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Rumer Willis has a great voice. I’ve seen her at Cafe Carlyle in New York, and on Broadway in “Chicago.” She spent an hour on Instagram Live the other night entertaining about 200 followers from the Willis-Demi Moore home in Idaho. Dad Bruce Willis was her live audience. Rumer accompanied herself on piano, and was totally charming. I give her props because it’s just not easy to have a career in the arts of any kind when each of your parents is a big movie star. I wish she’d cut an album up there and put it on iTunes. Her covers of these songs is terrific. And I love her patter.
PS Bruce’s wife Emma and their two daughters seem to have returned to Los Angeles without the “Die Hard” star. He remains in Idaho with Demi, their daughters, and boyfriends. Emma is very practical. This can’t be easy.
PS When I watched this live, Bruce was acknowledged toward the end. He packed it in around 10pm Friday night. The weird thing was, I was also watching Russell Simmons teach a yoga class from Bali simultaneously. It was 11:30am there the next day. I’ll try and upload the juxtaposition to YouTube later. What a small world– New York watching Idaho and Bali at the same time!
This week, his now-cancelled tour was supposed to begin. He’s no doubt relieved he didn’t have to go through with it since sales were slowwwwww.
Instead, a dead-eyed Justin broadcast the mundane ramblings of his snake oil salesman personal evangelist Judah Smith* live on Instagram. Justin, always on brand, wore his cheap looking “Drew” t shirt (a $5 shirt with a plastic Drew decal glued to it).
While Smith carried on, an initial 18,000 viewers shrunk to 14,000. Most of them were from other countries and probably didn’t understand what he was ranting about.
Bieber looked either hypnotized or asleep. One viewer actually wrote: “Don’t fall asleep, Justin!”
The singer’s attention suddenly was sharpened when Lentz said something about owning a shiny new red Corvette. Bieber, who was looking at his phone screen, actually focused on Lentz for a minute. It was a religious experience. And Hailey Baldwin Bieber? She helped out by plugging in Justin’s iPad before it ran out of battery. She’s The Good Wife.
*thanks to the reader who corrected me. After Robert Preston sold snake oil in “The Music Man,” it’s hard to tell these people apart.
A lot of people have written testimonials to Jorge Santana, brother of Carlos, who died yesterday at age 68. Jorge was also a great musician. In 1972 he joined the group, Malo, and they had a crossover hit that I have loved ever since. “Suavecito” lives on and on. Condolences to his family and friends.
Fred Willard was one of the greats. It wasn’t just that he was funny– he was– but he didn’t push it. His sense of humor was sly. In person he was one of the best people I knew in showbiz. Both he and his wife Mary, who died in 2018, were unaffected by Hollywood and never let it change them. I knew Fred was ill, but I am sad to acknowledge that he passed today at 86.
We first met Fred as Martin Mull’s sidekick on “Fernwood Tonight,” the spin off from Norman Lear’s “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” in 1975. Mull played Barth Gimble, local talk show host, in a hilarious send up of Johnny Carson and all talk shows of the time. Fred played Barth’s Ed McMahon, Jerry Hubbard, who was not nearly as insufferable as Barth, or clueless even though his blank looks were priceless.
There are only 44 episodes of “Fernwood Tonight” but it made Fred Willard a cult figure. If you look at his resume, he’d already been around, in a stealth way, appearing on “Get Smart” and “The Bob Newhart Show.” But after “Fernwood,” he never stopped working. He just appeared, like a non sequitir, in TV and movies. It was almost as if the people who hired him didn’t know about his cult following. But you felt like Fred was winking at you, even if he had to play it straight.
Fred’s real arc of success wouldn’t come until 1996, when he joined Christopher Guest’s ensemble with “Waiting for Guffman.” In the intervening years he could from crap like “Mama’s Family” to “This is Spinal Tap,” never once surrendering his subversiveness. He played the oddball mayor in Steve Martin’s “Roxanne” and managed to convey both wholesomeness and subversiveness.
“Spinal Tap” put him in the company of other off kilter comedians. Guest, who’d starred in that film, picked up Rob Reiner’s baton. With “Guffman,” Fred took off with the Guest repertory that included Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Harry Shearer, John Michael Higgins, Jane Lynch, and Parker Posey. “Best in Show,” tipped it over, followed by “A Mighty Wind,” “For Your Consideration,’ and “Mascots.”
So many times Fred couldn’t show up for the premiere or a screening of a Guest film because he was working. “Where’s Fred?” I’d ask, and the group would say you know he’s doing whatever series. He was a guest or recurring on so many shows. Sometimes he and Judy would turn up at something unexpectedly and I’d say, “Fred, you’re on this, too?” He’d kind of shrug, as if to say, What can I do?
Can you make a career like that anymore? I don’t know. But Fred Willard did. I think as time goes by his real comic genius will be even more appreciated. I know I will miss him, and Mary, a lot. They were the real people in Hollywood you looked forward to seeing and were grateful you knew.
Fred Willard was nominated four times for Primetime Emmy Awards. He actually won a Daytime Emmy on “The Bold and the Beautiful” soap opera. But the awards don’t matter. He will never be forgotten. As with Jerry Stiller, I am in tears.
Here’s the live variety show for the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, California. The show is LIVE at 9pm Eastern. The home has had at least 7 COVID related deaths. Several years ago, it received failing grades from the state for its care. Every year there are big fundraisers the night before the Emmys and Oscars where stars can get free swag in exchange for a photo op.
The movie of “Grease” will air on CBS on Sunday, June 7th in place of the Tony Awards. Ironies abound. “Grease” has never won a Tony Award.
The musical that opened on Broadway in 1972 is a very bad show. It was nominated for for seven Tony Awards. It didn’t win one, not even for Pat Birch’s choreography. When “Grease” returned as a revival it was nominated for three more Tonys, and lost again. By 2007, revived once more, one nomination, and lost.
“Grease” was basically unwatchable, although many people saw it in that original run, starting off Broadway, then moving to Broadway in 1972 through 1980. It was more or less the staged version of George Lucas’s “American Graffiti,” which was such a hit movie that it instigated a revival of 50s music in 1972.
Unlike most Broadway shows that “lock” forever, “Grease” didn’t come into its own until the 1978 movie. The Bee Gees wrote the title track, and “Hopelessly Devoted to You” was added for Olivia Newton John. During the show’s last two years on Broadway, you wouldn’t have heard those songs from the film on stage. It wasn’t until the revivals that the movie version was transposed onto the stage version.
Wikipedia is full of other changes that occurred over the years. The “Grease” song, which is terrific, came about because Robert Stigwood produced “Saturday Night Fever,” a monster hit, and asked the Gibbs brothers to write a song for “Grease.” At the time, the Bee Gees were solid gold.
It’s kind of sad that CBS and Jack Sussman went with “Grease” instead of a sing-a-long of say, almost anything else. “My Fair Lady” would have been a good choice. A restored “Oklahoma.” John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John have their charms, and hold a place in some hearts, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with Broadway.
Maybe a Broadway special would be nice this winter when all the shows come back and the Great White Way lights up. That would be a great idea to reintroduce all the returning shows. I won’t hold my breath.
The media world is taking big hits thanks to Corona virus.
This morning, VICE Media laid off 155 staffers. The breakdown is 55 in the US and 100 abroad.
“The reality is that some tough decisions had to be made primarily around our digital teams,” CEO Nancy Dubuc said. “Currently, our digital organization accounts for around 50% of our headcount costs, but only brings in about 21% of our revenue. Looking at our business holistically, this imbalance needed to be addressed for the long-term health of our company.”
Yesterday, Conde Nast laid off and furloughed 200 people. Vanity Fair and Vogue are not producing ad revenue or circulation. Plus, with the arts on hold, there’s much less to write about. For Vogue, fashion photo shoots are on hiatus.
Buzz Feed is also in the process of laying off and furloughing whoever they can get away with. All of these media companies are also instituting deep pay cuts for the remaining employees, although Anna Wintour will still have a budget for sunglasses and haughtiness.
The media world was already in financial peril before COVID-19. The new situation, which won’t abate for some time, has only made it worse. If you’re reading this and thinking, Oh, good, I hate the media, you’re not getting it. The media is at the center of the economy. The ripple effect will come for all aspects of jobs and careers. Just count to 10.
For those who do get it, Vice, Buzz Feed, etc do great work. In this time of constant lies from the government, we need more reporting, not less. We need more uncovering of the awful truth Trump and his cronies have created. It’s Byzantine, and the damage will last long past November. Over 80,000 people have died on Trump’s watch (not counting deaths at the borders). Keep that in mind.
Wow! I am so proud of Tracee Ellis Ross. She’s been a TV star for a long time, and a damn good actress on the small screen. But in “The High Note,” coming on May 29th, she plays a star diva who fans love for her greatest hits, but she wants more. Tracee SINGS several songs in the movie including “Love Myself,” and she’s great. She did all her own singing, which must be terrifying since her mother is Diana Ross.
Tracee’s sister Rhonda Kendrick Ross has had a singing career for years, but Tracee never attempted it in public. It turns out, she’s terrific. I hope radio stations will give this track and a couple of others from the movie a spin even though they’re not sung in little girl whispers by an 18 year old.
I have seen this movie but there’s an embargo on reviews until May 25th. I’m not allowed to say I like it yet. But I will soon! Bravo!
Katy Perry, who’s about six months pregnant, debuted her new single called “Daisies” tonight. It’s from her fifth album, which comes out sometime this year either before or after she gives birth to the baby she’s having with Orlando Bloom. She’s had a few stray singles in the last few months, the biggest of which was “Never Worn White.”
The Broadway lockdown has claimed a victim: Disney’s “Frozen.” The party’s over. The show is closing up shop and not returning when Broadway returns– whenever that may be.
“Frozen” opened officially on March 22, 2018 and was a hit with audiences and mostly with reviewers. It wasn’t a Tony Award winning production, though, and in time sales did slow a bit. If the pandemic hadn’t hit, the producers would have kept it going, no doubt, for tourists. “Frozen” played 825 performances and 26 previews.
The show was basically built around the one song from the movie that everyone knew, “Let it go.” And now, they will let it go for good.
I will miss the crowds of parents with little girls dressed like Elsa running up and down 44th St. to the St. James Theater while we adults were trying to make our shows. I’m sure there will be a new show next year that will bring back the next generation of burgeoning theatergoers.
“Frozen” won’t be the only long running show to announce a closing. Many of the Great White Way’s older shows won’t be able to wait out the lockdown, which now runs at least through Labor Day if not longer. Marginal shows will go. But things like “Hamilton” and “The Lion King” will no doubt return.
The lockdown is tough tough tough for everyone– the producers, the theater owners, the actors, musicians, crews. When things start up again, there will be partying in the streets.
So what’s Justin Bieber up to?
