No-one is recognised as knowing more about Hollywood and celebrities than David Hartnell MNZM. He’s not only spent a lifetime reporting on Hollywood’s trivia, gossip and scandals, but he counts many celebrities among his personal friends. Every Monday morning David will give you an exclusive weekly update on the gossip, scandals and trivia of Hollywood’s elite.
David is an award winning broadcaster and columnist he’s also the patron of The Variety Artists Club of New Zealand Inc. Her Majesty The Queen, awarded David the Insignia of a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (formerly an MBE) in the Queen’s birthday Honours list 2011. In 2012 he was made an Ambassador St James Saviours, the trust formed to save the iconic Auckland theatre. In 2014 he was made an Ambassador to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand.
Visit David’s Website
Known by some as the ‘Godfather of gossip’, David Hartnell MNZM has amassed a fabulous resource of detail about Hollywood and television movies and stars throughout his long career interviewing celebrities and reporting on trivia, gossip and scandals. His knowledge ranges easily from the 1950s to the present day.
Now David has written this quiz book as a celebration of the rich variety that the movies and television have brought us over many decades, and the personalities who’ve been working in both industries. Presented in an entertaining but informative fashion, the more than 1,700 questions and answers are arranged in rounds of three, with answers close by. There are also specialty feature quizzes with questions related to a single subject, such as Oscar-winning films, Lord of the Rings, Sequels and Remakes, even TV pets. Collected trivia about celebrities and stars also feature as interesting snippets through the book. People love to be an authority on celebrities – the celebrity pages are the most popular pages of any magazine.
Whether it is used for pub quiz nights, parties or even long car trips, David Hartnell’s Celebrity Quiz Book will highlight to a wide audience the important milestones in the development of this most popular of cultures, and test how well you really know the world of entertainment.
This book will appeal to everyone who watches television or film.This is his ninth book.
Available in all good books store’s and on line, published by New Holland $19.99.;
View David Hartnell
‘Written in the stars – David’s triple celebrations‘ in the NZ Woman’s Weekly. View the article here on David’s website.
Be in to win monthly DVDs
…simply answer a question correctly, from this week’s column and you will be entered into the draw.
Question: Name two celebrities from this week’s column. Answer by clicking here.
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Monday 4th April
I’m not one to gossip but…………………. I was woken late on Thursday night ( 31st March ) by a phone call from the UK telling me that Ronnie Corbett, 85, had passed away. While working in the UK back in the 60’s and 70’s I had the pleasure of interviewing Ronnie a number of times, in fact I even played golf with him, he was always charming and funny without even trying. I also met he and his wife Anne at a number of show business events in the UK, they were always the same so down to earth everyone loved them. I always thought that both Ronnie’s should have been knighted for their contribution to the entertainment world.
It’s rumoured that Ronnie was reportedly set to be knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in June this year.
Ronnie had been approved for a knighthood after a group of fellow comedians and celebrities secretly led a campaign, reports The Daily Telegraph.
One of those said to be involved in campaigning was fellow comedian David
Walliams, who was also one of the first to lead tributes after the sad news
broke.
According to the newspaper, mandarins had been told that Ronnie was ill and the honours committee had decided earlier this year that he should receive the knighthood.
However, the comedian was believed to be unaware as he was given a CBE in 2012 and a higher honour is usually not given until at least five years later. Ronnie, who received an OBE in 1978, previously spoke about the fact he hadn’t been knighted.
Anne Hart, his lovely wife, ( they were married in 1965 ) had a connection with New Zealand back in the early 1960’s she toured here starring in the stage musical Annie Get Your Gun.
One of Ronnie’s joke that always made me smile.
Kings Cross Station Announcer:
“Would the gentleman who has lost a case of whisky come to the lost property
office, where the gentleman who found it has been handed in.”
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Who remembers the tale of Snow White’s sister Rose Red? You don’t, do you?
That’s okay, because that particular Brothers Grimm fairytale is completely
unrelated to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves – but Disney is still making a
live-action movie out of them.
According to THR, the Mouse house has greenlit the project based on the
script by Justin Merz and a pitch by Evan Daugherty, which merges the two stories together.
The story is a “revisionist take that transposes Rose Red into the Snow
White tale, making her a key player in the later moments of the classic
story. When Snow White takes a bite from the iconic poison apple and falls
into her Sleeping Death, her estranged sister, Rose Red, must undertake a
dangerous quest with Grumpy and the other dwarfs to find a way to break the
curse and bring Snow White back to life.”
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The British TV Times meets Indian Summers star Julie Walters during filming in Penang, Malaysia to discuss her vile character Cynthia Coffin, the secret of her happy marriage and the joy of life in her sixties.
It must be a relief to leave nasty, scheming Cynthia behind after a day on
set?
“I put all that away the moment I stop playing her. And I find it easier to
leave Cynthia behind than almost any other character that I’ve ever played.”
We hear you fell ill with a sickness bug and ear infection a couple of weeks
into filming – are you OK now?
“It was dead dramatic, sirens and everything. But everybody was so kind to
me and, basically, we’ve all become like family on this set. And now I feel
a 100 times better.”
The tropical heat, long-haul travel and unpredictable wildlife must make for an extreme filming experience…
“To be honest with you, I’m probably more adventurous now and have more energy than I did in my forties of fifties. The sixties is a great decade. It might be a slippery slope to your seventies and it might take you longer and longer to learn your lines, but, in the meantime, you’re through the menopause, but not yet decrepit!
“I also think it’s a really happy decade because you’re not struggling with anything and everything feels more in its place. Yes, I admit that hitting 65 did make me think for a moment, ‘God that’s really old, isn’t it?’ But the thing is to embrace it and to accept that it’s OK to slow down. You just have to pace yourself a little better than your 20-year-old self.”
You’re best known for more sympathetic roles – in Educating Rita, Calendar Girls and more recently Brooklyn – are they easier to shake off?
“Those characters tend to haunt me and keep me awake at night far more than Cynthia because I feel so much closer to them and I have such sympathy for them, whereas with Cynthia, the moment that wig comes off, I think, ‘You can go now. Bye bye, old girl!'”
You’ve said you actually turn down far more roles than you accept, so what makes you decide to play a character?
“I’m lucky to have worked as much as I’ve wanted to and even now I get a steady stream of scripts coming my way. But most things I don’t really want to do. I either can’t be bothered or feel I can’t bring anything to the role. I think, ‘Well, someone else should do that.”
“It has to be something that I really want to do because mostly I prefer just being at home. It’s the place where I feel the most contented and the happiest.”
You live on an organic farm in West Sussex, run by your husband Grant while your adult daughter Maisie, works alongside him. How involved are you in that?
“It’s a proper family business. I love being there, just rubbing along with Grant. I’m sort of involved with the farm at a distant level although I don’t really do anything. But we do talk about it and I love all that. I find it completely grounding.”
You’ve been with Grant for more than 30 years – and married for 19 of them. What makes that relationship work so well?
“The support that I’ve had from him over the years has been everything to me. I met him late in my life – I was 35 – and I did think at the time, ‘If it doesn’t work out with this man, how could it ever work with anyone?’ I have a lot to thank him for. One of the great things about this stage of a marriage is that you have a lot more freedom and you do carry on getting to know each other. It’s actually really joyful.”
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I’m delighted to see that my dear friend Carmen Rupe has been given the
green light to return to Cuba St, even if it’s only in sprit.
It was confirmed last week that the colourful transgender identity and gay
rights advocate, who died in 2011, will be immortalised in four pedestrian
crossing lights along her old haunt in central Wellington.
Despite being more familiar with red lights during her time in the capital,
an image of Carmen will replace the green light that gives pedestrians right
of way.
Photo: Carmen and I at the late Anna Hoffmann’s book launch, taken six months before Carmen died.
Legendary drag queen and fearless equal rights campaigner Carmen Rupe will soon adorn four pedestrian crossing lights along her old haunt. Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said the new Carmen lights would become operational in a few weeks after being subjected to a safety audit.
At a cost of about $300 per light, it was an inexpensive way to pay tribute
to someone whose vivid personality shone brightly in the capital city, she
said. Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown says the city’s new transgender traffic lights will be a world-first.
“She shook the foundations of Wellington’s conservative society … Carmen was a fighter for equality, and one of the most colourful fighters we’ve ever had.”
Carmen Rupe was born into a family of 13 in Taumarunui and was known as Trevor Rupe for the first 20 years of her life. The former stripper and prostitute arrived in Wellington in 1967 where she established several businesses and made a name for herself challenging transgender discrimination.
With the backing of property tycoon Bob Jones, she gave incumbent mayor Michael Fowler a run for his money in the 1977 local election. Her unsuccessful campaign featured bared breasts, strippers stopping rush-hour traffic, and the slogan: “Get in Behind.” Carmen died in Sydney of kidney failure in 2011, aged 75.
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Henry Cavill once walked around a hotel without any clothes on at all after
getting locked out of his room in the middle of the night.
The 32-year-old Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice actor was staying in a
Los Angeles hotel right after being cast as Superman in 2013′s Man of
Steel. He woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and ended
up walking into the hallway instead of the bathroom.
“I passed out a bit jetlagged and I woke up to the sound of my door closing
in my hotel room. Of course, I then realized that I was on the outside of my
door-and I had no clothes on,” Henry said on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
“I had completely gotten up to go for a pee…At the foot of the bed was the entrance to the hotel by my room, and to the left of the bed was where the bathroom was,” he explained. “I got out the right-hand side of the bed and just went straight for the first door I saw and woke up completely naked in the hallway. Being naked in the hallway is a pretty big problem, but I needed to pee and I was desperately thinking, ‘Where am I going to pee?’”
“Naked and peeing in a hotel hallway is pretty bad. I was looking up and down the hallway and I was checking out pot plants of all sorts…I thought, ‘Do I pee in there? What if someone catches me? That’s pretty bad.’ I remembered there being a fire escape, and so I ran up this fire escape, because I knew there was a pool area on top and a tennis court. I thought, ‘Maybe there’s a bathroom up there.’ I ran up the fire escape to the roof and it turned out to be a tennis court, which was all closed off and I couldn’t get anywhere. This was around 3 a.m. I then thought, ‘I’ve got to pee. This is getting bad now.’ So, I just peed off the top of the hotel. I felt like a little boy again. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t quite
solved the problem because I was locked outside my hotel room naked – and on the roof now.”
“I then thought, ‘You know what? You’ve just got to suck it up, get downstairs and ask for your key.’ I thought, ‘You know what? Ride the elevator down. Be a man about it.’ I got in the elevator, rode down the lobby, and I thought, ‘OK, this guy’s going to laugh at me.’ I walked into the reception, and I said to the receptionist, ‘This is really embarrassing. I locked myself out of my hotel room. Can I have my key to get back in.’ And he says, ‘Yeah, of course. What room are you in?’ Doesn’t bat an eye! Doesn’t even look up. And I was thinking, ‘How often does this happen at this hotel? Why have I met no one else in the hallway at this stage, high-fiving naked dudes walking past?’”
“So he said I’ll call security and security walked me upstairs, which was an awkward elevator ride, by the way. He was a bit more freaked out than the receptionist; it was clearly his first time. They let me back in. I didn’t sleep for the rest of that night and I was pretty sure I was going to have been caught on camera and lost the job.”
“I now put chairs up against the doors of every hotel I sleep in.”
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When Joel Grey was a teenager, he was sexually involved a cantor at his temple – a guy about 10 years older than him.
Grey says it would be called ‘abuse’ now but at the time he did not see it that way. He fell for the guy who broke his heart when he married a woman in the congregation. This resulted in Grey coming out to his parents.
When he told his mother about it, her reaction was about as bad as it could be short of kicking the future Oscar winner out of the house: “You disgust me. Don’t ever talk to me again.” And she left the room.
‘And that was that beginning of the end of that. I made all kinds of adjustments as the years went by.’ But he forgave his mom: ‘She herself was not very sophisticated and had kind of a brutal family that she came from … I totally forgive her and think she’s kind of marvellous. And she gave me my love of art.
Watch the interview here
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Paula Abdul is opening up about her first day on the set of American Idol back in 2002 and how she tried to quit the show eight times.
“A few years ago, this man came up to me and introduced himself and said, ‘I was your sound guy on your first day at work at American Idol.’ And I said, ‘Oh wow. I feel bad, I must have quit a few times.’ And he said ‘Eight. You quit eight times,’” the 53-year-old former judge said to Entertainment Weekly.
“I felt terrible for those kids,” Paula said about the bad auditions. “I would try to maintain composure in the midst of absurdity and they were completely delusional, like brilliantly delusional. But there was never a shortage of really incredible voices and raw talent. We were always able to find it, and that’s what was so exciting.”
Paula also discussed what led to her decision to leave the show. “The truth is, it was time for me to leave. I’d never had the same job for eight years. I felt that there were changes happening, and it didn’t feel like the same show,” Paula said. “I needed to go back and do things I wanted to do, and being in that contract with the show didn’t allow me to do many things. It was a bold decision to make, but I will always have tremendous gratitude because it was a tremendous experience for me. I was a big part of history. And the show did change when I left. I would say to Simon, ‘You know the show ended when I left. You were still there for almost two more years.’ He’d say, ‘Oh, shut up.’ But it’s true!”
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Diane Lane looks beautiful while posing for the cover of American More Magazine’s March 2016 issue, on newsstands now.
Here is what the 51-year-old Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice actress had
to share with the mag:
On being happy with living on her own for the first time in decades: “To be honest, relationships with the opposite sex are the most challenging things I’ve done. You lose your compass, gravity changes, you don’t know what’s up or down, you’re trying to figure it out. You’re trying to make everybody happy, including yourself, and it’s just … it’s humbled me …
Every room [in my house] is my room. I’ve been travelling more this year than I ever have, because I can. Suddenly filming a movie in South Africa is no biggie. Sure, I’d like a relationship again, but I’m loving the solitude as well.”
On ageing: “I rehearsed 50. I kind of stared at it a long time. I wasn’t going to let it terrify me. My relationship with aging is cosy. I’m not trying to play 29 and holding on with white knuckles, you know? I’m done saying, ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t who you needed or wanted me to be’ to everybody in my life.”
On cherishing the opportunity to work on herself without guilt: “The largest room in the world is room for improvement. You know, some mornings my thighs are fat. Some days my hair looks great. That’s the human condition. Things hurt me just as much as anyone else. My insecurities, failures. I’m vulnerable to comparisons.”
For more from Diane, visit More.com!
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Charlize Theron looks so stunning on the cover of WSJ magazine’s April issue.
Here’s what the 40-year-old actress had to share with the mag:
On her split from Sean Penn: There is a need to sensationalise things. When you leave a relationship there has to be some f**king crazy story or some crazy drama. And the f**king ghosting thing, like literally, I still don’t even know what it is. It’s just its own beast. We were in a relationship and then it didn’t work anymore. And we both decided to separate. That’s it.”
On if Sean was involved in adopting her son or daughter: “We were very, very new in a relationship. The stories that Sean was going to adopt Jackson, and all of that was not true. It’s not something that happens in 18 months. You can’t do that to a child. “We had a very clear understanding. He knew that I was thinking about filing for another
adoption, but that we weren’t filing together. “There was an understanding that I was a single mom with a very young boy who I had to put in a situation where he understood that Mommy dates, but that he does not have a father. You have to be very careful and very honest about that stuff. And Sean was great with all of that.”
On not getting along with Tom Hardy on the Mad Max set: “From what I hear, he’s not like that on every movie – I hear he’s had good experiences. Maybe the movie is what it is because we struggled so much with each other, and those characters had to struggle so much with each other. If we were chum-chum, maybe the movie would have been 10 times worse.”
For more from Charlize, visit WSJ.com.
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Dustin Hoffman slapped Meryl Streep in the face and taunted her about her recently deceased lover to get the best performance out of her while shooting Kramer vs Kramer.
Hoffman pushed the Method style of acting to its limits during the filming of the 1979 drama about a failed marriage, a new biography claims.
Streep went ‘absolutely white’ when Hoffman goaded her about John Cazale and hit her on the cheek, leaving a red mark.
Hoffman is said to have allowed the boundaries of fiction and reality to collapse so that he saw Streep as his soon-to-be ex-wife – and took out his rage on her.
The extraordinary claims show an unlikely side of Hoffman who is best known for his roles in films like Rain Man.
But according to ‘Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep’, by Michael Schulman, to be published in April by Harper, Hoffman had a dark side to him as well.
An extract of the book in Vanity Fair magazine says that ‘in his effort to fill every screen moment with tension, he would locate the particular vulnerability of his scene partner and exploit it.’
Kramer vs Kramer would go on to be nominated for nine Oscars and won five, including Best Actor for Hoffman and Best Supporting Actress for Streep.
At the time she auditioned for the film, Streep was 27 and was grieving for the death of Cazale, best known for playing Fredo Corleone in the Godfather films.
He had died of lung cancer at 41 and weeks later she met sculptor Don Gummer, who she would go on to marry. It was this fragility which Hoffman and director Robert Benton decided would be perfect for Joanna Kramer to Hoffman’s Ted.
The book said: ‘Dustin knew that Meryl had lost (Cazale) only months earlier, and from what he saw, she was still shaken to the core.
‘That’s what would fix the Joanna problem: an actress who could draw on a still-fresh pain, who was herself in the thick of emotional turmoil. It was Meryl’s weakness, not her strength, that convinced him.’
The Vanity Fair article says that on the second day of filming at the Twentieth Century Fox studio in Manhattan, Hoffman slapped Streep ‘hard’ in the cheek just before they came onto the set to shoot an elevator scene.
Benton thought ‘we’re dead’ and assumed she would file a complaint with the Screen Actors Guild – but instead she acted the scene. As they filmed the next scene Hoffman taunted Streep about Cazale and continued ‘goading and provoking her’.
Producer Richard Fischoff said Hoffman was ‘using stuff that he knew about her personal life and about John to get the response that he thought she should be giving in the performance.’ After that Streep, now 66, stormed out in a rage but she could not escape Hoffman’s intense tactics.
During the filming of the divorce hearing Hoffman spoke to Streep, who was sitting in the witness box, because he wanted her to ‘implode on-camera’.
The biography says that he ‘knew the magic words to make it happen’ and told her: ‘John Cazale’. The book says: ‘Out of Benton’s earshot, he started whispering the name in her ear, planting the seeds of anguish, as he had in the elevator scene. He knew she wasn’t over the loss. That’s why she’d gotten the part. Wasn’t it?’
Hoffman’s extraordinary behaviour continued throughout the filming, including smashing a glass unexpectedly during a shoot to get a better reaction from his co-star. At a scene in a diner Streep suggested reworking the dialogue so that her
character could explain herself more clearly.
But Hoffman, 78, objected and told her: ‘Meryl, why don’t you stop carrying the flag for feminism and just act the scene’.
The book says: ‘Just like Joanna, she was butting in and mucking everything up, he felt. ‘Reality and fiction had become blurry. When Dustin looked across the table, he saw not just an actress making a scene suggestion but shades of Anne Byrne, his soon-to-be ex-wife. In Joanna Kramer, and by extension Meryl Streep, he saw the woman making his life hell’.
Not even the seven-year-old boy who played the Kramers’ son Billy could escape Hoffman’s mind games, the biography says. Before a serious scene he would tell Justin Henry to imagine losing his dog.
And before the harrowing scene where Billy falls from monkey bars in a playground, Hoffman took things even further.
Knowing Justin had become close to the film crew, Hoffman told then he would never see them again.
The book says: ‘’You know Eddie?,’ Dustin said, pointing to a crew guy. ‘You may not see him. Justin burst into tears. Even after the scene was done, he couldn’t stop sobbing’.
A spokeswoman for Streep said: “Ms Streep has no comment on this book. It was unauthorised. She made no contribution to it, nor has she read it.”
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SOME DVDs TO LOOK OUT FOR
INTRUDERS
Anna Rook is afflicted with agoraphobia so crippling that when a trio of home invaders break into her old Victorian house on the outskirts of town, she is unable to flee, frozen by her phobia. The intruders soon discover that survival brings out the worst in a girl. Anna, hardly helpless, is harbouring dark secrets and is deeply disturbed on many levels.
GRAND DESIGNS NEW ZEALAND: SERIES 1
Grand Designs NZ is a series about New Zealanders taking on the challenge of building their own unique and inspirational homes. From architectural designer mansions to DIY homes using archaic or new school building techniques and material. From the beach, to the mountains and the hills in between.
Grand Designs charts the in-depth process of creating these unique homes, and the personal journeys of those building them.
* As Seen on TV3
………………….. Until next week my lis are sealed!
David H. W. Hartnell MNZM copyright 2016
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Monday 28th March
I’m not one to gossip but…………………. One thing we know is that Ellen DeGeneres won’t win the Daytime Emmy this year for outstanding talk show host.
It’s not because she’s not still the hostess with the mostest, it’s because she took herself out of contention in that category several years ago after four wins.
But The Ellen DeGeneres Show continues to dominate the awards and received 10 more Emmy nominations.
Since its debut in 2003, the show has won 38 Emmys including seven for outstanding talk show. It looks to add to that haul this year with a nomination for outstanding entertainment talk show and nods in nine other categories.
Its competition will be The Real, The View, The Wendy Williams Show and The Talk. The show averages just under four million viewers per episode. The Daytime Emmys will be handed out on 1 May but, ironically, will not be televised.
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Simon Cowell opens up all about One Direction for the new Billboard magazine cover story.
The 56-year-old music executive talked about Zayn Malik and Harry Styles’ careers, and more.
On whether or not One Direction is broken up for good: “I don’t know if it’s a hiatus or a breakup, to be honest. In a weird way, I don’t want to know.”
On Zayn: “Zayn is still signed to our company. But the boys hadn’t bought into the fact that he was leaving, so out of respect for them, it wasn’t the right thing to put him on Syco…”
On Harry recording a solo album: “He’ll work out what kind of record he wants to make because he’s got great taste — which is always a help. All the writers and producers want to work with him, understandably, but he probably won’t rush into it.”
Simon also joked to the mag that 1D was “a nightmare” to work with right after X Factor. “They were like five puppies — really excited, loads of opinions, always wanted to hang out.”
For more on Simon, visit Billboard.com.
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Arthur Sarkissian and writer-director Tony Kaye are teaming to bring the story of Peg Entwistle to light as a movie.
She is the blond-haired, blue-eyed actress who committed suicide by jumping off the ‘H’ of the Hollywood sign in 1932 after she was cut out of the David O. Selznick film Thirteen Women. She was only 24.
Sarkissian (Rush Hour) will produce the picture, and Kaye will write and plans to direct.
The Wales-born Entwistle started her career on Broadway in several plays from 1925-32 including The Wild Duck and The Uninvited Guest and in J.M. Barrie’s Alice Sit By The Fire before marrying Robert Keith. They divorced after she discovered that Keith had been married before and had a 6-year-old son she was not told about. Oddly enough, that son was Brian Keith, who later became an actor best known for the popular TV series Family Affair.
The beautiful actress was found on the morning of September 18, 1932 — at the base of the Hollywood sign by a hiker who alerted police. They found a suicide note in Entwistle’s purse that read: “I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.” Her death made headlines across the nation.
Sarkissian said the film is in the vein of the Alfred Hitchcock classic Vertigo and David Fincher’s Seven. Kaye directed one of my favourite films, 1998’s American History X, which really made the industry sit up and take notice of Edward Norton, who transformed himself for the role.
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Soon, The von Trapps will truly say so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, and goodnight.
Four grandchildren of Werner von Trapp — portrayed as Kurt in The Sound of Music — have been making music together since 2001. But Sofia, Melanie, Amanda, and August have decided to move on from music after one final show.
“Our family story as been shared in nearly every corner of the world. It has been a surreal honour to continue this musical tradition and be a part of such a hopeful message to the world for these last 15 years,” the band said in a statement.
“We want to thank our family and friends who have supported and encouraged us throughout all of these adventures.”
The von Trapps released five studio albums between 2003 and 2008, recording standards from the classic Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, folk songs, and Christmas standards. The quartet teamed up with Pink Martini and Thomas Lauderdale to record 2014’s Dream a Little Dream, which featured Wayne Newton. Another collaborative session with Pink Martini spawned last year’s original EP, Dancing in Gold.
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No one is happier that Donald Trump is running for president that his ex-wife Marla Maples. Back in the 90’s while she was married to Donald, Marla, 52, a Miss Georgia runner-up, did some acting and she occasionally appears on reality shows like The Ex-Wives Club.
For a while she struggled to get work, but suddenly she has been rediscovered! Dancing with the Stars snapped her up and everybody wants to interview her. Marla says his life has become “crazy” but seems delighted. Donald can count on HER vote!
P.S. On my recent trip to American I was astounded to see how much the American’s LOVED Donald Trump.
OMG!!!!
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The Jeremy Kyle Show has been cleared by Ofcom after broadcasting an uncensored swear word because producers had not “understood” the guest’s Scottish accent.
The media watchdog said that since ITV had taken “extensive steps prior to broadcast to remove inappropriate material from this programme,” apologised for its use and immediately removed it from future broadcast, the matter was resolved.
The offensive word was broadcast during a “heated exchange between two programme contributors, who were speaking very quickly” in a segment called, “When I prove I didn’t cheat, will you let me see our daughter?” on January 18.
ITV admitted that the word had been broadcast simply because it had not been “understood” prior to broadcast.
According to Ofcom, the episode was reviewed by 11 different members of the production team as well as a Scottish team member who has experience with regional accents and none picked up on the use of “Ya c***” by a female guest to her ex-partner.
The channel apologised but said that “it would not have been readily audible, or at least not readily understandable as such (other than to a small number of Scottish viewers), due to the speaker’s accent and the casual rather than emphatic manner in which the comment was made.”
ITV received no viewer complaints and said it was alerted by colleagues at STV to the issue on the day of broadcast and the word was cut from the episode on catch-up services.
Ofcom – which received two complaints – ruled that the word was “an example of the most offensive language” before the watershed but decided not to censure the show as the word was “not clearly audible” and ITV had taken steps to limit offence.
By Telegraph Reporter
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SOME DVDs TO LOOK OUT FOR
NO ESCAPE
Owen Wilson, Lake Bell and Pierce Brosnan star in the intense thriller No Escape. American businessman Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson), wife Annie and their two young daughters arrive in Southeast Asia to begin a new life only for Jack to realise that his company has landed him and his family in the middle of a political uprising.
With armed rebels pouring into the city, ordered to kill foreigners on sight, Jack must find a way to save himself and his loved ones from the chaos erupting all around them.
Blu-ray special features include: Audio commentary, deleted scenes and behind the scenes interviews.
ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING
It’s comedy magic when Simon Pegg teams up with the voices of the Monty Python team to remind us to be careful what you wish for. Unbeknownst to school teacher Neil Clarke (Pegg), a group of eccentric aliens decide to place the fate of humanity in his hands.
In order to determine if they should destroy the Earth or not, the aliens endow Neil with the ability to make Absolutely Anything he wishes for happen. Once Neil realises that he has these new special powers, it takes him more than a few goes (and gives us more than a few laughs) to try and get the hang of it- all the while the aliens are watching. Will he prove a worthy representative or doom the earth to annihilation?
KNIGHT OF CUPS
Knight of Cups follows writer Rick (Christian Bale) on an odyssey through the playgrounds of Los Angeles and Las Vegas as he undertakes a search for love and self. Even as he moves through a desire-laden landscape of mansions, resorts, beaches and clubs, Rick grapples over complicated relationships with his brother (Wes Bentley) and father (Brian Dennehy).
Rick’s quest to break the spell of his disenchantment takes him on a series of adventures with six alluring women: rebellious Della (Imogen Poots); his physician ex-wife, Nancy (Cate Blanchett); a serene model Helen (Freida Pinto); a woman he wronged in the past Elizabeth (Natalie Portman); a spirited, playful stripper Karen (Teresa Palmer); and an innocent Isabel (Isabel Lucas), who helps him see a way forward.
SECRET IN THEIR EYES
A tight-knit team of rising FBI investigators – Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Jess (Julia Roberts), along with their District Attorney supervisor Claire (Nicole Kidman) – is suddenly torn apart when they discover that Jess’s teenage daughter has been brutally and inexplicably murdered. Now, thirteen years later, after obsessively searching every day for the elusive killer, Ray finally uncovers a new lead that he’s certain can permanently resolve the case, nail the vicious murderer, and bring long-desired closure to his team.
Written and directed by Academy Award® nominee Billy Ray and produced by Academy Award® winner Mark Johnson, Secret In Their Eyes is an intense, powerful, haunting thriller.
CLOSE RANGE
After unwittingly making off with a mysterious flash drive during the rescue of his young niece from a powerful drug cartel, Colton MacReady is thrust into a relentless fight to save his family as the cartel descends upon his sister’s home in search of it and their own brand of south-of-the-border justice.
In tow is a corrupt local sheriff and his crew of deputies, ensuring that help won’t be coming any time soon. What ensues is a non-stop assault and a blow-by-blow survival marathon for Colton to protect his loved ones and save his own life while keeping the drive from falling back into the wrong hands.
………. Until next week my lips are sealed!
David H. W. Hartnell MNZM copyright 2016
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Monday 21st March
I’m not one to gossip but…… James Dean and Marlon Brando had a secret sadomasochistic relationship fuelled by the Godfather star’s ego and insatiable desire for control, a new book claims.
The two men would meet up for master and servant style sex sessions where Dean asked to be burned with cigarettes, it alleges.
Friends revealed that Brando was so in charge that he made Dean watch him have sex with strangers who he had just met as part of a twisted mind game. Brando never reciprocated Dean’s love and played a ‘cat-and-mouse game’ with
his younger lover for his own amusement.
Friends said that Dean was like a ‘puppy dog’ who would loiter outside Brando’s apartment in the cold – in the desperate hope his idol would invite him in for sex. Dean and Brando were two of the icons of their generation but their dark
personal currents drew them together, the book says.
The two men both studied under acting coach Lee Strasberg, they were both discovered by director Elia Kazan and they were both intense, brooding characters.
In some ways Dean was considered the successor to Brando and only got his roles in Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden because Brando turned them both down.
In James Dean: Tomorrow Never Comes, which is due out next on Blood Moon Productions, authors Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince reveal that their relationship was far more complex than had been thought.
The book is based on conversations with sources and veteran gossip journalists who had known Dean before his death in 1955 at the age of 24.
They reveal that the first time Brando met Dean was not on the set of East of Eden in 1954 as he claimed in his own memoir, Songs My Mother Taught Me. Instead it was in 1949 when, after an extended stay in Paris, Brando flew back to New York to make a public appearance at the Actors Studio where he had studied under Strasberg.
Following his lead role in A Streetcar Named Desire on both the stage and the screen Brando was being idolised and wanted to give a speech at his alma mater.
At the back of the audience was a young man who Brando would later describe to Bobby Lewis, one of the founders of the actors studio, as staring at him so intently he ‘felt my skin burning’. Brando thought that Dean had a ‘childlike sincerity’ and thought Dean was in love with him – and he was right.
Afterwards Dean introduced himself by telling Brando that he was his ‘greatest fan’ and that he was confused about many things but ‘not confused in my admiration for you.’ The two men made small talk about Dean’s ability to predict days that people would die – he got his own wrong – before a long pause when they looked into each other’s eyes.
Brando leaned in and kissed him, the book says.
Prince and Porter claim that Brando downplayed the extent of his relationship with Dean in Songs My Mother Taught Me. But it was quite apparent for their celebrity friends, who included playwright Tennessee Williams, composer Alec Wilder and Rogers Brackett, a Manhattan advertising executive who was Dean’s on-off boyfriend.
Dean is said to have told Brackett that Brando was ‘completely in charge of our love-making.’ Brackett recalled Dean saying: ‘I got to make love to Brando, which is something I’ve been longing to do every since I first heard about him….he
told me what he wanted and I went along for the ride.’
Stella Adler, the actress and acclaimed acting teacher, said that after that she saw Brando ‘everywhere’ with Dean. Wilder said: ‘They were definitely a couple. Of course, the words “sexual fidelity” would be unknown in each of their vocabularies.
‘Jimmy and I used to sit and talk for hours in my room at the Algonquin Hotel (in New York). He kept me abreast of the affair. I really believe that Jimmy fell in love with Brando that year. As for Brando, I don’t think he ever loved Jimmy.
‘I met Brando only three times and each time he was with Jimmy. In my opinion, Brando was in love with Brando‘.
Dean ditched his trademark white t-shirt and jeans and started to dress smarter and more like Brando. Stanley Haggert, another of Dean’s friends, said that Dean never had any money and that he thought Brando ‘wouldn’t lend him a cent’.
Haggert thought that Brando ‘deliberately wanted him lean and mean on the streets, looking for a handout’. He said: ‘Dean talked frequently about Brando and how frustrated he was in the relationship. I got the impression that Jimmy was engaged in a cat-and-mouse affair with Brando, with Brando being the cat, of course. Brando seemed to be toying
with Jimmy for his own amusement.
‘I think Brando was sadistically using Jimmy, who followed him around like a lovesick puppy with his tongue wagging.’
Prince and Porter say that Brackett thought there was a ‘terrible loneliness’ in Dean and that despite asking him to be in a monogamous relationship, he could not keep him away from Brando. Brackett said that Brando rubbed it in Dean’s face that he was having affairs with other people.
His cruelty extended to inviting Dean over and making him watch as he had sex with somebody he had just met on the street. Brackett said: ‘When Brando was out on one of his many dates Jimmy would often stalk him, even following him home.
‘On many a night Jimmy would stand beneath Brando’s apartment, looking up at his bedroom window as the lights went out, waiting to be in that bedroom himself.
‘One very cold morning Brando came downstairs in his pajamas and invited Jimmy, shivering in the cold, to come upstairs with him. But I fear those acts of kindness were the exception, not the norm’.
In his memoir Brando denied that such a relationship occurred and claimed that Dean was ‘never a friend of mine’. He admitted that the younger actor had a ‘ideé fixe about me’ but nothing more.
Porter and Prince claim this is untrue and say that Dean and Brando’s fates seemed to intertwine themselves in their professional careers too. At the time Dean was trying to land the role of Nels in the TV series I Remember Mama – the same role which Brando had played in the stage version.
During one dinner Brackett was shocked when Dean took off his shirt to reveal that he was covered in burns in his chest. When he looked closer he could see they were caused by cigarettes that Dean said Brando had forced into his skin.
Brackett said: ‘I was practically ready to call the police on the brutal son-of-a-bitch until Jimmy told me that he’d asked Brando to do that to him.
‘For the first time in my life I came to realise what a masochist Jimmy was – or was becoming.’
According to Truman Capote, there was no doubt about the relationship between Dean and Brando but the way he saw it, there was no love – just sex. Others thought that their professional rivalry was the source of their sexual tension and had Dean not died so young it would have continued.
Ironically Dean’s relationship with a young Steven McQueen took on some of the similarities of his relationship to Brando, only in reverse. Friends recalled how McQueen would mimic everything about Dean including the way he turned the newspaper and the way he drank his coffee.
The two men were seen in Greenwich village in the 1950s riding shirtless on their motorcycles through the neighbourhood and spending hours together in cafes. Dean supposedly also had a fling with Marilyn Monroe when they spent two
weekends a beach house on Fire Island, an idyllic getaway East of New York.
The book claims that another of Dean’s lovers was Walt Disney, who faced repeated rumours that he was secretly gay.
In 1976, a decade after he died, gossip newspaper The Hollywood Star ran a front page story with the headline: ‘Walt Disney Was Homosexual’ which purported to reveal the truth. Porter and Prince say that, according to dozens of sources, Disney was indeed gay and that he supposedly rented apartments in Los Angeles under different names where he would meet lovers.
Disney supposedly met Dean one night at the home of George Cukor, the director whose films included My Fair Lady.
Cukor felt that he owed Dean a favour to make up for casting Anthony Perkins instead of him in the 1953 drama The Actress. Disney’s initial impression was that Dean was a ‘clean-cut All-American boy’ and after getting reassurances from Cukor he was discreet, the three went upstairs to have sex together. Dean later claimed to a gossip reporter that he was devoured by two ‘ravenous mouths’ but afterwards Cukor would not return his phone calls.
D. Bats for the UK Daily Mail.
NEW and available everywhere, in MAY, from Blood Moon Productions: JAMES DEAN: One of the most comprehensive, shocking and detailed exposes of Hollywood in the 1950s ever published. Learn more about it here:
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It was only a matter of time. Madonna’s “little girl” Lourdes Leon resisted
getting involved in modelling until her mother’s friend Stella McCartney made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
Lola, 19, is still at the University of Michigan studying musical theatre, but she took time off to participate in Stella’s Pop fragrance campaign aimed at aspiring about-to-be successful young women. (She’s the one on the far left)
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Pukekohe magician Mick Peck has been accepted into the world’s most
prestigious magic club.
The Magic Circle of London was formed in 1905 and members include Dynamo, Paul Daniels and David Copperfield.
Membership is restricted to top professional magicians from around the
world, so it’s a huge honour.
Prospective members must undertake an interview process where knowledge and skill are accessed before the decision goes to a final vote by the society
council.
Photo: Emily Hung
Mick, 34, said that being accepted into the organisation brought a tremendous source of pride.
“I grew up watching many of these magic stars on television, so to be a part of their society is a real honour,” he said.
Members are granted access to the headquarters in London for regular meetings and lectures from top international magicians. They also have access to a library of 6000 magic books and an on-site museum which houses rare magic posters and memorabilia.
“Being a member of the Magic Circle is also seen as a stamp of approval within the international magic fraternity so will be very useful for opening doors when travelling outside of New Zealand,” Peck said.
Peck got his start as a magician in the 90s, performing at school and local birthday parties. He now makes his living as a full-time magician and performs throughout the country.
He is planning a visit to the club’s London headquarters at some stage.
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Last Friday 18th was a sad Friday for magicians all around the world.
English Master Magician Paul Daniels passed about after a short illness with brain cancer. I met him and his wife Debbie McGee, when I was Master of Ceremonies at the New Zealand International Magician Convention back in 2010. I have great respects for magicians as craftsmen and their devotion
to magic infact, as a teenager I joined the Auckland Brotherhood of
Magicians. As a teenager I knew who Paul Daniels was, so you can imagine my excitement in meeting him all those years later. He was a master of his
craft and his wife Debbie was delightful and so down to earth.
Click here to read an account of his extraordinary life, published in the Daily Mail newspaper in the UK.
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Two-time Oscar-winning US actress and LGBTI rights supporter Sally Field has advice for parents who have LGBTI children or expect their child was about
to come out to them.
Field, who is herself a mother to a gay son, appealed to parents to not put their own ‘prejudices’ or ‘fears about sexuality including their own on their children.’
‘First of all, don’t be frightened. And don’t put your own prejudices or fears about sexuality—your own fears about sexuality—on your children,’ Field said an EW Radio town hall on SiriusXM radio this week.
‘Sexuality is a human glorious part of existence.’
She further revealed that it was initially difficult for her son, Sam, who came out to her when he was 20 to fully accept his identity as a gay man.
However she tried her best to encourage him to discover his true identity: ‘I welcomed him to welcome himself and find that part of his life.
‘What horrifies me is that there are parents who so disapprove, who are so brainwashed to think that this is something out of the Bible or ungodly or against nature,’ she said. ‘It’s not against nature if nature has actually done this. Sam<