Category: people

“After 24 hours in a coma, a Croatian girl woke up speaking only German, according to reports that spread across the Internet last week. The 13-year-old had been studying German in school and watching German television shows on her own, according to various versions of the story, but she was not fluent until after the incident. Meanwhile, she lost the ability to speak her native language.”

“Perhaps in a delayed response to a 1994 New York magazine issue that asked ‘Is Stephen Sondheim God?,’ Mr. Sondheim [has written] a cheeky, self-deprecating number for the show” Sondheim on Sondheim.. The song’s title: “God.”

“The 64-page unpublished document, In Memory of Olivia Susan Clemens – and later called A Family Sketch – gives a touchingly intimate portrait of his daughter that readers of Twain’s rambunctious adventure stories will find unfamiliar.” Susy, as she was called, died of spinal meningitis at age 24.

“Speaking of the image Americans have of British people, Dame Helen said: ‘It’s very important to let Americans know that we’re not just the royal family, there’s a lot more to us than that. I love the idiosyncrasy of the British people, I love the eccentric nature of the British people, their boldness in fashion and I think the Brits have a very good eye for taste. … It’s just nice to say we’re not snooty, stuck up, malevolent, malignant creatures as we’re so often portrayed. We’re actually kind of cool and hip!”’

“The Broadway revival of the 1983 musical ‘La Cage aux Folles,’ starring Kelsey Grammer, opened to rave reviews this week, only to encounter what could be a viral storm with news of the star’s online promo for the conservative-oriented RightNetwork.”

Alastair Sooke: “Yet three women, all of whom were intimately involved with the artist during the 1950s, survived the experience of flying close to the sun that was Picasso. While filming Modern Masters, I met them all: Françoise Gilot, Geneviève Laporte and Sylvette David.”

The late sitcom legend “was a staunch supporter of PETA’s initiatives against so-called factory farming techniques and she will be the public face of an effort in that campaign to be aimed at McDonald’s. A photograph of Ms. Arthur is to appear in the ad next to this headline: ‘McCruelty. It’s enough to make Bea Arthur roll over in her grave’.”

“[O]ne of the leading lights of 1970s-era New German Cinema and a pioneer of gay film-making,” Schroeter – who never found the commercial success of his contemporaries Fassbinder, Herzog and Wenders – was once called “German cinema’s greatest marginal film-maker.”

“Allen was the first film editor — male or female — to receive sole credit on a movie for her work. The honor came with ‘Bonnie and Clyde,’ a film in which Allen raised the level of her craft to an art form that was as seriously discussed as cinematography or even directing.”