Category: people

Ask anyone in the movie business, and they’ll tell you that there is nothing worse for your career than getting old. And with a few notable exceptions – actors and actresses who are allowed to pop up in the occasional film past the age of 60 – most aging Hollywood legends are more or less expected to just fade away gracefully. “[Clint] Eastwood, though, has joined a highly selective group: long-successful artists who continuously tinker with their careers, who make changes in the fundamental nature of their work even at a time when they could safely kick back and relax, endlessly repeating past themes and proven methods.”

“The resignation of Eileen Mackevich as president and executive producer of the Chicago Humanities Festival, where she had worked as a founding force for 16 years, came as quite a surprise,” and not just to outsiders. Many inside the Festival’s organization were unprepared for the announcement, and Mackevich herself has admitted that she didn’t expect to be leaving at this exact moment. But conflict with the Festival’s board chair and disputes over the direction of the organization apparently sealed Mackevich’s fate, even as the Festival continues to thrive in Chicago.

“Harald Szeemann, an influential Swiss museum curator whose groundbreaking exhibitions helped redefine his profession, died last Friday in the Ticino region of Switzerland. He was 71. His death was announced by the Venice Biennale and the Kunsthaus Zürich, for which he worked. Mr. Szeemann was often said to be the first independent, or freelance, curator. He invented the curator as art star, a globe-trotting, deal-making, usually male impresario of large-scale exhibitions that bore the imprint of a single vision and succeeded or failed on the strength of site-specific works executed specially for the show.”

One of the founding violinists of the Juilliard String Quartet has died. Robert Koff, who was the Juilliard’s second violinist from its inception in 1946 until 1958, was devoted to broadening the appeal of contemporary music, and made new works a staple of the Juilliard’s repertoire.

Howard Stern has long cast himself as a take-no-prisoners rebel, but he’s had some real targets for his anger since last April, when the Federal Communications Commission fined him $495,000 for indecency as broadcasters around the country cowered in fear that they’d be next. “Now Howard Stern is taking on not just one establishment but two: the FCC indecency cops and the terrestrial radio conglomerates. That makes him not just a vulgarian, but a renegade.” As he pulls up stakes for Sirius Satellite Radio, will his quest for freedom of expression — and his huge fan base — fuel a revolution?

Hunter S. Thompson’s suicide is sparking a noticable resurgence of interest in his work. The author’s best-known book, “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, was No. 15 on Amazon.com as of Wednesday and publisher Vintage Books has ordered a ‘significant’ reprinting.”

“Guillermo Cabrera Infante, a Cuban novelist in exile whose lavishly textured prose conjured the country he knew before the revolution he once supported, died on Monday at a hospital in London, where he had lived for 39 years. He was 75.”

The manner of Hunter S. Thompson’s death Sunday night could pull the focus away from his literary and journalistic merit, perhaps permanently. “Thompson’s suicide may now make it easier for the forces of reaction to dismiss his achievement. See what you get, they’ll say, for taking drugs, for mocking authority, for making yourself part of the story? It took Hemingway’s reputation years to recover from his suicide, and he’s still not all the way back. Death is only a good career move for the romantic and the obscure. For the hard-living, or the already famous, somebody’s always ready to spin suicide into a cautionary tale.”

Tom Patterson, the founder of Canada’s Stratford Festival, as died. He was 84. “Without Tom Patterson, there would be no Stratford Festival of Canada. His was an extraordinary vision at an extraordinary time.”

“More than a year after he pleaded guilty to buying tribal art made from the feathers of endangered birds, Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small has not started the 100 hours of community service he was sentenced to by the federal court, in part because of a disagreement with the U.S. attorney over what he should do.” Small became Smithsonian secretary two years after the 1998 purchase.