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Jennifer Love Hewitt has 4.6 million Facebook followers.
She says she started putting the song “Babydoll” by almost 29 year old Welsh singer Jamie Miller in all her videos. (She explains it below.)
Now “Babydoll” has hit number 1 on iTunes and is number 4 right now.
JLH is now an influencer. We know her from “Party of Five” and “Ghost Whisperer” and “911” on TV. But there ya go. I had to make sure Jamie Miller, who apparently finished in 3rd place on The Voice in the UK in 2017, wasn’t AI. Who knew?
This isn’t Jamie’s first hit. He has 579 million streams for a 2021 song called “Here’s Your Perfect.” So far “Babydoll” has around 4 million streams.
Ironically, Dominic Fike has a song called “Baby Doll” that’s been a big streaming hit all summer. But Jamie’s record is not a cover. Maybe everyone was influenced by the sexy Nicole Kidman movie of that name.
New York’s Cafe Carlyle is famous for being the home of such legends as Bobby Short and Woody Allen.
But I just looked at their schedule this fall, and I think I’m going to be there for weeks on end.
The list of artists is stunning. (It’s good thing the drinks are snappy, too.)
Susannah Hoffs of The Bangles, the great Judith Owen, our pal Tony Danza, Oscar winner Ariana DeBose, rocker Patty Smyth, the ethereal St. Vincent, jazz star Madeline Peyroux, and John Pizzarelli with Jessica Molaskey are among the gigantic talents coming between now and December 1st.
That date is key because that’s when Tony winning Broadway superstar Kelli O’Hara comes in for two weeks. You won’t be able to get near 74th and Madison!
Wow.
The real gem here is Judith Owen, who sells out every club she’s in and has massive cult following. If you don’t know her, I’m posting a video below. Not only is Judith a gifted singer, performer, and songwriter, she’s also married in real life to — I know you won’t believe this — Spinal Tap’s Harry Shearer (also famous I think from “The Simpsons”). Their famous friends alone will fill the room. (The last Judith Owen show I went to brought out Paul Shaffer, among others, and he joined her on stage!)
Judith tells me Harry will be part of the show — but not doing Spinal Tap songs!
Cafe Carlyle didn’t ask me to write this. I just took a random look and said, Wow. I can’t wait to see The Bangles’ Susannah Hoffs, who says on social media that she’s 65 but seems at least 20 years younger. And silver fox “Taxi” star Tony Danza should also have some wild crowd. New York loves him. (The “Taxi” stars will all show up, too– Danny DeVito, Judd Hirsch, Marilu Henner, etc.)
Plus Patti Smyth, I hear, tried out her show this past weekend at East Hampton’s Guild Hall, with hubby John McEnroe playing guitar, and defied gravity.
One of the ‘80’s most memorable movies, “The Big Chill,” was a stunner when it was released in 1982. It was the first movie about post-hippie Baby Boomers, celebrated to a ’60s soundtrack featuring music from Motown, Aretha Franklin, and the Rolling Stones. It also starred a group of actors who were just seeing their fame rise and nailed it in that movie including Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, Mary Kay Place, Tom Berenger, JoBeth Williams, William Hurt, and Meg Tilly. (Kevin Costner’s character was famously cut from the final version.)
Even now, the expression “The Big Chill” resonates for people of a certain age.
Now the movie is coming to East Hampton’s Guild Hall as a live staged reading on August 31st; the pricey ticket is set to benefit the West Park Presbyterian Church on 86th Street and Broadway, a community arts space now emptied awaiting its fate.
The reading features an all-star cast that includes Marisa Tomei, Matthew Broderick, Ayo Edebiri, J Smith Cameron, Josh Hamilton, Amy Brenneman, Spencer Garrett, Brian d’Arcy James, Ilana Levine, and NYC Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams.
Of the original cast, there’s buzz that Jobeth Williams may be in the audience.
This is the latest in a series of such events including last year’s performance of “All the President’s Men.” That spectacular night that included journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for a heady discussion of media as an endangered species. “The Big Chill”’s themes resonate for this current moment.
Debby Hirshman, Executive Director of the Center at West Park, explained why actors such as Amy Brenneman would travel from Martha’s Vineyard to take part for no pay—emphasizing, many more wanted to come. They all remember when they were young actors, looking to nurture their talents, looking for affordable places to work, to be seen and encouraged.
Director David Saint recalls studying with Uta Hagen alongside Matthew Broderick, learning craft, starting out. “The Big Chill” will be for audiences a proverbial trip down memory lane. Nostalgia for the ideals of youth forms a potent backstory. Lawrence Kasdan’s script brings together for a weekend a group of successful people — former classmates at an affluent college — to mourn their friend who has died by suicide.
Now having “made it,” a question arises: did they compromise the ideals of their youth? Active in the ‘70’s, to what extent had they squelched early fires as they succeeded in their various careers, relationships, and lives? “How do we accept success without changing our ideals,” asks David Saint, looking at the parallels, noting 15 years ago we were in the Obama era: “History repeats itself.”
The historic church was where Joe Papp incubated his ideas about the Public Theater, where today community can come together to inspire young artists, playwrights, dancers, and actors like those who will grace the Guild Hall stage. Landmarked, the brick church with its stained glass, and period detail, should of course be protected from the developers who want to strip the space from its history to some commercial city tower. All of these protections are threatened, Mark Ruffalo who along with playwright Kenneth Lonergan originated the special benefit series, had said last year in an impassioned speech about why they have gathered an army of celebrities to fight against the crass cruelty of our current political moment.
CBS News has now been through the ringer press-wise.
There’s been nothing about dire negativity since Bari Weiss took over, installed Tony Dokoupil on the Evening News, and ran roughshod over “60 Minutes.”
According to Adweek, CBS Evening News for the week of August 10th dropped to 3.785 million viewers. That was down by about 120,000 from the previous week.
This puts Dokoupil’s show on a par with the weird CBS Evening News from a year ago with Maurice Dubois and John Dickerson. No one was watching then, and no one is watching now.
Meantime, the ABC and NBC news shows were up for the week year-to-year and far ahead of CBS. Personally, I’ve been checking out Tom Llamas’s show on NBC, which is doing a good job right now. ABC’s David Muir and summer subs seem to be focused on the weather and strange murders and kidnappings. It’s like a local news show meets Dateline.
The continually dropping ratings for Dokoupil, as well as the CBS Mornings show, are definitely tied to the ill feeling toward CBS that Weiss has created this year. The question is, will that spread to “60 Minutes” next month?
Already “60 Minutes” reruns have cut out the correspondents who were fired — Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi, and Cecilia Vega. Soon there will be a raft of new people totally unfamiliar to CBS News audiences and everyone, actually.
“60 Minutes” fall ratings ride largely on the coattails of football. As the NFL games bleed overtime, they push a few million fans into the news program. So it will be hard to tell right away how the new “60 Minutes” fares until it stands alone, or if the fall off per quarter hour is detectable
For the moment, though, the news for CBS Evening News is just getting worse and worse.
It’s rare you find a gifted singer songwriter who’s also good at publicity.
But Taylor Thomas Lane is that guy.
A recent college grad, TTL is a gifted singer songwriter who loves John Mayer. He really wanted to go to Mayer’s upcoming show in Amagansett (the Hamptons) at the fabled Stephen Talkhouse this Wednesday.
But how to get into the Sirius XM event? Mostly celebrities will be there, like Paul McCartney and Alec Baldwin, and Jon Bon Jovi if he’s around.
So TTL went on an internet campaign. He went viral playing a John Mayer song a day on video for about a month. And it paid off. Sirius XM has invited him to the show. Uber is providing transport back and forth from TTL’s home near Port Jefferson.
TTL tells me: “I’m a working musician right now playing gigs all over Long Island, NY. Mainly in the Hamptons, Montauk, and the North Fork. I just graduated in May from SUNY Cortland with a bachelor’s degree dual certification in Elementary education and special education. Although I have that degree, my plan is to be a full time singer-songwriter and go all in on a career in music.”
MONDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: Target says: “As a company, we know we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry. The costume is offensive and should never have been part of our assortment. It is no longer available for sale. We know this is especially hurtful for our Black guests, team members and partners. Removing the costume is an important first step, and the company is looking closely at how this happened and what needs to change to ensure this won’t happen again.”
Trust me, they will not look closely. They will move on.
Target was forced to pull a racist children’s Hollywood costume from its online store.
The “Kids’ Glows under Blacklight Circus Clown Halloween Costume Bodysuit” was shown modeled by a black child. It looked just like the offensive trope of a black minstrel.
The $25 costume has now been removed from the site. But whoever instigated this project at Target should be fired.
I guess the trip to Target I’d planned for tomorrow is canceled.
The clock is ticking for this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.
Most years, the announcement of the names comes in July. Once recently, it was June.
Last year, the announcement was made on August 13th.
But so far, this year, crickets from Trump and his lackeys who’ve driven the Center out of business and into chaos.
Now we’re ten days late from last year. One problem is that the Kennedy Center is closed except to staff. Some kind of construction is going in inside the building. Can it even be used in December for a show and a reception?
As I’ve said before, there aren’t many venues in Washington for this kind of event. And the planning for producers does take three or four months. So decisions have to be made.
If they do put on the Honors, who would get them? Who would accept one? Liza Minnelli told me earlier this year that she’d take it if offered. Liza would appease a lot of audiences — theater, movies, gay, music. But a source close to her told me they doubt she’d accept it under Trump.
The MAGA actors who could be chosen include Mel Gibson, Jon Voight, and Dennis Quaid. If Voight got it, they could ask his “Coming Home” co-star Jane Fonda to present it. I’d pay money for that.
In music, there are plenty of country stars who’d line up for the honor, starting with Lee Greenwood.
But R&B, jazz, dance, classical music? Those would likely be harder areas to find someone.
Stay tuned this week. We may be skipping the Kennedy Center Honors this year…
Moribund most of the time, Sony rose from the ashes with “Spider Man: Brand New Day.”
The 9th Spider Man movie now stands at $854 million total in the US. Tomorrow, Peter Parker and pals will surpass “Avengers: Endgame” and become the 2nd highest grossing movie of all time.
By the end of the week, the total should be $900 million, which is as amazing as Spider Man.
Meantime, Sony’s “Insidious” proved its name. It’s certainly insidious. The weekend take was $28 million.
Mindless entertainment, but what the heck?
Maybe Tom Rothman can throw some money to Sony Pictures Classics now to promote their line up of quality movies. Last night, I watched “I Swear,” which opened in April after winning BAFTA Awards. It’s a beautiful film but it made $1 million here with no promotion. Star Robert Aramayo should be a Best Actor nominee. The film could be a Best Picture entry, and certainly a player at the Gotham Awards. Sony should give it an art house release again. If only Peter Parker were in this movie!
Plus: There’s a lot of life left in “The Odyssey.” A $19.5 million weekend brings the total to $539 million. The weekly change was only down 17%. I hear Homer is smoking Cuban cigars and throwing parties at the Parthenon in the sky!
Paris Jackson had an album release party yesterday. And guess who was there? Aunt LaToya!
Isn’t it amazing? It’s 2026. Michael Jackson’s daughter is rockin’ out with album releases, his nephew Jafaar is playing him in movies, La Toya is stopping by for a hug.
I give Paris a lot of credit. Her album, called “Happiest Day of My Life,” is something she’s just manifested with her own persistence and hard work. Despite early troubles (who wouldn’t, in her situation), Paris seems like she’s got it together. A lot of kids wouldn’t have made it this far.
Long gone are the days of waifs like Joni Mitchell or Judy Collins turning up in Greenwich Village with their guitars.
And forget Madonna, who arrived in the East Village and slept on floors. Or Jewel, who became homeless after rebuffing her boss’s advances.
The new star girl singers come from wealth and privilege.
That couldn’t have been more underscored than last night, when famed restaurateur Keith McNally had quite a surprise in his own eatery, the famed Minetta Tavern. He reports on Instagram that he encountered indie artist Clairo — whom he’d never heard of — dining in his place, and she definitely was not singing for her supper!
McNally reports: “She was with four friends and ordered an $8000 bottle of wine (La Tache Grand Cru, Romanée-Conti 2013). I didn’t know Clairo from Adam, but she generously sent me a glass of the $8000 wine with a lovely note.”
Clairo has never had a hit record in the six years since she first started getting press mentions. She may have amassed 1 million in sales thanks to streaming of early hits from 2019. A couple of her songs have drifted around, but she’s never gotten to the level of Sabrina or Taylor. She’s more like Maggie Rogers, who probably wash down dinner bottles of $8000 wine.
No, as I wrote quite a while ago, Clairo’s real name is Claire Cottrill, daughter of top former Procter and Gamble and Coca Cola marketing exec Geoff Cottrill. Geoff was Brandweek’s “Marketer of the Year.” He worked at Starbucks’ HEAR Music. He’s been a co-chair of Musicares at the Grammys. He recently served as chief brand & games officer at Topgolf.
Cheers to Clairo and her $8000 wine!
More successful are two other pop tarts. Stella Lefty has been on the top of the charts all summer with her song “Boston” and album, “Long Way Home.” She’s 24. How’d she pull this off? Her dad is a co-founder of Groupon. Eric Paul Lefkofsky — according to Wikipedia — “is an American billionaire businessman. He is the founder and CEO of Tempus AI, and the co-founder of Groupon, Echo Global Logistics, InnerWorkings, and Mediaocean. As of June 2024, he is also a co-managing partner of Chicago-based venture capital firm Lightbank.”
Cue the guitars.
And let’s not forget Gracie Abrams, struggling on the charts right now but basically a hit since she opened Taylor Swift’s tour a couple of years ago. Her dad is JJ Abrams, famed movie producer and director of things like “Mission Impossible,” “Star Wars,” and “LOST.”
This all started with Taylor Swift, whose father Scott, was also a top stock broker and finance guy who managed millions of dollars of clients’ money. (The original rumor was that he the heir to Swift meatpacking. That was like people thinking Linda Eastman came from Eastman Kodak!) Scott invested in Taylor’s record company, Big Machine, when she was signed and the rest is history.
