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Kelly Giddish, who’s played Detective Amanda Rollins since 2011, says she’s leaving “Law & Order SVU” early in the new season.
Rollins and Carisi (Peter Scanavino) had been promoted the last couple of years as the show’s hot couple. For Wolf to break that up means something earthshaking happened. Was it negotiations for more money? So likely.
Giddish says in a statement from NBC:: “I wanted to address the chatter I’ve seen online and let everyone know that this will, indeed, be my last season on ‘Law & Order: SVU.’ Playing Rollins has been one of the greatest joys and privileges of my life. I’ve been so fortunate to be a part of the ‘Law & Order’ family for the last 12 years. There is simply no other character on TV like Rollins. She’s grown and changed, and I have as well. I started on this show when I was in my late 20s and I’m grateful I got to spend so many of my adult years with Rollins in my life.”
Just last month we thought Sylvester Stallone had lost his mind publishing screeds against “Rocky” producer Irwin Winkler and his family.
Sly said he wanted the rights to “Rocky” returned to him even though he never owned them. He wanted to leave something to his daughters.
Now it seems that whole meltdown — which included anti-Semitic drawings of the Winklers — was part of a large brewing storm. Today, Sly’s wife of 25 year, Jennifer Flavin, filed for divorce saying the marriage was “irretrievably broken.” She claims he’s hiding assets.
The Stallones have four gorgeous grown daughters. This was third second marriage. Flavin is 54 and could walk away with a fortune. Stallone is 76 and has probably been trying to marshal those assets. Since “Rocky” was written and sold well before his Flavin marriage maybe he was thinking this was something he could grab back and not share in the divorce. Tricky!
The signs were there Just a few days ago, Stallone visited a tattoo parlor to cover up a picture of Flavin with one of a bulldog. That was a sign things were bad.
The tabs note that the Stallones celebrated their 25th anniversary in May and that everything seemed hunky dory. But you, Sly’s been very busy filming a Yellowstone spin off called “Tulsa.” He’s been away from home a lot. And you know what means, Looks like Flavin wasn’t interested in dealing with the Flavin of the Month.
The great singer Maureen McGovern has posted a sad announcement to her website.
She writes: “I’ve been diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy with symptoms of Alzheimer’s and/or Dementia.”
McGovern has the distinction of singing two songs that won Best Song at the Oscars. “The Morning After,” which went to number 1, was from ‘The Poseidon Adventure.” Then “We May Never Love Like this Again” came from “The Towering Inferno.” The songs were written by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn.
McGovern became more famous still for appearing in the great comedy, “Airplane” as the Singing Nun.
She’s been recording and touring for the last four decades and has always been a popular presence around the world.
The diagnosis is alarming although every day there are breakthroughs.
A forthright McGovern says:
“What I do, or what I am still able to accomplish, has changed. I can no longer travel or perform in live concerts. In fact, I can no longer drive — how’s that for a kick in the butt?
“Of course, it’s a challenge, but it certainly is not going to keep me from living my life. At first, I began having trouble finding, in my brain, the words I wanted to say. I struggled with the inevitable shock with fear and frankly hopelessness.
“But slowly I realized that my inner life has not changed. My passion for music, for singing, remains profoundly robust. To me, music is a language that expresses what often cannot be said with just words – it elevates, expands, and heals – brings joy and comfort and can eliminate barriers by creating meaningful experiences. So, accepting this new stage in my life, I began to embrace what I have and let it be.”
Cecily Strong, one of the most popular members of the “Saturday Night Live” troupe, will miss the first month of the new season this fall.
Strong will instead star in Jane Wagner and Lily Tomlin’s “The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe” in Los Angeles. This is the same production from New York that took place last winter.
Last year, the “SNL” season began on October 2nd with four shows in a row. Strong’s run in “The Search” is set for September 21st through October 23rd. It could extend if successful, although the one thing in “SNL”‘s favor is that L.A. is not a theater town. A four week run is considered a triumph.
It’s strange that the theater run was scheduled to overlap with “SNL” and not when the show is on hiatus. Strong is much needed right now on the comedy show since several of its performers left in June after long runs including Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant. Strong, when she does return, would be the show’s leading lady without question.
On the plus side, I saw Strong in “The Search” in New York and she was terrific. She was the first ever performer that Wagner and Tomlin ever allowed do the one woman show other than Tomlin. So of course Strong, who is likely in her last year at “SNL,” wants to show off for her L.A. friends and industry types.
But who will play Judge Jeannine Pirro guzzling her box of wine?
Is it true? I don’t know. But the blog broadwayjournal.com says the following.
“Hamilton” produced Jeffrey Seller is raising $14.5 million to stage a super duper version of “Sweeney Todd” next spring.
Seller, the blog says, has lined up Josh Groban to play Sweeney, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Annaleigh Ashford to play the kooky but in-love Mrs. Lovett, baker of the best pies in London.
Thomas Kail, of “Hamilton” fame, would direct.
“Sweeney Todd” is my all time favorite musical. I’ve seen it in every form, including in a bake shop. So I hope this story is correct. After “Company” set Broadway on fire, and “Into the Woods” is going strong, we need more Sondheim!
There’s also a revival of “Merrily We Roll Along” heading to New York Theatre Arts Workshop with Daniel Radcliffe heading up the cast.
Groban and Ashford are perfect. Now, who to play Anthony? Is Josh Henry too old? (Maybe. Groban is kind of a young Sweeney.) There are plenty of choices for all the roles, that’s for sure.
Two of Paul Newman’s daughters have sued the Newman’s Own Foundation over their feeling that they’ve been increasingly pushed out and minimized by the board of directors.
The suit has been filed by Susan and Nell Newman. Their three other sisters are taking a back seat at the moment, according to sources.
News of the suit was first reported in the Wall Street Journal. But back in 2015, I covered the simmering issues between the family and the foundation. So did Mark Seal in Graydon Carter’s Vanity Fair. My 2015 story is below.
The amount of the suit is $1.6 million– the sum of $400,000 times four. Each sister has always had that amount to give to charities of their choice. (One sister, Stephanie, does not participate.) But now the board has cut their budgets to $200,000 apiece, they say, and they fear this will not be the end.
Important to know: The Newman children do not receive any personal money from the Foundation, no salaries, and no benefits. (I’d told the five children don’t receive an inheritance until Joanne Woodward passes away.) Their whole connection to Newman’s Own has been for them to be able to donate money at their discretion to charitable organizations.
But over time, the sisters say in their complaint, the board of Newman’s Own has tried to edge them out — despite their father’s intention that the family always be part of the hugely successful foundation that makes its money from marketing salad dressing, spaghetti sauce and popcorn.
When I wrote my story in 2015, the person running the foundation and already causing trouble for the Newmans was Robert Forrester. You can read about him below. I assumed at some point, because the Newmans retreated, they had resolved their differences. Forrester was removed from power. Miriam Nelson is the new chairman of the board. But I’m told “the whole family is demoralized by the way they’ve been treated.” Why didn’t they speak up over the last seven years? Says a source: “They were told to keep quiet, everything would work out.”
“Paul Newman had tremendous interests in the arts and things like climate change,” says an insider. “The board under Nelson has changed the focus to funding food insufficiency. Nelson’s background is she’s a nutritionist.” The meager $1.6 million divided among four of the daughters (one of them doesn’t participate) was designed to fund those charities. Cutting it to $800,000 is alarming, frankly.
Why the Newman’s Own board isn’t embracing Newman’s daughters and how they let things reach this point is the question. The foundation, which has meant so much to so many around the world, doesn’t need this kind of bad publicity. And after all, it’s called Newman’s Own. Newman’s own children should be front and center.
I just finished watching the series finale of “Only Murders in the Building.” It’s a good thing I skipped the press link. I could not have kept quiet.
As it is, John Hoffman and Steve Martin pulled off the best season finale I’ve seen in a long time, maybe since “Who Shot JR?”. They even set up Season 3 in the last few minutes. Paul Rudd has evidently signed on to appear next season in flashbacks.
So who killed Bunny Folger? Was it Tina Fey’s Cinda Canning? After all the red herrings we’ve seen, there are more in this episode. Fingers are pointed, let me tell you. There’s a big twist, too. And the whole episode is hilarious.
Not to give it away, but slow motion and a tomato steal the show.
Watch it. We’ll talk later.
Hint: It wasn’t Jan, and neither Teddy nor his deaf son are in the episode. Neither is the woman who runs the building now. Best line: “They chintzed on the cake!”
The Independent Spirit Awards have become the joke of all time.
They’ve now raised the budget limit for eligible films to a freaking $30 million! Come on, where’s the spit take? They just want to compete with all the other awards shows like the Oscars, Critics Choice, and so on.
An indie film that costs more than $5 million is not indie nor in the spirit of independent filmmaking. Recently the limit had gotten up to $20 million. But now with $30 million, all bets are off.
On top of that, they’re switching over to very PC ‘gender neutral’ awards, so there’s no Best Actress or Best Actor, just Best Performance. The woke community has taken hold.
No one really cares about Film Independent or the Spirit Awards anymore. They have no viewers on their telecast. Last March their rating was so low it failed to make the Top 150 Cable shows of that day.
I guess they think the remedy is to let in as many movies that can overlap with the Oscars as possible. It won’t work, but good luck.
As for gender neutral awards, no one cares about that either. It’s also a real slap in the face to the men and women (yes there are still actual men and women) actors who would claim their own gender status. But no one cares about that anymore either.
Scratch the Spirit Awards off any list of meaningful awards.
PS The only value the Spirit Awards had in the past was a really amazing gift bag on every seat. But they cut that out years ago.
“House of the Dragon” scored 2.170 million viewers for Sunday night’s first showing on regular HBO Prime at 9pm.
Right now, there are no numbers for the second showing which followed directly after at 10:06pm.
HBO said yesterday that nearly 10 million people watched the premiere across all networks. This would suggest that a whopping 7.7 million people watched on HBO Max.
For HBO Max, that would certainly guarantee its continuation as Warner Discovery’s streaming system going forward. The Max people should be opening bottles of Champagne, not laying anyone off.
“Dragon” had a small effect on John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight.” The acerbic and amusing news show was up around 100,000 viewers as a spill off. It also aired much later than usual, at 11:20pm and not at 10:30pm, so that’s pretty impressive.
HBO says last night’s premiere of “House of Dragons” was their biggest ever. Just a notch under 10 million people watched on HBO or HBO Max.
A release says:
The premiere of “House of the Dragon” drew 9.986 million viewers across linear and HBO Max platforms in the U.S. Sunday night, the largest audience for any new original series in the history of HBO. The premiere also marked the largest series launch on HBO Max across the U.S., LatAm, and EMEA, driving an unprecedented level of concurrent streams on the platform. Typically, Sunday night viewership for a HBO series will represent just 20%-40% of the show’s total gross audience.
The series was also a hit on social media, where fans showed up in droves to celebrate the return to Westeros. On premiere day, House of the Dragon was the longest trending topic on Twitter, ranking #1 for 14 hours straight, and trended #1 on Google Trends.
What does this all mean? The initial response is huge, of course, “Game of Thrones” fans were salivating to see something new. But it was hard to say from the first episode how this is going to play out. To me, “House of Dragons” felt a little like “The Colbys,” spin off of “Dynasty” that just recycled familiar material. There wasn’t a sense of humor at all, just death and gloom. The Lannisters were really missing.
So maybe as the episodes broaden out, things will lighten up. But right now, it also felt like “HOD” burned through a lot of plot right away without much character development. Even the dragons could use a good backstory.
But production wise, “HOD” was top notch. You really felt like you were in Westeros years before they built the strip malls.
