Category: people

“‘The vision of the world portrayed in his films has been described as tragic, shocking and hysterical,’ with ‘explosions of violence, sexuality, and despair’; his methods yielded from actresses including Romy Schneider, Isabelle Adjani and Sophie Marceau some of the best performances of their careers.”

“With his baritone voice, chiseled good looks and versatility as a character actor and singer, Mr. Gaynes appeared in hundreds of episodes of sitcoms and dramas on television” – most famously, Punky Brewster – “35 Hollywood and made-for-TV films [including Tootsie and the Police Academy franchise], and many plays, musical comedies and operas.”

Pyotr Pavlensky wasn’t nominated for that particular piece, his most notorious. He was in the running for the Innovation Prize for last November’s Threat: Lubyanka’s Burning Door, in which he did exactly that to the headquarters of the FSB (the successor to the KGB). (The Innovation Prize is government-sponsored.)

“Who knew that this affably backward-looking, backwater nerdish composer appearing unworldly even in the Victorian setting of Yaddo would play an indispensable role in making the L.A. Phil the hippest and most progressive major orchestra in America? I didn’t.”

“Mr. Trump is now a serious candidate – often a self-serious, angry one – with a serious chance. But stylistically, he works in the mode and rhythms of a stand-up. He riffs. He goads. He works blue. … Satire exposes candidates’ contradictions and absurdities. But Mr. Trump blows past those, while his supporters cheer.”

Both the character actor and his most famous character vanished for a while after a notorious 1991 arrest. But Reubens never lost all his fans – among them Judd Apatow, who helped get a new Pee-Wee Herman movie made. And Reubens has been getting plenty of gigs under-the-radar work as well; when not playing Pee-Wee, he’s unrecognizable.

“He loved beer and slapstick. He undertook a fitness regime popularized by a Dutch exercise guru. He tried to cheat on his high-school exams. He used his desk as a metaphor for self-parody and waxed lyrical about the Paris metro.”

“A new biography about Claude Jutra – an actor, writer and director who is considered one of the founding fathers of Quebec cinema – says he was a pedophile who had sexual relations with boys as young as 13.”

“The man behind such books as The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides, and The Great Santini shared the news on Facebook, writing of his Lowcountry home and plans to continue working.”

“Attuned to his critics, Mr. Manzi rewrote the play, energetically and often, to make it more accessible. ‘He sometimes would give me a rewrite as I was trying to get onstage, and I would have to slap him,’ Ms. Russell said warmly. ‘I’ve learned how to learn lines quickly.'”