The great country singer songwriter Merle Haggard has died at age 79.
Between 1966 and 1987, Haggard and his band had 38 number 1 songs on the Billboard country charts thirty three more hit the top 10.My favorite of his songs, “Today I Started Loving You Again,” has been covered by 400 different performers including the Everly Brothers and Rufus Thomas.
Here’s a great obit from the Bakersfield, California newspaper.
“The Book of Mormon” is a Broadway musical set in Uganda. It’s a wild hit because it also sends up the whole world of Joseph Smith, founder of the Utah-based religion. After three years you still can’t get a ticket to this show.
Yet, no one has been deterred from doing similar missionary work in Africa. The newest name is R. Todd Neilson, Hollywood’s most renown and controversial bankruptcy trustee, based in Century City, Los Angeles. He’s also the internal trustee for Solyndra LLC, President Obama’s $80 billion clean-technology program gone bad.
Neilson– a former FBI agent– has been involved in cases in recent years including Mike Tyson, Joe Francis of “Girls Gone Wild,” Ponzi schemer Reed Slatkin of Earthlink, Death Row Records, the estate of pop star Billy Preston and so on. The internet is bursting with cases that involve Neilson, whose reputation, for better or worse, now precedes him.
But now in public filings, Neilson is resigning from one case because he says he’s moving to Zimbabwe for 18 months to do missionary work for the Mormon church. Harare is a long way from Hollywood and creature comforts.
Coincidentally, Neilson’s former partner Wayne Elggren did the same thing in 2003. The partnership ended, which sent Neilson into another firm.
Fortune magazine was one of Neilson’s most vociferous critics on Solyndra. The magazine wrote: “…when Neilson took his talents to Solyndra, he blew it. Big time.” Neilson, who tenaciously fights with celebrities for years over their bankruptcies, concluded in just four months that Solyndra was clean.
Will Neilson save bankrupt souls? He couldn’t do it in Los Angeles, but maybe in Zimbabwe he’ll have more luck.
Janet Jackson has finally cancelled her Unbreakable tour for good. The reason this time? “My husband and I are planning our family.” Janet is 49 years old. She’s already cancelled the tour for a variety of health reasons concerning her throat. At one point there was a rumor she had cancer. Now Janet and husband Wissam al Mana are planning a family. Janet has no children from previous marriages and relationships, but a great Urban Myth was that she’d had a baby and it was raised somewhere in the Jackson family. The real story? Who knows? Time will tell.
A message from Janet…https://t.co/KrzYZ4eyvD
— Janet Jackson (@JanetJackson) April 6, 2016
You know, Hollywood kids have it tough. They grow up in the shadow of a famous parent, sometimes two. Rumer Willis, eldest of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s three daughters, had it tough from the get go. Each of her parents is a Big Star, always in the news. Rumer was tabloid fodder as a teen, and grist for the gossip mill. Didn’t think she’d make it, didya?
Rumer competed on “Dancing with the Stars,” went into “Chicago” on Broadway, and there were no jeers. Now it turns out she’s a top notch singer, with a lovely cabaret voice that can belt with the best of them. She is also unafraid, poised, professional and ready for her closeup. And yet, here she is on stage at the Cafe Carlyle, intimate setting and stage that belonged to Bobby Short, Elaine Stritch, and still Woody Allen’s clarinet. You cannot fake it here. (Some big pop stars wouldn’t last very long in this room.)
There were no celebs in the audience Tuesday night as Rumer kicked off her run at the Carlyle. (The Hollywood gang will come when she settles in.) She has a crack three piece combo (James Sampliner, Danny Weller, Dan Berkery), an excellent arranger (Christopher Lloyd Bratten) and a gay best friend-life partner-music producer (Tye Blue) right out of a rom com.
Rumer, as she told us, is about to turn 28. She is full of confidence and maybe brings to the songs some world weariness after running around Hollywood and US Weekly. Her voice– take Demi Moore’s sexy scratchy tones and mellow them out with a young Bruce Willis purring to Cybill Shepherd in “Moonlighting” — and it works. Rumer also presence (she’s the good kind of tall) and has a killer smile. (Well what did you expect?)
Her song choices range from standards to Broadway to a couple of cool rock numbers. She can handle Liza Minnelli (“Maybe this Time”). She sort of found common ground between Amy Winehouse (“You Know I’m No Good”) and Billie Holiday (“God Bless the Child”). Fiona Apple worked (“Criminal”) although I preferred her take on Doris Day (“Perhaps”).
Rumer has a nice modulation, and can handle smoky, ironic, and sweet. There’s an intelligence at work here, too. She and her buddy made a variety show duet of “Class” from “Chicago,” too– which was understated. No “Chicago” jazz hands. Rumer said, “I played Roxie but I think of myself more as Velma.” Frankly she reminded me of another Demi– Lovato.
Rumer ended the set with a Brandi Carlile song I don’t know (you all probably do)– called “The Story.” Rumer should cut it, retitle it “I Was Made for You,” and get it out as a single on iTunes. That’s a hit. Some smart record label should get over to the Carlile and sign her up ASAP. The rumer is, she’s got it.
Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander’s “The People vs. OJ Simpson” comes to an end tonight. We know how it ends, don’t we? At least, that part of the story.
Watching this 10 part mini-series was fascinating for me, because I spent so much time writing and reporting the criminal case in 1994-95. I’ve followed the episodes, admired them for their craftmanship. Yes, the whole thing deserves many Emmy Awards. It’s put great actors like Sarah Paulson, Courtney B. Vance, and Sterling K. Brown on the map.
Does it bear any relationship to the case I covered? Not much, actually.
Marcia Clark was outplayed. She was terrible. Nothing that was written– by me, by any press in Los Angeles, by Dominick Dunne, by Newsweek– none of it made any impression on her. Chris Darden was the same. In the movie, they are star crossed lovers, sympathetic heroes who can’t get a break. Hah! They were in reality clueless. I could never understand how they got book deals, or became even temporary celebrities.
Everything was a surprise to Marcia Clark. It was my report, in New York Magazine, that revealed Kato Kaelin (who’s really a piece of work) had sold his book for a million bucks even after the judge had cautioned witnesses not to sell their stories. We tried to tell Marcia. It was only at the last minute that she flipped Kato into a hostile witness. But by then it was too late.
(Sadly, the show skipped the preliminary hearings, OJ’s early days in jail, etc., how Kato was picked up from the police station and brought straight to OJ’s house for a big meeting.)
She and Darden were also clueless about OJ’s medical history, and his physical status. They dismissed a juror (in the excellent jury episode) because they were a patient of OJ’s doctor Bertram Maltz. But they never questioned why Dr. Maltz was replaced by Rob Huizenga, who I think was shown (for a second) testifying in last week’s episode. Clark and Darden just never understood that whole part of the case.
Of course, the Kardashian family meant nothing in 1995. They’ve been inserted here, I guess, for current celebrity value. Kris was Nicole’s bar hopping buddy. She was a useless friend. Robert Kardashian is portrayed here like a deer in headlights, crying, whimpering, carrying on. Please. He was OJ’s fervent supporter. He only started changing his tune to Larry Schiller afterwards, and when he became ill. And where are OJ’s other posse, like secretary Cathy Randa, or Ron Shipp, or any number of people who were involved in the cult of OJ.
Then there’s OJ himself. I love Cuba Gooding, Jr. But OJ was somnolent, brooding. There was talk that he was medicated in court because he couldn’t control himself. He was prone to outbursts. But he was hardly vivacious or gregarious.
(And look, last week–“Manna from Heaven”– a whole episode devoted to the “Fuhrmann tapes”– which in the end weren’t allowed into evidence except for one line. The trial was not about those tapes, which, by the way, disappeared from the conversation instantly.)
The show is beautifully made, I’ll say it again. But the writers made the lawyers out as heroes, when they were really villains (the Dream Team) and idiots (the prosecution). There were no heroes. I’m all for Sarah Paulson getting her gold statues, which she deserves. But Marcia Clark deserved no awards. OJ went free. It was only a twist of fate, karma, and timing that put him in jail years later.
At last night’s screening of HBO’s “Nothing Left Unsaid,” Anderson Cooper admitted his mom, Gloria Vanderbilt, wants him to have kids.
“She constantly has asked me about having kids, yes, and that’s something she’d like to see,” he said. “You know maybe, some day. I would certainly love… to have kids,” Cooper’s voice trailed off. “I love kids. Who knows? I work a lot, so I would have to kind of change my work schedule.” Then he shrugged yes that having children was very much on his mind.
The whole mother-son thing is what “Nothing Left Unsaid” is about. The documentary by Liz Garbus chronicles Gloria Vanderbilt’s colorful life, including her many lovers and marriages, her children, her triumphs (in art and fashion) and her tragedies (her husband Wyatt Cooper died at age 50 of a heart attack and her son Carter committed suicide at age 23).
Mainly, Cooper interviews his mother and also provides loving and humorous comments about some of the more curious things she’s done in her life – marriage at 17 to a man who may have murdered his first wife – and his mother’s ordeals, like the bitter custody battle she was the center of that earned her the sobriquet of “poor little rich girl.”
The doc, which will debut this Saturday on HBO and which premiered at Sundance in January, is timed with the release of a book, “The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss.” Copies were given out at the snazzy after party at Porter House in Columbus Circle, where filet mignon, Champagne and creamy cheesecake was on the menu.
A-listers at the screening included Cooper’s posse– Andy Cohen, Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos– as well as Ellen Burstyn, Carolina Herrera, Gay Talese and Gayle King.
Many people may be surprised to learn that Gloria Vanderbilt– born into one of America’s wealthiest dynasties– had four children. Not that it’s a secret but that it seems only the two younger children – Anderson and Carter – are widely known. In the book Vanderbilt says of motherhood, which she knew little of first hand since her mother, who was only a teenager when she was born, was remote and cold, says in the book, “Being am mother wasn’t what I expected at all… Little did I know that you, Carter, Stan and Chris would be the greatest joys of my life.”
A big mystery in both the book and the documentary is how her son Christopher Stokowski, from Gloria Vanderbilt’s second marriage to acclaimed composer Leopold Stokowski, 43 years her senior, has disappeared from their lives and is barely mentioned. Stan Stokowski, the other son from that marriage, who is a handsome man in his 60’s, was at the premiere and in the documentary and talks about his mother with whom he is close but mentions how he felt like an outsider once she started her new family with Cooper’s father. (Gloria Vanderbilt was also married to Sidney Lumet for seven years and dated Frank Sinatra briefly.)
The book is in the form of a conversation and series of emails, which Anderson orchestrated and began when his mother was nearly 91 and which cemented their already close relationship. Near the end of the book Vanderbilt writes a note to Anderson and tells him that his father was “the most honest person I met in my life.” She adds, “I know these values reside in you. I fervently hope that you will become a father. If this is to be, don’t wait too long… Consider making a loving partner and a family your true foundation of success. Please give it serious thought. Who knows, I hope I’ll still be around if it happens.”
Maybe she will. Gloria Vanderbilt looks terrific. Her signature bob was shiny, make up perfectly applied and she looked svelte in a pearl grey satin pant outfit. She still has a girlish aura. Now a little fragile, Vanderbilt still walks straight without a cane and she leaned only slightly and occasionally on her famous son.
At the after party I asked Anderson about whether his mother had a good time (I didn’t see her at the after party.) “She had an amazing time,” he told me. “She is thrilled to see the movie come out and thrilled with the response to it and the response to the book has been incredible, so it was a great night for her.” As for her health, “It’s very good. She’s great,” he said. “I mean she’s 92. She’s sharper than ever and she’s working every day, painting every day, so things are good.” Her paintings are available to purchase on her website and she’s preparing for her next exhibition of paintings on April 27.
“NCIS” has cast their new team member as a possible replacement for departing favorite Michael Weatherly.
Duane Henry will play Clayton Reeves, an MI-6 agent who comes to Gibbs’s gang for the last two episodes of this season and decides to stick around.
Well, they found one, but not exactly as I suggested an established thespian. Henry has a long list of credits from the UK. But here in the US, a Google search reveals he’s a male model looking for friends in the U.S.
As he writes under ‘about me’: “British actor and model recently moved to Los Angeles, paid work only please, looking forward to meeting more people of LA!”
I’m sure with that photo he’s likely meet more people right away.
Here’s Duane from a British TV show:
And from a Spanish Doritos commercial:
Imagine if Barbra Streisand didn’t sing “People.” Or if Aretha Franklin didn’t end her show with “Respect.” Or Paul McCartney dropped “Yesterday” from his song list.
That’s what’s happened to Mariah Carey. She hasn’t sung her first, and arguably biggest, hit once on her spring tour of the UK and Scandinavia that began back on March 15th. In fact, Mariah hasn’t sung any songs from her first, self titled album from 1990, or even her latest release, “Infinity.”
The other songs she used to sing regularly from the first album were “Love Takes Time” and “Someday.” But like “Vision of Love” they are all hard to perform with assistance in plain view. It’s not like it’s 1990 anymore. Most of the songs she’s performing now on tour can be prettied up with not so visible augmentation.
The last time Mariah performed “Vision of Love” was in Las Vegas in February, and it went pretty well (there is something obvious background vocal help, etc, but she gets it done).
Maybe she’s just tired of those songs. But she hasn’t tired of the songs she IS singing. Her set list on tour has been exactly the same without any variation. Considering Mariah touts her “14 number 1’s” or whatever, I’m surprised she hasn’t mixed it up at all. Not once.
The “Sweet Sweet Fantasy Tour” continues through Europe, ending in Johanessburg, South Africa on May 2nd. Maybe Mariah will change her mind, and kick “Vision of Love” back into the set.
The biggest winner and loser all happened in one place last night: Chris Stapleton’s “Traveller” album zoomed to number 1 on iTunes after he had a big night on the show. At one point the whole audience got up and cheered for him. You can’t beat that kind of publicity.
But the ACM Awards show lost a third of its audience from last year, with 11.18 million viewers. It barely edged out NBC’s “Little Big Shots” in which children with talents are exploited for money and attention. Kids play the darnedest things!
On iTunes, all the country artists did well, with immediate downloads kicking their albums and singles to the top of the charts. But the pop crap performers on the I Heart Music Awards, over on TBS, didn’t do much. Zayn Malik’s album fell to number 9, no one downloaded anything by Justin Bieber. Taylor Swift’s “1989” album is at number 27. If any of her fans don’t have that album by now, they’re in comas.
No numbers yet from TBS on the I Heart Music Awards.
At around midnight tonight the Beatles are adding their Anthology albums, volumes 1-3, to nine streaming services. That’s pretty much all that was left to add to streaming, aside from “Hey Jude,” “Let it Be…Naked” and the BBC Recordings. Also the “Love” album from the Cirque du Soleil show, which I actually really like.
I guess the numbers don’t lie. The Beatles have made a fortune streaming after holding out forever. Now with new numbers that see the end of CD buying and the decline of digital, the Apple gang had no choice. This brings some real real rarities to streaming, like “Not Guilty” and the better versions of “Lady Madonna” and “Penny Lane.”
There’s some wonky stuff going on with the Anthology CDs on Amazon by the way. There are only a few copies left. I wonder if Apple isn’t letting them go and issuing new souped up sonic versions next year?