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Aretha Franklin: Honoring a Legend on the One Year Anniversary Since She Passed Away

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Hard to believe, but today marks one year since the passing of Aretha Franklin. So many accolades have been visited on her including the Pulitzer Prize– just for being Aretha– and an all star TV special that she would have loved. Detroit has named an outdoor concert venue for her, and a stretch of highway, among other things.

Aretha is sorely missed by family and friends, even family currently at war in a Detroit probate court over her will. You know, she didn’t leave one. She did it intentionally. And it was only by accident that her niece found three unsigned, uncompleted wills when she began to clean out Aretha’s house. They were started and stopped. They weren’t signed.

Aretha didn’t believe she was going to die, even after harrowing surgeries, proceedings, and treatments. When I asked her one day, point blank, can you tell me what’s wrong exactly? She would reply, I cannot. And then silence.

Did she really believe her faith had cured her? Well, she believed it inasmuch as she could say it from a stage to her audience, because she loved them. But two years ago, at Philadelphia’s Mann Center, she knew she was pretty much done. It took all her energy that night to put on a real show of shows. I had dinner with her backstage before the performance, and she looked great. But coming off stage, all the air was gone from her body.

That wasn’t her last show. That distinction was left for Elton John’s AIDS Foundation gala three months later in November in New York. She’d lost so much weight I was scared and upset when I saw her. But she was already on stage. That was some performance. It included a long version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” with Aretha giving the piano a workout. Elton John and David Furnish came to the lip of the stage and cheered her on. Aretha called them out, and shouted out her old pal, Bill Clinton. She was in her element. Sail on, silver girl indeed.

So I think about Aretha all the time, and all the fun we had at different meals, on the road, in New York, Los Angeles, Mohegan Sun. She was irascible but she also had a great sense of humor. She really could make you laugh. When Instagram first got popular she got an account and started taking pictures of all her friends, her bodyguards, other performers, and posting the pictures. She said, “I’m the paparazzi now!”

Recently, my friend DA Pennebaker passed away at age 94. The day he turned 85, nine summers ago, I brought Aretha to his daughter’s house, to a backyard barbecue, for his birthday. Aretha had been renting a house nearby, and we’d spent the afternoon eating soul food that she and her sister in law Earline had cooked. There was enough food for 10 people, and it was delicious.

Around 5 pm, I said, “Aretha, I have to go to DA Pennebaker’s 85th birthday party.” She responded: “Will there be food?” We were all stuffed. I said, “Yes. I guess so.” She said: “I’ll come!” You can only imagine the looks on everyone’s faces when I walked into the Pennebaker garden and said, “Penny, your birthday present is Aretha Franklin.” He nearly fainted.

Aretha arrived with her guests, all dressed up. Everyone had a great time. It was a kind of magical moment as they talked music and Aretha tasted the family paella. For me, it was kind of a dream of watching two people you loved and respected connecting over all of our favorite things, music and food. I hope they’ve run into each other in heaven, and picked up where they left off.

All of those people in Detroit negotiating over Aretha’s wills are good people. They loved her, and she loved them. To tell you the truth, they love each other. I hope in Aretha’s memory they settle their differences soon. She would have wanted it that way.

Here’s a funny story. Aretha taped the Kennedy Center Honors in early December 2015 and brought down the house with “Natural Woman.” Two, three weeks later we went to Mohegan Sun on New Years’ Day for a show she had scheduled. In the interim, a couple of days earlier, the Kennedy Center program aired. Now we’re walking into the Mohegan theater, and the manager says to Aretha: “We may start a few minutes late, we had to add 300 seats because there was such a demand.”

This was good news! But why, I asked? The manager shook her head. “I guess a lot of people saw you on the Kennedy Center show. They keep asking if you’re going to sing Natural Woman. Are you?”

Aretha laughed. She’d only been performing it for 48 years. She said, “Well, it’s in there. It’s the fifth song.” She added: “Imagine that, I’m an overnight star!”

Broadway: “Book of Mormon” Goes Back on Discount as Tickets Are Available in Quantities Most Nights

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The unthinkable has happened again. “The Book of Mormon” is back on discount.

Once the king of sold out shows, the Tony winning musical seems to have seats available in quantities most nights.

The producers say they’re taking in just over $1 million every week. But looking at ticketmaster.com, there are blue dots every day at all performances– meaning loads of seats.

StubHub.com just sent out discounts for the Saturday, September 14th matinee. But the evening show is pretty empty, too. I also checked several other nights in August and September– all very available.

It may be that “Mormon” has soaked up its audience– 10 years is a long time. Also, tastes change. What seemed funny in 2009 may not be these days. “Mormon” has jokes and songs about raping babies.

Anyway, now is the time to get in there for much less than people were conned into paying years ago– $500, $1000. Ridiculous.

TV: “Animal Kingdom” Star Ellen Barkin Makes Two Sudden Exits: from Series, and from BFF CAA Agent Bryan Lourd

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Ellen Barkin, star of TNT’s hit show, “Animal Kingdom,” never does anything quietly.

The famous, fiery star of “Sea of Love” and “Diner,” and Tony winner, has had quite a week already.

On Tuesday, viewers were rocked when her character, Smurf, the center of the show, was brutally killed off in the next to last episode of the fourth season.

Then came the news yesterday that Barkin has left Creative Artists Agency and moved to a competitor, Gersh. Leaving CAA is shocking because Barkin and CAA partner Bryan Lourd have been thick as thieves for years. They were quite literally BFFs, although in Hollywood the initials that matter are the agencies. Friendships are fleeting.

But it was Lourd that helped design Barkin’s return to Hollywood after her contentious 2006 divorce from Revlon CEO billionaire Ronald Perelman. (For five years of being his fourth wife she reportedly got $20 million– not enough!) That Renaissance began in 2007 when Barkin re-emerged in the very high profile “Ocean’s Thirteen.” She’s worked constantly since then, and won the Tony in 2011 for featured actress in “The Normal Heart.”

“Animal Kingdom” is based on the terrific David Michod film that starred Jacki Weaver as Smurf, kind of a Ma Barker, the tough leader of a crime family of violent and unruly young men. Though TNT shows don’t compete for Emmys, Barkin deserved one. She’s been dynamite, her usual mix of tough on the outside, soft(er) on the inside. She’s what drives the show.

So her character’s death this week was certainly a surprise, and not one that was Barkin’s decision. She’s been leaving clues on Twitter, where she’s politically outspoken all the time. She wrote: “Next episode Smurf’s will is opened. She left her boys a hit tv show.” Her PS: “Carry on Codys…well, maybe not all Codys.”

Did the agency change have to do with Smurf’s death? There’s no such thing as coincidences. And it’s not like “Animal Kingdom” won’t be back. It was renewed for a fifth season by TNT two weeks ago. Without Barkin. Sort of like killing off JR Ewing when he was shot on “Dallas” — very, very weird!

 

 

“General Hospital” Star Kelly Monaco Posts Dismay at Firing of Actor Billy Miller: “May Not Be What Our Audience Thinks to Be True”

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Soap opera actors are generally very mum when it comes to backstage trouble. If they opine publicly against their shows, there’s a fear of being fired. Suddenly their characters get mysterious diseases or are replaced by lookalikes.

“General Hospital” actress Kelly Monaco took a big chance this week. When her co-star (and rumored boyfriend) Billy Miller, was suddenly axed from the ABC soap, Monaco jumped on Twitter. She wrote:

“I feel like I have to address this situation. #BillyMiller ‘s untimely departure from #gh. Honestly, I can not come up with the words to describe how I feel about this decision… a decision that may not be what our audience thinks to be true. I’m heartbroken… more to come.”

Now her fans, and the soap world, waits for that more to come. Will Monaco spill the beans?

“General Hospital,” like the three other remaining soaps, is hemorrhaging ratings. They’ve lost more than 300,000 viewers over the last year. That means quick changes. Miller may be the victim of a new direction for the show even though he’s a multiple winner and nominee at the Daytime Emmy Awards. But there’s a rumor that “General Hospital” may be bringing back fan favorite Tyler Christopher, so Miller’s exit may be budgetary.

What I never understand about these things: why doesn’t Miller head to primetime? He’s more than qualified and would be a terrific addition to a show like “Grey’s Anatomy” and so on. Many have launched from soaps to the big leagues in the past. I say, go while the going is good.

Trump: Incendiary New Documentary Shows How He Was Groomed and Mentored by Mysterious, Evil Roy Cohn

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Last January, “Where’s My Roy Cohn?”, directed by Matt Tyrnauer, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Simultaneously, by coincidence, one of Cohn’s disciples, Roger Stone, was arrested after a federal indictment in Washington on seven counts, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.

The coincidence is that Stone is one of the major witnesses in “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” He lays out for Tyrnauer Cohn’s evil mind set, how he got away with committing crimes in public while all the time lying to everyone, especially the press, and how they ate it up.

Last night I attended the first screening in New York of “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” an exhausting, sad, and frightening chronicle of how Cohn, then 23 in 1953, became Senator Joseph McCarthy’s most trusted aide during the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, destroyed lives, and accomplished the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Cohn then used that episode to leverage an openly nefarious life that included the mentoring of Donald Trump. Cohn became notorious for never admitting to being gay, and then ironically dying of AIDS. Tyrnauer lays it out in detail. (And don’t forget Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America.”)

Cohn’s cousin, Dave Marcus, told me last night after the screening: “Roy probably had a thing for Trump. He was his type.”

You’ll need a stiff drink after the Cohn documentary, which opens in September. His path of destruction is endless for thirty years. But the evil spreads over his face. Tynauer’s assemblage of clips from Cohn’s life depict a face that literally falls apart, or implodes, as Cohn’s lies and crimes catch up with him. (Bad facelifts didn’t help.)

One Cohn episode that Tyrnauer doesn’t completely explore: how Cohn used Barbara Walters (and maybe vice versa) to propel his fame and causes. Walters was one of several New York celebrities who testified for Cohn in his disbarment trial after he’d looted several wealthy clients’ accounts. For a time in the mid 80s, Cohn and Walters actually let it be written that they were engaged. This was hogwash. But Cohn had helped Walters’ father save his nightclub, The Latin Quarter, in the 1950s. In 1991, Walters told me that Cohn had helped her adopt her daughter, Jackie. So Walters was in Cohn’s pocket, so to speak, and he used that connection as leverage for respectability.

But it’s the connection between Trump and Cohn that makes the documentary timely. Cohn taught Trump how to obfuscate, lie, divert attention from his crimes. It’s Stone, who’s used the same tactics since his arrest and indictment, who lays this out. His prosecutors should take note.

 

 

UPDATE John Travolta’s “The Fanatic,” His 11th Commercial and Critical Flop “B” Film Since 2012 — Gets an 18 on Rotten Tomatoes

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AUGUST 30TH: Has an 18 on Rotten Tomatoes. Pretty much universally panned.

AUGUST 14TH: When John Travolta’s next movie, “The Fanatic,” is released on August 30th, it will set a record held maybe only by Nicolas Cage.

“The Fanatic” will be Travolta’s 11th movie in a row since 2012 to be a total flop– lousy reviews and no business. Directed by Fred Durst, of the rock group Limp Bizkit, “The Fanatic” comes from an unknown distributor. It’s so violent that they didn’t even offer it to the MPAA for a rating. Two weeks after its release, the movie will go to video platforms.

Travolta’s last “hit” was his appearance in Oliver Stone’s “Savages” in 2012. He wasn’t the star, and few remember it. The actual hits he was last involved with were a decade ago — “Old Dogs,” and the remake of “The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3.”

Many of the 11 flops over the last decade weren’t even in real release. Their box office earnings weren’t reported because there weren’t any. “Killing Season,” in 2013, made just $39,881. “In a Valley of Violence,” from 2016 took in just $39,881.

Even if these films were extremely low budget, the losses on these films have to be astronomic. Travolta was always famous for huge “perk packages” on his movies. I reported years ago, for example, that his rider on “The General’s Daughter” was 32 pages and included a provision that the producers give him a gift worth $1,000 every week. Plus, he got a private chef.

Well, those days are over.

Travolta owes his last career Renaissance to Quentin Tarantino, who resurrected him in 1994 with “Pulp Fiction.” But if you noticed, Tarantino — who has kept a repertory company of actors throughout his films– never hired Travolta again.

 

Taylor Swift Out of Vogue? Mag’s Web Traffic Tanks After September Cover Story Drops, Swift’s New Single Also Craters

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Is Taylor Swift out of Vogue? And vogue?

As Swift plots the release of her new album, called “Lover,” for August 23rd, there have been disturbances in her atmosphere.

Most surprising is that since Taylor’s cover story for Vogue’s September issue dropped six days ago, the Vogue web traffic has fallen off a cliff. Alexa.com, which measures sites, offers a graph that should set off alarms at both Vogue and Taylor’s record company. The trouble started on August 5th, and hasn’t gone away.

 

On top of that, Swift’s third pre-album release single, “The Archer,” which I thought was very cool, has been a no-show on the charts. Cool and sophisticated, the opposite of Taylor’s bubble-gummy hits, “The Archer” failed to hit a target. So far, “The Archer” has garnered only 33,000 in actual downloads. With streaming the total comes to 151,000, which isn’t much. “The Archer” hasn’t shown up on the Spotify streaming charts.

Luckily, Swift’s “You Better Calm Down,” has remained aloft on iTunes, staying in the top 10 most of the summer with a decent 200,000 paid downloads and a total of 1 million sales including streaming. On Friday, she releases the album’s title song, “Lover.”

Swift also failed to save the Teen Choice Awards on Fox this past Sunday from their lowest ratings ever. She’s set to appear next on the MTV Video Music Awards on August 26th, three days after the album’s release. Those ratings, plus the initial weekend sales for “Lover,” should tell us a lot about Taylor’s trajectory.

Mary Louise Parker Really Comes Back to Broadway: New Play this Fall, Then “How I Learned to Drive” Next Spring

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Mary Louise Parker really wants to conquer Broadway this season. She’s doing not one, but two plays for 2019-2020.

First up, Parker is already on the marquee at Studio 54 with “The Sound Inside,” with Will Hochman. It’s directed by David Cromer, and written by Adam Rapp. The producer is the great and indefatigable Jeffrey Richards, who is leasing Studio 54 from the Roundabout Theater.

But Parker isn’t stopping there. On March 27th, 2020, she’ll return to the theater with a revival of “How I Learned to Drive” co-starring David Morse. This is a double revival, since Parker and Morse were in the original 1997 off Broadway production of “Drive.”

This is the production that she will hope takes her to the Tony awards. Morse was a Tony nominee last year, and everyone loves playwright Paula Vogel. This will also be in a subscription house, Manhattan Theater Club. Parker w0n a Tony a in 1991 for “Proof.”

Wait? “Proof” was in 1991. Jeez Louise. Time flies!

Forget “The Crown”! Princess Diana Musical is Coming to Broadway Next Spring, and it’s Not Called “Candle in the Wind”

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We just can’t get enough of those British royals!

“The Crown” is returning in November. And every day Prince Harry and Megan Markle are in the news if they sneeze, or wear paisley.

Now the tragic saga of Princess Diana, Harry’s late mother, is coming to Broadway from its premiere at the LaJolla Playhouse in San Diego. No, it’s not called “Candle in the Wind.” It’s a musical, called “Diana,” and it hits town at the Longacre Theater on March 2, 2020 with an opening night of March 31st.

Jeanna de Waal, acclaimed for her performance in the title role when the show premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse, will lead the cast on Broadway. She will be joined by Roe Hartrampf as “Prince Charles,”  Erin Davie as “Camilla Parker Bowles,” and two-time Tony Award-winner Judy Kaye as “Queen Elizabeth,” all of whom will be reprising their roles for Broadway. Christopher Ashley is directing, and the music is from Bon Jovi’s David Bryan, and Joe DiPietro. They wrote the songs for the musical, “Memphis.”

I am hopeful that there will be a song called “I Want to Be Your Tampon,” which is what Charles said to Camilla and was then parodied on “SNL.” Also hoping for characters based on James Hewitt, and Dodi Fayed, Diana’s two main boyfriends from her time in the sun.

 

Trailer for New Bruce Willis Movie Raises a Lot of Questions: “Die Hard” Star is Second Billed to TV Actor Michael Chiklis

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Bruce Willis barely had any dialogue in Night Shyamalan’s “Glass.” If you look at the movie, he’s hidden in robes or filmed from behind.

Soon he will appear in just the first few minutes of Edward Norton’s “Motherless Brooklyn” before his character is killed off. (No spoilers, it’s based on novel.)

Now comes the first of three B movies he’s made for VOD. This one is called “10 Minutes Gone.” In the new trailer, released today, Willis is second billed to Michael Chiklis, star of the 2000s TV hit “The Shield.” Chiklis is a nice guy, but his chief attribute here is that he’s bald, like Willis, and resembles Willis. From the trailer, it sure looks like Chiklis is the star of “10 Minutes Gone.” Indeed, all the scenes with Willis in the trailer look like he was only in one scene– and has little to say.

Over the last couple of years, Willis has sold almost all of his real estate. He and his second wife, Emma Willis, and two young daughters just packed up their Bedford Hills, NY home, which is on the market. They’ve moved back to Los Angeles.

Willis — mostly from “Die Hard — was once the top box office star. Beginning with the “Moonlighting” TV series in the late 80s, he’s been a celebrity fixture. He’s starred in dozens of films, some good, some bad, and lately odd. He’s got two more of these low budget films coming over the next year, “The Long Night” and “Trauma Center,” in which he will also be “featured”– sort of in the movie and not.

It was four years ago, in the fall of 2015, when Willis had trouble remembering his lines on Broadway in the stage version of “Misery.” At the time, he was supposed to film Woody Allen’s “Cafe Society,” but left after filming for a few days. (He was replaced by Steve Carell.) Willis said it was too taxing to do both projects simultaneously.

Willis has had such a great career, and so many millions of fans, this clip just seems like the beginning of an unworthy exit. He’s too nice, and has given us too much entertainment, for things to end this way: