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It’s enough already. The game Roseanne Barr has been playing has finally come to a tipping point.
Her Tweet overnight that former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, who is African American, was the child of “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes” would be enough to get anyone in this country fired immediately from their job.
Now Roseanne’s employer, Disney, and its chief, Bob Iger, must make a statement. Also her fellow actors Laurie Metcalf, John Goodman, and Sara Gilbert must say something.
For the last few months, the contention has been that Roseanne represented Trump’s America, and that she had the right to voice those issues on her TV show. But this last Tweet, which prompted a weak apology and her leaving of Twitter, is shocking and can’t go without some kind of remark.
Do these people– Iger, et al– approve of this behavior? I doubt it. It’s time they said something.
“The unfounded accusations made by Mr. Freeman’s lawyer are disappointing and are difficult to reconcile with Mr. Freeman’s own public statements in the aftermath of the story. CNN stands by its reporting and will respond forcefully to any attempt by Mr. Freeman or his representatives to intimidate us from covering this important public issue.”
After CNN objected to Schwartz’s letter, Schwartz issued this comment:
UPDATE:
“We presented CNN with objective evidence, including videotapes and on-the-record denials by the claimed “victims,” that the alleged incident that gave rise to the story never happened. We proved to CNN, beyond any doubt, that the whole story was built on fakery. The credibility of the entire CNN attack on Mr. Freeman has now been undermined. And in choosing to ignore all of the evidence that we presented, CNN has confirmed our concerns about its reporters, its lack of oversight, and its gross misconduct in unjustifiably attacking Mr. Freeman.”
THIS MORNING: Hollywood lawyer Robert Schwartz has sent a ten page letter to CNN’s Jeff Zucker demanding a retraction and apology for the network’s story about Oscar winner Morgan Freeman regarding sexual misconduct and harassment.
The story was CNN’s Chloe Melas and comes on the heels of the #MeToo movement and accusations against powerful men in Hollywood.
Schwartz’s letter questions Melas’s reporting.
The lawyer’s letter says:…
“at just this early stage, our review confirms that:
• Of the three people CNN identified as being a “victim,” the first, CNN’s own Chloe Melas, had no reasonable basis to have interpreted what Mr. Freeman said or did at the Going In Style interview last year as having been directed at her or as any form of harassment. The videotape confirms that his statement had nothing to do with her and was not harassing. And an independent third party, the Warner Bros. Human Resources Department, investigated her claim and concluded that it was not supported by the facts.
• The second person CNN identified, Tyra Martin, has gone on record twice since CNN published the article to state that CNN misrepresented what she said to CNN and that Mr. Freeman did not harass her • The third person CNN identified, Lori McCreary, told CNN that Mr. Freeman never harassed her. And as to CNN’s gratuitous sideswipe at Ms. McCreary herself, yet another independent party investigated the claim when CNN raised it, and found it to be meritless.
• Ms. Melas baited and prodded supposed “witnesses” to say bad things about Mr. Freeman and tried to get them to confirm her bias against him. Thus, no reader of the article can have any confidence that any of the anonymous sources, which make up the balance of CNN’s article, can be relied upon at all.
Based on those facts, and the additional information presented below, it is clear that CNN has defamed Mr. Freeman. CNN has inflicted serious injury on his reputation and career. At a minimum, CNN immediately needs to issue a retraction and apologize to Mr. Freeman through the same channels, and with the same level of attention, that it used to unjustly attack him on May 24. CNN also needs to retract the portions of the story that concern Lori McCreary and apologize to her for defaming and injuring her.”
I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me-my joke was in bad taste.
The Tweet came from her authorized account on Twitter, although now it cannot be found. Regardless, this certainly seems to be authored by Barr. So that would raise questions to ABC, to Carsey Werner Productions, to her cast, crew and production staff. The Tweet is clearly repulsive, reprehensible and grounds for cancellation of her show.
In Barr’s other set of Tweets, she attacked Chelsea Clinton for being married to someone related to George Soros. Clinton responded by saying her middle name was “Victoria.” Roseanne responded by apologizing, and inaccurately posting:
CORRECTION: CHELSEA CLINTON IS NOT MARRIED TO A SOROS NEPHEW. HER HUSBAND IS THE SON OF A CORRUPT SENATOR, SO SORRY!:
In fact, Marc Mezvinsky’s father was a congressman who pleaded guilty to fraud charges.
The fact is, Roseanne is a fraud. And ABC will have to address this. Soon.
Once, ABC Daytime was a mighty division. They had five or six soaps, plus “The View.”
Today, it’s down to one show, “General Hospital.” And that’s not good news.
Three and half years ago, “The View” was moved to ABC News. A few years earlier, “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” were replaced by “The Chew,” “The Revolution,” and “Katie Couric.”
All of those are now history.
A lot of people blame the former head of ABC Daytime, Brian Frons. But he carried out Disney’s orders, which was to get rid of everything.
Now “General Hospital” teeters on the brink of extinction. After falling to 4th place out of 4 soaps two weeks ago, the show made slight rebound to 3rd place for the week of May 7th to the 11th. But the total viewership, at 2.290 million, is down at least 400,000 viewers.
During the winter the soap dumped long time favorite Genie Francis. Then, on the 55th anniversary on April 1st, another four decade favorite, Kin Shriner, said goodbye. It was clear he’d also been dropped.
The networks learned long ago that the way to cancel a soap was to jettison favorite actors. Irate fans boycotted the shows, which is what the networks wanted. The ratings dropped, and the nets had an excuse to cancel the shows.
Such may be the case with ABC. Slotting in an hour of news billed as “Good Morning America” in the afternoon, they’ll replace “The Chew.” This was tried before and failed. But if they can make it work this time, ABC News will gun for another hour, and wipe out “General Hospital.”
It will be up to the producers and writers of “GH” now to give the viewers what they want, and damn the network. At least they’ll go out fighting. At CBS and NBC, the producers just did what they were told and carried out their suicide missions.
The worst case was on “Guiding Light,” where the network and the owner, Procter & Gamble, forced the show out of their sets to shoot in a real neighborhood in New Jersey. It was a sad ending. If ABC makes “GH” shoot at Cedars Sinai during slow hours in the ER, we’ll know the party is over.
By the way, the former ABC Daytime webpage now comes up with a logo and cast photo for the show “Lost”– as in you’re lost because ABC Daytime no longer exists.
“Solo: A Star Wars Story” has scored the lowest opening weekend of any “Star Wars” movie with $103 million over four days.
Now that we’ve gotten that of our systems, life goes on. The next step for Disney-LucasFilms is how to approach the sequels.
And there will be sequels. “Solo” ends with a potent cliffhanger featuring a long forgotten villain. That will not go unresolved.
At the “Solo” premiere in Cannes, I was assured by a number of insiders the sequels will be coming.
Clearly, Ron Howard won’t be back to direct “Solo 2.” He’s got other things to do. Howard only stepped into this to help out LucasFilms when they wanted to replace the two original directors.
So now LucasFilms will be talking to a lot of directors and writers about how to build on what was good, and go forward from here. With THAT VILLAIN certainly to be majorly in the mix, “Solo 2” will have to focus on how to incorporate better special effects, a tighter story, a love story, and so on.
But never count out “Star Wars.” The sagas will continue in many directions. LucasFilms will learn from its mistakes.
There’s only one Clive Davis, and he knows how to kick off Memorial Day weekend.
On Saturday night in upstate New York, Davis–the famed music exec and impresario–welcomed about 50 friends to his cozy estate for a gourmet dinner and a surprise entertainment.
Among the guests were some really big names in the music world including Judy Collins, Rob Thomas of matchbox twenty, famed songwriter Valerie Simpson ( of Ashford & Simpson), and producer/writer/performer David Foster.
They were joined by no less than Regis and Joy Philbin, Brenda Vaccaro, “Precious” and “Empire” priducer director Lee Daniels, Broadway legend Tommy Tune, basketball great Isiah Thomas, Monte Lippman (he’s the founder of Republic Records, as in Post Malone, Arianna Grande), Broadway producers Fran and Barry Weissler, new radio star of WOR Michael Riedel, interior designer Ron Marshall, realtor to the stars Beth Chase, and my two favorite ladies: the inimitable Nikki Haskell and her BFF Ivana Trump.
Yes, the Ivana Trump. Don’t worry. I asked her. She knows nothing. Did she ever know Michael Cohen? “No,” she said, “he came after me.” What about everything else, I wondered? Ivana, smart and funny, replied: “Better them than me.” LOL.
Dinner was catered by Abigail Kirsch, which is like the top, kids. That’s it.
During dinner, guests were given a spoiler alert about the film they were about to see: Clive personally curated 60 minutes of his all time favorite live performances, culled from You Tube. This turned out to be quite a treat as the featured artists included the creme de la creme: Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, the Beatles, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, Bruce Springsteen with Paul McCartney, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson.
The clips were not pedestrian choices, but so well curated that many had not been seen in years if at all. The assembled guests were mesmerized, and Brenda Vaccaro– who knew Sinatra– pretty much swooned during the Chairman of the Board killing it on “My Way.” When Aretha finished “Natural Woman” from the Kennedy Center, Valerie Simpson said: “Tell her how we went crazy when it was over!” Michael Jackson’s famous Moonwalking from “Motown 25” was more electric than ever.
But the final clip– Whitney Houston performing a medley from the American Music Awards– was the stunner. With all respect to both Jennifer Holliday and Jennifer Hudson, Whitney just tears it up on “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going.”
Lucky for Clive, at the end of the night, reluctantly, everyone told him they were going– home. But boy, what a way to start the summer!
PS It’s always wonderful to see Regis and Joy, neither of whom ages. They are the most fun ever. God bless them. They told me their daughter, J.J., my intern at New York magazine years ago, has a show coming on ABC this fall called “Single Parents” starring Brad Garrett. J.J. is not a single parent, however. She has two kids with writer-producer-actor Michael Schur, of “The Office” and “The Good Place” fame.
UPDATE “Solo” made just $83 million for the three day weekend. It may just break $101 million through Monday night. That’s the lowest for any “Star Wars” movie. Was it the movie or the marketing? There are going to be arguments that this shouldn’t have been billed as a “Star Wars” movie. No lightsabres, no cry.
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It doesn’t matter if you liked “Solo: A Star Wars Story” or wanted to see it. This movie will be destroyed one way or another by forces bigger than the Empire– naysayers and lurkers, commenters who are happy to see a catastrophe.
And so “Solo” looks like it will lose the weekend to “Deadpool 2.” This is Disney’s dilemma, as both movies belong to them. After back to back blockbusters with “Black Panther” and “Infinity War,” the company that rules the commercial universe is having a rocky Memorial Day weekend.
Wait for the update…so far all the other box office numbers are in this morning except for “Solo.”
UPDATED The first time I heard the name Marina Acton was today when TMZ reported it was she who laid out $1.5 million at the Cannes amFAR gala for a painting of Bob Dylan by actor Pierce Brosnan. Whoever spent that dough, I thought, has a lot to spare.
So who is Marina Acton? Described as a “Ukranian philanthropist” and “billionaire,” she is not related to Brian Acton, co-creator and founder of What’s App.
Marina Acton hasn’t made an impact yet in New York, but they know her in L.A. Paparazzi stop her in front of Craig’s. This winter she plunked down $17.8 million for an estate that belonged to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. She likes spending money, that’s for sure. In January she gave $100,000 to Steven Tyler’s Janie Fund.
Marina, a beautiful blonde who hasn’t met a mink she didn’t like, fancies herself a pop star. In March she issued a video– in which she stars– for a song called “Fantasize.” She has some other recordings on Spotify. She’s also started a production company called Phreaker Films.
Also this spring she’s created a website for something called the Marina Acton Charity Fund. There’s no registration for it anywhere as a 501 (c) 3. It has something to do with protecting the internet. From their site: The Marina Acton Charity Fund is a non-profit organization that was created to facilitate security of personal and professional communications through encryption and digital integrity. To do that, we provide grants and funding to organizations that strive to make the Internet safe and secure. We work with smart people to develop encryption and digital integrity solutions that have the potential of making significant breakthroughs in programming languages, codes and encryption techniques.
Isn’t this all great? If L.A. had a tabloid press we’d have known about these people already. In New York, the Daily News and Post would have been all over them. Here’s another one of Marina’s songs:
So let’s extend a warm welcome to Marina Acton to the world of celebrity. I like that she’s using that What’s App money as Dolly Levi’s late husband Ephraim advised, “like manure,” spreading it around, and making things grow!
Marina, come to New York. Le Cirque is closed but we’ll find things for you to do! (How about a painting by George Lazenby?)
Debra Lee is being forced out of BET. She’s been with the company since 1986 and is incredibly much respected. But Viacom wants her out.
Bob Bakish, the head of Viacom, said this ridiculous thing in a much wrung statement: “While we will all miss Debra tremendously, we respect her decision and understand her desire to leave at the very top of the game with a legacy of significant contributions that spans decades. I have seen first-hand how the network has grown under her direction, and I know that she will bring that same innovative thinking and strategic vision to her future pursuits. Debra has groomed an amazing group of senior executives, and I am confident that BET Networks will continue to flourish under their leadership.”
BET bounced Stephen Hill out last year. He was the only other person from that network who seemed to be everywhere and get anything done. Debra Lee’s ouster was just a matter of time. Always elegant, well spoken, beautiful, smart, she was the best representative that network ever could have had.
Corporate America — it ain’t for the weak of heart. I hope Debra has a nice big parachute.
“Solo: A Star Wars Story” is only going to make around $110 million this weekend.
Ha ha. Only. It’s a movie with no star in the lead role, and with no real history other than Han Solo’s “Star Wars” Movies from 40 years ago. I’d say that’s pretty good.
The “Solo” take from Thursday and Friday is $35.6 million including $14.1 million from Thursday. That puts it on a par with “Rogue One,” another movie that had no history, was ‘free-standing’ so to speak.
As a “Star Wars” movie, the “Solo” take is not fantastic. But it’s not a “Star Wars” movie. There’s no Force, or Yoda, or Skywalker or Wookies or James Earl Jones or any reference to “Star Wars” really except Woody Harrelson mentioning Tatooine or the last minute appearance of an old villain.
So why not go and enjoy it? The lurkers are trying to kill it, god only knows.
Meanwhile, “Deadpool 2” is still doing great business. And I’m going to see it tomorrow.
More importantly, “RBG,” a documentary about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, will cross the $5 million line tomorrow. Bravo!
