Friday, November 15, 2024
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David Geffen: Next Rock Hall Inductee?

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geffen david 250x350 David Geffen: Next Rock Hall Inductee?The word from one of my favorite groups (I say this facetiously) the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: David Geffen is set to be inducted next spring.

That’s right. On the upside: Geffen started Asylum Records, brought us Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, the Eagles, stole Bob Dylan from Columbia Records to make “Planet Waves,” and, oddly, dated Cher. Later, his Geffen Records brought us Guns ‘N Roses. He also produced “Dreamgirls” on Broadway.

On the downside: the Rock Hall is considered lame for not inducting about three dozen rock acts that should have been there already, has a $14 million war chest and a chief executive who makes over $350,000. The whole thing is run by Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner, who apparently was instrumental in selecting Geffen.

I’m also told that in 2011, the group will induct Universal Music Group’s Doug Morris, who once labored for Atlantic Records and Ahmet Ertegun.

As for Geffen, the naysayers nay that he sold his company for $600 million years ago and hasn’t been in the business for eons. When he was in the business, they say, he was very annoying.

Anyway, I’m more upset that so many people aren’t in the Hall already. Geffen before Quincy Jones? That’s just obscene. Even Geffen would agree.

Jackson Family Fields Million-Dollar Offers

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Michael Jackson’s siblings are fielding offers from a music promoter for millions of dollars.

Patrick Allocco, who was suing Michael Jackson up until the moment he died, now wants to pay Michael’s brothers and sisters millions to perform together.

Allocco, who runs AllGood Entertainment in New Jersey, teamed with Michael’s former short-term manager, Tohme R. Tohme, when the latter was fired last spring. Allocco, Tohme and Michael’s father, Joseph, all had the idea for the Jackson family to perform in Texas. Michael didn’t want to do it.

Now Allocco has sent Jermaine Jackson a letter dated Aug. 11 saying: “All I am asking of you is to arrange for me to deal directly with the family. The ‘middle men’ model that I have been subscribing to has failed and caused me great frustration. I spoke with Dr. Tohme this morning and forwarded him the above contract.”

Alloco offers Janet Jackson $4 million, each of the Jackson brothers $1.5 million, $500,000 to LaToya and $250,00 to Rebbie. He says he’s got $1 million ready to go in escrow if they’ll agree to his terms.

Last year, Allocco offered to put $1 million in escrow if Michael’s ex-manager Frank DiLeo could get Michael and the family to do the Texas show. He never funded the account, so DiLeo wouldn’t deal with him.

Yesterday, another outlet made it seem like the family was asking for these amounts. They weren’t; this was an unsolicited offer. And the same outlet didn’t have the letter from Allocco to Jermaine Jackson. They did, however, use the questionable Tohme (who is not a doctor) as their source. Whoops!

So Patrick Allocco won’t give up. He tells Jermaine in the letter that he spoke with Michael on the Sunday before he died, and that he’d agreed to the Texas deal. He says that Dennis Hawk, Tohme’s lawyer, was drafting an agreement on the morning Michael died and was emailing it to him. Whatever.

Even better: Allocco says he can’t find anyone who’s honest to deal with in the Jackson family’s extended circle. “Each seems to have his own agenda,” Allocco writes.

I couldn’t agree more.

Michael Jackson’s Siblings: Promoter Still Wants ‘Em

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Michael Jackson’s siblings are still in demand for a family tour. The desiring promoter is the same guy who was suing Michael right before he died.

Patrick Alloco of AllGood Entertainment sent a letter to Jermaine Jackson this past week asking him to intervene and bring his family the deal.

Alloco, aligned with Michael’s ex-manager Tohme Tohme, told Jermaine in the Aug. 11 letter: “All that I am asking of you is to arrange for me to deal directly with the family. The ‘middle man’ model that I have been subscribing to has failed and caused me great frustration. I spoke with Dr. Tohme [not a doctor, except to friends] this afternoon and forwarded him the above contract.”

The contract to which Alloco refers offers, unsolicited, the following amounts to Jackson’s siblings: $4 million to Janet, $1.5 to each of the brothers, $500,000 to LaToya, and $250,000 to Rebbie. Alloco would pay them that to perform in 10 U.S. cities, with an option for 10 more in Europe, and a bunch of miscellaneous stops in the Far East.

Alloco decided on the family members’ individual worths. It must have been not so amusing to La Toya and Rebbie.

Alloco tells Jermaine, in the letter obtained only by this column, that he actually thinks he spoke to Michael a few days before his death and got him to agree to joining the family. He also says that Tohme’s lawyer was drawing up a contract with Michael on the morning he died. Alloco obviously thinks this might have been possible even though he filed suit againt Michael for allegedly reneging on another agreement. The man is persistent.

Alloco also tells Jermaine that he can’t find anyone honest enough to deal with in the Jackson family’s inner circle. “Each seems to have his own agenda,” Alloco writes.

He couldn’t have put it any better.

Flashback: Jacko’s Doc Had Bad Genes

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I love it when old news ‘ first reported here ‘ turns up somewhere else fresh as a daisy.

Back on July 23 I told you that Dr. Conrad Murray, whom the LAPD is now investigating for manslaughter, had bad medicine in his genes.

His father, the late Rawle Andrews of Houston, had his medical license severely limited from 1994-99. The reason: improperly prescribing heavy anesthesia-like drugs to two patients.

If you click here, you can see the filing by the Texas Medical Board. That was July 23. Today is Aug. 14. Repurposing news is as simple as ABC, apparently.

More important is the question of where Murray came from and how Michael Jackson found him. Originally, Murray’s lawyers said the doctor met Michael in 2006 in Las Vegas when Jackson needed a doctor for his kids.

But kids don’t need cardiologists. And Jackson was not in the U.S. in 2006 at all.

What my sources say is that Jackson needed a new doctor in 2009 and called around to find one who would do what he wanted. The cash-strapped Murray, deeply in debt, seemed like the right guy.

Murray, though, is just the last’in a long string of doctors who did Jackson’s bidding. Dr. Arnold Klein is the constant through Jackson’s whole adult life. Dr. Stuart Finkelstein, Neil Ratner, and many others came before him.

Brooke Astor’s Son: Trial by Day, Movie by Night

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What do you do when you’re on trial for ripping off your incredibly famous, elderly mother for millions and millions of dollars? Why, that’s simple: go to the movies.

Sixteen weeks into a celebrated court case, Anthony Marshall, son of the late Brooke Astor, brought his wife, Charlene, to a private screening of Uli Edel’s epic German film about terrorism in the 1970s called “The Baader Meinhof Complex.” The Oscar nominated film opens shortly in the U.S. after many successful runs around the world.

The Marshalls sat front and center in the Cinema 2 on Third Avenue, nestled among a society and media crowd that included Morley Safer of “60 Minutes,” veteran journalist Bob Jamieson, Tovah Feldshuh and Candice Bergen.

Anthony Marshall is accused of defrauding his mother, one of New York’s greatest philanthropists, when she was hobbled by Alzheimer’s Disease.

We did joke that all of New York’s most infamous types do stop by a Peggy Siegal screening either on their way to or from prison. It’s a tradition. Not since Claus von Bulow has anyone seemed quite so notorious in public.

The Marshall-Astor trial has had its own share of terrorism. Last Thursday, the jury forewoman was attacked on the subway by a knife wielding woman. The attacker was subdued and the forewoman has gone right on with the trial.

As for “Baader Meinhof,” it’s a riveting, controversial look at how Weather Underground types paralyzed the German courts and police in the early 1970s. It’s the perfect summer retort to yukky comedies and big budget blockbusters.

Jennifer Hudson Pulls Off Coup

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hudson jennifer 250x300 Jennifer Hudson Pulls Off CoupJennifer Hudson is at home today with her new baby son, David Daniel Otunga, Jr. The baby is truly a bundle of joy for Jennifer and David Sr., who are planning to marry soon. The baby, and the order of these events, “just happened,” Jennifer says.

I first reported David Jr.’s birth around 5 a.m. yesterday in this space. No one else in the world knew about it. So it was absolutely fascinating to see the announcement take off, and to see how it got attributed.

Most outlets credited this column. But some did not. US Weekly, for example, posted an item taken almost verbatim from this column. Then Yahoo’s OMG column picked it up, also with crediting The Hollywood Reporter. As the day went along, several outlets credited either People or the Associated Press, because they used the story and only tacked on our credit at the end, as an afterthought. The Huffington Post did that, which was disappointing because we always credit them.

Associated Press was most interesting, because they’re running around trying to stop everyone on the internet from stealing or repurposing their material without permission.

None of this takes away from Jennifer’s miracle, and the coup she staged by conducting her pregnancy her own way, in private, and not as a publicity event. Little David, it seems, is going to have a blessedly normal life. How refreshing, and utterly like the Jennifer Hudson everyone’s come to know and love.

Jermaine Jackson Told All in Shocking 2003 Book Proposal

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Whatever happened to Jermaine Jackson’s book proposal?

Three years ago I wrote in my old column about a stunning document that Jermaine had put together with Stacy Brown, a family friend and co-author of an amazing memoir with Michael Jackson’s late, longtime PR man, Bob Jones.

Jermaine often protested that such a proposal existed, but he talked about it with Larry King on TV. New York literary agent Laurie Liss sent the proposal around to three publishers, but no one bit. Maybe they’ll be more interested now that Michael is gone.

I was so interested in Jermaine’s 2003 proposal that I called around to find the actual document. Sure enough, there still were copies to be found.

Here are excerpts from it, in Jermaine’s own voice, circa early 2003:

‘My brother is a superstar, yes. My brother is wealthy. He owns shares in Sony music. He drinks, he does drugs, he lies, he cheats, he changed his skin color and mostly, he’s human. He attracts gay men and wards off women like the plague.’

‘He married a woman because she was pregnant and he was doing business with Muslims (which I am a Muslim) and Muslims won’t do business with someone who is engaged in having children without being married.

“He paid this woman, who nobody would ever look twice at, several million dollars. My brother purchased children. It is like a sanctioned black market. He is very powerful; he picked the sperm donor by using information provided by a sperm bank. Now, who can do that? Michael Jackson, that’s who, my brother.

‘I have maintained my residence by my mother’s side at the family’s Hayvenhurst estate in Encino, California because I know how much I am needed there. Michael counts on me to be there as does the rest of my family.’

[Columnist note: this would verify the long-held belief that Katherine and Joseph Jackson, who have filed for divorce in the past, do not live together. Joseph’s fathering of an illegitimate child, reported and documented in several places, could have contributed to this.]

‘It was my little brother, he conceived the whole idea behind DreamWorks. The logo is still proudly the official logo of Neverland. Unfortunately, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen all stole the idea from him. That’s one reason why Michael hates Jewish people so much. But he plays the game with them. There is a game that all in Hollywood play. But the Jews are the powerful ones and they have done a lot to put my brother in his place’.just another nigger. That’s what Don King told Michael at the start of the “Victory” tour. No matter what Michael, you’re just another nigger.

‘My brother doesn’t always learn the valuable lessons life teaches. He is stubborn, hard-headed and, at times, harsh. He is cold, calculating and devious. The blood of his father runs freely through him. We were all afraid that the blood of Joseph Jackson would eventually contaminate all of us.

‘But this is still my family and I love every one of them and I won’t sit by and let my brother go to prison. Prison would kill him. I’ve thought about doing the time for him, if he’s convicted. Michael wouldn’t survive in prison for one day. He’d commit suicide.

‘Joseph did some disgusting things to LaToya and Rebbie, especially. If it weren’t for Mother’s loyalty to him, he’d probably be in prison for what he did to our sisters.’

Jermaine, meantime, has some explaining to do about the big upcoming charity event he’s planning in Vienna for brother Michael.

Since yesterday when I started asking questions about where the money was going for “The Tribute,” produced by Jermaine and awards show producer’George Kindel, the event’s website has been heavily edited.

Previously, it claimed ‘ and Jermaine claimed on TV ‘ that three organizations would benefit from this circus:’Larry Jones’s children’s group that you always see flogged on middle of the night commercials; Larry King’s Cardiac Foundation, and Jermaine’s own Earth Care Foundation.

The problem is that Earth Care, which Jermaine has touted for years, does not exist. There is an Earth Care Foundation in New Mexico. They have nothing to do with him. They don’t even know who he is.

Twice in 2003 and at least once in 2001, Jermaine said in television interviews that he was behind something called EarthVision International. The organization does not exist, except maybe in Jermaine’s imagination.

Back on Sept. 8, 1997, Jermaine told Larry King that the’Jackson 5 was getting back together for a benefit extravaganza called Earthvision ‘98. He said the 90-minute program would benefit a group he named as the Sunshine Foundation of Feasterville, Pa.

Jackson announced that the small group that grants wishes for ill children would get money by honoring ‘Muhammad Ali,’Sophia Loren,’Stevie Wonder and’Bishop Desmond Tutufor their humanitarian achievements.’

Jermaine said Earthvision ‘98 would be broadcast live July 2, 1998, from the Heridon Theater in Athens, Greece.

The whole thing never materialized.

UPDATED: A representative for Liss denied ‘her involvement in the book proposal. ‘Ms. Liss represented Jermaine Jackson ‘at one time related to a very different book concept, but never received a ‘proposal from him concerning the material outlined by Mr. Friedman in the ‘article.’

Cameron Douglas: Mom’s Life a Soap Opera

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douglas cameron 250x350 Cameron Douglas: Moms Life a Soap OperaIn the old days, kids of big Hollywood stars tried to do their parents proud. Henry Fonda’s kids, Jane and Peter, were rebellious but never got involved with actual crime.

Marlo Thomas, Candice Bergen, Jeff and Beau Bridges, Jennifer Nicholson, Lucie Arnaz, Kyle and Alison Eastwood have all made their parents proud.

But lately, things aren’t going so well for Hollywood’s next generation. Redmond O’Neal, son of Ryan O’Neal and Farrah Fawcett, is famously in jail. He had to visit his dying mother in an orange prison suit and chains.

Now Cameron Douglas, son of Michael and Diandra Douglas, is on his way to a probably long prison term for allegedly being a major distributor of drugs. It’s not his first brush with the law, but it may be his last.

The Douglas family has always been plagued by the drug problem. Michael’s brother Eric died of a drug overdose in 2004 after a history of failed rehabs and public embarrassments.

Cameron Douglas certainly hasn’t had it easy. Much as we love Michael Douglas an actor, his personal life was always a roller coaster. In 1990 he went into rehab for sex addiction and alcohol abuse. His marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones, however, has been a success’maybe a sign of being able to start a family once the bright light of a red hot career is cooled enough to think straight.

Diandra Douglas is another story. The local papers report that it was in her apartment yesterday that Cameron’s guards found him getting crystal meth delivered inside an electric toothbrush. They didn’t say if he’s also flossing, but his dentist will be proud.

Since her divorce from Michael, Diandra Douglas has lived a soap opera. With a wealthy boyfriend she commissioned twin boys from a surrogate. When the relationship broke up, she sued the boyfriend for custody and lost, in a very public battle. (She wouldn’t marry him, sources said, because that would have ended her alimony from Douglas.) Diandra did eventually marry another man, and adopted a little girl from Khazakstan. That guy went back to his first wife, and he and Diandra divorced.

If “Guiding Light” had used this plot, they’d still be on the air!

Nancy Sinatra Says It Best

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Did you miss this excellent Op-Ed piece by Nancy Sinatra in the New York Times? I know I did. Here’s the link.

This is yet another reason to support the Performance Rights Act going through Congress right now. Nancy’s father, Frank Sinatra, the greatest singer/performer of the 20th century, was a vehement advocate of this bill. All those wonderful songs we associate with Sinatra’he didn’t write them. Whenever they’re played on the radio, his estate gets nothing. When he was alive, nada also.

The National Association of Broadcasters is being investigated now regarding those horrible lobbying commercials they’re playing on certain radio stations. I’ll have more on that tomorrow. In the meantime, read Nancy. These boots are made for walkin’ over conglomerate radio.

Vile Cannes Treat ‘Antichrist’ Coming to NY Film Fest

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84682 antichrist 250x3001 Vile Cannes Treat Antichrist Coming to NY Film Fest“Antichrist” ‘ reviled, awful, coughed up like a hairball at Cannes ‘ is coming to The New York Film Festival. Lars von Trier’s sexfest with Willem Dafoe will be a feature presentation this fall at Lincoln Center.

It’s the one film of real interest on a list of mostly foreign films and releases of things that people really won’t be too excited about.

With the exception of Lee Daniel’s “Precious” and a new print of “The Wizard of Oz,” this should be some film festival.

The funny thing is, new and unpopular executive director Mara Manus went to Cannes, had an unsuccessful lunch for Hollywood types. Everyone was scared that the NYFF would be overrun with Hollywood releases. Surprise! There aren’t any, not even the Coen Brothers’ new film.

What happened? Well, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly is gone, and so is any connection to commercial or even indie commercial reality. The other title of this article could be: “Mariah Carey only celebrity expected this year.”

The opening-night film is veteran French director Alain Resnais‘ not so great “Wild Grass,” which most people at Cannes hated.

The closing-night film is Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces,” starring Penelope Cruz, which is interesting but not “Volver.”

All one can think is that Manus was taken captive by French cineastes at Cannes and tortured, or that someone in her family writes subtitles.

Luckily, Yom Kippur falls right in the middle of the festival schedule, so we can all repent.