Category: people

“In a career that spanned over five decades in Hollywood, Zsigmond continued to work well into his later years. He shot a number of episodes of ‘The Mindy Project’ from 2012 to 2014 as well as several films that have yet to be released.”

“I was shooting ‘Transparent’ at the same time I was shooting ’11/22/63.’ I would play Leslie Mackinaw and then get on a plane to Toronto and play Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother. The characters were as divergent as they could be. It was like I was in my own little rep company.”

“Jones spent much of her career performing in what she calls ‘shitty chitlin-circuit-ass rooms, where you’re just hoping the promoter pays you.'” Now she’s writing – and performing, to controversy and acclaim – on Saturday Night Live.

“Cole is perhaps best known for her 1991 multiple Grammy-winning album Unforgettable: With Love, which became the biggest hit of her career … [She] wowed audiences with a seamless duet with her late father’s voice on the title tune, one of the elder Cole’s signature numbers. Other hits included ‘This Will Be,’ ‘Our Love’ and a cover of ‘Pink Cadillac.'”

He made his name and fortune as the founder of the magazine Institutional Investor (“Vanity Fair for bankers”), and devoted much of his life to his obsession with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. He purchased the autograph score and went on to correct numerous errors in the then-published edition; he conducted the work (and only that work) more than 100 times and recorded it with no less than the Vienna Philharmonic.

“Kipling is not at all like his image, which is a good thing, since he is widely regarded as jingoistic, narrow and racist. It is a pity if, for this reason, some never read him. Kipling was always an outsider, and never a member of the Establishment. He received the Nobel Prize, but refused any honour, including the Order of Merit, that would identify him with a single country.”

“Eddie Burke, a spokesman for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, said Wednesday that the exhibit will close as scheduled on Jan. 24. He says no changes will be made to a posted disclaimer that says the museum does not condone Cosby’s alleged behavior.”

He’s not really being that rude about Marina: “She’ll have a place in history for having done something. She disagrees, but I don’t think the work is meant to be reproduced. She’ll have an influence.” On Gaga: “The concentration, the power she has, it’s total. … She should do Medea.” On theatre staging: “You don’t have to understand every second. I think that’s the problem. Let the audience get lost. It’s OK.”

“He used new media to circumvent the traditional gatekeepers and ordered structures of legitimacy and communication. Luther used the printing press to create a grass-roots movement four centuries before anyone would have understood the term.”

Walter Levin escaped the Nazis as a child and went on to spend 40 years as founder and first violinist of the La Salle Quartet – and longer as a feared teacher. (He once kicked James Levine out for being unprepared.) At age 91, dependent on his near-superhuman wife, and barely verbal, music is his one remaining tether to the wider world. And when giving a lesson to a young quartet, we can see his faculties gradually revive. (includes video)