Category: people

“At the time I wrote this, I had lost my job after 37 years with an engineering firm. They called me in on a Wednesday afternoon and said, ‘We got to let you get, a reduction in force.’ So here I was at 56, wondering what am I going to do with my life,” he said. He took a year off to write. – Chicago Tribune

“With just three solo shows and a handful of star turns in group exhibitions, Wong established himself as a quicksilver talent, with an almost preternatural sense for creating gripping, idiosyncratic scenes, which he sometimes populated with a solitary figure (or merely a trace of one).” – ARTnews

“In his over five decades in entertainment, Taylor would make over 2,000 guest star appearances on shows like The Monkees, The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show, Late Night with David Letterman, Hollywood Squares and The Gong Show. He also hosted the beauty pageant spoof The $1.98 Beauty Show.” – Yahoo! (AP)

Alex Ross: “The grand-diva façade concealed a restless, exploratory spirit. In later years, Norman became increasingly adventurous in her choice of repertory.” The New Yorker

Garbo wrote to her best friend, “It is hard and sad to be alone, but sometimes it’s even more difficult to be with someone … When we are here on Earth it would be so much more kind if for this short time we would be forever strong and young.” – The Observer (UK)

Portman’s acting life, of course, has been marked not just by Marvel movies but by that other huge franchise, Star Wars. She likes meatier roles as well, but she says, “I love getting to be part of something that is such a major part of entertainment for young people. It sets your mind-set to recognize injustice. I recently saw a sign at the climate march where this kid was like: ‘I grew up on Marvel movies. Of course I’m going to fight against wrong.'” – The New York Times

Feinstein was 88. She’d published more than a dozen poetry collections and 15 novels, translated Russian poets and wrote biographies of Ted Hughes and Bessie Smith. “Feinstein often explored the relationship between being Jewish and being English — the ‘not quite at-homeness of the English Jews in England,’ as Paul Morris put it in The Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. Ever present with her was the knowledge that had her ancestors settled in Germany rather than England, her life might have been very different.” – The New York Times

Carroll was the first Black woman to star in a non-servant role in a TV series in the U.S. “NBC executives were wary about putting Julia on the network during the racial unrest of the 1960s, but it was an immediate hit.” Carroll also won a Tony for No Strings and an Oscar nomination for Claudine. The director and producer Ava DuVernay wrote, “Diahann Carroll walked this earth for 84 years and broke ground with every footstep. An icon. One of the all-time greats. She blazed trails through dense forests and elegantly left diamonds along the path for the rest of us to follow.” – PBS Newshour (AP)

Giordani sang hundreds of performances at the Met and, at a relatively young age, stepped back from the spotlight and began to mentor younger singers. He was the son of a prison guard who owned a gas station. He said, “That’s mostly where I made my debut, making coffee. … “People still remember me when I was 12 or 13, singing or bringing coffee.” Yahoo News (AP)