LAT's Gold jumps to Washington Post
Annual issue is out this week
Hader is the next "Saturday Night Live" cast member to leave. He wants to do movies and TV in Los Angeles. We'll say this — he knows his way around the city (video.)
Archive: Hollywood
Hader is the next "Saturday Night Live" cast member to leave. He wants to do movies and TV in Los Angeles. We'll say this — he knows his way around the city (video.)
The actress and director chose the preventive procedures after learning that she carries a defective gene, BRCA1, and that her doctors estimated an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer. The procedures began in February and were completed with breast reconstruction in April.
In an era before CGI, Harryhausen used clay monsters and mythical creatures to bring life to live-action adventure films like 'Clash of the Titans,' 'Valley of the Gwangi' and 'Jason and the Argonauts. He was one of the sci-fi club members who patronized Clifton's with Ray Bradbury in the 1930s.
Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, as Rob and Laura Petrie, in front of a studio audience during filming of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in 1963. Jerry Paris can be seen directing the episode.
Stacey Farish, publisher of The Wrap since November of 2011, has jumped to Deadline's print magazine, Awardsline. She also becomes vice president of PMC Entertainment. Score one for Nikki Finke.
In last week's New Yorker, screenwriter Alan Zweibel graciously described the awful feeling of having Roger Ebert say of a movie he wrote, "North," that "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it." He also describes what occurred when they ran into each other years later in a Chicago men's room.
Jonathan Winters had one of those long, varied entertainment industry careers after working New York comedy clubs and moving to early television in the 1950s. "One of the great comedians of the 20th century," the LA Times says.
America's 1950s darling was discovered by Walt Disney in a dance recital at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank. After the original "Mickey Mouse Club" on ABC, she became popular again as a teen idol and in the mid-1960s "Beach" movies with Frankie Avalon. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she long ago lost the ability to walk or talk. Last year, Canada's CTV aired a superb report on Funicello and MS. Videos and links inside.
Executive editor Lisa Fung is the second former Los Angeles Times hand to leave the editing ranks of The Wrap in the past month. Also, Jeff Sneider of Variety re-joins The Wrap as a film reporter.
Next year's Oscar awards will be held on March 2, moving later in the year to avoid conflicts with the Winter Olympics from Russia. The show will then move back to February (Feb. 22 to be exact) for 2015.
Before he shifted his sights to Hollywood, early motion picture impresario Sid Grauman built his first movie palace on Broadway at 3rd Street, beside the Grand Central Market and across the street from the Bradbury Building. The former Grauman's is now the Million Dollar, and I wandered around inside recently. It's open for tours this Saturday , but that night's showing of "Blade Runner" on the big screen is sold out. Pics inside.
The last daily issue of Variety hits mailboxes Tuesday — be sure and grab a copy to save if you are into that. For the next generation Variety, the news today is that Scott Foundas joins the trade as chief film critic. He will stay in New York.
A slab of concrete that is billed as bearing the signature of old-timey movie star Cary Grant from the wall of the legendary 1940s Hollywood nightspot is up for sale on eBay. Bidding starts at $5,000 — so it better be real.
Last night's Zócalo Public Square panel took up the question of what celebrity-driven news and websites like TMZ are doing to news reporting. And oddly enough there was a top producer from TMZ on the panel.
The Deadline.com team broke the news last night that parent company PMC is moving Variety out of its Miracle Mile office tower, and the Deadliners out of wherever they sit, and throwing them together in a building on Santa Monica Boulevard beside the 405 freeway. Nikki Finke and the Variety staffers she regularly insults together?
The push for "On the Road" is ramping up with nationwide release in theaters and video on demand set for March 22. In this clip, Kristen Stewart takes a break from making out with Garrett Hedlund to listen to him whisper at her.
When the writer Nora Ephron died last June of acute myeloid leukemia, a disease she had been fighting for years, many in the media and literary worlds were surprised. She had not made her illness a big part of her public life.
Fifteen months ago, the new deputy managing editor of The Wrap dismissed the site as "a small blog" filled with "opinion, agenda and fantasy" and "hardly a beacon of journalistic excellence." Editor Sharon Waxman was similarly dissed. All is forgiven, apparently.
Tina Fey cuts Seth MacFarlane some major slack for disappointing many viewers of Sunday's Oscars show, telling Anne Thompson of IndieWire that "It's the hardest job there is. It's a tough room. Seth did great."
Nikki Finke's post this morning at Deadline on the changes at Variety almost dripped ice water, especially when she flat-out accused the boss she shares with Variety, Jay Penske, of lying to her. Never mind: sometime during the day, the phrase "Penske lied to me" disappeared.
Nice farewell note to the Los Angeles Times newsroom from Claudia Eller, the entertainment news editor and veteran of the Hollywood scoop wars who was announced today as one of three new co-editors who will run Variety. She opens with praise for her current editor, John Corrigan, and confirms the Times counter-offered.
The other shoe fell today in the evolution of Hollywood trade Variety under new owner Jay Penske. One of the new co-editors is Claudia Eller, a 20-year veteran of movie coverage at the LA Times. Nikki Finke says Penske lied to her.
Most (but by no means all) of the reviews for last night's Oscars show and host Seth MacFarlane have not been favorable. But the early ratings for the TV show are up about four percent over last year's show hosted Billy Crystal — and much younger. And that's entirely logical, says Richard Rushfield at BuzzFeed.
The film academy voted the best picture Oscar to "Argo" and by extension to director Ben Affleck, who gave the final speech of the night and was emotional about the win. Jennifer Lawrence won the best actress Oscar for "Silver Linings Playbook," and at 22 is now a bona fide Hollywood star, if she wasn't before. Daniel Day-Lewis won his third best acting Oscar, for "Lincoln" — no actor has ever won more Oscars in the lead actor category. Complete list inside.
The media who parachute into Hollywood for the Oscars don't always get that, for the locals, the Academy Awards are something of a community event. It's not just that traffic sucks in Hollywood and officials shut down the Hollywood and Highland subway station. The week of the Oscars provides work, diversion and more.
Of "Fight Club," Kimmel writes for the Daily Beast that "I’m sure this is a great movie, but it seems like a lot of the people who really, really love it are dickheads." Same for the Terminator franchise.
"George Hurrell was one of the most important American photographers of the 1930s, but you won’t find his work in many history books," according to The Atlantic. He gave Hollywood glamour.
Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen lead the way with $150,000. Boxer will headline fundraiser at Haim Saban's Feb. 20. Plus: Will Ferrell video for Garcetti and more campaign notes.
"Argo" won the top prize for best film and Ben Affleck was named best director at Sunday's British Academy Film Awards. It's on to the Oscars now. Click inside for full list of winners.
In the race for mayor of Los Angeles, Councilman Eric Garcetti doesn't have a record of accomplishment that stands out among the others, or better connections, or more popular positions, or much more money. One advantage, though, with some voters is his image as a blogger, bike rider, composer, chef and performer — like at last night's appearance alongside Moby.
The political adviser for Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and other Hollywood figures signed a letter to industry activists asking for contributions of $15,000 to an independent expenditure committee that plans to air commercials pushing Wendy Greuel for mayor.
Here's the trailer for Danny Tedesco's 2008 documentary on the famed Hollywood session musicians dubbed The Wrecking Crew, screening on Saturday night at the Saban Theatre followed by a Q-A with musicians from the era.
Both Greuel and Garcetti have bases in Hollywood. The race is pitting mogul against mogul, agent against agent, says the Hollywood Reporter.
Salma Hayek endorses Eric Garcetti for mayor: "He has the heart of a hero. He's romantic..." She also cites that he plays piano, gardens, cooks and speaks Spanish and French as well as English. Watch the video.
The LA Times hires Daniel Miller from the Hollywood Reporter, per today's memo to the staff from the assistant managing editor for entertainment coverage.
Tonight at the Screen Actors Guild awards, "Argo" delivered another warning that, yes, it well could take the best picture Oscar next month. Lawrence bested Jessica Chastain and Naomi Watts.
Vose Street in North Hollywood is a workaday LA industrial street under the final approach path for jets landing at Bob Hope Airport. Valleywood shops and services, the Doc Johnson factory for rubber sex toys, and a mysterious driveway marked Faux Library.
Billy and Audrey Wilder lived for decades in the Wilshire Terrace co-op building in the Platinum Mile stretch of Wilshire Boulevard between Westwood and Beverly Hills. The apartment is on the market for $1.049 million, with monthly homeowner dues of $2,812, says Curbed LA.
The Los Angeles bureau of BuzzFeed continues to ramp up. Today Richard Rushfield et al are announcing the hire of Adam Vary as senior film reporter. He comes from the...
In the new issue of VQR, the Virginia Quarterly Review, Los Angeles journalist Adam Baer (with photographer Elizabeth Daniels) explores his own and Hollywood's draw to LA architecture, especially the modern works of Lautner.
Hollywood studios are playing ball to ensure access to the billions of dollars that await films that become hits in the world's most populous country. A story in the New York Times says the cooperation includes letting China's censors vet scripts, visit sets here in the U.S. and give suggestions on other creative decisions.
The LA Coroner's office relooked at the death of Natalie Wood last year and changed the cause of her 1981 death in the water off Catalina Island from accidental to undetermined. That's still where it stands, meaning that sheriff's homicide detectives carry the case as open.
Well, yes. Foster acknowledges "one of the deepest loves of my life, my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life...Cydney Bernard," and says this isn't really coming out because "I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago." The media are unclear how to play it.
Director Peter Bogdanovich wrote a short tribute for Saturday's memorial for the actor Harry Carey, Jr., who had been the last surviving member of director John Ford's company of western actors. "A solid professional, but also a brilliantly deadpan, hilarious raconteur of the days of the giants in pictures."
I suspect Angelenos will still call it Grauman's Chinese. TCL Chinese Theatre just doesn't have that certain something.
Lincoln" received the most Oscar nominations this morning with 12, and "Beasts of the Southern Wild" did surprisingly well. Get full list inside.
Sheen didn't say whether his comments about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa partying with him in Baja for two hours and being able to "drink with the best of 'em" were untrue — but late this afternoon Sheen did apologize "if any of my words have been misconstrued.”
Actor Charlie Sheen tells TMZ that his photograph with an arm around Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was taken in Sheen's suite at the new Hotel El Ganzo near Cabo San Lucas. He also says that this was not just a brief photo encounter as Villaraigosa suggested under questioning Sunday by NBC 4's Conan Nolan on "News Conference."
Last night I asked if a color candid photograph of the Beatles chatting with fans outdoors could have been from the private party held in August 1964 in the Beverly Hills backyard of Alan Livingston, then the president of Capitol Records. By this morning, LA Observed readers had provided the answer.
The fast-growing social web site BuzzFeed today launched an entertainment section. "Most exciting announcement of my career," LA bureau chief Richard Rushfield says on Facebook.
The fake stories and byline on the latest front page wrap around the Sunday LA Times are actually real, just old. 'Gangster Squad' grew out of a Times series, and the screenwriter is a former LAPD homicide detective.
What is it about non-Angelenos becoming so obsessed with old filming locations that they spend years tracking down obscure shots and facts — then write books about their discoveries that become chronicles of LA history? When you grow up in Los Angeles, you get used to seeing familiar sights in the background of movies and TV shows. You just stop thinking about it.
The son of cowboy star Harry Carey was born on his father's ranch near Saugus and went on to ride horses in the westerns directed by pal John Ford and act in many other films and TV shows. Through Ford, Carey also was part of an exclusive San Fernando Valley club of Hollywood men that's now mostly forgotten.
Actor Jack Klugman began on television in 1950 and became known as a character actor ( in "Twilight Zone" and many other series) until he broke through as the co-star of "The Odd Couple" from 1970-75 and the star of "Quincy M.E." from 1976-83. One of his most enduring roles, though, was as Juror #5 in the jury room in the Oscar-nominated 1957 film "Twelve Angry Men."
The Daily News headline writer had a brain freeze (happens to all of us) and wrote that soccer player Brandy Chastain stars in "Zero Dark Thirty," not SAG and Golden Globe-nominated actor Jessica Chastain. "So after Bin Laden is killed she takes off her shirt?," Bob Timmermann quips.
After winning Oscars for "The Hurt Locker," director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal became "entertainment’s hottest couple who wouldn’t say they were a couple since Jay-Z and Beyoncé." Now it's complicated, says BuzzFeed.
She will perform "Llorando," from the David Lynch film "Mulholland Drive," perhaps one last time on Sunday in Downtown LA. The brain surgery is expected to damage her voice.
"The Master" is the runner-up, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association also taps the 'Master' director and actors.
There's wasn't much to buy or even see, but that didn't stop the crowds from converging Saturday at the corner estate where Bob and Dolores Hope lived from 1939 on. Photos inside include the Hopes' nativity scene that is displayed this Christmas for the final time.
The Trader Joe's on Olympic Boulevard in West Los Angeles was awash Tuesday in billboards promoting "The Guilt Trip." And not a wrinkle in sight.
The 1.3-acre estate on Moorpark Street, built for Bob and Dolores Hope in 1939, has never changed hands. We're calling it the most celebrity-infused property left in the San Fernando Valley.
"Rust and Bone” is rated R: Sex, fighting, killer whales and parental neglect.
The Dallas Morning News says that the longtime actor died this afternoon of cancer complications in a Dallas hospital. He was reportedly in town to film episodes of the TNT remake of the hit TV show "Dallas," in which Hagman played star J.R. Ewing.
The story fingers the late THR owner Billy Wilkerson, starting in 1946, as the force behind the industry's high-level collusion to exclude leftists real and suspected from working. The package includes an apology from a son of Wilkerson.
The producers call it a rare, "unflinching portrait." I suspect there's some flinching. Video: Geffen in love with Cher in 1973.
The Hollywood Reporter won six first-place awards at tonight's National Entertainment Journalism Awards put on at the Biltmore by the Los Angeles Press Club. Kim Masters of THR (and KCRW's "The Business") won entertainment journalist of the year, and THR also won for best entertainment publication and best website.
The first round of reductions at Variety under new owner Jay Penske was announced in a 1:40 p.m., unbylined post at sister site Deadline.com. A "Dear Team" memo from Jay Penske says "without a doubt, this is a challenging day." No editors or reporters got the axe.
Deadline.com editor Mike Fleming returns to the site two weeks after his dad was injured at home during the storm in New York. Fleming says he's grateful for the support of his colleagues at the website.
The venerable Magic Castle private club above Franklin Avenue in Hollywood is the basis of a feature film being developed by producer Ted Field and his company, Radar Pictures.
Could the Press Club's plan to honor Janice Min for revamping the Hollywood Reporter be a factor? Finke says the club "seems more interested in collecting entry fees and selling gala tables...than in rewarding high standards of journalism or conducting a competition with integrity."
KPCC's website has posted a nice gallery of photos from the maintenance work on the iconic Hollywood sign. Nothing like a new coat of paint to freshen up a place.
A new Los Angeles bureau, meaning mostly Hollywood apparently, will be run by Richard Rushfield and include chief correspondent Kate Aurthur. Both are veterans of Hollywood coverage and of the LA Times, among other places.
"Please be advised that PMC employees, including but not limited to Nikki Finke, Mike Fleming, Pete Hammond and Nellie Andreeva, are under long term employment contracts," says the lawyer letter.
When the Los Angeles Press Club gives its first Visionary Award to Jane Fonda in November, she will be introduced by Robert Redford. The pair starred together in "The Chase," "Barefoot in the Park" and "The Electric Horseman."
More on sale of Variety, Sunday magazine next for Register, books from Roman Polanski's sex victim way back then and on LA's hardcore music scene, some media job notes and Dean Singleton speaks. Plus more.
In reporting that his employer has now acquired his former journalism home at Variety, Deadline film editor Michael Fleming took a moment for some personal words. Plus: The Wrap claims Finke 'having a major tantrum.'
In the wake of Hero Complex blogger Geoff Boucher's departure from the paper, the LA Times has re-hired Chris Lee and moved Gina McIntyre over to be the lead writer and editor on the Hero Complex blog.
Catherine Davis, the Los Feliz woman bludgeoned to death last week by an emotionally disturbed actor, was the mother of the Los Angeles author-journalist Margaret Leslie Davis, and had a large family of friends in Hollywood who had stayed at her "writers villa" through the years.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently paid $20 million for a think tank at USC, gets a segment on "60 Minutes" tonight to give just enough mea culpa on the whole cheated-on-Maria thing to sound like it was a blip. But at the Daily Beast, Ann Louise Bardach says the chronology given to CBS' Lesley Stahl and in Arnold's new memoir is anything but true
Amid talk that the owner of Deadline.com is on the verge of buying Variety, Nikki Finke announced on Deadline.com that her staff will be too busy next week on some unstated business to post breaking news nuggets.
"Harper" starring Paul Newman aired tonight on Turner Classic Movies. Here's a screen grab circa-1966 of the Mulholland Drive bridge in Sepulveda Pass, spanning what was then called by everybody the San Diego Freeway.
In 2006, an LA Times and Paramount promotion for "Mission: Impossible III" went awry. They settled with the federal government for $75,000.
Boucher, who left the Los Angeles Times earlier this month after clashing with his editor, posted the memo from Entertainment Weekly managing editor Jess Cagle on Facebook.
Character actor Lance LeGault worked in Hollywood for 50 years. You know his face and his deep voice, as in the following video.
Following a blow-up with editors last month, high-level discussions and a Florida vacation could not keep the Calendar writer and Hero Complex blogger around. His exit has staffers and outside observers both talking about editor Davan Maharaj's choice of assistant managing editor over arts and entertainment.
The producer of the “Matrix,” “Lethal Weapon” and “Sherlock Holmes” series of films was officially welcomed to Venice by press release quoting Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Councilman Bil Rosendahl. Silver is moving his production company, Silver Pictures, into the former post office on Windward Circle built in 1939 during the Works Progress Administration.
Seth Rosenfeld's book "Subversives: The F.B.I.’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power” looks at how Ronald Reagan, both as a liberal turned anti-Communist crusader in Hollywood then as candidate and governor, helped the FBI and made use of his relationship with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to get information not available to others. Some of that assistance involved his children, daughter Maureen and son Michael.
Gerber, 41, had left a suicide note. His crashed car was found this morning off Angeles Crest Highway.
Patrick Goldstein doesn't explain the end of his film column, but he seems to be defending how he went about it. The piece begins "When I began writing this column...
AP got a look today at the Los Angeles County coroner's revised death certificate, which now says that actress Natalie Wood died in the waters off Catalina Island in 1981 due to "drowning and other undetermined factors." The certificate used to attribute the cause of death to "accidental drowning."
Robert Redford will guest on tonight's "Which Way, L.A.?" at 7 p.m. on KCRW to chat with Warren Olney about the Sundance Sunset Cinema.
Julie Cline, the Senior Nonfiction Editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books, writes at the review today about her father's LA life and travels on the edges of the Hollywood movie machine. Her father lives on a boat in San Pedro, "a retired builder, general contractor, and salesman of everything from used cars to room additions." He's not really an actor, but he showed up in a film shot last year.
Comic Phyllis Diller lived a good long time and had a long career. Many female comedians say she paved the way. She died this morning at her Los Angeles home, her manager Milt Suchin confirmed. Watch her with Groucho Marx on "You Bet Your Life," inside.
The appeal of diving into a character has always been the back story: everything that my character has been through up to the point when the audience first encounters her, says the actress-novelist.
A man observed jumping from the high bridge that connects San Pedro to Terminal Island was dentified as Tony Scott, 68, the British film director known for such films as "Top Gun," "Days of Thunder," "Beverly Hills Cop II" and "The Taking of Pelham 123." A suicide note was found. He is the brother of Ridley Scott.
When the Cinerama Dome opened on Sunset Boulevard in 1963, it was the first new movie house built in Hollywood in three decades. Now part of Arclight Hollywood, the dome in late September will begin a week of classic Cinerama films, including the comedy that opened the place: "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Also on the bill are "How the West Was Won," "2001: A Space Odyssey" and assorted shorts.
The actress has tweeted that she won't lose any fingers, despite a breathless report by TMZ from expert bystanders.
The anonymous Twitter spoof account that poses as Deadline.com's Nikki Finke currently rings up suspended if you try to visit. And for whatever reason, the real Finke account is also suspended as of now.
Busch, the former Los Angeles Times reporter who was threatened over a story by Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano and his cronies, appeared frail and frightened-looking in court today, says The Wrap.
Judith Crist was the critic for many years on the "Today" show and in print at TV Guide and elsewhere. She had two long stints at TV Guide &mdash the first before they fired her in favor of computerized summaries of films, the second after a deluge of reader complaints forced the editors to ask her back.
Hamlisch collapsed and died in Los Angeles on Monday. He has won three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize. He had been scheduled to return in September as conductor of the Pasadena Symphony and Pops.
Portman and Benjamin Millepied managed to keep it secret until after the fact, so good on them.
Rather than be just another Hollywood type who complains about the unprofessionalism and blackmail of the Deadline founder, the ex-agent and producer dares Finke to prove her clout.
These will be stationed in Business, and include yet another body devoted to coverage of entertainment industry awards and another covering TV, plus the return of a slot based in New York.
Ontiveros, a versatile actress from El Paso who came to Hollywood and once estimated she had a played a maid 150 times on stage or screen, died Thursday night of cancer in Whittier. She's being remembered as a Mexican American symbol and as an activist, as well as for her acting. "It is with deep sadness yet much pride that we reflect upon a woman whose immense contributions opened the door for Latinos and touched so many through her artistic talent," Mayor Villaraigosa said in a statement.
Between them, Everett and Hemsley appeared on screen in many hours of episodic television. And for many, Everett played it just right during the scene of Betty's audition in David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive."
Frank Pierson served as president of both the Writers Guild, West, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences. He rose in Hollywood as a screenwriter and director. He got his start on the TV series' "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Naked City" and "Route 66." He won the original screenplay Oscar in 1976 for "Dog Day Afternoon."
Video of Cruise talking the Scientology talk is included in a Daily Beast story by a defector from the Church of Scientology's elite and odd Sea Org unit. The story compares the many similarities between church founder L. Ron Hubbard and the lead character in the upcoming film "The Master."
NBCUniversal has killed a controversial proposal to build 3,000 homes on its property at Universal City. Instead the expansion will feature a new hotel and more room for the movie and TV studios and the theme park.
Asher directed 100 episodes of "I Love Lucy," brought the Gidget character to television, directed the popular series of 1960s beach movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, and produced the "Bewitched" TV series that starred his then-wife, Elizabeth Montgomery.
Willis Edwards, part of the Robert F. Kennedy for president campaign in Los Angeles in 1968 and later a key member of the Tom Bradley adminsitration at City Hall, died today of cancer. He was the longtime president of the Beverly Hills/Hollywood Branch of the NAACP.
Richard D. Zanuck, the son of 20th Century Fox legend Daryl F. Zanuck who grew up to produce "Jaws" and other major Hollywood films, died of a heart attack Friday in Los Angeles. He was 77.
The Jewish Journal, noting that Woody Allen has made movies in London, Paris and now Rome because he gets financial help from those places, is organizing a campaign to collect enough money to convince Allen to shoot in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.
How's this for an acting career? Raise a glass to Ernest Borgnine, who died about 1:30 this afternoon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Griffith died Tuesday morning back home in Manteo, North Carolina. He received a Tony acting nomination for "No Time for Sergeants" on Broadway in 1955, before going into movies and on TV with "The Andy Griffith Show" in 1960.
Kirk Honeycutt won't stop reviewing films just because he was laid off in November as chief film critic at the Hollywood Reporter. In addition to teaching a graduate course at Chapman University, he also is posting reviews at Honeycutt's Hollywood.
Ephron grew up in Beverly Hills, made a name for herself as a journalist in New York, got into screenwriting via collaboration with then-husband Carl Bernstein on a version of "All the President's Men," and grew into what People magazine calls today "one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood as the creative force behind such blockbusters as 'You've Got Mail,' 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'When Harry Met Sally.'"
Jon Thurber, who left the Los Angeles Times recently after 40 years or so in the newsroom, is joining The Wrap as a senior editor. He will be reunited there with Lisa Fung, the executive editor. They were colleagues in the Calendar section at the Times for some years.
Business editor John Corrigan gets the AME slot for arts and entertainment, while Ochoa — the former LA Weekly editor who is married to Jonathan Gold — becomes Arts and Entertainment Editor reporting to Corrigan. TV critic Mary McNamara also gets a new title.
It was ten years ago today that Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch found a dead fish on her car. There was a rose in the fish's mouth and a note that said: "Stop." She took it as a warning about her reporting — and she was right. Her life now is all about exposing corruption, she tells the Hollywood Reporter.
Andrew Sarris, the former film critic for the Village Voice and the New York Observer who died Wednesday morning, taught American moviegoers to obsess about directors.
Some of the young Hollywood hotties who met privately with President Obama on his last visit to Beverly Hills are combining on a June 29 fundraiser for the president's campaign, the Hollywood Reporter says. Jared Leto chairs, but the participants include the not-so-young such as David Fincher and Peter Frampton. Details and names inside.
Stephanie Zacharek will be laid off as chief critic at Movieline on July 13. The news, reported earlier by Matt Singer at IndieWire, has set off fresh concern about the future viability of film criticism as an actual career, or even as a job.
So far in this Emmy campaign season, writes Variety's Jon Weisman, "it would be hard to top this Padma Lakshmi/Bravo page for most distinctive 'For Your Consideration' ad." See her ad bigger
Here's what happens at the Malibu party at Streisand's home to raise money for the new Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Martin Short emcees. Lisa Ling introduces Bill Clinton. Streisand sings, and so on.
Before leaving Beverly Hills this morning, President Barack Obama met privately at his hotel "with two dozen of Hollywood’s hottest young stars, urging them to involve themselves in his re-election campaign." Plus a pool report from View Park.
President Obama began the fundraising day on Wednesday by flying to San Francisco (with Giants legend Willie Mays on board Air Force One and at his side) then on down to Los Angeles. He appeared tonight at the LGBT Leadership Council gala at the Beverly Wilshire, where Ellen DeGeneres and "Glee" star Darren Criss provided the entertainment, then at a more private dinner a little ways away in Beverly Hills hosted by "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy and his fiance David Miller.
Take a look backstage, in Sid Grauman's private VIP box and around the gorgeous auditorium of Hollywood's (and probably the world's) best-known movie palace. Public tours by the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation continue on Sunday morning.
Claudia Laffranchi was part of the colony of overseas journalists who cover Hollywood for global media outlets and participate in related events. She was, for instance, the host and master of ceremonies of the Locarno Film Festival’s screenings. Laffranchi was found dead Tuesday in her Los Angeles-area apartment.
If I were a betting man, or a Valley commuter hoping to avoid tonight's presidential motorcade traffic snarl, I would avoid the route between Bob Hope Airport in Burbank and Studio City as the clock approaches 7 p.m.
Sam Rubin at KTLA Channel 5 says the private memorial service for Dick Clark yesterday in Malibu was amazing. "I found the whole thing so very moving, so heartfelt, that I asked the family if I could talk about it after the fact on TV. I did so on KTLA this morning."
Councilman Eric Garcetti has given the people what they want before by posting to Facebook his inside-the-rope cellphone pics of celebrities receiving stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in his district. Today he caught a good view of the cameras watching actress Scarlett Johansson watch them.
The Hollywood Reporter includes in its May 4 issue a 20-page special report on politics that "examines the complicated relationship between Hollywood and politics." It leads with a profile by contributing editor Tina Daunt of Obama fundraisers and power couple Ted Sarandos, the chief of content for Netflix, and Nicole Avant, the president's former ambassador to The Bahamas. "Sarandos is the man everyone in Hollywood wants a meeting with," says the trade. Included is what THR is calling "a guide to 20 of the biggest political players in Hollywood, including George Clooney, J.J. Abrams, Haim Saban and Ron Meyer."
Sharon Waxman of The Wrap has now read the script that Joe Eszterhas turned in for the Mel Gibson production of a film about the Jewish hero Judah Maccabee. It's very bloody, but true to the story.
The Hollywood publicist choked on a meat sample at the Gelson's in Century City on March 24 and died after two weeks in the hospital, The Wrap reports.
Today's the day that television station KCET has to be out of its historic former movie studio on Sunset Boulevard. Everyone has been told to vacate by 3 p.m., I'm told. The new home is in Burbank in a media building adjacent to NBC.
The basic news headline is that Warner Brothers has passed on the script that long-time screenwriter Joe Eszterhas delivered for Mel Gibson's attempt to make a movie based on Jewish...
Somebody at the KPFK studios on Cahuenga Boulevard downloaded via BitTorrent a copy of "A Beautiful Mind." NBC Universal complained to the internet provider, and you can read the email to the staff that resulted.
The site should be cleared by the end of today. Check out the photo.
Jeff Desom's time-lapse video uses only the actual footage from Alfred Hitchcock's classic "Rear Window," set to "Hungarian Dance No. 5" by Brahms.
Marc Wanamaker's collection of more than 70,000 photographs covering the history of movies and studios has found a home at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Richard Parks' documentary film about epic Los Angeles record collector Murray Gershenz, who's pushing 90, debuts on The Documentary Channel on April 21 and will also be on NPR's All Songs Considered website.
HBO is developing a drama series based on "The Madonnas Of Echo Park," the novel by Brando Skyhorse.
Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney has a $2,500-a-person fundraiser scheduled Tuesday night at the Century Plaza.
A reader emails to point out a few errors in the web slide show that goes with a photo essay by Lise Sarfati on women in Hollywood, in Sunday's New...
David Poland of Movie City News takes off from the news that Variety is for sale to put in a bit of jaded perspective the four media outlets he says function as the closest thing Hollywood has to trade publications.
Check out Veronique de Turenne's photographs from inside the gate at the Hollywood sign.
"I have every confidence that under new ownership, Variety will continue to thrive, innovate and provide fantastic insight into the sector," says Variety President Neil Stiles.
Jonathan Bernier can keep playing without paying royalties to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.
Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO Michael Lynton is getting oversight of the rest of Sony's U.S. entertainment units except for video games.
The Amazon-owned Internet Movie Database is secretive, annoying to the Hollywood people it tracks and the data can be wrong.
Plus: who from Los Angeles was invited to attend dine at the White House tonight with Britian's Prime Minister David Cameron.
"Casa de mi Padre," starring Gael-Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, Genesis Rodriguez "and introducing Will Ferrell"
Tonight's fire at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Orange Avenue wasn't just in another storefront. It's the former location of Radio Recorders, a legendary sound studio.
Carol Kaye played bass guitar on many hit songs of the 1960s and 70s. She came out of Long Beach, played in LA jazz clubs and broke into session work in Hollywood with an invitation to play on a Sam Cooke recording.
The plan, if the movie actually gets made, is to set it at the Canoga Park end of Sherman Way.
In advance of her hosting gig on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend, Los Angeles County probationer Lindsay Lohan will sit at the desk tonight with Jimmy Fallon.
Video: Jean Dujardin arrives at Charles de Gaulle with his best actor Oscar for "The Artist," em português.
Film, music and pop culture references to the San Fernando Valley never get old.
The mostly silent French film that was the only big 2011 movie to be filmed entirely in Los Angeles cleaned up tonight at the Oscars.
He reached his irreverent peak remarking that Brett Ratner, deposed as Oscars producer after offensive remarks about gays, might have been a better choice for the more-forgiving Grammys.
LA-based writer Adam Baer argues in a piece for The Atlantic that the film academy should follow the lead of the Grammys and begin to honor the music of movie soundtracks.
Stewart was honored last night with an award for career achievement in film at the Costume Designers Guild Awards. So we reprise her LA Observed video on "Fashioning Fashion" at LACMA.
President Obama is scheduled to land at LAX about 4 p.m. After that traffic could suck for awhile in the corridor from Brentwood to Beverly Hills.
Roy Brewer is a despised historical figure by many in Hollywood, but not by Ronald Reagan researcher John Meroney.
The Grammys handled the death of Whitney Houston by having host LL Cool J follow opening act Bruce Springsteen with some words of tribute and a prayer "for our fallen sister," and Jennifer Hudson sang "I Will Always Love You."
Fifteen or so years since Universal Music Group left for Santa Monica, the honchos at Universal City are taking down the signs on various streets and driveways that honor music legends.
One of the most-filmed locations in Los Angeles has been closed to filmmakers since May 2010.
The restored "Final Curtain" screened to an appreciative audience last month at Slamdance, where the two men got to talk about Wood.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi entertained Hollywood political players last night with her plans for regaining a Democratic majority in November. Plus: Obama's biggest Hollywood bundlers.
Yes, once again it's young and mostly white actresses, fronted by Rooney Mara, Mia Wasikowska. Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain.
Iris Schneider was with projectionist Tom Ruff for tonight's showing of Kubrick's "Paths of Glory."
The Obama Victory Fund is sending out an invitation to upcoming Obama reelection events offering local high rollers some options on how to get past their upset at the president's stance on SOPA and PIPA.
Armin Mueller-Stahl, the German actor who has settled in Pacific Palisades, recently returned to his birthplace in East Prussia to receive honorary citizenship. Oh, but it's so much more complicated than that.
The longtime Business Week correspondent in Hollywood is leaving Bloomberg BusinessWeek to be the Los Angeles bureau chief for Reuters.
The Southern California Slack Key Festival on Sunday at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center will feature some of the top Hawaiian musicians whose work made it into Alexander Payne's...
Clearly, top Hollywood executives feel burned that President Obama has stopped backing their very controversial pet measures to fight content piracy. But enough to drop their support? Two views from Hollywood websites.
Good on Cheryll Devall of KPCC for working up a radio piece on today's 70th anniversary of the day that Hollywood comic actress Carole Lombard died in a plane crash. Famously married to Clark Gable, Lombard was honored by FDR as the first American woman to die in the line of duty during World War II.
Check out some of the locations from "The Artist" that have played roles in silent films by Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and others.
George Clooney and Viola Davis grabbed the best actor wins, Octavia Spencer and Christopher Plummer the supporting actor wins.
After taking another look at the 1981 drowning of actress Natalie Wood, sheriff's detectives see no reason to alter the original finding: accidental death.
The 13-1 preliminary vote today would remove to need to spend $4 million to $5 million on a ballot measure — by adopting the measure's provisions.
The Wrap just announced it has created the position of Executive Editor and filled it with Lisa Fung, most recently the online editor for arts and entertainment at the Los Angeles Times website.
Read Nikki Finke's note to Variety executives, including this line: "When is Variety going to stop stealing Deadline's scoops without any credit?"
Last week's post about Life magazine's newly available trove of unpublished on-set photos from the film shoot for "It's a Wonderful Life" brought a nice email pointer to a story by Michael Fessier.Previously on LA Observed:
Valley of 'It's a Wonderful Life'
When Encino became Bedford Falls
If Occupy LA members sneak a little civil disobedience into today's Rose Parade, they won't be the first to exploit Pasadena's big day. Sennett got there first.
Life magazine has posted online a gallery of unpublished photos from the Encino set of the 1946 holiday classic starring Jimmy Stewart.
Adding David Fincher to "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" story "has proved counterproductive," says the L.A. Times reviewer. A.O. Scott is more enthusiastic in the NYT.
The L.A. Film Critics Association is tweeting out the news from their annual vote.
Wow, just take a look at Harry Morgan's career.
This isn't a total dose of bad bookstore news, just a demi-dose for people in Valleywood.
In exchange for a special early viewing of David Fincher's "Girl With a Dragon Tattoo," David Denby and other members of the New York Film Critics Circle agreed to embargo any reviews.
Media and politics notes, plus a Hollywood obituary and more.
Nikki Finke's Hollywood news site has been slapped with Google's dreaded (and often overheated) "attack site" designation.
It seems people want to see the new Lars von Trier film with Kirsten Dunst.
Citywide "holiday filming restrictions" limit filming activity, street closures and lane closures between Nov. 21 and January 2.
Motivations behind political campaign donations by Hollywood figures are more complex than they might seem, Variety's Ted Johnson writes.
Rep. Howard Berman looks like the big winner on the dollar side.
Coming up on Nov. 17 from Live Talks Los Angeles: Darrell Hammond talks about his upcoming memoir, "God, If You’re Not Up There, I’m F*cked: Tales of Stand-Up, Saturday Night...
The Sunset 5 theaters at Sunset and Crescent Heights were once the cat's meow, but as newer theaters got bigger and better theirs got smaller and rattier — and with time the whole shopping complex became tattered.
On Wednesday night, the Geffen Playhouse run began for "Next Fall," handpicked for the schedule by producing director Gil Cates.
You knew you were in show business when you sat in Gil Cates' office, Stewart says in introducing the moment of Zen at the conclusion of last night's Daily Show.
Gilbert Cates, the stage, film and TV producer and director and the producing director of the Geffen Playhouse, has died at age 77.
Frank Buckley of Channel 5 says his idea for an international thriller called "Portofino" is being made by JC Chandor, the director of "Margin Call."
Patrick Kevin Day, the deputy editor of The Hollywood Reporter's website, is leaving after just two months to return to the Los Angeles Times as a senior web producer. A...
"Shame," the upcoming film with Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, will be the 11th movie released with an NC-17 rating by a major studio or division.
First the American actress who is portraying Swedish book and film heroine Lisbeth Salander graces the cover of this month's American Vogue. Now H&M unveils a line of clothing based...
Before leaving the Beverly Wilshire this morning, President Obama had a meeting with "some of the entertainment industry's high-level executives, as well as talent representatives with access to the industry's top stars and musical acts," THR says.
Barbara Kent, a 1925 graduate of Hollywood High School, is being called the last living actress to have achieved stardom in silent films.
Plunging earnings and a stream of executive defections "have set tongues wagging."
Robert Redford romps on the roof and inside the Village movie theatre in Westwood in a 1965 clip shot by actor Roddy McDowall.
For a lot of us, the future (or potential fate) of Johnie's Coffee Shop was one of the first questions to come to mind after the news broke that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would buy the former May Company across the street for a film museum.
Former president Bill Clinton was the final speaker at Friday evening's memorial service for Edie Wasserman at UCLA’s Royce Hall.
Mengers' death was announced by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, who posted this afternoon on his blog that she died last night "at her home, a short walk from the Beverly Hills Hotel, and surrounded by three of her close friends, Ali MacGraw, Joanna Poitier, and Boaty Boatwright."
Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are around this weekend to celebrate the former president's 65th birthday and raise money for the William J. Clinton Foundation.
Pretty good month for Los Angeles in the print and web pages of the Atlantic, leading with Kate Bolick's cover story on what's happening to marriage now that men are on the decline.
President Obama will be the featured guest at a second Hancock Park-area fundraiser on Oct. 24, this one at the home of producer James Lassiter.
In a piece titled My Store Just Died, Jeffrey Miller writes at Zócalo Public Square about being manager of "the last great independent video rental store in the city of Los Angeles."
As of 1:43 p.m., Blackberries in L.A. are texting and beeping again. But it was tense there for awhile.
The landmarked United Artists Theater at the south end of Downtown's Broadway movie palace district has been sold to Greenfield Partners, a national hotel developer and real estate investment company.
On life and death, among other topics.
Steve Jobs died today in Palo Alto of complications from pancreatic cancer.
The historic landmark former May Company department store at Wilshire and Fairfax could become the major movie museum that L.A. lacks under a memo of understanding agreed to tonight between the boards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Q: Did you really take batting practice naked when you were with the Astros?
LA Observed readers can take their pick of events next week through Live Talks Los Angeles.
Appearing Wednesday on "Fresh Air" on to promote his new movie, "50-50," Joseph Gordon-Levitt interrupted host Terry Gross's introduction to ask "can i just have a gratuitous kiss-ass moment?"
Empire magazine puts Rooney Mara below Daniel Craig on the cover.
So far the timing of the president's moves across the Westside seems to be smooth and on schedule.
For some reason, because a Hollywood writer wrote it, the New Yorker labels the humor piece in the current magazine an "L.A. Postcard."
The boxed set to be released here will add two hours of additional footage not seen in the Swedish theatrical films made from the late Steig Larsson's best-selling novels.
Rapper and singer-songwriter B.o.B., Adam 12 and the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles will provide the entertainment at House of Blues.
Paramount Pictures said today it will seek city approval for a 25-year makeover and expansion of the 56-acre studio lot on Melrose Avenue, the last of the big studios actually located in Hollywood.
Finke says she's gone until October, then blasts rival Sharon Waxman.
The widow of comedian Bob Hope died this morning.
To go with her first story this week in the print Hollywood Reporter, former City Hall reporter Tina Daunt has also joined the staff as the trade's contributing editor for politics.
The Wrap saucily offers to let THR use its website code.
Federal suit by Penske Media Corporation alleges copyright infringement and more.
Robertson, an Oscar-winning actor whose credits span "Picnic" (1955) and "Spider-Man 3" (2007), died Saturday on Long Island at age 88.
Newcomb installed the first ski lift in Southern California, at Mt. Waterman.
Gotham City goons tried to stop Jeff Schultz from getting a shot of this weekend location shoot for "The Dark Knight Rises."
Many in Hollywood (and especially in Valleywood) wish the looming primary fight between the two Democrats would just go away.
Several adult film studios suspended production Monday after the Free Speech Coaltion, an industry group, reported that a performer may have tested positive for HIV.
Rep. Howard Berman may face reelection in a new (if still Democratic) district, and a likely opponent from his own party in Rep. Brad Sherman. But his Hollywood friends are still with him.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa goes with the end-of-an-era theme.
Edie Wasserman was called the first lady of Hollywood and with her late husband, the studio powerhouse Lew Wasserman, was a major donor to local institutions. She died today in...
KCET is announcing today a new partnership with Dominique Bigle, CEO of Eyetronics Media and Studios, to produce and air new local programs that will then be packaged domestically and globally.
Longtime Hollywood photographer David Strick is suing the Times and Tribune for using his photos 500 times.
Twenty-nine years after they frolicked on La Cienega and in the Beverly Hills fountain for the "Our Lips Are Sealed" video below, the Go-Go's showed up in Hollywood today...
Police investigating a reported suspicious package at a talent agency office on Rodeo Drive found — and blew up — a briefcase.
Imprisoned former Hollywood troubleshooter Anthony Pellicano said during his first prison interview — with Daily Beast writer Christine Pelisek for Newsweek magazine — that he knew enough about Arnold Schwarzenegger to prevent him from becoming governor. No details offered.
Before Lucy, before Desi, before she ran Desilu Studios and before even television, Ball was a showgirl and a blonde bombshell.
Lauren Ambrose will play the role of Fanny in the Los Angeles production of "Funny Girl" set to open at the Ahmanson Theatre in January.
Actor Jerry Lewis said in May that he was retiring from the muscular dystrophy telethon he had hosted since 1966, but that he hoped to make an appearance on this year's show.
No official word on cause of death, but police believe it was natural causes.
Dunaway is supposed to be living in NY, but she seems to be spending most of her time in West Hollywood.
Jacob Lassen works as a commercial actor sometimes, and crawls under houses the rest of the time.
Professor and author Leo Braudy will be the special guest, and I'll be the not-so-special interviewer and moderator, this Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Central Library in Downtown. It's for the ALOUD series.
Nikki Finke watchers are having a fun time with this morning's news that she's flacking a Hollywood-themed Facebook game with Paramount Digital Entertainment.
The Wrap is reporting that the Beverly Hills police have completed the investigation into the Nov. 16 murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen. The gun was stolen from a police officer in the Valley.
Debra Levine at Arts Meme urges movie fans to take in the final run of films curated by Ian Birnie at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In "Berth Marks," Laurel and Hardy (and Hal Roach) show off the bridge and the old Santa Fe rail station that was beside the river.
Television writer and producer created Gilligan and "The Brady Bunch," TV sitcom milestones from the 1960s that remain popular in syndication.
The question, Patrick Goldstein asks, is why?
The Wrap is bringing in Fred Schruers as a senior writer and Lucas Shaw, a recent Columbia grad, as media writer.
Nice interview by The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf with Rob Long, the Emmy-winning writer on "Cheers" who lives in Venice, does his weekly Martini Shot column for KCRW and continues to write for TV.
Not everyone's happy, but Councilman Krekorian is willing to play along.
I can't remember the last time I mentioned Beyonce, Wes Studi, Nastassja Kinski, Rooney Mara and Bradley Cooper in the same sentence. They are among the 178 actors, other artists and executives on today's list of newly invited members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Sharon Waxman of The Wrap calls out The Hollywood Reporter under Janice Min for lifting scoops and calling them "exclusives."
Mitchell tells IndieWire's Dana Harris that in his new role as curator for the Film Independent/Los Angeles County Museum of Art film series, "The first thing I want to do is not alienate people who have been coming to LACMA to see movies.
Conan O'Brien has sweetened, so to speak, his request for the city of Los Angeles to rename a segment of West Raymer Street beside the train tracks in Van Nuys....
Anne Thompson notes that Mitchell lands on his feet again, but she suggests the museum be aware of issues with his "skills as an administrator/manager/organizer."
In the small world of the Hollywood trades, Tuesday began with the former L.A. Times advertising exec Lynne Segall quitting MMC to become publisher and senior VP of The Hollywood Reporter. Then Nikki Finke posted a 1,300 word screed against Segall.
Ziskin died at home tonight after a long and public battle with breast cancer.
In the 1964 comedy Sex and the Single Girl, Tony Curtis (a womanizing tabloid reporter) and Natalie Wood (who plays Helen Gurley Brown) gallivant around Los Angeles — including on the new 405 freeway and its Mulholland Drive bridge.
Andrew Gold, who died Friday at home in Encino, had serious roots in the Los Angeles music scene. His father, Ernest Gold, won an Oscar for his score on the...
Mayor names new DOT head, stadium suspect stays in custody, Greuel on TV, James Arness dies and more.
Variety columnist Brian Lowry has a bad reaction to Sunday's Calendar story in the L.A. Times about the current cycle of action heroes in films being more impressively muscled than in previous rounds.
Marketing slogan: "The Feel Bad Movie of Christmas." Tag line: "She's coming." Watch the video.
Janice Min's THR makeover, Farrah Fawcett's death, Sheriff Baca's special recruit, how L.A. County cities fit together plus some quotables.
Gil Scott-Heron, Jeff Conaway, Margo Dydek, Irene Gilbert, Don Kubly, Dana Brand, Tom West.
Inspired by Oprah Winfrey's street in Chicago, Conan O'Brien calls on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to get it done. Video.
In a clip taken from the 1968 documentary "Cineaste de notre temps," the actor and filmmaker cruises through the Hollywood Hills in a convertible — with the Beach Boys singing "California Girls" on the radio — and complains there aren't enough people in L.A.
“We’re one of the few firms that sue; we don’t just send a letter,” Singer says in a NYT mini-profile of Hollywood's guard dog to the stars.
TMZ posts the documents showing that Gov. Schwarzenegger paid the down payment on Mildred Baena's house in Bakersfield.
Stuart worked in episodic television during almost the entire run of the genre, starting with "I Led Three Lives" in 1954 and concluding with the Showtime series "Huff" in 2006.
A snippet from the press conference in Cannes where the director of "Melancholia" admits that Hitler "was not one of the good guys," but someone he understands and sympathizes with.
Lisbeth Salander is all over the agenda for a two-day symposium in Royce Hall on the late Larsson's works and the larger genre.
At least there was no groping, eh?
Roseanne Barr writes a piece in New York magazine that covers a lot of ground from Charlie Sheen to the cruel illusions of fame to the treatment of women in Hollywood.
Professional Musicians Local 47 says its programming, which they call Pro Music 47 Radio, is the first "geared solely to promoting union musicians."
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver released a statement tonight saying they are living apart "while we work on the future of our relationship."
Laurents wrote the books for "West Side Story" and "Gypsy" and the screenplay (from his own novel) for "The Way We Were."
A "Glee" producer and New York mayor Bloomberg have a little fun at the L.A. mayor's expense.
Mitchell joined in January and now is out. Nikki Finke and Anne Thompson report different reasons.
Davis and her writing partner Bob Carroll Jr. were writing for Lucille Ball on radio when they collaborated on a TV pilot. The rest was television history. Also: Kevin Jarre.
President Obama is scheduled to land at LAX at about 2:45 P.M. Thursday. He then has to get to the Sony lot for a 4:30 fund-raising appearance, then up to Tavern in Brentwood for dinner and another fundraiser.
There were something like 5,000 people at the Nokia on Tuesday night to watch Tina Fey and Steve Martin mix and match wits.
President Obama will visit the Sony lot in Culver City and Tavern in Brentwood to meet with Hollywood donors.
Asked which one book she would recommend to President Obama, actress Wendie Malick offered one we like here at LA Observed too.
The son of Grouch Marx, he's known mostly for two books on his dad, sitcom work and the unauthorized and unflattering biography of Bob Hope.
Paramount said today it has optioned the movie rights to Ray Bradbury's classic 1950 short story collection.
A federal bankruptcy court judge unsealed an "explosive" 400-page court report on the affairs of film executive David Bergstein and his associate Ronald Tutor — then resealed the report. While it was available, the media got a look.
John Lippman, editor of the Company Town report, is moving his family to New Hampshire to work at a small newspaper that isn't on the web in a town that's not obsessed with Hollywood.
The best documentary I've seen this year, on the octogenarian New York Times street photographer who rides his bike around Manhattan, has escaped the Nuart ghetto.
Sidney Lumet debuted in 1957 with "12 Angry Men," directed "Dog Day Afternoon," "Serpico" and "Network" later in his career, and was nominated four times for Oscars.
Dawn Hudson, who has run Film Independent since 1991, will take over as CEO of the academy.
Entertainment blogger Nikki Finke may be on medical leave, but a post she put up — then took down — has prompted renewed talk of "Crazy Nikki" and "Hollywood’s leading internet terrorist."
While Sheen risks the livelihood of everyone at his show, Tina Fey lists as her greatest achievement "providing 200 people with a nice place to work."
The mainstream media sent real critics to the Charlie Sheen tour's opening night in Detroit, for whatever reason. It didn't take their experience to know it went very, very badly. But better tonight in Chicago.
AMC announced that the show's fifth season will happen, but the sixth is up in the air. Creator Matt Weiner's status also remains unclear.
Good news for LA Observed contributor Deanne Stillman, whose book, "Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West," will be the basis for a Hallmark Channel movie on mustang activist Velma Johnston.
David Lieberman, senior media reporter at USA Today, will join Deadline.com as Executive Editor on April 11.
A young Elizabeth Taylor plays Helen Burns in this 1943 rendition of "Jane Eyre," and shows up in the first scene (and others) in this YouTube clip.
Life.com posts unpublished photos of Elizabeth Taylor, the magazine's favorite movie star.
Taylor died early today of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She entered the hospital six weeks ago. Taylor won two best actress Oscars, for "Who's Afraid of Virginia...
Nikki Finke alleges at Deadline Hollywood that The Hollywood Reporter "deleted embarrassing information about Summit Entertainment principals from a financial story about the studio's refinancing in order to 'horse-trade' it for the cover story interview with Jodie Foster that appears in this week's print edition.
Rebecca Mansour, who lives in Hollywood and got an MFA from American Film Institute, is in Sarah Palin's inner circle as message crafter and social media defender.
File this in the corner of your mind where you're a least a little concerned about editorial standards at the new AOL.
Dana Goodyear has a good piece in this week's New Yorker on therapist Barry Michels and psychiatrist Phil Stutz, whose niche is helping Hollywood creative types.
As part of the publicity onslaught for "The Lincoln Lawyer," the new movie from Michael Connelly's mystery of the same name, the author and lead actor Matthew McConaughey chat for a Times reporter while parked in an SUV on Connelly's old street above Laurel Canyon.
The animated movie is set in the fictional town of Dirt. There's a character, a desert tortoise named Mayor, who dreams of imported water turning Dirt into a green paradise.
Andrew Wallenstein moves from paidContent to be television editor at Variety.
KCRW's Elvis Mitchell has re-edited and posted a conversation with the late Sally Menke.
After she picked up her Oscar last night and went backstage to meet the media, Natalie Portman was asked by a reporter why she wasn't wearing Dior — she's a...
More than 100 employees of the hit TV show shut down after star Charlie Sheen's recent outburst will get full paychecks for the season's final four unproduced episodes.
Fields dismisses cease and desist letter and says that Nikki Finke and company have engaged in trade libel and unfair competition.
Jane Russell is probably best known as the busty actress whose cleavage Howard Hughes exploited so flagrantly in "The Outlaw." Her life story, though, runs through several other prominent Los Angeles threads.
All those predictions that Natalie Portman and Colin Firth would win the top acting Oscars and "The King's Speech" would win best picture — they were right.
Life magazine has posted a nice online gallery of photos from Oscars past, including this one with Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn backstage at the 1956 ceremony at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood.
Melena Ryzik, lead writer for the New York Times' Carpetbagger awards blog, hit town this week and attended the Hollywood Reporter Oscars party on Thursday night at the mayor's residence...
Kind of a ragged show on IFC tonight from the Film Independent Spirit Awards — lots of gaps and fumbles. The actors also seemed fairly miserable about the chilly temperature in the tent on Santa Monica Beach.
Nikki Finke says that the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences this morning pulled her film editor Mike Fleming's backstage press credential to cover Sunday's Oscars, citing Deadline's reporting of spoilers about the show.
Reacting apparently to Nikki Finke posting details of Sunday's Oscar telecast, Hollywood blogger David Poland has posted a "Crazy Nikki" rant that's aggressive even for him — and also says that motion picture academy president Tom Sherak should be fired "if he continues to feed her any information."
She tells the New York Times fashion magazine that she's now a French housewife who cooks every night, but there's also the designer clothes and front-row seats at the fashion shows.
There are spoilers galore in Nikki Finke's report on what will be in the Oscars show on Sunday, so tread carefully if that matters to you.
An NBC source says that "Today" will do a pre-Oscars piece about (or with?) Deadline's Nikki Finke in the 7:30 a.m. half-hour on Friday's show.
Danielle Berrin, who writes the Hollywood Jew column for the Jewish Journal, recounts her failed attempt to get an interview with Aaron Sorkin about the women in "The Social Network" — and his reaction to the column she did finally write.
Storm that's coming could bring snow to areas that rarely see it.
Javier Bardem, Helen Mirren and Matthew McConaughey have been newly added to the list of Oscar presenters at Sunday's ceremony. Mo’Nique and Christoph Waltz, winners last year and thus invited...
Deadline's Nikki Finke has publicly called out The Wrap for taking her content, and reports that a "cease-and-desist" letter was sent from her corporate overseer to Sharon Waxman and her board of directors
On a recent episode of "The Simpsons," Bart Simpson's list of "must-see attractions" for Los Angeles included Cerritos Auto Square, Keyes on Van Nuys, "The Valley," LAX lot C, the...
It's all about academy voters' second and third choices for Best Picture. 'Social Network,' maybe.
The new West Hollywood restaurant by Craig Susser, former manager at Dan Tana's, got the feature treatment in the New York Times over the weekend.
This year's 25th run of Last Remaining Seats in the Broadway Historic Theatre District will open at the Orpheum with "Rear Window," the Alfred Hitchcock classic starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, and end there with Harold Lloyd in "Safety Last."
Great New York Times story this weekend looking deep into the phenomenon that saw J.C. Penney turn up as the #1 result on a variety of Google keyword searches: from dresses and bedding to Samsonite carry on luggage — ahead of Samsonite itself.
Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michael Milken and a bunch of Hollywood types came out to the home of Peter Chernin Thursday night for a discussion of discuss global health issues.
Variety has openings for paid spring and summer interns.
I'm just catching up with this from last week's LA Weekly.
She says it's not her, and The Daily doesn't sound all that convinced, but they run it anyway.
Jane Fonda blogged on Tuesday that tonight's opening performance of "33 Variations" at the Ahmanson Theatre would be attended by Cher, Colin Farrell, Angelica Huston, Chelsea Handler, Rosanna Arquette, Carla Gugino, Christian Slater, Peter Fonda, John Glover, Ben Vereen, Lindsay Lohan "and many other friends and family." She was right.
The movie version of Michael Connelly's 20xx bestseller stars Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller, an L.A. defense attorney who eschews an office and operates out of the back of his Lincoln Continental.
Judy Graeme at Native Intelligence got a preview this afternoon of the new exhibition of costumes from the past year's Hollywood movies that opens Tuesday at FIDM.
Men are included among the young bodies that Vanity Fair hopes will boost magazine sales this year. Here's who they put on the cover.
"The Kings Speech" picked up the Screen Actors Guild's equivalent of the best picture Oscar tonight. Colin Firth and Natalie Portman picked up the top actor awards.
Jane Fonda's third act, multi-racial America, The Dude in London and more.
Robert Bucksbaum, the Majestic Crest Theatre savior who got out of the cinema biz last year, sent an email to his former patrons today saying he now owns a guest ranch in Colorado. And you're invited.
In tonight's KCRW column: location filming, "Somewhere" and Buster Keaton.
Beverly Hills Police Chief David Snowden told the Hollywood Reporter that the final ballistics report confirms that Harold Martin Smith gunned down publicist Ronni Chasen on Nov. 16.
Angelina Jolie is to blame, says Sean Smith, the Entertainment Weekly bureau chief in L.A. who quit last week to serve in the Peace Corps.
L.A. Times columnist Patrick Goldstein says Ricky Gervais and Robert De Niro made show business history by getting down and dirty on Sunday's Golden Globes telecast.
There were no TV cameras and few reporters at Saturday night's Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards dinner. That's the way VP Tim Grierson likes it.
"The Social Network" won four Golden Globes tonight, ending with the award for best drama — surpassing "The King's Speech," which had the most nominations coming in to the night.
But he says it was worth it, despite the toll on his family.
Sean Smith is leaving as Los Angeles bureau chief of Entertainment Weekly to serve overseas in the Peace Corps.
"Before Black Swan, I had never danced in my life, and I will never dance again."
Michael Russell says his employer of 17 years, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and its awards are tainted by fraud and corrupt practices.
Elvis Mitchell, the longtime print film writer and critic who hosts "The Treatment" on KCRW, has signed on as co-chief film critic (with ex-Salon critic Stephanie Zacharek ) for the expanding Movieline.
The new W unveils the first official look at American actress Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, the kick-ass heroine of the Swedish trilogy by the late Stieg Larsson.
Among the new state officials of various kinds are Susan Kennedy, Schwarzenegger's chief of staff, his press secretary and Kimberly Belshé, his cabinet secretary for health and human services.
Nice piece in the new Angeleno magazine on past residents (and current staffers) on what they like about the Chateau Marmont hotel.
Now the Hullabaloo Dancers — they dance.
Neighborhood councils, Hollywood, City Hall politics and more.
KCRW says that on tonight's "Which Way, L.A.?," City Council President Eric Garcetti and "Good Food" host Evan Kleiman will discuss details of a deal struck today between the Hollywood Farmer's Market and the LA Film School.
Sofia Coppola, that's who.
Michael Speier is no longer Nikki Finke's managing editor at Deadline, just three months after he hired on to much Finkeian fanfare. But he hasn't completely left either, she emails.
Michael Speier departs Deadline.com and other media notes.
"The Social Network" was voted best picture today by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. "Carlos" was runner-up.
Sam Rubin of KTLA takes to Twitter to say how much he dislikes the new Angelina Jolie vehicle.
Dana Harris has been at Variety for nearly 11 years.
Andrew Blankstein at the L.A. Times has a law enforcement source who says, not for attribution, that the gun Harold Smith used to kill himself in Hollywood appears to match the gun used to kill publicist Ronni Chasen.
Sallie Hofmeister, assistant managing editor for arts and entertainment coverage at the Los Angeles Times, says in an email sent a few hours ago that she wants her Company Town entertainment bloggers to be more "surprising or interesting."
One resident at the dicey Hollywood apartment building where "Harold" shot himself last night says he had bragged about killing Ronni Chasen.
The L.A. Times is reporting that "a man described as a suspect in the slaying of veteran Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen fatally shot himself at a Hollywood apartment house Wednesday evening as Beverly Hills police were serving a search warrant there."
LAT film columnist and Big Picture blogger Patrick Goldstein announced last night that he will be expanding his portfolio and adding James Rainey as a co-blogger.
The editors of the American Bar Association's ABA Journal have put up their annual list of top 100 legal blogs, including several SoCal gems.
Nikki Finke says the pair of actors have been asked to host the Academy Awards telecast and both have tentatively agreed.
The Canadian actor who had a long dramatic career before he was cast in "Airplane!" and as LAPD Lt. Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun movies died near his home in Fort Lauderdale.
David Poland at Movie City News talks with Natalie Portman at length about "Black Swan," her new movie.
Close to a thousand mourners overflowed the chapel at Hillside Sunday, crowding onto a patio to pay their respects to slain publicist Ronni Chasen.
The Hollywood Reporter is going with a story that the working theory is that the attack on Ronni Chasen was planned in advance and not the result of road rage or a carjacking gone awry.
Nobody has been able to advance the story much on this morning's killing of publicist Ronni Chasen, while Hollywood reacts. Services are Sunday.
Longtime Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, 64, was found dead of five gunshot wounds about 12:30 a.m. today in her Mercedes-Benz E-350, which had crashed into a light pole on Whittier Drive just south of Sunset Boulevard.
In the video, LA Observed's Judy Graeme goes through LACMA's exhibit on fashions of the 1700's and 1800's with Marlene Stewart, a costume designer on films such as "Ali," "The Doors" and "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian."
The singer got her star today on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. City Council President Eric Garcetti uploaded the mobile photo to his Facebook page.
De Laurentiis died Wednesday at home in Beverly Hills. Not many Hollywood producers have this range of credits, both hits and flops.
Actress Jessica Alba, the cover babe in December's Elle, is quoted saying that "good actors, never use the script unless it’s amazing writing. All the good actors I’ve worked with,...
Leo Wolinskly, the former Los Angeles Times executive editor who joined Daily Variety as editor late last last year, has been let go.
After 11 years, the monthly gathering of media and Hollywood types started by TV writer Scott Kaufer, blogger Mickey Kaus and journalist-author Steve Oney is leaving Yamashiro.
This week's photo by Gary Leonard, as writer Rip Rense rightly suggests via email, might benefit from some background on Tyrus Wong.
"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest," the third and ostensibly final film with Noomi Rapace playing the part of Swedish hacker-punk-heroine Lisbeth Salander, opens Friday to the approval of Roger Ebert.
No actual knowledge of what happened, but I'll assume L.A. Live lured Film Independent's last Spirit Awards Downtown with a special deal — then didn't offer it again for next...
LA Observed helps to sponsor the Live Talks Los Angeles series of conversations around town, and producer Ted Habte-Gabr is offering tickets to LAO readers who want to take in Thursday night's session between actor Michael Caine and Sharon Waxman of The Wrap.
So, people are bothered that actors who unconvincingly play high school kids pose for a sexy photo spread in a glossy fashion magazine for men?
Rebecca Keegan and Nicole Sperling are joining the L.A. Times movie staff, writing for print and online. Read the memo.
Wicked Pictures and Vivid Entertainment stopped production after a performer identified by one industry source as a male who does gay and straight films tested positive for HIV.
This house ad for the Los Angeles Times awards season coverage is unintentionally funny, given that there are bloggers in this city with more experience and higher standards than some...
The departure of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to run for mayor of Chicago is not good news for his brother Ari, says Sharon Waxman at The Wrap.
Anne Thompson becomes editor-at-large, Todd McCarthy ankles for the Hollywood Reporter.
Cannell wrote best-selling novels and for TV shows like "Adam-12" and "Mission Impossible," then went on to produce series such as ""The Rockford Files," "The A-Team" and "21 Jump Street." He died Thursday at home in Pasadena from complications associated with melanoma.
The giant comics-plus convention will announce Friday it's remaining in San Dego for at least five years.
Tony Curtis starred opposite Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon in "Some Like it Hot" — which the American Film Institute named the best comedy of the 20th century.— and got an Oscar nomination for "The Defiant Ones."
Art Gilmore narrated hundreds of movie trailers, television episodes and radio shows. He also worked back in the day as a news announcer at KFWB and KNX.
Arthur Penn, the director of "Bonnie and Clyde," The Miracle Worker" and "Alice's Restaurant," died Tuesday in New York a day after turning 88.
The body of a hiker reported missing yesterday in Griffith Park has been located at the bottom of a ravine. Law-enforcement sources say it's Sally Menke, Quentin Tarantino's editor on...
The film is hosted by actor Adrian Grenier, who it's said became interested when he noticed Autsin Visschedyk, then 14, taking pictures in a pack of Hollywood paparazzi.
The David Fincher movie based on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg opens the New York Film Festival tonight.
Rob Guth, the Wall Street Journal's tech reporter based in San Francisco, is coming south to be Los Angeles bureau chief. Read the memo.
Catching up with some stuff that's been piling up.
Bacon and Mann both made their names interviewing movie stars and other Hollywood celebrities.
After Michael Speier was laid off last year as executive editor of Daily Variety, he served a stint as news editor for Sharon Waxman at The Wrap. Now he's joining Waxman's arch-rival Nikki Finke in the new position of managing editor at Deadline.
The next shock for Times readers could be an upcoming ad campaign for "Law and Order: Los Angeles" that Variety says again blurs the line between editorial and advertising, similar to previous ads in the Times for "Southland" and the King Kong attraction at Universal Studios.
Janice Min's Hollywood Reporter will switch to a weekly magazine next next month, the New York Times says. "A mix of analytical and feature articles and photo spreads, will be...
Roger Ebert and his wife Chaz will co-produce a new version of "At the Movies" for PBS, with KCRW's Elvis Mitchell and Christy Lemire of Associated Press as the main critics.
Robert Bucksbaum, who recently announced he is giving up the Majestic Crest theatre in Westwood, says in his final email to customers that a chain will be taking over and continuing to show movies.
reakout Swedish actress Noomi Rapace sat down in Venice with Anne Thompson to talk about her new movie projects, her recent introductory trip to Hollywood and leaving behind the role of Lisbeth Salander.
Janice Min's arrival at the Hollywood Reporter has left the trade's previous staffers feeling shut out, Sharon Waxman says.
Writer, filmmaker and Los Angeles political figure Kelly Candaele has launched Politics and Films to write about feature films and documentaries from a political perspective.
Appearing tonight on David Letterman's show, actor Michael Douglas said his throat cancer has advanced to stage IV, the most advanced form using that rating system.
For some (OK, me) the highlight of the Emmy awards broadcast was Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Lea Michele and a bunch of other actors — even the heavyset guy from "Lost" — running through the Nokia Theater in an homage to "Glee.
The mayor of Los Angeles should go to the Emmys, but given Antonio Villaraigosa's recent controversy over freebies the question will be asked this time: was he gifted, did he perform some vaguely official function, or both?
In her column at The Wrap, editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman invites arch-rival on the web Nikki Finke to come speak at the Wrap's first entertainment industry leadership conference.
Amid all the talk about the American actress who will replace her as Lisbeth Salander in the remake of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," the real thing is in town this week launching a Hollywood career.
From the Beverly Hilton to Hancock Park and back they go, compliments of the feed by Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal to the White House press corps.
I was wrong: there's still life in the Lisbeth Salander topic. American actress Rooney Mara has been tapped to play the heroine of Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy in the English-language version of "The Girl with the DragonTattoo."
KTLA entertainment anchor Sam Rubin is executive producing and hosting a new weekly talk show for Reelzchannel they're calling "Hollywood Uncensored With Sam Rubin" and billing as "'The McLaughlin Group' meets 'Real Time With Bill Maher' with a Hollywood spin.
Wolper also produced "L.A. Confidential" and the children's classic "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," as well as the opening and closing ceremonies at the 1984 Olympic Games in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Before we leave the subject of Lisbeth Salander, this video from ABC's Nightline: author Stieg Larsson's girlfriend talks about how the character came to be introduced in "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."
In his Great Movies series for the Chicago Sun-Times, Ebert says there are basically two kinds of people when it comes to the 2003 film "Lost in Translation." Those who get the subtle relationship of empathy and loneliness between Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, and those who "want to know what it's about."
Noomi Rapace is so perfect as sulky, brilliant hacker-heroine Lisbeth Salander that it seems like a waste to spend any time trying to cast the part for the English-language version of "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."
In the afternoon I parked on Wilshire, between Grand and Hope — so it was easy to spot that block in "Inception" a few hours later.
Email about one of the city's cinema treasure from owner Roebert Bucksbaum, who saved the theatre from closing once and has been trying to sell it since 2008.
"Off-Ramp" this weekend talks to Michael Q Schmidt, 57 years old and about 300 pounds, who has made his career as an actor and nude model.
Patrick Goldstein admits he was left confused by "Inception," though he liked the film, and he devotes a post at The Big Picture to why the older people are, the more they hated "Inception."
This Hollywood Reporter story with a "Glee" tie-in isn't a spoof, but it could be. Commenters at the THR site are brutal.
You Tube sensation and ex-NFL player Isaiah Mustafa talks to the Hollywood Reporter about the stardom of sorts that has come his way since he pitched Old Spice in the year's biggest online marketing coup not perpetrated by Apple.
Gammon's first television credits were in the 1960s in westerns such as "The Wild, Wild West," "Bonanza" and "Gunsmoke" — though he also showed up on "Batman," "Charlie's Angels" and...
Julie Makinen, who left the Los Angeles Times awhile back to live in Hong Kong as deputy business editor of the Asian edition of the International Herald Tribune, is returning as movie editor on the LAT entertainment desk.
The trailer for "What Women Want," with new dialogue from Mad Mel. Er, allegedly from Mel Gibson.
Ray Bradury says Mel Gibson is too busy with "that Russian girl" right now to move ahead with a film remake of his classic book.
Radar Online has posted a longer audio clip of Mel Gibson berating girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva over the phone
Well, if you mean the movie, it's way "Despicable." An ad for the new movie "Despicable Me" covers the top and bottom of the Los Angeles Times Calendar section —...
Nice little real Hollywood story on longtime camera operator Hector Ramirez, whose five Emmy nominations this morning gives him the career record.
For two reasons I'll be opening my Los Angeles Times early tomorrow.
This time the full-page ad designed to fool readers for a few seconds is a mock version of the LAT Extra section — using the real nameplate and date but...
I caught In the Heights last night at the Pantages and saw what all the fuss is about, both for the 2008 Tony winner for best musical and the fans'...
Time magazine's online team rated a bunch of blogs again this year, and for the Los Angeles-based blogosphere the results are mixed.
The March cover that featured Kristen Stewart, Amanda Seyfried, Carey Mulligan, Anna Kendrick and a bunch of other young, thin, white actresses has been the worst selling of the year so far for Vanity Fair.
When they shot "Airplane!" on the Universal backlot, it's unlikely that the Zucker brothers (Jerry and David) and Jim Abrahams expected the spoof would be analyzed and immortalized in the New York Times thirty years later. But here we are.
The Wrap has now been around long enough to reach that point in every website's life where it had to start over with a new design and back-end infrastructure.
"Memphis” won the Tony Award for best musical on Sunday night, “Red” won for best play, and Hollywood actors Catherine Zeta-Jones, Denzel Washington, Viola Davis and Scarlett Johansson all won in their categories.
Longtime political activist and Hollywood public relations strategist Stephen Rivers died Monday after a long battle with cancer.
Joseph Strick brought James Joyce's "Ulysses" to the big screen, won an Oscar for his documentary on My Lai veterans, made noteworthy documentaries on L.A.'s Muscle Beach in 1948 and an L.A. divorcee's life in 1960, and also commissioned a Santa Monica Canyon home that is the only North American residence by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.
The first press release has come in from Janice Min's new Hollywood Reporter.
Richard Stayton, now the editor-in-chief of Written By, was working at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1985 when he met and first wrote about Dennis Hopper.
Rachel Abramowitz is leaving to to work on "Outlaw Country," a new FX show she wrote with her husband.
The underlings at Deadline Hollywood finally explained this morning the whereabouts of their missing leader.
Dennis Hopper died this morning at home in Venice, likely from complications of advanced prostate cancer.
Coleman, the child star of the hit sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes," died at a hospital in Provo, Utah after suffering a brain hemorrhage at home earlier this week.
Voltage Pictures' complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. doesn't name anybody, but incorporates 5,000 people it says illegally downloaded the Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker."
The Los Angeles Times Media Group on Thursday announced that it "restructured" the entertainment division of its advertising department, naming three new vice presidents. The most interesting part was buried...
"(500) Days of Summer" re-envisioned as a thriller.
he Los Angeles Theatre on Broadway was packed last night for the opening film of the 24th year of Last Remaining Seats.
Former Us Weekly editor Janice Min has been named the editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter, says Huffington Post media editor Danny Shea on Twitter.
Kent Mackenzie's 1961 film about Native Americans living in Downtown Los Angeles premiered that year at the Venice Film Festival but was not released commercially. It screens Wednesday at The Hammer.
An LAFD crew answering a 911 call pronounced screenwriter Simon Monjack dead at his home in the Hollywood Hills.
HBO is trying to make a deal with "litigious showbiz blogger Nikki Finke" to be a consultant on its new show "Tilda," which is pretty clearly based on Finke.
Remember the lawsuit that alleged Variety violated a deal by running a critical review of "Iron Cross' while the film's producers were buying ads in the trade paper? A judge said no way, on First amendment grounds.
Both drama critics of the New York Times, Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood, say that Scarlett Johansson deserves a Tony award for her Broadway debut in the revival of Arthur Miller’s “View From the Bridge.”
Lena Horne was the first black performer signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio — MGM, for whom she appeared in “Panama Hattie” in 1942 — and by the end of World War II was being called the country's top black entertainer.
an LA Observed reader sent me to this Yale Law Review article from 1993 in which Alex Kozinski, the U.S. 9th Circuit judge, and Eugene Volokh, the UCLA scholar and law blogger, do a thorough briefing on Yiddishisms in the law.
Bella will enjoy her next kiss in "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" at the Los Angeles Film Festival, which opens June 17 in its new downtown location at L.A. Live. See the full schedule.
The summer film's title, “Dinner for Schmucks,” gets a thorough analysis by Michael Cieply in the New York Times.
The L.A. Times Magazine has an online array of photos from yesterday's fashion spread that accompanies a Q&A with Kobe Bryant. They call it White Hot.
Redgrave died last night after a lengthy fight against breast cancer.
Lopez, a name partner at Century City's Kleinberg Lopez Lange Cuddy & Klein, has represented Michael Jackson and members of the Eagles, and had been a producer on "Selena." He...
Instead of preserving the Hollywood sign in its static condition as a legally condoned supergraphic, why not embrace its inner hotel potential?
Less than two months after losing his longtime gig as chief film critic at Variety, Todd McCarthy has signed on with IndieWire to do film commentary on a blog they are calling Todd McCarthy's Deep Focus.
Marty Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, argues that piracy, digital technology and the expectation of consumers that Internet content is free makes this "not a happy time to be an entertainment industry executive."
Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota is having a fundraiser Friday night at the House of Blues on Sunset Strip that's calling on his Saturday Night Live days.
The venture capital firm co-founded by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has, along with other investors, put another $2 million into The Wrap, the site says in a news release.
They can't both be right. I suppose we'll find out pretty soon which one is BSing.
Former LA Weekly film critic Scott Foundas won two awards, including print critic of the year, and KABC 7’s George Pennacchio also won a pair at the at the Los Angeles Press Club’s third annual National Entertainment Awards tonight.
Sharon Waxman sends word that while Joe Adalian is leaving as television editor of The Wrap, the TV blog he brought with him is staying.
Matthew Belloni of The Hollywood Reporter finally got to read the script for a potential HBO series about a "no-holds-barred show biz blogger." His main question going in was answered: it's definitely based on Nikki Finke.
Joe Adalian just joined the Wrap last June, but he's taking his address book and his TV MoJoe blog (originally started at TV Week) to New York Magazine's entertainment site Vulture.
Crisis PR meister Mike Sitrick has been sued in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by a former employee (on behalf of them all) who says the boss at Sitrick and Company manipulated the ESOP to deprive current and former employees of millions of dollars
Myrna Loy crossed over from the silents to carve out a career as the witty, urbane type in 1930s Hollywood fare. She attended the Westlake School for Girls, but for decades a statue said to be based on her stood outside Venice High School. Venice alumni raised the money to restore the sculpture, and on Saturday a restored sculpture will be re-dedicated.
Judge seizes control in rare move after David Bergstein, who runs Capitol, ThinkFilm and related entities, was described in court as overseeing "the Enron of the entertainment world."
The Bruin and the older Village (the one with the Fox sign on the tower) are being taken over by Regency Theatres.
The show business news franchise anchored by Nikki Finke's Deadline | Hollywood has hired Nellie Andreeva, television editor of The Hollywood Reporter since 2004, to become TV editor.
Variety columnist Brian Lowry must have been amused by Nikki Finke's claim that the new owners of The Hollywood Reporter included a $1 million home in Malibu as part of an offer to get her to come on as editor in chief (with a salary of $450,000.) From Lowry's BLTv blog.
Variety Editor Tim Gray has been telling studio PR types that if they give casting scoops to the online competition, the paper won't run their big announcement stories in print. Plus: Nikki Finke for sale again?
Marshall had the inside access and the eye to shoot some of the most iconic images of rock and roll musicians
Variety is "in search of a full-time NY-based reporter to cover finance and entertainment," Variety.com editor Chris Krewson posts on his Twitter feed.
Fess Parker's first credit was in the 1950 film "Harvey," but he became widely known as Disney's Davy Crockett later that decade and as Daniel Boone. More recently Parker has...
With the local Blockbuster closing, Tabloid Baby blogs that the community at the far end of Sunset Boulevard from Downtown — home to Hollywood heavies such as Steven Spielberg, Kate Hudson "and until yesterday, Peter Graves" — will be without a bricks-and-mortar video outlet.
The New York Times sets up a piece examining the future of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter by saying the "feisty tradition of entertainment trade reporting and criticism...has been so severely tested in recent weeks that some wonder whether the entire era is drawing to a close."
Graves was found dead Sunday at home in Pacific Palisades.
Today's LA Observed piece during "All Things Considered" on KCRW talks about the L.A. story of this week that had a little of everything. That would be Jennifer Steinhauer's New...
When the Rams were a big deal in Los Angeles, Olsen anchored their Fearsome Foursome defensive line. He went on to be longtime color commentator for NBC’s pro football and Rose Bowl telecasts, and a television actor on “Little House on the Prairie” and in his own series, “Father Murphy.”
Los Angeles magazine arts critic Steve Erickson's nomination for an American Society of Magazine Editors award is for three reviews he wrote last year.
David Poland's Hollywood blog debuted Sept. 5, 2004 and with this entry today has reached 5,000 posts — with more than 140,000 amassed comments. In post number 4,999, he observes and elaborates that Hollywood killed Corey Haim.
It's been amusing watching today's Twitter traffic from reporters who showed up at The Hump, the exotic food restaurant in Santa Monica fingered in this morning's New York Times for serving outlawed whale meat.
The producers contend that a negative review violated the terms of a $400,000 deal with the trade to promote the movie for Oscar consideration.
Jose Pepe Fanjul, said to be one of the world's richest men, and his wife Emilia reportedly were cleaned out of millions of dollars worth of jewelry on Friday at the Four Seasons hotel — by a man in a tuxedo who chatted them up in the elevator then came to their room.
Today's moves turn out to be about much more than dropping the chief film and theater critics, who have been asked to write as freelancers. Variety is restructuring its newsroom,...
His tweet: "Variety fires Todd McCarthy & I cancel my subscription. He was my reason 2 read the paper. RIP, schmucks"
Two of the trade's most prominent writers, film reviewer Todd McCarthy and theater critic David Rooney, have been cut as cost-saving measures. Reviews will be done by freelancers.
The Chic Leak blog has some backstory on the woman who popped up to commandeered the microphone from documentary short winner Roger Ross Williams.
Bigelow becomes the first woman to win the best director Oscar, and "The Hurt Locker" takes best picture. Bigelow's previous movies: Mission Zero, K-19: The Widowmaker, The Weight of Water,...
On the Oscars red carpet, Mayor Villaraigosa complimented the animal welfare message of "Avatar" while Lu Parker smiled over his shoulder.
It's a wrap around the real L.A. Times front page this morning, arguably not as bad as last year when the paper sold an actual story spot on the real front page.
Sure was strange to see the Los Angeles Times lead the Calendar section with a big photo and Kenneth Turan review of "Alice in Wonderland" on Thursday, instead of the usual Friday. The reason for the change, according to a soft-section insider at the LAT, is that the ad department sold Disney two front-of-Calendar spots for Alice ads in Friday's paper.
Tonight at Getty House, Mayor Villaraigosa is hosting a pre-Oscars reception for Academy Awards nominees
Remarks by curmudgeonly Time critic Richard Schickel stole the show at a weekend panel to discuss the state of film criticism, pegged to the screening of the documentary "For the Love of Movies," by Boston Phoenix critic and filmmaker Gerald Peary.
Gawker suggests that a $400,000 advertising campaign by the producers of "Iron Cross" led to Variety's publisher spiking a mediocre review by Robert Koehler from the trade's website
An essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education traces the history and decline of film reviewing in the face of competition from Internet critics. "If the traditional film critic was...
In the new TV spot for "The Runaways" film, the relatively short-lived but fondly recalled SoCal fast-food chain shows up as "Pup 'n' Fries."
Actually, Labov was co-president of the Hollywood PR firm with Leslie Sloane Zelnik. Therein may lie a clue into his departure.
Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist posted this photo of longtime L.A. media person Elvis Mitchell after being interviewed by Mitchell on "The Treatment" on KCRW.
"Much blacker than even the darkest film noir," Scott says, and he means it in the good way.
Photo on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, from a photo feature on actor Jeff Bridges in Sunday's New York Times Magazine.
Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” pretty much swept the Orange British Academy Film Awards tonight at London’s Royal Opera House.
"Inglourious Basterds" and "An Education" were not eligible.
Roger Ebert wrote this week about his reactions to the Esquire story and how shocked he was to see the portrait that has gotten so much attention.
With the movie house on the verge of closing, director Quentin Tarantino decided to buy the place where he had spent so much time.
Television's most famous movie critic is rarely seen and never heard, says Esquire in a nicely detailed piece. But Roger Ebert is still reviewing movies and "producing the best work of his life."
Blanchard opened the Hollywood agency that bore her name in 1961 and represented, among others, Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, Shari Belafonte, Rene Russo and Cristina Ferrare.
Conan O'Brien's contract language did specify that he would host "The Tonight Show" at 11:35 p.m.
Variety has a craigslist ad up looking for a part-time web editor (with one whole year of experience), prompting former Variety columnist Anne Thompson to tweet: "this after Variety laid...
Most of the local action for "Battle: Los Angeles" was shot in Shreveport, Louisiana, using painted palm trees, with other footage gathered in Baton Rouge. “You’re never going to know we didn’t shoot the movie in Los Angeles,” producer Neal Moritz.
NYU journalism professor and media critic/innovator Jay Rosen argues in a Visiting Blogger post that The Wrap fell for a tale about GOP consultant Frank Luntz going Hollywood.
The academy got what it wanted: a broader menu of best picture options, some of which aren't as worthy as one might like.
Film Independent has put up two decades of opening monologues and dozens of acceptance speeches and other clips from the show on Babelgum.
The city has paid $3.35 million for ten acres and the home designed by Paul R. Williams for actress Barbara Stanwyck, a vestige of the Valleywood horse-ranching heyday.
Orbison, who gets his star Friday, will be outside the Capitol Records tower next to John Lennon and George Harrison.
Kristen Stewart, as usual, is so uncomfortable doing media it always creeps me out a bit to watch her.
The cast of "Inglorious Basterds" won the honor for top film ensemble today at the Screen Actors Guild awards at the Shrine Auditorium.
Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza decided today that fugitive director Roman Polanski has to return to a Los Angeles courtroom in order to be sentenced in the 1977 sexual assault case.
Here is your list of Golden Globes winners.
That's the negotiated settlement amount The Wrap hears from sources.
His last 'Tonight Show' may be Jan. 22, but Conan O'Brien had it rocking in last night's monologue.
L.A. journalist Alex Ben Block was the lead editor on the the new book, "George Lucas's Blockbusting: A Decade-By-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies." Block, now at the Hollywood Reporter, will...
Plus ex-Hollywood Reporter publisher Robert Dowling on what ails the trades.
L.A. Times editor-at-large Jim Newton is now teaching a course in journalism ethics at UCLA, part of his appointment as a senior fellow in the School of Public Affairs. In...
Hollywood columnist-blogger Anne Thompson says that hiring Mike Fleming away from Variety is a smart move for Deadline|Hollywood, if he can co-exist with Nikki Finke.
The company backing Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood blog is expanding the site with two more entertainment journalists, including Variety veteran Mike Fleming.
Diane Haithman, the former Los Angeles Times arts and enterrtainment writer, has joined Finke's Deadline Hollywood as an interviewer of TV show runners
The suspect knew the Fountain Theatre director and producer, police say.
From Hollywood power lunches to house arrest with an ankle bracelet.
I thought I liked Mulholland Dr. as much as the next guy, and probably more than most. But I'm surprised the David Lynch film tops a survey of the best...
Paul Frommer, a professor of clinical management communication at the USC Marshall School of Business, got the gig to create about 1,000 words for the Na'vi, who inhabit the moon...
Karina Longworth is the new film editor at the LA Weekly. She is the co-founder of Cinematical.com, the former editor of SpoutBlog, and calls her personal film blog Vidiocy. (She...
The actress died this morning of cardiac arrest at Cedars-Sinai, after being found in the shower at home by her mother, according to TMZ, citing reports from the LAFD and...
The first (I think) teaser is out for "The Runaways," billed as the story of the 1970s rock band that featured Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, among others, and...
Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt Disney and a director emeritus of the family studio, died Wednesday morning after battling stomach cancer. His name is on REDCAT downtown. Roundup of...
Residents of Santa Monica have been warned to expect low-flying military helicopters over the city during the lunch rush on Tuesday. It may look and sound like a war zone,...
Unveiling its 2009 awards today, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association anointed "The Hurt Locker" as best picture and Kathryn Bigelow as top director, Yolande Moreau as best actress for...
This is at least the third iteration I recall, but Variety on Thursday will start charging again for some web content. Here's how the trade explains it: After clicking on...
One tactic the Hollywood news site The Wrap is using to get its name out there is to host free film screenings. Judging by tonight, it's working. So many people...
Leo Wolinsky, an editor and reporter at the Los Angeles Times for 31 years, has been named editor of Daily Variety, "encompassing both the L.A. and Gotham editions," the trade...
At this weekend's Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, Mel Brooks said that picking up the award at the age of 83 was “better late than never.” Other honorees were Dave...
In part three of Iris Schneider's exclusive-to-LA Observed posts following Bruce Lisker's reentry to society after 26 years behind bars, Bruce moves in with Kara in Marina del Rey. Iris...
Nice portrait (by Michael Muller) that goes with a profile of Ryan Seacrest by Amanda Fortini in today's T Magazine in the New York Times. She calls Seacrest the invisible...
Television writer Earl Pomerantz has been blogging about his time in the hospital leading up to, and after, open heart surgery. If nothing else, he seems in a good enough...
KFI's news Twitter feed says that convicted killer Phil Spector is at a dentist's office in Toluca Lake right now, escorted by prison correctional officers. Update: Yes, Spector was allowed...
Yes, Claudia Eller will still be digging for scoops in Hollywood. But she's shifting to also help manage the other reporters for Company Town, the L.A. Times' entertainment news operation....
Assistant Managing Editor for Arts and Entertainment Sallie Hofmeister tonight announced the second recent hire to fill openings on the L.A. Times entertainment team. We told you about Steven Zeitchik...
Hollywoodnews.com expects to launch in January with former Los Angeles Times film reporter Robert Welkos as the editor and Carlos de Abreu as CEO and publisher. Welkos posted about it...
Here's a hire that will be closely scrutinized and dissected, no matter who gets it: the LA Weekly is looking for a replacement for Scott Foundas. The L.A. Weekly is...
Hollywood marketing has changed now that so many people willingly devour flakkery on Facebook, Twitter and blogs, a New York Times story says today: Social networks like Facebook and Twitter...
LA Weekly film editor and chief film critic Scott Foundas is moving to Lincoln Center in New York as associate program director. His responsibilities will include the New York Film...
The Wrap's Sharon Waxman says The Hollywood Reporter "and several other Nielsen entertainment titles are set to be sold to James Finkelstein’s News Communications Inc., owner of 'Who’s Who' publications...
Two members of the Los Angeles bureau are among 11 staffers laid off at the magazine, says a report....
The Hollywood power lunch spot near the Cedars medical buildings on West 3rd Street is soon to shut its doors, after 20 years. “It’s not without some sadness and remorse,"...
The layoff of Alonso Duralde from MSNBC means ten members of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association have lost their gigs in the last 18 months, says David Poland at...
Some bloggers, this one included, will make minor unannounced fixes shortly after a post goes up. Hollywood blog-meistress Nikki Finke takes it to a whole new level, as Gawker's John...
Produced and directed by Walt Disney, this is an animation classic with a capital C. It's the first cartoon in the Silly Symphonies series, animated by Ub Iwerks. I figured,...
Disney-ABC Television Group today told L.A. County that it will seek approval for a 56-acre production facility - including a dozen soundstages - on Disney's Golden Oak Ranch in the...
John Meroney spent a couple of days with Gore Vidal at his Hollywood home and files his dispatch for The Atlantic. Vidal says, among other things, that concerns about Barack...
As part of the promotion for his new movie, actor Adam Goldberg drives around Los Angeles pointing out some of the things he dislikes. Among them are the food,...
The new Regal Cinemas' L.A. Live Stadium 14 debuts officially on Tuesday with the first showings of Michael Jackson's "This Is It." Variety sees the new Downtown cineplex — which...
David Carr retires his tuxedo after four seasons. The new New York Times blogger on the red carpet beat is Melena Ryzik. (She tweets here, by the way.) The paper...
Bonnie Fuller is the "tabloid maven," as Style Section L.A. puts it, who is revamping HollywoodLife.com as part of the fledgling Jay Penske media empire. Fuller has hired New York...
About a week after leaving the LA Weekly, Steven Mikulan has been inked to write a new blog for The Wrap to be called L.A. Noir. The site also announced...
The indie film party is moving to LA Live and will be held in the evening, allowing for live late-night TV on the East Coast. Next year's awards are March...
L.A. Times film columnist and blogger Patrick Goldstein says all the noise about Hollywood supporting Roman Polanski overlooks something. There's no petition going around with the names of the real...
With the chatter about Nikki Finke on high due to this week's profile in The New Yorker, Gawker's Richard Rushfield is offering $1,000 for "a recent photograph of the scourge...
You know something's up when you wake up to Sunday morning email from Nikki Finke and the flack for The New Yorker, both flagging a story in the magazine that...
The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills unveiled its fall schedule, starting tonight with Wayne Gretzky, Bruce McNall and a showing of "Kings Ransom," a documentary by Peter Berg...
DreamWorks founders Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, as expected, are co-hosting a fundraiser for Jerry Brown on Nov. 18. "This will be a big launching pad for his...
Elizaveta Mukasei was posted to Los Angeles as a spy for the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1943, according to an interesting Wall Street Journal remembrance today. Mukasei, who died...
Los Angeles Magazine kicks off a new Hollywood sociology column, Cut!, in the October issue. New contributing writer Gina Piccalo writes the first one, talking to spouses and partners about...
This is kind of amusing. Yahoo's pick-up from Associated Press on the Roman Polanski arrest in Switzerland seemed for awhile this morning to include some not-for-public-consumption, reporter-editor go-between. "no surprise,...
Director Roman Polanski was arrested on Saturday as he arrived at the Zurich airport to receive an award at the Zurich Film Festival. Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley's office...
Conan O'Brien took a bump to the head while performing a skit on tonight's show and was taken by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He's doing fine — NBC released...
At the end of her interview with the LA Weekly's Gendy Alimurung, French actress Audrey Tautou asked if she could snap the writer's picture. Does it with all the journalists...
In case you missed them: Bill Boyarsky spent a delightful evening with Norman Corwin, the 99-year-old "Los Angeles literary treasure," at the Barnes & Noble in Westside Pavilion. Visiting blogger...
The City Council voted unanimously to offer early retirement to 2,400 employees in lieu of layoffs and furloughs. LAT, Ron Kaye Producer John Wells was elected president of the...
TV producer Jay Sanderson succeeds John Fishel, who served 17 years as the Federation president and is leaving at the end of the year. A search committee picked Sanderson over...
That would be the filmmaker Michael Moore, who can't seem to stop blathering about subjects he doesn't seem to know much about. At a news conference in Toronto, he accused...
The star of "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost" had been battling pancreatic cancer. He was 57. (AP)...
Here's an extended excerpt from a series of interviews he did in 1998 for the Archive of American Television. He talks about working with Bob Hope, Carl Reiner, Sid...
One of the greatest comedy writers - ever. He's probably best known for the TV series "MASH," but there also was "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the...
Army Archerd was a Variety columnist for 52 years, a fixture on the red carpet and at Hollywood parties — and he liked to say that his style made him...
The newest iteration of "At The Movies" debuts this weekend with A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips installed as hosts — they both filled in a lot for Roger Ebert when...
Los Angeles photographer Phil Stern turns 90 tomorrow. That's his photo of Frank Sinatra lighting JFK's smoke. Vanity Fair celebrates the big day with an online piece by David Friend:...
Variety is advertising for an editor of the daily paper and for an online editor to run the website. Also, USC Annenberg is helping to recruit a project manager "as...
Kim Masters, host of The Business on KCRW, talks about her father's part in a secret unit that killed Nazis on today's Talk of the Nation on National Public Radio....
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Time Warner Cable in partnership with Ovation TV have each committed $75,000 to help the Los Angeles County Museum of Art "extend continuous film...
Sharon Waxman at The Wrap says that Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke stands to pocket $80,000 out of a class-action lawsuit against E-Trade for being tape recorded without her permission. Waxman...
Variety columnist Brian Lowry isn't too smitten with the AM news station's refocus summed up in the ad slogan "Hollywood listens to KFWB." Honestly, I've tried, but I keep asking...
The screenwriter and director known for the films "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," "Pretty in Pink" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" among others died today while walking in Manhattan. A...
News items: Westwood movie future bleak and Westwood's Mann Festival RIP. Click the cartoon to view it larger. See more by Steve Greenberg in his LA Sketchbook archive...
Perhaps stung by the strong critical reaction to the decision to rethink its film program, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has put up an online forum to take...
Today's L.A. Times follows on our Thursday night news about the Festival theater closing and adds a triple whammy of bad news for Westwood: Mann is giving up its leases...
The film writer's affiliation with Variety has finally played its last note. She posts there that as of Sunday night, her Thompson on Hollywood brand will be housed at IndieWIRE....
Cari Beauchamp took her deep personal umbrage at Native Intelligence the other night, and now you can add the LAT's Kenneth Turan to the list of Hollywood and film aficionados...
Museum director Michael Govan announced the film program will be closed and rethought — audiences were down, he said. LA Observed contributor Cari Beauchamp, an author and film historian, calls...
Today's front page of the Wall Street Journal talks about Hamilton High senior Kenya Mejia receiving $1,800 to plug the movie "I Love You, Beth Cooper" in her valedictorian address...
Gawker just put out the word that the site's new West Coast editor will be Richard Rushfield, currently at LATimes.com. The note from Gawker's editor in chief is below (and,...
"We're young, we live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, we might as well have fun while we can," Zooey Deschanel's character says in "500...
David Carr came through town a week or so ago and lands on the New York Times' front page tomorrow with a piece on Nikki Finke. Her deal to sell...
Sing along with Steve Greenberg as he mourns runaway production from Hollywood. Click the cartoon to view it larger. See the entire LA Sketchbook archive and Steve's bio in one...
Aaron Sorkin will take over the script, Steven Soderbergh will no longer direct, but Brad Pitt is still attached to star and the movie remains at Sony, says Variety's Marc...
The Forest Lawn cemetery wedged between Griffith Park, Burbank and Toluca Lake calls itself FL Hollywood Hills for marketing purposes, but make no mistake: it's in the San Fernando Valley....
Cynthia Littleton at Variety reports that Brennan, a longtime reporter and editor for The Hollywood Reporter, died today at Cedars-Sinai after a yearlong struggle with cancer. "He was my friend,...
Sharon Waxman's report that Nikki Finke inked a $14 million deal to sell Deadline Hollywood Daily has yet to be confirmed by anyone on the record, and Finke declines comment...
As part of the promotion for the new Sacha Baron Cohen movie Bruno, GQ magazine runs photos of Cohen-as-Bruno cavorting on the field with the football team at Birmingham High...
News item: Oscar keepers expand best picture category to ten in desperate attempt to hook audience. See more Steve Greenberg cartoons in the LA Sketchbook archive....
Farrah Fawcett died at 9:28 AM at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, according to TMZ. Ryan O'Neal and Alana Stewart were at her bedside....
Getting nominated for a best picture Oscar won't mean quite as much now that the motion picture academy has returned to ten nominations in the category. And the winner will...
The LA Weekly's parent company congratulated Nikki Finke on being acquired (for $14 million apparently) and blogs that it wants to find another online Hollywood reporter. "We've had a great...
Deadline Hollywood Daily was bought by Mail.com Media Corporation (MMC), which operates Mail.com, HollywoodLife.com, MovieLine.com and OnCars.com. From the company's announcement on her site: MMC also begins a long-term partnership...
Singer Chris Brown will have to do community labor and five years probation, stay away from Rihanna, give up a DNA sample and other steps in exchange for deal that...
For some reason Sony agreed to make a movie out of the Michael Lewis baseball bestseller "Moneyball." Brad Pitt got on board, crews were hired, shooting was to begin today...
Josef Adalian, the television editor at Variety for nine years until jumping last year to TV Week as deputy editor, is moving again. This time he is going to The...
For reasons only he can adequately explain, OC Weekly writer, author and "Ask a Mexican" creator Gustavo Arellano was on the red carpet asking questions of stars at this week's...
Info released today by county public health officials indicates there have been 22 positive HIV tests of porn performers since a scare shut down the adult video biz for a...
The Wrap has gotten hold of a memo listing the salaries and stock of top agents at William Morris. From Sharon Waxman's post: Who knows why John Fogelman, until about...
The art of the local editorial cartoon is alive and well at LA Observed, compliments of Steve Greenberg. Find him here most days. Yesterday's LA Sketchbook — Back to...
A female adult industry performer has tested positive for HIV and a "handful" of her partners are under industry quarantine for testing, XBIZ reports. So far they have tested negative....
I enjoyed "Away We Go" over the weekend and left thinking Maya Rudolph's performance was Oscar nomination worthy. So I was pleased to see Los Angeles magazine post a mini-profile...
The music industry publication shut down today, costing thirty jobs says The Wrap. Visitors to the website are re-directed to Billboard.biz. Also, The Hollywood Reporter eliminates another ten positions, including...
Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein says he'll miss the occasional calls from the longtime publicist, "one of the last remaining links to the Damon Runyon-esque era where you could...
With lots of careers ending today at William Morris and Endeavor, Hollywood writer Michael Oates Palmer gives a shout out to his now-unemployed agent: palmermix My agent was a casualty...
Solters at various times represented Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson and other celebrity clients, says Nikki Finke. She reports that Solters died in his sleep at home, and gets...
The Hollywood Reporter announced that former Fox entertainment reporter Roger Friedman will join the trade as a senior correspondent based in New York....
Haven't seen the book yet, but I like the title. "Beverly Hills Adjacent" is a debut novel with strong local flavor and media bloodlines: it's by Jennifer Steinhauer, the New...
Fortune.com reported the basic story that Hollywood mogul David Geffen recently sought to acquire the 19% stake in the New York Times that is held by hedge fund Harbinger Capital...
Sahl, who lives in Claremont, was reported missing by his wife on Friday, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune blogged this morning. An afternoon update says that Sahl, who turns 82...
Mark has the goods at LA Biz Observed: TV Week is going online only. * Update: TV Week alum Michael Schneider blogs the history at Franklin Avenue. Also: Video story...
The celebrity news site says that the comic actor died in his sleep last night at a Los Angeles hospital. TMZ The French Mistake scene in "Blazing Saddles" with DeLuise...
"The Soloist," which I saw Saturday night in Los Feliz, worked well enough for me as entertainment, as a Los Angeles movie and as paean to the best role newspapers...
Here's your chance to own wax figures of Uma Thuman (as Mia Wallace from "Pulp Fiction") and John Travolta as Vincent Vega. They are part of a May 1 auction...
Add L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan to those reporting back with lukewarm reviews of "The Soloist," despite wanting to like it. I could back up and write all this in...
Joint statement from the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers: LOS ANGELES (April 17, 2008) – The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers...
When Fox released "Dragonball:Evolution" in 2,000 theaters last weekend, it didn't bother with newspaper ads — or print reviewers, for that matter. The teens who were the target audience just...
Joe Flint will take the lead on Company Town, the L.A. Times' entry in the blog space where the NYT has The Carpetbagger. Flint has a long resume and does...
There's a local PR angle to the legal squabble between Woody Allen and Dov Charney's American Apparel. Michael Cieply captures it at The Carpetbagger, the NYT's Hollywood blog. Mr. Allen...
Variety columnist and blogger Brian Lowry wasn't impressed by L.A. Times columnist-blogger Patrick Goldstein's recent critique of the trade paper and Peter Bart. Lowry's open letter to Goldstein gets a...
While director John McTiernan awaits a new indictment over his use of wiretapper Anthony Pellicano in a divorce case, he's pushing a new documentary that alleges the Pellicano prosecution was...
George Harrison's son Dhani and widow Olivia today in Hollywood, where Harrison was honored with a star on the Walk of Fame (and they accepted a loaf of Monastery of...
Variety executive editor Michael Speier is among those losing their jobs as part of a 7% staff cut across parent Reed Business Information, says The Wrap.com. It's the second big...
Los Angeles Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein's latest split with his editors (and possibly some ad people) is over his advocacy of a front-page ad for tonight's NBC debut of "Southland"...
I've been curious what Amy Wallace would have to say about Bart being kicked upstairs at Variety, nearly eight years after she profiled him in a terrific, much-talked about piece...
Variety editor Tim Gray is now in charge of the news operation and Peter Bart gets a new position at the trade. "Bart has managed Variety's staff and news operations...
It's not just the WSJ story I linked in the Morning Buzz. Kim Masters at The Daily Beast also writes today about Hollywood squeezing stars to take less money. Masters,...
Writer-director and ex-journalist Rod Lurie uses a second bad experience with Nikki Finke's reporting to go off on a rant about the dangers of bloggers posting inaccurate stories, usually without...
I hadn't checked in with studio tradesperson Peggy Archer's blog in awhile. Today at Totally Unauthorized, she reports pseudonymously from a shooting set. One of our pivotal scenes yesterday involved...
Steven Bach was the executive at United Artists who took the fall for "Heaven’s Gate" and went on to write "Final Cut," which William Grimes in the New York Times...
Jarre won Oscars for the scores of "Lawrence of Arabia," " Doctor Zhivago" and "A Passage to India," and composed music for more than 150 other films. He died in...
Not Finke the reporter, but her website Deadline Hollywood Daily — though they are really one and the same. The Wrap's Sharon Waxman tries to figure out what the site...
Times film columnist and blogger Patrick Goldstein responds to Variety's weekend package on bloggers and says of Peter Bart: "He's launched his own blog, which you'd have to call...
Journalist Chris Willman attended an American Cinematheque screening of the 1976 Woody Guthrie biopic "Bound for Glory" at the Aero Theatre that became, he writes on Facebook, "a nerve-wracking, weird...
President Obama stayed at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza [or not; see below] on this trip into L.A. rather than bed down in one of the mansions around town, and...
The British-born actress, 45, is survived by her husband Liam Neeson, mother Vanessa Redgrave, sister Joely Richardson, aunt Lynn Redgrave and two children. Richardson won a Tony in 1998 as...
Silver had been undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer for two years. He died today at home in New York. Silver won a best actor Tony in 1988 for "Speed-the-Plow" and...
In a "Blowback" piece on the Times' opinion web page, former LAT staffer Allan Jalon goes into the controversy that ensued after Jim Bellows let Times gossip columnist Joyce Haber...
Amy Kaufman at The Wrap has a piece up raising a lot of questions about Fade In's promise of cash and an intro to Hollywood for the winners of a...
Hedges died Tuesday morning at home in South Pasadena of melanoma. He was 57. He was a leading Hollywood lawyer and also made a name for himself as an archaeologist....
Today's segment on KCRW looks behind the scenes at The Wrap, the new Hollywood news website headed by Sharon Waxman. It airs at 4:44 p.m. at 89.9 FM, or is...
Movieline is relaunching as a web portal "covering all things Hollywood" with former Defamer bloggers Seth Abramovitch, S.T. VanAirsdale, and Kyle Buchanan on board. The press release says to await...
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the actress who married San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, made "The Trouble With Romance" before they met. It has been out since Feb. 1 on Netflix and...
For the first time, Times reporters and editors covering entertainment in Calendar will work alongside the Business staffers who cover the harder news side of Hollywood. A new masthead job...
I agree with Mary Melton, the executive editor of Los Angeles Magazine, who blogs that the Bill Condon-Larry Mark-Hugh Jackman Oscars show was more watchable, not less. She posts: The...
Greg Hernandez, laid off by the Daily News earlier today after finishing his Oscars coverage, blogged about it tonight at Out in Hollywood. He said the site will live on...
Daily News entertainment writer Greg Hernandez worked long hours posting a whole bunch of blog items on the Oscars yesterday and today — and now posts on Facebook that he...
If you hope to win your Oscars pool, you should have had "Slumdog Millionaire" in eight categories including best picture. Full list of winners, plus backstage video at the Academy...
There will still be a Defamer brand and Hollywood posts, but they will run as a section of Gawker's main site. Owner Nick Denton explains it's part of Gawker's transition...
Dunder Mifflin's office, parking lot and hedge are located on Saticoy Street in an industrial part of Van Nuys. In case you suspected Scranton looked eerily like the San Fernando...
KCRW will announce later today that veteran Hollywood journalist Kim Masters is taking over as host of the half-hour showbiz show The Business, which airs Mondays at 2:30 p.m. Masters...
TMZ posted last night a photo it says shows Rihanna with bruises from the alleged attack by singer Chris Brown the night before the Grammys. It appears to be an...
L.A. County sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore is getting some nice attention for Sunday's visiting blogger post at LA Observed about his famous father, the actor James Whitmore. He told the...
James Whitmore, the award-winning actor who died of lung cancer on Feb. 6, wanted to be wakened to see the inauguration of Barack Obama. He wasn't always lucid by then,...
In a statement this afternoon through crisis managers Sitrick & Co., performer Chris Brown doesn't mention Rihanna but does mention God: Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened...
The Huffington Post says the L.A. Times was the first major media outlet to identify Rihanna as the victim of Sunday's early morning domestic violence, "despite the LAPD's refusal to...
TMZ reports that law enforcement sources tell the site Rihanna was found in Hancock Park with two "huge contusions" on her forehead, and a bloody lip and nose, from the...
Both performers were supposed to appear this afternoon at the Grammy festivities at Staples Center, but instead Brown was being booked at the LAPD's Wilshire station and Rihanna's people were...
The Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor died today at home in Malibu. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer a week before Thanksgiving, said his son Steve Whitmore, a Los...
Hollywood apparently isn't impressed that the new Los Angeles Times thinks the cutting-edge way to cover Sundance is to give a print reporter a cheap cellphone camera and have him...
Brady did the celebrity profiles for Parade magazine for nearly 25 years — his last, of actor Kevin Bacon, runs February 15. Before that he was a Washington reporter for...
Columnist-blogger Anne Thompson is among the layoffs to hit the trade today. "Today I got slashed from the ranks of Variety staffers along with some 30 people, most of whom...
The best picture choices are "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Frost/Nixon," "Milk," "The Reader" and "Slumdog Millionaire." For best actress: Anne Hathaway, Angelina Jolie, Melissa Leo, Meryl Streep and...
Variety columnist Brian Lowry is now blogging about television at the trade's new BLTv — "Good TV; reasonable prices." He posts that the current TV critics tour feels more pointless...
Jeffrey Katzenberg and other Motion Picture & Television Fund officials just revealed plans to close the acute-care hospital and long-term care residence at the home in Woodland Hills. About 100...
City Council President Eric Garcetti announced this morning that actor Ricardo Montalbn died today at home in his district, surrounded by family. Montalban was 88, according to Garcetti, who made...
CityBeat and film critic Andy Klein parted ways yesterday, say sources close to the weekly and to Klein. He continues apparently with KPCC's FilmWeek segment and "Off-Ramp." This follows last...
The Los Angeles production of "Wicked" closed Sunday after 791 performances (and 12 previews) at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Variety says the show registered more than 1.8 million admissions...
Americans who watch TV don't watch the Golden Globes any more, even if the newspapers, blogs and celebrity cable channels continue to insist they are a big thing. An average...
Longtime film writer Ella Taylor was told today that she too is being laid off by the LA Weekly, sources say. On top of the earlier news about Steven Leigh...
Word came down from Village Voice Media HQ in Phoenix that the LA Weekly can't afford a theater editor any more. That puts Steven Leigh Morris out of a job....
"Slumdog Millionaire" won for best picture, director, writer, young actor/actress (Dev Patel) and composer, A.R. Rahman. Sean Penn won the top actor prize for his role in "Milk." Anne Hathaway...
Variety blogger-editor-columnist Anne Thompson endorses Marc Cooper's autopsy on the decline in gravitas of the LA Weekly under New Times leadership. She posts: It's a sad tale. Like many L.A....
The latest web venture from Drudge Report West Coast man Andrew Breitbart goes live Tuesday. Big Hollywood, he says, "is not a 'celebrity' gabfest or a gossip outpost - it...
Variety reports that Ned Tanen, who served as president of Universal and Paramount and produced three popular "Brat Pack" films in the 1980s, died today in Santa Monica. He was...
Roman Polanski's lawyers argue that the director's bid to have that pesky sex with a minor case from the 1970s dismissed should be moved because the entire Los Angeles Superior...
Ron Boltz, announcer Bernie Brillstein, manager Bud Browne, filmmaker George Carlin, comedian Warren Cowan, publicist Gene Evans, fireworks showman Johnny Grant, honorary mayor Charlton Heston, actor Bobbi Holtzman, director...
California Editor David Lauter rebutted former reporter Anita Busch's comments yesterday in court tying the L.A. Times to convicted private eye Anthony Pellicano. Lauter, who emailed the response to Patterico,...
At today's sentencing of Anthony Pellicano, former Los Angeles Times Hollywood reporter Anita Busch — she's also the ex-editor of The Hollywood Reporter — accuses the Times of collaborating with...
I guess it was personal with Carina Chocano. [Or not. See note.] Two months after laying her off, the Los Angeles Times today named a new second film critic to...
Jane Espenson has been part of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Battlestar Galactica," most notably, and also has written episodes of "Angel," "Gilmore Girls," "Ellen," "The O.C.," "Star Trek: Deep...
The Paley Center for Media honored actor Carl Reiner tonight at the Hyatt in Century City, but apparently the main topic of conversation was the poor quality of the hotel...
Patrick Goldstein blogs at The Big Picture that Manohla Dargis, who left the LAT for the New York Times in 2004, is seen as a movie killer. It's an open...
Hollywood financier Ryan Kavanaugh's arraignment on fresh DUI and probation violation charges has been put over to Jan. 22. By then, Sheriff Lee Baca's charity hopes that Kavanaugh makes good...
Claude Brodesser-Akner, host of The Business on Mondays on KCRW, took a stand on the show against the resignation of Rich Raddon from the L.A. Film Festival over his support...
"Wall-E" is the best picture choice of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, with "The Dark Knight" the runner-up. Danny Boyle was picked as best director in 2008 for "Slumdog...
The director of "Nothing But the Truth" blogs some praise for newly laid-off Daily News critic Glenn Whipp and others who have lost their jobs, including Premiere's Glenn Kenney and...
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association will get together Tuesday and announce its winners of the year's movie awards. The org has a newly freshened website — the group photo...
The actress plays a newspaper reporter not — repeat not, director Rod Lurie winks — based on Judith Miller in next week's new thriller, "Nothing But the Truth." Beckinsale and...
The Hollywood financier was arrested again for drunk driving, speeding and driving on a suspended license — back in October, while still on probation for an earlier conviction, the New...
Variety has details on more than a dozen jobs cuts today at its rival Hollywood trade: The layoffs amount to a significant reduction in the paper's reporting staff. Also cut...
Last night at the Beverly Hills Hotel, PEN Center USA gave a lifetime achievement award to multi-faceted writer Larry Gelbart and its First Amendment Award to the Writers Guild. Jesse...
The life of a local television news cameraman involves a lot of hurry up and wait. Case in point: this afternoon's (yawn) Grammy nominations concert, as Channel 2's Bryan Frank...
It's not often you see Hollywood lawyers the prominence of Terry Christensen go to federal prison. He was sentenced today to three years, plus a $250,000 fine, for conspiring with...
From around the local media: Sam Rubin talked to SAG president Alan Rosenberg on the KTLA Morning News. "We've made monumental moves in their direction...and they have not moved one...
Variety editor in chief Peter Bart blogs that the Screen Actors Guild decision to call a strike vote can be summed up this way: "Its other strategies having failed, SAG...
Prince has lived in Los Angeles since last spring — that is, if you consider the rarefied gated nouveau complex of Beverly Park to be part of the real L.A....
Politico's Jeffrey Ressner compiled short bios on the seven insiders who he calls Barack Obama's real friends in Hollywood. "Obamas tightly knit circle is mostly Chicago-based, but there is a...
The lead movie review in today's print Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times isn't by lead critic Kenneth Turan (his review of Stranded gets second billing.) Or Carina Chocano,...
The movie based on LAT columnist Steve Lopez's stories and book about homeless musician Nathaniel Ayers was already being promoted in trailers. But Paramount bumped it from the November schedule,...
Milwaukee lawyers Robert Bernhoft and Robert Barnes figured that getting actor Wesley Snipes off the felony tax charges he faced, and opening an office in Malibu, would gain them entree...
The New York Times' David Carr jets out to the coast and finds that in Hollywood, it's still morning in America. Hollywood comes by its indifference honestly. Certainly, the stock...
After 25 years as a talent agent and literary agent, Nancy Nigrosh is leaving Innovative Artists and Hollywood with a spirited call for a return to the lone screenwriter getting...
According to Nikki, producer Harvey Weinstein told Page Six he'll give $1 million to charity if she can produce an email that Scott Rudin wrote about Weinstein's "alleged callous treatment...
The Hollywood legend died yesterday at home near Westport, Connecticut, according to his publicist, Jeff Sanderson at Warren Cowan and Associates. Newman had been battling cancer for years and recently...
James Hibberd, senior reporter and blogger at the Hollywood Reporter, grades the 25 best and worst ad art for fall TV shows. Of the "Gossip Girl" poster he writes, "On...
Tina Fey won Emmy awards for acting, writing and being one of the executive producers on "30 Rock," which got the trophy for outstanding comedy series. Fey then took a...
Why yes, I believe they did. Terry Christensen's law firm sent out a press release today (via Sitrick & Co.) that says he'll be "withdrawing" from the practice of law...
The film in which Robert Downey Jr. portrays LAT columnist Steve Lopez, and Jamie Foxx plays downtown street musician Nathaniel Ayers, must be getting close. The trailer runs 2:31 on...
Sen. John McCain "has been relatively aggressive when it comes to tapping into the pool of Hollywood donors who, like their counterparts on the Democratic side, often give over concerns...
As Mark picked up earlier at LA Biz Observed, prominent lawyer Terry Christensen and former private eye Anthony Pellicano were convicted today of conspiring to illegally wiretap the ex-wife of...
Starr, the makeup artist for Angelina Jolie and other celebrities, was found deceased inside his Silver Lake Elysian Heights apartment. He was described variously as 48 or 51. Police forced...
LA Observed author David Rensin was on a book tour-vacation when Hollywood manager and producer Bernie Brillstein ">died, but I for one have been anticipating David's reaction. He helped Brillstein...
Bernie Brillstein, the successful Hollywood manager and producer, died last night after suffering from complications following double-bypass heart surgery in February. Here's a snip from Cynthia Littleton's story on the...
Journalist Sharon Waxman blogs that the trade paper is on the market, based on two sources....
O'Brien takes over from Jay Leno next June 1, NBC announces. AP Also: Ebert and Roeper quit "At the Movies."...
A special edition of Claude Brodesser-Akner's The Business that aired at 2:30 this afternoon (and will again at 7 p.m.) features a rare head-to-head conversation with the dueling presidents of...
On one side, the Screen Actors Guild has just hired Sitrick and Company, Nikki Finke reports. AFTRA, on the other hand, uses 42West, the firm whose Hollywood practice is headed...
Britt Allcroft is the Santa Monica-based creator of "Shining Time Station" on PBS and "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends." If you have been the parent of young children, you...
The writer of the Times' weekly Big Picture column will now start posting to a blog, also called The Big Picture. The print column will become a rehash of what's...
The once-edgy comic who played on his counter-culture roots died about 6 pm at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica. He was admitted in the afternoon for chest pains,...
KCRW host Harry Shearer and KFI's Bill Handel are on the list to get their stars installed on the Hollywood walk of fame next year. Among the others are Cameron...
Anita Busch, the journalist who was famously threatened by associates of jailed Hollywood snoop Anthony Pellicano while reporting for the L.A. Times, has a letter in Saturday's LAT co-signed by...
Two of the lawyers featured prominently in the HBO documentary on Roman Polanski that debuted this week have issued a statement disputing the Superior Court's allegation that the film was...
The public information office at the Los Angeles County Superior Court has a bone to pick with tonight's Roman Polanski documentary on HBO. The court sent out this media advisory:...
Journalists attending the junket for "Love Guru" were required to sign a detailed contract about how they would treat...Justin Timberlake? Sharon Waxman verbally flails his handlers, appropriately: Has Justin Timberlake...
Perhaps hundreds of classic 35-millimeter film prints burned up in the weekend fire, causing an immediate impact on films available to theaters, museums and other places that use the old...
Turns out that irreplaceable master recordings from top artists may not have been lost in the destroyed video vault at Universal Studios. Nikki Finke was the first to report there...
The courthouse facade on Courthouse Square was saved, and no sound stages were burned. The statement that follows sheds no light on the fate of original master recordings said to...
The former E! Channel host, Elite model and daughter-in-law to Ed Asner (she's now married to Steven Soderbergh) has a new novel landing tomorrow. "Whacked" is set in Hollywood, of...
First, some raw Associated Press video from this morning. AP's Mike Meadows on the ground, via L.A. Times gallery: Aftermath, from Andrew Gombert / EPA via L.A. Times gallery:...
Thousands of original Decca, MCA, and ABC master recordings belonging to Universal Music were lost in today's fire at Universal Studios, Nikki Finke says, quoting an unidentified source. Artists such...
Universal's New York and New England sets, Courthouse Square, the King Kong stage, at least one soundstage and a video vault have been destroyed by a fire that began...
"Moguls, Millionaires & Movie Stars: Hollywood Between the Wars, 1920-1940" will be at the Huntington Library in San Marino on Friday and Saturday. Panels will explore the rise of the...
Andy Fiscella owns industry bars the Dime and Winston's, recently added Crown Bar, and is known for banning Britney Spears at one of his clubs. In today's Hollywood, that all...
Nikki Finke points a chiding finger at Defamer, Variety columnist Anne Thompson, LAT columnist Patrick Goldstein and Slate's Kim Masters for posting an erroneous item that she says began...
Cancer claimed Oscar winning director, producer and actor Sydney Pollack Monday at his home in Pacific Palisades. Pollack won his Academy Awards for best director and best picture for "Out...
Jennifer Lerew, an animation artist who blogs at The Blackwing Diaries, has posted some photos of women who worked during the Depression at Disney's old Hyperion studio. in what I...
Verdicts are still being read, but former Hollywood private eye and muscle Anthony Pellicano has been convicted of all but one count of racketeering and conspiracy. (So much for being...
Variety calls Cowan the "father of Hollywood press agents" and his firm, Rogers and Cowan, at one time "the biggest entertainment PR firm in the world, with a list of...
Film financier Ryan Kavanaugh's company, Relativity Media, backed Columbia Pictures Catch and Release. Today's NYT uses that connection to lead into a story about Kavanaugh's lawyer trying to use connections...
He actually sounds pretty forgiving about that whole Tupac Shakur business, while talking to Associated Press about getting his star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame and house-hunting in Los Angeles:...
The Huffington Post's Allison Hope Weiner means it sarcastically: Jettisoning the whole John Adams "fact is a stubborn thing" quote used by Mr. Saunders yesterday, Mr. Pellicano went with his...
The trade paper unveiled "a wholesale overhaul of its iconic brand," and it goes beyond just the design. Here's how The Hollywood Reporter itself explains it: "...a redesigned look and...
Ex-private eye to the stars Anthony Pellicano told the judge at his trial that he won't be testifying after all. And the accused got a little testy when the judge...
Actor Charles Durning landed on Normandy's Omaha Beach as a 17-year-old Army Ranger in June 1944. Before leaving Europe, he was wounded three times and awarded three Purple Hearts and...
Animation specialist Charles Solomon writes in the LAT obituary: Oliver Martin "Ollie" Johnston Jr., the last living member of the celebrated "Nine Old Men" of Disney animation whose work set...
Former New York Times Hollywood correspondent Bernard Weinraub, who had teamed with Anita Busch at one point, also took the stand today in the Anthony Pellicano trial. Allison Hope Weiner's...
The reporter who started it all — by being threatend via Pellicano and associates to lay off a story about Steven Seagal — took the stand this afternoon. She recounted...
Allison Hope Weiner has more exclusive audio clips from the Anthony Pellicano case, of Michael Ovitz on the phone asking for a meeting with the felonious private investigator and Hollywood...
It's hard not to notice that the periodic recaps of web performance at LATimes.com don't dwell on writing or reporting quality, impact of the journalism or connecting with Los Angeles....
Charlton Heston wrote a lot of letters to the editor. Today's L.A. Times excerpts some the paper received. Sample: Spike Lee's threat IN a fit of pique at the Cannes...
Real name: John Charles Carter. Passing: Saturday at home in Beverly Hills. Previous diagnosis: Neurological symptoms "consistent with Alzheimers disease." IMDb credits: 1941-2007. Selected films: Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, The...
Deadline Hollywood Daily blogger Nikki Finke didn't disclose that a law firm she wrote about is representing her in a lawsuit against E-Trade over surreptitious recording, the New York Observer...
Remember a few weeks back when LAO posted the news on Associated Press muscling up its entertainment and celebrity overage out of the Los Angeles bureau? That announcement, a month...
What did they charge to see a silent movie in 1923, a quarter? At UCLA's Royce Hall this afternoon, many in the nearly full house paid $25 to see Harold...
The Anthony Pellicano trial jury was seated today. The government's opening statement is set to begin tomorrow at 8 am. The prosecution's official witness list, unsealed today, has 127 names...
Would you believe 93.6 percent of 4,060 votes cast by Writers Guild of America members in Los Angeles and New York OK'd the new contracts, which runs through May 1,...
Initial numbers from Nielsen look like a 20% drop in TV viewers from last year. About two-thirds of the people watching TV during the show watched something else in Nielsen's...
Heather and Jessica got a gig live-blogging the red carpet for New York magazine's website, starting at 3 pm Hollywood and Highland time....
Crisis PR executive Michael Sitrick tried to collect a $7.7 million judgment from Ryan Kavanuagh, but a judge Friday said no. The reason is that Sitrick apparently agreed previously not...
Dan Becker, the Los Angeles-based director of entertainment content for Associated Press, announced a couple of moves as part of the wire service turning up its entertainment coverage: The Los...
A mini-profile of L.A. Times publisher David Hiller in tomorrow's New York Times leads with the idea that he's star-struck by the glamour of his adopted hometown. It's pegged to...
Today is when Hollywood and Highland really starts to feel the pain of hosting the Academy Awards for another year. Hollywood Boulevard is set to close to traffic at 10...
Of the 3,775 votes cast by members of the Writers Guild of America, 92% were for going back to work. "The strike is over," union president Patric Verrone said last...
Mark Lisanti has posted, by his estimate, 9,000 to 10,000 posts since he began as the original, and anonymous, Defamer. This one today was the hardest:...
William Booth, resident feature writer in L.A. for the Washington Post, lurked at Saturday night's Scientific and Technical Awards given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
If the members vote to lift the strike as Writers Guild leaders expect they will, some writers could go back to work on Wednesday. As it is, show runners are...
As Mark Lacter posted this afternoon, several media sources are reporting progress in the Hollywood writers strike. "Informal talks between representatives of Hollywoods striking writers and production companies have eliminated...
Prompted by the $25,000 spent by the LAPD to escort Britney Spears to the hospital, Councilman Dennis Zine said today he'll push for an ordinance that would create a "personal...
Former L.A. Times movie critic Jack Mathews says he'll retire from the New York Daily News at the end of February. He and his wife are moving to the Oregon...
Channel 5 will remain at the Sunset Boulevard location indefinitely. The sale to Hudson Capital has been pending since last year and went through at $125 million. The familiar landmark...
Los Angeles does its annual movie issue for February, with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julie Christie on the cover and a lineup inside that includes LA Observed's Mark Lacter challenging...
Author Samantha Dunn writes in today's Calendar section, "We should thank our lucky stars Mary McNamara's debut novel, 'Oscar Season,' arrives when it does, because if the writers strike goes...
In the story the New York Times will run in the paper tomorrow, Heath Ledger was found naked on the floor (not on the bed) and there were no illegal...
The two sides agree to talk about talking, but not to talk publicly: The Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) have issued...
The 28-year-old actor may have overdosed in his Mary-Kate Olsen's a SoHo apartment. He reportedly was discovered by a masseuse arriving for an appointment this afternoon. The body was face...
Defamer got a look at allegations against Hollywood payroll firm Axium filed in court documents, and teases "We're talking multiple identities, cash payments to former supermodels for 'consulting' and all...
Here's a sure sign that things aren't going well for you. Associated Press began writing Britney Spears' obituary last month, just in case it's needed unexpectedly. The wire service prepares...
The actor Brad Renfro was found dead at home on South Ogden Drive this morning by his girlfriend. Police said there was no suspicion of foul play, but a cause...
To follow up an item from the Morning Buzz, screenwriter and producer Roger Avary released this statement regarding the weekend crash in Ojai that led to Avary's arrest, the injury...
Nikki Finke has declared a week-long break in her frenzy of posting about the writers' strike. Says the LA Weekly columnist and Deadline Hollywood Daily blogger: Im exhausted. I'm not...
W does its version of A-list Hollywood for February, with Keira Knightley and James McAvoy on the cover (and in an online slide show) and stories inside such as Gabriel...
Eric Estrin, a striking WGA member, is a moderator at Writer Action, the message board where Writers Guild members hang out to float conspiracy theories, skewer the producers and rip...
It's the end of an era in Hollywood. Johnny Grant, the last of the "honorary mayors" for whom the ceremonial title still meant something, was found dead tonight in his...
Three L.A. Times editors go online to defend the paper's use of three reporters to cover Ms. Spears' latest public meltdown. "If we had wanted simply to report the facts...
John Rabe of KPCC's "Off-Ramp," inspired by Frank Baker's memo to the Los Angeles bureau, ponders how the AP might incorporate more Britney news on the wire. Guess which dispatch...
Tina Daunt posits in her Cause Celebre column in today's Calendar that Hollywood's Hillary contingent is on the verge of buying tickets on the Barack Obama bus. On desks all...
Memo on coverage of faded pop tart Britney Spears from Associated Press' Los Angeles assistant bureau chief: From: Baker, Frank S. Sent: Tue 1/8/2008 11:58 AM To: News - Southern...
Dianne Ogden, a longtime music talent coordinator, was one of four women who testified in Phil Spector's murder trial (which ended in a mistrial) that he had threatened her with...
The New York Observer writes of Nikki Finke, calling her The Media Mensch of the Year: The biggest entertainment story of the year has also turned into the biggest story...
Times Hollywood columnist Patrick Goldstein got off some good observations about the waning quality, originality and relevance of Oscar race analyzing and gossip. The award announcements make a nice one-day...
In 1957 the mayor of Los Angeles helped install a plaque at 7th and Main streets downtown commemorating the birth of the local film industry at that spot. (It's where,...
The one-time vaudeville booker who became the agent for Judy Garland, Henry Fonda, Barbra Streisand and other stars died of lung cancer Tuesday at home in Beverly Hills. Fields was...
OK technically it was an editor's note. And the day was Sunday. But it was just pointed out to me. The subject is architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne's piece in Sunday's...
There Will Be Blood was voted the best picture of 2007. Here are the other awards that local critics went for, picked up from the LAFCA website. DIRECTOR: Paul Thomas...
Nice photo from yesterday's writers guild street rally in Hollywood by Barbara Davidson at the L.A. Times. Strike coverage is pulled together at a compilation page on the LAT website...
Writers Guild strikers and their brethren are planning to converge Tuesday afternoon for a rally, accompanied by Alicia Keys. The guild is hoping for a turnout of thousands. Here's the...
Brian Grazer was "deeply upset by the episode" in which the L.A. Times asked him to guest-edit the opinion section on Sunday, then refused to publish it — and he...
OK, just kidding about that. But who knew her older sister is a rabbi on a kibbutz in Israel? I guess you would if you remember Sarah's debut joke on...
The writers strike has inspired a frenzy of non-stop posting by Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily. (I shudder to think of the condition of her office.) Since Friday morning...
Axel Koester grabbed this scene (for the New York Times) of photographers swarming actress Mandy Moore's arrival at a Beverly Hills restaurant. The term paparazzi increasingly encompasses not only the...
"Dancing with the Stars" didn't work out for Leeza Gibbons, so the former celebrity gossip monger has time to take a new gig — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's appointee to the...
Monday was bring your family to the picket line day. The Tuesday target for Writers Guild media attention is Universal. The talent scheduled to appear outside the main gates on...
Sure, Allan Mayer is a veteran Hollywood crisis flack with many successes on his resume — but he's not the only one. So what explains this slobbery treatment in Elizabeth...
Brian Grazer (that's him on the left, pre-big hair) and his younger brother Gavin, who has nepotistic roles in several of Brian's movies, have a complicated relationship. Complicated enough that...
Remember that episode back in March when Andrs Martinez resigned as editor of the Times editorial pages after the publisher, David Hiller, didn't back him in the Brian Grazer...
This reorganization was announced Friday, but since I wasn't paying attention then — and I want to have the moves noted in the archives — here it is a couple...
Variety deputy editor Anne Thompson says the season for newspapers to crank up their Oscars-Globes-etc blogs is fast approaching. She gives a rundown on who's doing what at the big...
Daily News television blogger David Kronke had a bad run-in with some nuts (he's allergic) at this weekend's pre-Emmy tea thrown by BAFTA and the BBC. Kronke refers to himself...
Ratings for last year's Oscars with Jon Stewart hosting were abysmal, but the New York Times' Michael Cieply reports that he's the choice again. An announcement is expected Wednesday. I...
PeopleJam, a self-help website due to launch this month by Hollywood execs Robert Tercek and Matt Edelman, has already been dinged for the lame name and "sickly sweet" approach. Now...
The Oscar-winning actress and former Mrs. Ronald Reagan (when he was a SAG Democrat) never let her true age be pinned down. Katie Harris reports at Bloomberg that Wyman died...
The Hollywood Reporter's legal site gives up the ghost as a standalone publication effective, well, immediately. Coverage of Hollywood's legal movers and issues will become a "dedicated channel" on THR.com,...
Since the U.S. government appears to be sharing his email with journalists, the Times' Chuck Philips figures it's only fitting to get out the rest of the story. It begins...
In Friday's story about actor Steven Seagal feeling burned by the Pellicano scandal, Chuck Philips of the Times reported that U.S. Attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek "declined to comment" on questions...
Elizabeth Guider, the new editor of The Hollywood Reporter, is out of state but ordered the trade's website to take down this morning's story by Ray Richmond about Merv Griffin's...
He did not pay anyone to threaten reporter Anita Busch and pretty much loathes PI Anthony Pellicano, says the actor whose name was prominently mentioned when the feds first began...
Former ICM co-president Ed Limato is moving back to the William Morris Agency, as Nikki Finke reported earlier in the week. LImato spent ten years at WMA between stints at...
Alex Ben Block reports at Hollywood Today that production of "Desperate Housewives" has been kicked out of Stage One at Universal Studios and that talks are underway for "The Tonight...