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Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O’Donnell have posted tributes to Phil Donahue on Instagram.
She writes: “There wouldn’t have been an Oprah Show without Phil Donahue being the first to prove that daytime talk and women watching should be taken seriously. He was a pioneer. I’m glad I got to thank him for it. Rest in peace Phil.”
She’s right. Phil paved the way for Oprah’s success. The whole idea of wading into the audience and letting them participate — a signature Oprah move — was invented by Donahue. Also, bringing difficult subjects to the land of women’s television.
But Donahue was more than that. With his live broadcast at 9m from New York, Donahue covered breaking political news and anything else that needed immediate coverage. If something crazy had happened the day before, “Donahue” had it the next morning.
Phil Donahue has died at age 88 after a long illness.
I was lucky to know this TV legend, the last of the really classy journalists who could take even the most outrageous subject into something intelligent.
His “Donahue” show had a long run in Chicago before moving to New York in the 1980s. He was the ratings king at 9am on WNBC when he came on live with most current topics, celebrities, breaking news in an interview form with an audience.
Phil roamed around among his audience, asking questions of people on the stage and letting the audience do it, too. He was an immediate window into the news cycle. Even when the audience gasped, or voiced concern about people on the stage, Donahue kept things on an even keel.
The Donahue show was considered the gold standard in talk shows. If you could get an author, an actor, a politician on the show their message would be broadcast to the world instantly. He was the trailblazer for Oprah, Ellen, and all the hosts who followed in his footprints.
In real life, Phil was a real gentleman, soft spoken and thoughtful, and always engaged even when the show went off the air after 19 seasons. He had an incredible partner in his wife, actress Marlo Thomas, a real love story for the ages.
Condolences to Marlo and their whole family and wide circle of friends.
The 90 year old legend announced today that he has COVID, and had to cancel a couple of shows.
But Frankie says he’ll be back on the road in late September for tour dates that will take him through next spring — at least!
Why is Frankie still doing gigs? Because he loves it. And the audiences love him. The Broadway musical, “Jersey Boys,” extended his career by 25 years.
Also, current pop group Maneskin reworked his hit, “Beggin’,” and got a top 10 hit out of it.
The songs of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, like most classic rock, pop, and R&B, stand the test of time!
Here’s to a speedy recovery, and Frankie getting the best care. He’s a national treasure.
Unfortunately I’ve got COVID like so many other folks these days. I’m tired but doing ok. Of course I won’t be able to perform tonight in Atlanta and had to miss last night in Greensboro. Sorry to those who bought tickets….my guys will get them rescheduled asap.
Lindsey Graham has been a Trump brown noser for years.
But on “Meet the Press” today, Graham — in an extraordinary moment — conceded that Trump could lose this election.
Graham is a political survivor and pragmatist. He’s like a caricature of a human being. He sees the writing on the wall, he can feel the wind changing. He knows that in 80 days the party for Trump is over. When Trump goes to jail, watch Graham say it was inevitable.
Will we finally see what Trump has been blackmailing him with all these years? That will be worth everything.
Watch this:
BREAKING: In a shocking moment, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham admits that Donald Trump may lose this election. Republicans across the country are panicking about Trump’s candidacy. Retweet so all Americans see this. pic.twitter.com/MVw4qhdE4H
Does anyone still have a TiVo machine? Do they still make them?
Donald Trump extolled the virtues of Tivo yesterday at his rally. He also likes fax machines, and VCR’s. Or Betamax. He listens to 8 tracks in his car. He’s an old school guy.
No one has told Trump that DVR long ago replaced Tivo. He’s still “taping” shows. He doesn’t realize that digital has replaced all of this. “It’s the greatest invention!” he says of TiVo. He thinks it’s 2002.
See the video below.
Trump also has no idea what tariffs are. He told the crowd that tariffs “Don’t affect this country.”
Um, Donald, they do. Tariffs increase the price of imported goods. But instead of deterring their purchase by consumers, they cause prices to rise, thus affecting US consumers. They have a negative effect on economic growth.
Also, see below.
Donald Trump: A tariff is a tax on a foreign country. A lot of people like to say it’s a tax on us. No… It’s is a tax that doesn’t affect our country. @Acyn pic.twitter.com/QY1IzZ6yKg
Trump: I love the playback controls you have nowadays. They used to call it TiVo, now they TiVo— I think it’s the single greatest invention. it is better than television. pic.twitter.com/lOEZKGNDsh
The great poet and activist, Hettie Jones, died in Philadelphia on Tuesday, August 13th. She was 90.
Born Hettie Cohen, she did something daring in the 1950s and married LeRoi Jones, who was part of the Beat movement (along with Jack Kerouac, et al). Jones took the name Amiri Baraka and went on to great fame.
This is not something you will hear on “Entertainment Tonight” or read in “People.” The Jones’s had no top 10 hits and didn’t win any statues on awards shows. They were actually important to the history of American literature, culture, and politics.
Regina Weinreich remembers Hettie Jones here:
“She had the unique distinction of being shorter than me. I loved her for that when I first met her in the 1980’s when I was working on a documentary, ‘The Beat Generation: An American Dream.’
A foundational writer associated with the beat literati, Jones, nee Cohen, was important to the shift in American culture marked by the gutsy changes for the women of her era, rebelling against the Ozzie-and-Harriet housewives in shirtwaists expected of women. On film, Hettie said that what she saw of that life did not look pleasing at all, and like the pioneering women on whose shoulders we all stand, she sought other options, and married a fellow writer/poet, LeRoi Jones.
Hettie’s memoir, “How I Became Hettie Jones,” lays it all out, explaining just how revolutionary and daring it was for a nice Jewish girl to wed a Black man. Giving up her family, she honed her craft, founded with Roy, the underground publication, Yugen, hosted fellow poets and artists, birthed two daughters, and endured the behavior of her husband who fathered a child with poet Diane DiPrima. When poet Allen Ginsberg’s mother Naomi died, and Allen wanted to say Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, for her, it was to Hettie he turned, to learn the cadences that would define the sound of one of his most famous epics, Kaddish.
Leroi Jones left his interracial family, becoming radicalized after the murder of Malcolm X, and renamed himself Amiri Baraka. Hettie soldiered on, teaching in prisons, The New School, Columbia University. She authored a biography of Rita Marley among other books of prose and poetry.
With her eyes and ears to the Zeitgeist, Hettie wrote:
“I have always been at the same time
woman enough to be moved to tears
and man enough
to drive my car in any direction . . . .” (from Drive, Hanging Loose Press, 1998)
The great non story of Ryan Reynolds vs. wife Blake Lively at the box office has taken its expected turn.
“Deadpool and Wolverine” turned out to be a more compelling couple than the domestic partners in “It Ends with Us.”
The former movie regained its footing and $29 million over the weekend. The domestic total stands at $545.8 million.
The latter offering made a decent $24 million, and has banked $97 million.
But “D&W” only fell 46% from last weekend. “Ends” is down 52%. While it will hit the $100 million mark on Monday, we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. There are no Easter eggs in “Ends,” an no post-credit scene. The trail off has begun.
Meantime, “Alien Romulus” finished at number 1 with $41 million. God bless.
The box office is otherwise as empty as Trump’s rapidly balding crowds.
Next up is “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” about which I’m hearing mixed things. I was so psyched over for it, and still am. But Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton don’t seem to be doing advance press, for myriad reasons. They may know something we don’t.
The main character in “Alien Romulus” is Rain Carradine. She is not related to the famous Carradine Hollywood family. No Carradines — Keith, Robert, Martha Plimpton — appear in the movie.
I was thinking maybe Rain was a member I’d never heard of!
And yet, Caelee Spaeny — was became famous last year as Priscilla Presley and as the young photographer in “Civil War” — plays Rain. No Presleys are in the movie, either.
“Alien Romulus” made $18 million over Thursday and Friday, and it’s on its way to a $40 million weekend. The Carradines should get a cut of the action!
Elsewhere yesterday: “It Ends With Us” is starting to show a little wear and tear after all the negative publicity about Blake Lively dissing director Justin Baldoni. Still, the movie is going to hit $100 million early next week which is amazing considering everything. Maybe it was all planned this way!
You know, Romulus was a character in Roman mythology. He killed his brother Remus around 750 BC, the old days before TikTok. (It’s a long story.) So I guess we’ll get a sequel called “Alien Remus.” Can you imagine someone had to go wake these people up in the afterlife to tell them they’re popular again? Romulus immediately called Hollywood uber lawyer Marty Singer to sue Disney/Fox.
This afternoon NewsRadio 88 star broadcasters became the first of the staff to sign off their show.
Scott chose to leave on Friday as he had a vacation week coming anyway. The station will sign off on August 26th after 57 years of providing the New York area with news 24 hours a day.
What a catastrophic decision has been made by Audacy, the company that has brought the station to its knees.
Scott and Wallace’s farewell is below. There will be more of these over the next ten days.
Drew Barrymore’s CBS owned syndicated talk show is in trouble.
CBS just announced they’re adding a third hour of “CBS Mornings” soon from 9 to 10am.
Right now New York’s WCBS gives a half hour to local programming and then 30 minutes of Barrymore. In other markets, Drew Barrymore is offered as an hour. In some, it runs in the middle of the night.
But if the network grabs the hour, Barrymore would be most likely to suffer in that situation.
Already NBC’s Today show has a third and fourth hour. ABC’s Good Morning America comes back in the afternoon after the morning shift.
CBS doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room. They’ve got The Price is Right and Let’s Make a Deal from 10 til 12 noon. There’s a half hour of local news, followed by the soaps, “The Young and the Restless” (an hour) and “The Bold and the Beautiful.” CBS has already announced the end of “The Talk” in December, and have contracted for a new soap, “The Gates,” at 2pm beginning in January.
An extra hour of “CBS Mornings” would be fatal for whatever goes out now at 9am.
Barrymore’s show could still be offered to non CBS affiliates. But it’s low rated compared to other talkers, even after five years of holding on.
Variety was first to report the additional 9am show for CBS Mornings. The new hour will also be available on CBS’s streaming service, they say. isn’t everything already?
