Category: people

“Harry Potter author JK Rowling earned more than any other celebrity, according to the annual Celebrity 100 list, taking home $300m (£150m) last year. Since Rowling’s first story about the boy wizard arrived in bookstores in 1997, 375m copies of her books have been sold worldwide. The final instalment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has sold 44m since it came out last July.”

“Fortunately, because of early detection, it had not spread to the surrounding tissues, blood vessels or lymph nodes. Doctors reported the surgery was completely curative and no further treatment is necessary.”

“Helen Gardiner, one of Toronto’s most beloved cultural philanthropists, died yesterday at her Caledon East farm, just four days after her 70th birthday… [With her husband, Gardiner] assembled a spectacular ceramics collection and not only gave it to the people of Ontario, but built the museum that houses it.”

Mrs. Nederlander was a producer of nine Broadway shows between 1976 and 1993, most notably of a revival of “West Side Story” in 1980.

There’s a reason the artist has no known self-portraits. “Art historians have long known that Michelangelo wasn’t exactly handsome, but this is the first time that an exhibition focuses on the physical likeness of the Tuscan master as well as on rumors of his horrible personal habits and lack of hygiene.”

“Gardot’s work, for all its stylish veneer of Joni Mitchell-ish pop and occasional twang of country-and-western romance, contains a deeper strain of jazz. Like the footloose Madeleine Peyroux, she is winning over the kind of listeners who probably never thought they liked jazz.”

Perlman has canceled his playing and conducting dates at Ravinia Aug. 5 and 6. Doctors have advised him to fully rest while recuperating from rotator cuff surgery.

Nicoletta Mantovani, 38, said that she had reached an agreement in the multimillion-pound wrangle with the three daughters “in honor of Luciano” and disclosed that she is about to make a film on his life.

“Music is a wonderful thing, but it’s just dots on a paper until we come along and bring those dots to life. A self-aggrandizing approach to great music doesn’t really work. It’s very tempting to turn oneself into the star, but we ain’t the stars. We are the middlemen.”

“The way I think life works is that things are put in your path. Work was put in my path, shows were put in my path, and now this. If you told me three years ago that I was going to write a children’s book . . . . I don’t have children. I mean, I love children, but why would I do that? And write a lullaby? I have too much respect for composers.”