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This morning on the Today Show…Megyn Kelly went camping with her family. They drove an RV and set up a tent in the woods.
For this, Kelly has a $16 million contract from NBC. The camping segment is a bridge between Kelly’s Sunday night news show– which ended weeks early– and her 9am Today show hour which will debut three weeks late on September 25th.
A year ago, Kelly was interviewing Republicans and like minded conservatives on Fox News every night. Now she’s camping. But she’s got a weekly paycheck significantly higher than it used to be.
It’s not like there isn’t a lot of news. There’s something about Trump and Korea and going on, among other things.
Last night, Kelly threw out the first ball at a Durham Bulls minor league game.
Michael Moore scored an all star audience for his opening night on Broadway. His one man show, “The Terms of My Surrender” has earned good to mixed reviews not to mention lots of A list fans. (The New York Times did not like this show, but our reviewer did.)
In the audience tonight no less than Harry Belafonte, Rosie O’ Donnell, Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas, Christie Brinkley, Dan Rather, Josh Lucas, Gloria Steinem, Anna Deveare Smith, Christine Lahti, Tommy Tune, Rosanna Scotto, novelist Walter Mosley. That’s quite a crowd for a Thursday in August!
Naomi Watts is so good in “The Glass Castle,” along with Brie Larson, a bunch of talented kids and most especially Woody Harrelson. At last night’s premiere for Dustin Daniel Cretton’s excellent adaptation of Jeannette Walls’s best selling memoir, Naomi had a lot of things to discuss– this movie, her series “Gypsy,” and “Twin Peaks,” where she’s been playing a suburban Lady MacBeth who knows more than she’s letting on. (Naomi as always is MVP of the movie and TV world.)
So I asked Naomi about “Twin Peaks,” which readers here know I hate watch with the hope that someday something will happen.
“Is it good? I’m sure it’s good. But I haven’t watched it yet,” Naomi told me. I explained where we were and what was going on. She liked the Lady MacBeth reference. “Do you want to know what’s going to happen?” she said, teasing me. “I’m not going to tell you. We can’t say anything.”
In “The Glass Castle,” Naomi plays Jeannette Walls’s real life mother, Rosemary. You know that Jeannette was a famous New York gossip columnist at New York Magazine. She was glamorous and beautiful and smart. (I succeeded her at the Intelligencer column in 1994.) No one knew during her long, successful run that she had a secret: her parents, dreamers who lived off the grid and in poverty, were squatters in a New York tenement. Jeannette and her siblings had been raised in squalid conditions with a lot of abuse and neglect. When her dad died in 1994, Jeannette left the gossip trade and wrote her story. It became a bestseller.
Cretton directed Oscar winner Brie Larson in “Short Term 12,” and here Brie plays Jeannette as an adult, taking over from two exceptional younger actresses– Chandler Head and Ella Anderson. Woody Harrelson is Rex, Jeannette’s father, who’s sort of a cross between Viggo Mortensen in “Captain Fantastic” and Harrison Ford in “The Mosquito Coast.” All the actors are terrific, with Harrelson maybe giving the most surprising performance. Larson continues to astound.
Among the guests last night: director Simon Curtis, who’s got “Goodbye Christopher Robin” coming this fall from Fox Searchlight. He’s married Elizabeth McGovern, aka Lady Cora Grantham. What does he know about the “Downton Abbey” movie? “As usual, almost nothing,” he said with a chuckle. “I guess it will happen next year.” Also on hand: my old pal Josh Lucas, who raking it in doing voice overs for hardware store commercials. He’ll be on Broadway this fall in “The Parisian Woman” with Uma Thurman.
As for “The Glass Castle,” it’s not perfect, but it’s important and moving. We look at people around us thinking, they’ve got it made. That’s what we all used to think about Jeannette. I mean, we thought she was Miss America. To see what’s she and her siblings lived through, and what they accomplished coming out of it, it’s an amazing story. The journey to serenity is never easy.
Glen Campbell will always be gentle on our minds. But when he died yesterday, sales of his music went through the roof. He’s taking up most of the top slots on Amazon and iTunes.
According to BuzzAngle Music, Campbell’s digital album sales rose 13,665% on Tuesday August 8 – 46% of those sales are from the 20 Greatest Hits album and 24% from the Greatest Hits album.
Additionally, Glen Campbell’s song sales rose 6,652% on Tuesday August 8 and song streams rose 902% on Tuesday August 8.
Death is good for music sales, sadly. Linkin Park sales have been through the roof since Chester Bennington died. Linkin Park, as usual, accounts for the only act from Warner Bros. on the charts.
The top 5 Glen Campbell songs sold on Tuesday: Wichita Lineman
Rhinestone Cowboy
Gentle On My Mind
By the Time I Get to Phoenix
Galveston
The top 5 Glen Campbell songs streamed on Tuesday: Southern Nights
Rhinestone Cowboy
Wichita Lineman
Gentle On My Mind
By the Time I Get to Phoenix
Tony Bennett, who just 91 years young, wowed the crowd last night at Newradio88 WCBS’s 50th anniversary at the Playstation Theater. And what a night! Tony finished off the program with aplomb, singing two songs. Before that he sat down with CBS’s Anthony Mason and told us who changed his name from Anthony Dominic Benedetto–nother than Bob Hope! “He said that’s no good, how about Tony Bennett?”
The night’s program saluted WCBS on 50 years of being Newsradio 88. The special guest stars were Mason, Lesley Stahl and Jeff Fager of “60 Minutes,” Paul Shaffer– who played the biggest hit he’s written– “It’s Raining Men”– plus former NY Mets manager Bobby Valentine, and former New York Giant George Martin.
But the real stars were the voices of Newsradio 88 who are seared in my head– you never see their faces! And so there were Wayne Cabot, Pat Farnack, Steve Scott, Paul Murnane, Michael Wallace and the vet– Rich Lamb. Plus we got to see what Marla Diamond really looks like! Jeffrey Lyons — the one and only– was there, too.
I finally got to meet Irene Cornell, Dean of New York radio. Irene has been covering the courts– particularly mob stories, her favorite– for decades. She just retired, which seems impossible. Her reporting was as informative and succinct as good radio can be, whether covering OJ Simpson’s trial or a good mob murder in Brooklyn. She went everywhere. I hope she has a lot of awards. New Yorkers really owe her a debt of gratitude.
A great night– AM radio is still our best way to get news quickly. It better not go away!
Here’s Tony– amazing– who gets the last laugh now? He does. Listen, watch. Learn.
“The Great Comet” aka “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812” is closing on September 3rd, the victim of stupidity. It was killed by political correctness, bad producing, and really bad PR.
I first saw “The Great Comet” on Gansevoort St. in a tent. It was dinner theater and quite amusing. Then it moved to a tent on West 45th St. When it was finally moved to the Imperial Theater on Broadway, pop star Josh Groban starred as Pierre. The box office was great. He and the show received Tony nominations.
But Groban could only stay so long. The producers knew this in February when they announced his replacement: a totally unknown actor from “Hamilton” named Okieriete “Oak” Onaodowan. I’m sure he’s very talented, but he’s not a star or even a name anyone knows. Why did the producers think replacing Josh Groban with such a person– regardless of color or nationality– would be a good idea? Beats me.
If there was some push to get a black Pierre, why not Brian Stokes Mitchell? Norm Lewis? Leslie Odom, Jr? James Monroe Inglehart, from “Aladdin”? Did no black star want to do it? What about Usher? Jamie Foxx?
So then came “Oak,” as he is known. But he is known to few. So the box office literally went off a cliff. Overnight, the show dropped from an average $1 million a week take to around $840,000. The producers realized “Oak” — despite his great talent– was not drawing a crowd. The idea came to ask Mandy Patinkin to step in. Even for three weeks, that would get the box office back up and more.
But political correctness stepped in. Replace a black actor with a white actor? There was an outcry. Patinkin, who would have been a great Pierre, pulled out. It didn’t matter that Oak, the black actor, had replaced Groban, a white actor. The whole thing is crazy. This had nothing to do with color. It had to do with saving the show. Theater is color blind. But it’s not star blind. This show required a name on the Marquee. Maybe Oak could have come back after Patinkin righted the ship.
But now, with no Mandy, no Oak, no nobody of an color, “The Great Comet” will close. All those jobs down the drain. And for what? Botched PR. Botched producing. Nobody wins, everyone loses. What a shame.
Madonna– a lot has been made of the new medical building opened in her name this year in Malawi, home of her adopted children. In 2014, Madonna donated $1 million to Raising Malawi, the controversial charity she started with the sketchy Kabbalah Center of Los Angeles. It was part of a total $1.8 million she gave away in 2014 including $89,898 to Sean Penn’s Haiti fund.
But now a new Form 990 is out for Madonna’s Ray of Light Foundation, and things have changed. According to the 2015 form, no more money went to Raising Malawi or to anything in Africa. She did send $30,000 to the Kabbalah Center, the lowest amount she’s ever donated to the cultish group ever. In all Madonna cut her charitable spending by two-thirds, to $666,982. I’m not sure if the ‘666’ is intentional.
On the 2015 Form, Madonna’s found a new pet project: ex husband Penn’s J/P Haiti fund. She gave them a substantial increase over the prior year– $341,982. The donation lines up with her appearance and performance at Penn’s January 2015 gala dinner in Los Angeles where Madonna declared her love for her ex husband and sang “La Vie En Rose” accompanying herself on guitar. That was the same dinner into which Justin Bieber walked accidentally, then left when there was a discussion of poverty in Haiti.
Forbes listed Madonna’s net worth in 2015 at $520 million.
Glen Campbell has passed away at age 81 after a long fight with Alzheimer’s Disease. He was a warrior in the battle against the illness, releasing music, touring and even making a documentary.
Campbell’s longer obits will be found all over the web. His career stretched back to being part of Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew, playing on hundreds of hits generated by the “Wall of Sound.” In the later 60s he came to prominence with the Smothers Brothers on TV, with his own variety show and hits that propelled him into the 70s like “Gentle on My Mind,” “Galveston” and “Wichita Lineman.” He transcended country and pop at one point, finding poetry in their combination.
In the mid to late 70s, Campbell came roaring back with the hit “Rhinestone Cowboy.” That did it. Coupled with his earlier careers, the “Rhinestone” wave secured him for life in pop history. From then on, Campbell was an institution.
Campbell was married four times. But his most famous relationship was a hot and tempestuous one with country singer Tanya Tucker. She was half his age, he was between marriages and right on the crest of the “Rhinestone” wave. For a hot minute, they were all the rage in the tabloids.
Glen Campbell was a giant, and met a cruel end. But he faced it head on, with incredible courage and grace.
This is absolutely chilling. Jimmy Webb’s “Wichita Lineman.” Thanks Glenn.
Sunday cable race: “Game of Thrones” came in at 10.1 million viewers, adding almost 1 million from the prior two weeks. A great episode, and the West Coast no doubt got the word of mouth as news of Dany’s battle, the dragon dragoon and Jaime Lannister’s peril spread. This Sunday should be higher, and then the conclusion of this mini season.
Moving “Twin Peaks” to 8pm helped Showtime gain around 40,000 viewers. But how many of them lasted the whole hour, and who will return, remains to be seen. Drollest announcement of the week: no plans for more of this. Showtime probably wants to strangle David Lynch for 13 weeks of paint drying. Five more to go and this bizarre exercise will end no doubt without answers.
“Ray Donovan” (a great, underrated show) came back strong with 1.25 million audience. And “Sharknado 5” managed to attract almost 1.9 million. LOL.
A really big hit that doesn’t get much press attention: “Ballers.” They’re scoring over 2.2 million peeps a week. That’s huge for scripted TV on cable. The Rock is really a draw, you can’t deny it. Football helps, too.
The Grammy deadline is September 30th and guess who’s going to make it just under the wire?
Miley Cyrus. Dropping her Dead Petz and her Wrecking Ball, Miley is back on September 29th with “Younger Now,” her first official album in a couple of years. The album will include the hit single “Malibu,” but so far there’s no other track listing.
My guess is Miley goes soft and goes country. She’s been singing Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” a lot lately. The days of riding around naked on a wrecking ball in videos is over. So are the days warbling about loving marijuana. She’s on tour with daddy, Billy Ray Cyrus, which sends a very definite image signal: Miley’s era of pushing the envelope, or even licking it, are done.
The timing is interesting because if “Younger Now” weren’t terrific, the record label et al would wait until after the Grammy deadline. (Many artists do this.) The running for Album of the Year is light this year– no certainty like Adele or even Beyonce. So far, Miley’s competition would include Ed Sheeran (the favorite), Kendrick Lamar, Katy Perry.
