Denise Rich, and actress Samantha Mathis. After all, the writer Anne Lamott once said of grief: “It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
As spectacular as many of the gowns worn by Oscars celebrants were, they held nothing over the extravagantly clad waltzing couples at the 65th Viennese Ball held at Cipriani 42 Street, on the east coast. An annual white tie gala (floor length gowns for women, white tie and tails for men) the Viennese Opera Ball brings the culture of Austria to America, of Vienna to New York, featuring dinner, dance, and debutantes in the grandeur of this former bank. One chair, Jean Shafiroff outdid herself in a colorful Oscar de la Renta number with a large train. (Mid-ball she changed into a Carolina Herrara.)
Connecting two continents, the glamorous night was created by Austrian expatriates 65 years ago, as a tribute to their former hometown Vienna and their host city New York. And, to judge from the evening, with a mission to benefit Sloan Kettering Cancer Center through Denise Rich’s Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, everyone from the Honorable Michael Ludwig, Governor and Mayor of Vienna down, takes this party very seriously.
The event simulates the Viennese Ball begun in 1814 during the time when the crowned heads of Europe and the aristocracy searched for entertainment after the Napoleonic wars, with some accommodations: the European ball begins at 10; the night started at Cipriani’s with a long cocktail hour, red carpet, and display of items for auction. By 9pm, guests entered the dining room, heralded by trumpets. The Austrian national anthem was played followed by the “Star Spangled Banner.” The highlight of the opening ceremony was the induction of the debutante couples, carefully selected young women and men who have successfully completed an application program and strict classical dance choreography. The Debutantes wore shimmering tiaras donated by Austrian jewelry company Ciro and white gowns, dancing the Polonaise and Alles Walzer with their partners in white tie.
An operatic concert, featuring Limme Pulliam’s rendition of “Nessun Dorma,” continued on after midnight for a Quadrille and dancing from 1 till 4 AM. Guests said they would stay the duration, including the West Point cadets, part of the colors ceremony, but if they did, I will never know.
Photos c2020 Showbiz411 by Regina Weinreich
TMZ reports that Ja’net Dubois, who famously played Willona on Norman Lear’s “Good Times,” has died at age 74. Her death was unexpected. She appeared at the live broadcast of “Good Times” back in December on ABC.
Wilona was the sassy neighbor who counseled the Evans family including Florida (Esther Rolle) and JJ.
But Dubois was also famous for writing and singing one of the most famous theme songs for any show, “The Jeffersons.” The song “Movin’ On Up,” ranks right up there as one of the memorable songs of the 1970s.
Justin Bieber is having growing pains.
His new album, called “Changes,” is his first since Purpose in November 2015. It’s not taking off quite the same way.
Released this past Friday, “Changes” has sold only 31,000 albums in paid downloads and CDs through Sunday night. Another 50,000 copies are attributed to streaming, bringing the total to 82,000. UPDATE Through Monday, it’s 111K including streaming, 47.5K of that is downloads and CDs.
Those four and a half years took on a toll on Bieber’s sales. By contrast, “Purpose” sold 667,000 copies, all in, according to Buzz Angle Music. “Changes” will be lucky to hit half that amount this week. Still, it will come in at number 1 this week, just ahead of Tame Impala’s new album.
The meh response to “Changes” isn’t surprising. On the streaming charts, its individual tracks haven’t raised much of a ruckus. The tracks have had a scattershot result so far on Spotify. On Apple Music streaming, Bieber has tracks at 5, 11, and 13– not exactly setting records. But once his tour launches, sales should steady out.
“Changes” has had more social media marketing than any previous Bieber album. The plan includes his multipart “documentary” called “Seasons” on YouTube. On Friday he appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight” show. This week he’s featured on James Corden’s late night show.
I can’t recall a James Bond theme song being released and performed so soon before the movie is released. But tonight Billie Eilish and brother Finneas, the emo Carpenters, performed “No Time to Die” live at the BRIT Awards– the UK Grammys. The song is number 1 everywhere in advance of the movie’s opening on April 10th. Billie won International Solo Artist. Lizzo won some awards and carried on with Harry Styles, who was dressed like Willy Wonka.
Watch from 1:18:08
Speculation is rife that Vanity Fair’s editor in chief of not quite two years, Radhika Jones, is on her way out. There may some truth to this theory, although Conde Nast, the publisher, denied it. Last week I confirmed that Vanity Fair was cancelling its annual New Establishment Summit that would have been set for Los Angeles this coming October. Last year, apparently, they had trouble selling tickets. This year, the magazine is cold. The annual Oscar party has become a dreary photo op for celebrities who come, get the picture taken, and head off to other more chic gatherings. All the heat that Graydon Carter cultivated is dissipated now.
But things are worse than just lackluster parties and cancelled summits. No one talks about Vanity Fair anymore, at least not with excitement. Mostly you hear, What happened to Vanity Fair? It’s a question that resonates among readers who used to scoop up VF so they’d be first in the know.
And fewer people are reading it.
According to circulation figures, total single issue sales– newsstand sales of the magazine plus sales of individual digital issues — are down. They are way down, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. All that remains steady are paid subscriptions but they are dubious in the sense that they’re part of packages. Single copy sales indicate a magazine’s “heat.”
In December 2018, total sales of single issues averaged 80,000. A year later, it was 63,572, a roughly 20.6% drop.
In the midst of this tug of war between the old and new, only subscriptions have remained steady. This means that when the new bill comes, no one has cancelled. At least not in any significant way. And some have moved from print to digital. But if you count the newsstand as a referendum, Vanity Fair is not what it used to be.
Indeed, a measure of the magazine’s decline is their September issue, more lately dubbed the Style Issue. In September 2018, the first that Jones produced, single issue sales came to 103,529. Michelle Williams was on the cover, talking about her new marriage (which lasted less than a year). That was a respectable number, driven by Williams’ frankness.
But a year later, by the following September, 2019, sales dropped 35% to just 67,174. It didn’t help that Kristen Stewart was on the cover, plugging the dud “Charlie’s Angels” reboot. Vanity Fair is having more and more trouble getting timely, popular cover subjects.
Most of Jones’s covers up til then had been a crap shoot. Jones’s first issue had been April 2018, with black lesbian TV writer-actress Lena Waithe on the cover. Sales were only 77.000, a drop from Carter’s final issue the previous month (84,660).
Jones’s first summer issue, for June and July 2018, managed to sell 79,824 copies. This was on the heels of the May 2018 edition that had Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on the cover and sold 130,000. But that was clearly left over from Carter’s regime, and not what Jones had in mind for the magazine. A drop of 50,000 from May to June/July? Emilia Clarke of “Game of Thrones” was on the cover, not completely recognizable. You know that Carter would have had some reference to her dragons to give it a push.
After the Summer issue, it seemed like things might be improving. August 2018 brought back the number 84,651, with rapper star and Pulitzer Prize winner Kendick Lamar, no less. Then Jones got lucky. The September 2018 Style issue with Michelle Williams was a hit: 103,529. Jones must have thought she was out of the woods. But the rest of 2018 was a disappointment. Oct, Nov, Dec were respectively 63K, 68.4K, and 69.4 K. The air was out of the balloon. She was probably happy to see her first year end.
And then came 2019. Single copy sales lingered in the high 60s and low 70s. The June-July Summer issue featuring “Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker” totaled just over 81,000 copies– 10,000 fewer than the December-January Holiday issue six months earlier. (That should have been a warning to the “Star Wars” people that the fervor wasn’t there.) The September 2019 issue Stewart sold just 67K, a huge decline from that 103,529 from one year earlier. And the December issue with John Legend, Chrissie Teigen and their family looked like something from Parade magazine. It was a startlingly low seller: 58,000 and change. From Carter’s last issue to the last edition 2019, about thirty thousand readers had split.
Two things come to mind immediately about the post-Carter Vanity Fair. First of all, it’s ugly. The covers are ugly and have no depth. In Jones’s quest to put people of color on the cover– which was much needed– no attention has been paid to the actual photography. Lena Waithe should have sued them. Second, the redesign of the magazine’s inside is miserable. It looks like Business Week, when it was owned by McGraw-Hill. Alexander Liberman must be rolling in his grave.
This year’s Hollywood issue set a new low. Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Lopez were featured, yet they were not nominated for Oscars. Not only did Eddie not appear on the Academy Awards, he didn’t come to the VF party. JLo was used, as she was by many this season, for her celebrity. Renee Zellweger was slapped onto the cover between them looking like she was a Colorform. It’s a lifeless cover, unknowing and blissfully ignorant.
Last week, the Daily Beast reported that Conde Nast is backing Jones still as editor despite ousting rumors. My guess is, she’s out soon. New York Magazine’s former editor in chief Adam Moss would be her likely successor, and should be. He’s a much better fit. That is, if he wants to do it. Even Moss knows much of Carter’s good will has been squandered.
The White House Correspondents Dinner is coming back, big time!
After three years of laying low, the WHCA has announced two big comedians to take on Donald Trump: Kenan Thompson and Hasan Minhaj. This pair should bring back the celebrities and the buzz that that the dinner has been lacking since Donald Trump was elected president.
The question now is whether Trump will be man enough to accept his invitation to attend the dinner, set for April 25th. My guess would be: no.
But this is a smart move by the WHCA. When Barack Obama was president, the dinner was the hot ticket of the year. But with Trump’s election, and unending attacks on the press, the dinner has become a no-fly zone. Celebrity involvement has been minimal and all the fun has disappeared. Many parties were cancelled or furloughed until this administration was gone.
“Kenan and Hasan are two of the most engaged and engaging entertainers in America. I’m thrilled they’ll help us celebrate the role of a free press in our democracy,” said Jonathan Karl, Chief White House Correspondent for ABC News and president of the WHCA. “We’re looking forward to a lively evening honoring the most important political journalism of the past year.”
The WHCA will be presenting two new awards at the 2020 dinner: The Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability and the Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage by Visual Journalists. These are in addition to the longstanding Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence in White House Coverage and Merriman Smith Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure.
This year’s dinner will also include the inaugural presentation of the Collier Prize for State Government Accountability, administered by the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications to recognize outstanding statehouse reporting.
Did you miss Roseanne Barr? I know I did. I guess because “The Conners” had such a great ratings week without her, Roseanne gave an interview some guy with a Skype and a mic yesterday. This is what she’s been reduced to after having over 10 million viewers just two years ago. The YouTube show was called “Comfy Sunday” and Roseanne looked comfy and unkempt speaking from her Hawaii home. She smoked during the opening part, but finally went inside sans cigarette because she says her family doesn’t allow it inside.
Roseanne covers a lot of ground in the interview, very free wheeling. She doubles and triples down on her support for Donald Trump. She says, “I think the person he’s going to arrest first is President Obama. “Obama will beg for Kenyan citizenship before this is over.”
Yes, she’s vile, crazy and unapologetic. But unless a house falls on her, Roseanne is not going away. She claims she signed away her rights to “The Conners” because she was assured it would not be renewed. As it turns out, “The Conners” — after a shaky start– is doing just fine. It should last five seasons at least. “What they did to me is unspeakble…They [ABC] hated Trump so bad they had to kill me [the character of Roseanne].”
PS I don’t know the names of these interviewers, but if you do, send them along to showbiz411@gmail.com and I’ll put them in.
The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde is never shy about speaking out. That’s why we love her. She wrote a long Tweet today to Donald Trump supporting Julian Assange and protesting his extradition. Chrissie also says she allowed Rush Limbaugh to use her song “My City Was Gone” because her father loved listening to him. I always wondered why she didn’t stop him.
She writes “The other day when you gave that award to Rush Limbaugh, my father would have been so delighted. He loved listening to Rush, which is why I allowed my song, ‘My City Was Gone’, to be used on his radio show.
My father and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye. We argued a lot..
but isn’t that the American way? The right to disagree without having your head chopped off?Soon, I will be participating in a protest in London against the extradition of #JulianAssange (@wikileaks). I know my father would be mortified, but I feel strongly enough to do what I believe is the right thing; to protest further punishment of a man who sought to defend Freedom, albeit in a way you rightly disagree with. I know Mr. Assange broke the law (as i have done defending the treatment of animals) but I believe [ he has been duly punished and should now be set free.
Please consider my plea.
Yours truly,
Chrissie Hynde of @ThePretendersHQ”
Tonight, CBS’s Bill Whitaker did an excellent report on the mess that is Ivo von Hove’s “West Side Story.” The musical revival opens this Thursday.
Whitaker spent four months behind the scenes at the show, where the lead actor, Isaac Powell was injured, forcing the show to postpone its opening by two weeks. Actor Ben Cook, who I saw at the second preview performance, dislocated his shoulder and left the show completely. Another actor, Amar Ramasar, who is the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit from his time at the New York City ballet, is the subject of protests. Producer Scott Rudin told Whitaker he doesn’t care.
Whitaker didn’t mention that that Rudin has joined forces with two Hollywood powerhouses, David Geffen and Barry Diller, to produce this show. The only living member of the triumvirate that created “West Side Story” in 1957, Stephen Sondheim, 85 and ailing from a fall, has been paying close attention to what’s going on. I can only imagine the money he was paid to allow the cutting of his song, “I Feel Pretty,” and the changing of Jerome Robbin’s choreography.
So, yes, I’ve seen “West Side Story.” I held my tongue because the show had a very long preview period anyway– two months, not including the extra two weeks– and I’d reported that Sergio Trujillo had come in to help cutting edge choreographer Anna deKeersmaecker try to make her work less abrasive to Robbins fans.
In his piece, Whitaker mentioned “two choreographers” came in to help DeKeersmaeker, without giving names. Trujillo is a Tony award winner. From the looks of Whitaker’s piece, he hasn’t had too much influence.
Whitaker said in his piece there is so “snapping” in the dances, and there’s no balcony– meaning a fire escape– for the singing of “Somewhere.” This is true. There are no sets, just a black brick unadorned stage. Cut into the back wall is a set that we can’t really see. It’s used by the videographers who go back there and transmit the action to the Drive in like back wall of the theater, now a massive projection. When I saw the show, sometimes no one was on stage, it was all taking place on video. It was annoying and depressing. von Hove, who used a lot of video projection for “Network,” has gone whole hog with it here.
The videos are more distressing than the changes in the choreography. The dances now are just underwhelming. They aren’t bad. They just lack Robbins’ passion. There is no snapping, Whitaker is correct. If you’re seeing “West Side Story” for the first time ever, you won’t know the difference. Later, if you see the movie, you’ll smack your forehead and wonder what the heck these people were thinking. But back to the videos: they are constant, and moving. I felt like I needed a Dramamine. Maybe that’s been changed. Also, they were supposed to be street shots of Hell’s Kitchen. They looked like Long Island City.
Powell was excellent in the show I saw, so were Shireen Pimentel, Ben Cook, Yesenia Ayala and Ramasar. Powell is not performing matinees from what I’ve been told. Cook is gone. Are they as good as the cast I saw a decade ago when co-author Arthur Laurents was still alive? No. Did I miss Karen Olivo as Anita? A lot. And the Robbins dancing? Yes. I remember that cast sailing through the air, they were wondrous. But you don’t miss what you don’t know. I thought the biggest mistake, aside from no ‘balcony,” was the Officer Krupke number now inflected with violence. What a shame.
How will “West Side Story” be received on Thursday? I’ll bet the New York Times loves it, for many reasons. They want to seem hip and cool. They will be hard pressed to go against Rudin, Diller, and Geffen. Plus, the show has been selling out since it previews began. Most audiences won’t know the difference. The good news is, “West Side Story” will survive this episode. We are the same age. We’ve survived up to this point. Our snap is still there, even if you don’t see it.