Once fans of “Days of our Lives” read this lawsuit filed by Arianne Zucker (she’s played Nicole since the 90s) you’ll get an idea why the show is so crazy. Actresses–and actors — come and go. The writers can’t keep up with the cast changes. Now we may have an idea about what’s going on over there — and why some popular actresses have left and refused to return.
“Days of Our Lives” Star Arianne Zucker Sets 2PM Press Conference for Thursday After Suing the Show Over Fired EP’s Alleged Sexual Misconduct
“Days of our Lives” fans now know why 25 year vet Arianne Zucker left the show in 2017. (She returned in 2018.)
Zucker alleges that now former executive producer Albert Alarr was sexually harassing her — and other actors — for years. Alarr was finally fired last August.
This may also explain why the turnover among actresses at “Days” — which is now on Peacock — has been so high. Characters are written in and out of storylines without much notice or reason. But this could be the reason.
Zucker will have a press conference tomorrow, Thursday, at 2pm Eastern with her attorney to take questions and discuss the complaint.
Zucker’s lawyer Anahita Sedaghatfar says a statement concerning Corday Productions: “Ms. Zucker did what we tell all women who experience harassment to do, and that is to report it. Ms. Zucker did just that and was the voice for other women who were too scared to come forward. “Rather than condone her bravery, Ms. Zucker alleges that Corday retaliated against her and because she spoke out she has lost a job she was devoted to for two decades. As part of this lawsuit we will seek to ensure that Corday provides sexual harassment training to its employees and hires an intimacy coordinator to be on set for sex scenes.”
Ken Corday, who owns the show his parents created in 1965, hasn’t made a comment yet. According to reports when Alarr was fired last summer, Corday had turned over the running of the show some time ago and may have ignored repeated complaints.
For Zucker to file the suit while still appearing on the show speaks volumes. You may recall a separate incident that involved the actress. She was the one Donald Trump and Billy Bush were caught on tape disparaging in a famous “Access Hollywood” video. Zucker probably has just had enough of all these people. Who can blame her? But this is what so many actresses in Hollywood go through on a regular basis.
Zucker alleges in the complaint that Alarr’s behavior started from the moment he was on the show. (Since he was fired, his wife and son still work there.)
From the complaint:
“…he [Alarr] repeatedly subjected Plaintiff and other employees to severe and pervasive harassment and discrimination, including sexual harassment, based upon their female gender.”
“That Alarr engaged in this illegal behavior was well known to Defendants Corday and Ken Corday and to the HR department of Sony Pictures Television (the distributor of Days of Our Lives) for years. Indeed, Alarr has been accused by numerous individuals of making sexually charged inappropriate and gender hostile remarks, and of bullying and intimidating fem ale employees. Alarr has been accused of groping female members of the cast, and in at least one instance, forcibly kissing an actress against her will. Many prominent actresses that worked under Alarr have spoken publicly about Alarr’s misconduct dating back for years, and how their complaints to Defendants Corday and Ken Corday fell upon deaf ears.”
More:
Alarr would frequently grab and tightly hug Plaintiff, purposely pushing her breasts onto his chest, while moaning “Oh Ari!” Alarr’s unwelcome physical touching made Plaintiff feel offended,
uncomfortable, humiliated and intimidated. Indeed, on many occasions, Alarr forcefully touched Plaintiff without her consent during dry blocking of scenes. Alarr would put his hands on Plaintiff’s waist, with his thumbs placed just above her vagina, and move her around, all the while smirking and grinning in a sexual manner, making Plaintiff extremely uncomfortable and violated.”
There’s more, and it just gets worse. It wasn’t just the sexual misconduct. Zucker, who is Jewish, claims Alarr allowed antisemitic comments:
“…an actress on the show made anti-Semitic remarks against Jews (such as the Ukraine war was about getting rid of the “dirty Jews”). Alarr was present when these comments were made, and rather than protest or report this, he began to laugh, implying he agreed with the horrendous comments. Alarr was well aware that Plaintiff is one of three Jewish people on the show.”
If anyone reading this knows more about Alarr, email me in confidence at showbiz411@gmail.com.
Taylor Swift Says “Eras Tour” Film Has Landed at Disney Plus for Streaming, Including Bonus Tracks — Of Course
Winner of the streaming wars for Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” movie is not Netflix.
Disney Plus has ponied up the dough to show the film, which made $200 million in the US and has been on VOD for a while.
Swift, now Empress of the Galaxy, says this is the complete version, with extra bonus songs including “Pullover,” her sweater song. (It’s actually called “Cardigan.”)
I had lost sleep worrying about what platform “Eras” would end up at, so it’s a great relief. Empress Taylor won her 400th Grammy Award on Sunday, and promised new product for April 19th. If the album is a hit she promises to release Lana Del Rey from her current servitude.
Good News for HBO: “True Detective” Up by A Lot, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Down Slightly from Last Season
It’s pretty pretty good news for HBO’s Sunday ratings.
First of all, “True Detective” with Jodie Foster jumped in its fourth episode to 720,000 viewers for a season high. These are the people who watched it on HBO, excluding Max, satellite dishes, and tin foil hats.
“North Country” was down the previous week, which seems to be the pattern. The rise of 20 % is interesting because its audience and the Grammys would have been in competition. But it’s all good. Let’s see if they can maintain the numbers with the next episode. To make sure, HBO is putting the show in ice this Sunday so everyone can watch the Super Bowl.
This weekend was also the premiere of the final season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The Larry David comedy returned down 13.3% in total viewers and off by 37.5% in the key age demo– because those people were watching the Grammys. The total number was 420,000 — down 300,000 from “True Detective.”
The “Curb” numbers are fine, though. That’s about the range of last season’s episodes, and at this point you’re either a fan or not!
Grammys Were Good Biz for Some, But Janelle Monae, Lana Del Rey, Jon Batiste Got No Face Time and Little Reward in Way of Sales
It’s only a couple of years ago that Jon Batiste won Album of the Year at the Grammys. He was the toast of the town.
But on Sunday, Batiste — with a nomination for Album of the Year — was shown just playing Bill Withers songs in the In Memoriam section. A random viewer would have no idea he had the nomination for Album or for Song of the Year. His “World Music Radio” has only sold 46,000 copies. With no Grammy attention, the party is over.
At least Batiste is hanging around number 50 on the iTunes album chart. Janelle Monae’s “The Age of Pleasure” isn’t anywhere on the charts despite getting an Album of the Year nod. Monae, a great performer, didn’t even appear on the show even though she was in the audience. Her album has sold a mere 140,000 copies since it was released a year ago.
Then there’s Lana Del Rey. She spent trailing around in the Taylor swift posse all night. To think of her becoming part of Taylor Swift’s Swifties is really repellent. Her album, “Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard?” was nominated for Album of the Year, but Lana didn’t appear on stage or perform. She was as ignored as much as possible despite getting rave reviews, a song of the year nomination, and sales of 600,000 copies — half of which were physical CDs or downloads.
Also not on the telecast: most if not all of the Best New Artist nominees. There was no sign of Jelly Roll — who was amazing at Clive Davis’s pre-Grammy party, or ditto Victoria Monet, Noah Kahan, War and Treaty, or Gracie Abrams.
Country Star Toby Keith Posts 44 Singles to iTunes Top 100 Chart, 18 Albums After Untimely Death from Cancer at 62
Country star Toby Keith died yesterday at age 62 from cancer.
Keith was a star for several decades and had amassed a big catalog. Now just about all of it is on the charts.
Almost half the iTunes 100 is made up of Keith’s singles — 44 at this moment. Eighteen of his albums are on top 100 album chart, too.
You can see from a January 8th video posted to Instagram that Keith — always a robust good ol’ boy — had been whittled down by stomach cancer in the two years plus from when was diagnosed.
Comdolences to his family and devout fans.
RIP Hank Cicalo, Recording Engineer Who Worked on All of Carole King’s Hit Albums of the 70s
Hank Cicalo died January 31st age 92. He was an incredibly important and famous recording engineer who worked with producer Lou Adler making Carole King’s “Tapestry” album as well as the five other chart hits she had in the early 70s including Music, Rhymes and Reason, Fantasy, Thoroughbred, and Wrap Around Joy.
Kind said on Instagram, “Hank Cicalo produced my album Fantasy. What more can I say?”
A lot, actually. Cicalo had already had a long and storied career before meeting Carole. His first Grammy nomination was for engineering the classic “Mission Impossible” theme. He worked over the years with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Cannonball Adderley and many others including George Harrison’s “33 1/3.” Cicalo came from the Wrecking Crew, also, which gives him dozens of credits on top 10 hits. He engineered all of the Monkees’ albums, which is how he met King and Gerry Goffin. They wrote several Monkees hits including “Pleasant Valley Sunday.”
“Tapestry” held the position of being the best selling album of all time until Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” It was on the charts for more than a decade and continues to be a best seller. Adler was the producer, but it was Cicalo who gave King’s solo records their warm, cozy sound. His contribution would be akin to Geoff Emerick’s with George Martin on the Beatles records.
Harvey Kubernick interviewed Cicalo in 2008. This is what he remembered about “Tapestry”:
“On ‘Tapestry’ Lou and I did quite a few things. There was a thing about the middle of Carole’s voice where it’s almost warmth with a little edge. I always wanted to capture that. I thought her piano playing was great, she would sing, and she was such a writer and performer, she knew when to lay out and when to hit it. So that was always great. Then, when her vocals came when you mixed them, the spaces were always in the right places. Everything was supporting her voice and that piano. That’s where the nucleus of the whole album was.
“My thing with drums, in a record I did, Russ Kunkel on this, I always wanted to get the cymbals. Years ago it was one microphone over the top. That kind of thing. But because of the brushes and light cymbal work, and if you listen to those records you will hear it. It’s there. The hi-hat was very important top these records or any of these records. That’s how you sub divide the bar. Musicians don’t listen to that but they feel it. So to me it was always important people could hear what was in the phones.
“Lou was the kind of guy, as a producer, first of all he had an incredible feeling for songs. He could listen to a tune and go ‘that’s that’s not. Let’s go on to the next one.’ And the way he would work it was amazing. We were mixing the album, I had some other projects going, but about the second week of mixing, we re-mixed some things, I wanted to mix some things, Lou wanted to mix some things and one night we came down, pretty much finished it, let’s listen to it from the top in one of the editing rooms in the back at A&M. Third room. We listened to the album late at night. Play the whole thing down. The second engineer was there. Lights low, and I said to myself ‘this sounds great!’ I don’t mean great engineering. I mean the tunes. It started hitting. I turned around to Lou, we walked out, went to the hallway, and I told Lou, ‘Something is goin’ on here.’ ‘Yea…It’s pretty good…’ That was the first time we really struck on it. All these things, but when we sat down and listened to it then we realized it was something better than normal. A great record coming. And that’s when I felt it and I think that’s when he felt it that night.
“The studio had a Howard Holzer special made console. His board you could really punch it. The only thing I had to worry about was tape there was no noise reduction in those days. So much easier now. Everything was supporting that voice and that piano. That’s where the nucleus of the whole album was. No matter what happened in that room, it had to support it. You got to remember whole period everything was moving from two track tapes. I met Carole when she wrote songs for the Monkees, whom I did 4 or 5 albums with. The writer becoming the recording artist or star seemed to be a natural path for people performing as side people. And then they made an album suddenly becoming a star or an artist or performer. And see them grow, but we were all growing the producers, the record companies. The progression was natural.
Jennifer Lopez…Now: Time to Panic as Neither Song from “SNL” Has Cracked the Top 200 iTunes Singles Chart
Jennifer Lopez’s big new project is in trouble.
On “SNL” this weekend, JLo sang two new songs from her new album, “This Is Me..Now.” The title track — she was covered in roses — was really shrill and showed off her thin voice.
The result was…nothing. Neither the title song nor “Can’t Get Enough” have cracked the top 200 on iTunes. There has been literally no response to the songs.
And that’s bad since the album is about to drop, costing a fortune. But it’s now likely the album will be met with the same indifference.
On social media, comments about the title song have been rough. Lopez was never a great singer. Her voice was always masked by backup singers like Ashanti, who was the real singer on records like “I’m Real.” But someone convinced her to drop the blending of those voices with her own. And now it’s a little like “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Yikes. Also, a Dunkin Donuts video thing is coming with Ben Affleck. Get ready for the Super Bowl.
Review: Enthusiasm Curbed as Episode 1 of Larry David’s Final Season Shows His Apathy, Jokes Wearing Thin
The first episode of the final season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” aired last night on HBO.
It was pretty, pretty bad — which surprised me because I have loved this show.
But this episode — maybe called “Cordial” — was kind of shrill and out of the usually spectacular rhythm of past seasons.
The plot: Larry gets invited to Atlanta to mingle at a rich guy’s birthday. The guy is a white South African his wife is Black. Larry insults the wife, and the guests. We’ve been here before. The rich guy ultimately reneges on the contract drawn up by Jeff.
Hilarity does not ensue. I felt like I was watching a take on “Curb,” and the Larry character rather than the real thing. It seemed like the real Larry was trying to re-create the TV character instead of doing something fresh and new.
One plot line has Larry losing his glasses and having to wear the cat eye specs of an older woman Leon’s aunt. It made no sense. Atlanta, like every city, is full of optical shops and pharmacies. Larry could have replaced the glasses in two minutes. Instead he got to make fun of the aunt’s head size, which looked pretty normal. He claimed she stretched out his glasses.
Larry also has a run-in with a hotel housekeeper. Instead of being clever it comes off as another attack on a non-Caucasian person who is not a big enough personality to pick on. And, to boot, the housekeeper doesn’t come off as wise or smart. She’s made out to be an idiot who does something stupid. Also featured in the episode is the always harmoniously weird Leon (JB Smoove) and Maria Elena (Keyla Monterroso Mejia), the Latinx actress from Larry’s fictional TV series who should have been written out of this season. Her purpose was served last season. Now she’s just a target.
I don’t know what the rest of Season 12 looks like. HBO wouldn’t send more episodes. I guess they know it’s not good. I hope it’s alright. I wouldn’t “Curb” to end on a sour note, even though it’s a sour show. There are so many genius seasons and episodes in the catalog. Nothing can take away from them. But maybe David’s waning interest is showing up now. You can feel it.
Taylor Swift Reveals Post Malone, Florence and the Machine Guests on New Album, Here’s the Tracklist — No “Argylle” Darn It!
I’m hearing Taylor Swift may sue herself over the new album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” Then she’ll re-record the album and add seven songs, call it “Tortured Poets (Taylor’s Version).”
Seriously. Both Post Malone and Florence and the Machine are featured on the April 19th release. They are random choices, certainly. Swiftians will spend the next nine weeks trying to figure out the titles of tracks mean. (Tracklist below.)
“So Long London” is easy. It’s her kiss off to Joe Alwyn. “Fortnight” is probably also Alwyn, maybe a duet about breaking up over two weeks’ time and leaving London. “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” is either Kanye, Scooter, or a combo. This will be Taylor’s “You’re So Vain.”
The song titled “Clara Bow” will be about the 1920s It Girl movie star who eventually retired to raise cattle. Taylor will somehow compare herself to Clara Bow. At least one of the songs is about Matt Healy from the group 1975 who Taylor dated for two weeks before she met Travis Kelce. I’m surprised there’s no song called “Pigskin” but look for football references throughout.
As I wrote on Monday, the album, the art, the merch was all organized to go with Swift’s fourth Album of the Year win, which she obviously knew about earlier in the night Sunday before she took the Grammys stage. She is an expert at marketing 101. I’m sure there will be a new album by November if not sooner.
PS None of the songs is called “Argylle” because she didn’t write the book that has become a flop movie.
Tracklist:
“Fortnight” (featuring Post Malone)
“The Tortured Poets Department”
“My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”
“Down Bad”
“So Long, London”
“But Daddy I Love Him”
“Fresh Out the Slammer”
“Florida!!!” (featuring Florence + the Machine)
“Guilty As Sin?”
“Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?”
“I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)”
“LOML”
“I Can Do It With A Broken Heart”
“The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”
“The Alchemy”
“Clara Bow”
Bonus Track: “The Manuscript”