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Jane Morgan, the elegant American singer who dazzled audiences in Paris nightclubs, on just about every TV variety show of her era and at the Oscars and had a hit record with the lovely standard “Fascination,” has died. She was 101.

Morgan was in hospice care and died Monday in her sleep of natural causes in Naples, Florida, her family announced.

A classy performer known for her silky smooth phrasing, Morgan moved from New York to France in the late 1940s to build her career before returning the U.S. and becoming a very popular singer through the mid-1960s.

She recorded about 40 albums around the world and sang in five languages, making her a true international star.

Morgan appeared dozens of times on The Ed Sullivan Show and was a welcomed recurring guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall and The Hollywood Palace and...

Jane Morgan Weintraub, singer, nightclub entertainer, Broadway performer and ubiquitous TV presence in 1950s and ’60s, died Monday of natural causes in Naples, Florida. She was 101.

Her family announced her death, saying, “Our beloved Jane passed away peacefully in her sleep.”

As Jane Morgan, the singer was a popular and ubiquitous presence on television variety shows from the Golden Age of the 1950s well through the 1960s and even into the early 1970s. She appeared on The Johnny Cash Show in 1971, where she answered the Man in Black’s “A Boy Named Sue” with “A Girl Named Cash,” which was written for the show by Martin Mull.

Related: Martin Mull Dies: ‘Clue’, ‘Roseanne’ & ‘Fernwood 2 Nite’ Star Was 80

She is thought to hold the record for female singers appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show – 50 times in all.

Born Florence Catherine Currier in Newton, Massachusetts, on May 3, 1924, Morgan raised by a...

For nearly 30 years, Johnny Carson sat behind the desk as host of The Tonight Show and interviewed thousands of guests. While he had his favorites, Carson also reportedly disliked one comedy legend enough for him to be considered the late-night TV star's least favorite guest.

Whether they've publicly admitted it or not, every late-night TV host has a guest they disliked or just didn't connect with. Johnny Carson was no different, and he carried an ego and status that could make it difficult for any guest that didn't gel with Carson.

Bob Hope fit that category according to the book Hope: Entertainer of the Century by Richard Zoglin. The inside story reveals that while Hope was Carson's most frequent Tonight Show guest, the host didn't care much for Hope or his act.

"Carson never warmed to Hope, either personally or professionally," Zoglin wrote. "The Tonight Show host would often mimic...

60 Minutes’ Mike Wallace was known for his hard-hitting interviews, never letting his subjects off the hook no matter how much they squirmed. It wasn’t any different when Wallace put late-night legend Johnny Carson in the hot seat. In fact, Carson pulled the plug during 60 Minutes’ first attempt at a profile, only to relent and try again two years later in 1979.

Even then, the comedian couldn’t understand why an investigative journalist would want to interview him. “Why are you doing this?” he asked Wallace. “I’m not running a boiler room operation. I have no phony real estate scam. I’m not taking any kickbacks. I did steal a ring from Woolworths once when I was 12 years old.”

While Wallace insisted that Carson was chosen because he was a national treasure, the interviewer still found ways to make the Tonight Show comic uncomfortable. He confronted Carson with “stereotypes” associated with him — shy,...

Quick! Who directed the 1950 animated version of "Cinderella?" Did they direct any other movies? Who played the voice of Peter Pan in Disney's 1953 film version? Who played Alice in "Alice in Wonderland?" Or Prince Philip in "Sleeping Beauty?" Who wrote "One Hundred and One Dalmatians?" 

Some readers may have been able to recall that famed children's book author Bill Peet wrote "Dalmatians," and other hardcore Disney Nerds might know that famed child star Bobby Driscoll played Peter Pan, but many of the actual filmmakers of early Disney-released animated features have remained obscure. One would have to look up that Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske served as the supervising directors of "Cinderella," and that they also helmed "Alice in Wonderland," "Peter Pan," and "Lady and the Tramp." Heck, they should be better known, as "Cinderella" kind of saved the company.

These people are, of course, all celebrities in the animation world,...

If you know famed comic Rodney Dangerfield, then you know his punchline, “I get no respect!” But whether he was performing at a nightclub or chatting with Johnny Carson on the couch of The Tonight Show, some of Dangerfield’s most fertile comedic ground was joking about his wife. Their terrible sex life, her being a lousy cook, how much she loathed him — all were fair game.

Arguably, it was his wife Joan Dangerfield, who “got no respect” in his stand-up sets. Thankfully, she enjoyed her late-husband’s “my wife” jokes as much as anyone else. And so, just in time for Valentine’s Day, we asked Joan to share some of her favorite Rodney Dangerfield “my wife” jokes — and to let us in on which had the most truth to them.

7 ‘My wife is a cold person. Her side of the waterbed is frozen’

“When my dad traveled to...

Prior to becoming one of television’s most iconic hosts, Conan O’Brien grew up as one of six siblings, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Coming from a family where his father was a doctor and his mother was a lawyer, O’Brien seemingly chose one of the most out-of-the-box professions for himself.

Conan O’Brien in a still from his talk show | image: YouTube/Team Coco

Recently, Conan O’Brien faced the twin tragedies of losing both his parents to old age, leaving him with a deeply emotional chapter of his life. O’Brien’s parents died three days apart, in December 2024.

Who are Conan O’Brien’s parents?

Born on April 18, 1963, Conan O’Brien—television’s one of the most renowned talk show hosts and comedians—was raised in an Irish Catholic family, as one of six siblings. According to US Weekly, O’Brien grew up in a home filled with intellectuals and professionals,...

The 2025 stamp designs are out! There are the usual boring sets — American vistas? More U.S. flags? Vibrant leaves? — but one announcement has set comedy hearts aflutter: a commemorative stamp featuring the late sitcom superstar Betty White. Score!

“An icon of American television, Betty White (1922–2021) shared her wit and warmth with viewers for seven decades — including roles on The Golden Girls and The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” said the Usps in its announcement. “The comedic actor, who gained younger generations of fans as she entered her 90s, was also revered as a compassionate advocate for animals. Dale Stephanos created the digital illustration based on a 2010 photograph by Kwaku Alston. Greg Breeding, an art director for Usps, designed the stamp.”

In other words, Betty White was a badass.

White isn’t the first comedian honored by the Post Office, but she’s on a very short list. While you can’t...

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In 1953, Billy Wilder scored a critical and commercial success with his film adaptation of Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski's stage play "Stalag 17" (one of his 14 best films according to /Film). Set in a World War II Pow camp behind Nazi enemy lines, the movie is a rambunctious account of how imprisoned soldiers misbehave and attempt to make their captors' lives miserable. They're also ever on the verge of hatching a new escape plan, though they wind up having a rat in their ranks who complicates their efforts.

Given that World War II was a desperately bloody affair on both the European and Pacific fronts as the Allies fought to save civilization from the clutches of genocidal vermin, you might not think it appropriate for artists to find humor anywhere within the conflict. But the ability to laugh when...

“Saturday Night” director Jason Reitman didn’t want a score that paid homage to “Saturday Night Live.” Musician Jon Batiste says, “He wanted a pressure cooker of a score, and I interpreted that to mean that he wanted me to do an anti-score.”

“Saturday Night” follows a tense 90 minutes on October 11, 1975, as Lorne Michaels and a group of young comedians and writers prepare for the first broadcast and premiere of “Saturday Night Live.”

Batiste is doing double duty in Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night,” he’s playing musician and band leader Billy Preston, and he also composed the film’s score.

The “anti-score” directive was heaven for Batiste who loved that type of score because it breaks with the paradigm. The narrative is set within a 90-minute timespan. “The villain of the film is the clock,” says Batiste. “The music is an allegory for the ticking of, and pressure of time.

The Golden Age of Radio isn’t known for featuring too many dirty jokes, probably because Jack Benny never dropped any F-bombs and Flash Gordon resisted the urge to recite obscene limericks about residents of Nantucket. But one iconic comedian made an impressively obscene quip during a popular game show – according to legend, at least.

The story goes that the great Groucho Marx, during a 1947 episode of the radio version of his popular quiz program You Bet Your Life, interviewed a female contestant with a large number of kids (the exact number varies depending on the telling). When Groucho asked how she came to have so many children, she responded, “I love my husband.” To which Groucho fired back: “I love my cigar, but I take it out once and a while.”

Several sources suggest that the anecdote is genuine, including Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.NEWSChicken Run.After earlier claims that they were “not in jeopardy,” the 29-location Landmark Theatre chain now faces foreclosure, though IndieWire reports that may not be such a bad thing.After releasing a trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis that included phony, apparently AI-generated pull quotes attributed to real film critics, Lionsgate has issued an apology and ceremonially fired a marketing consultant.The fast-food chain Chick-Fil-a plans to launch a streaming service, which will apparently include game shows and reality programming.FESTIVALSAhead of its premiere this weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival, we are pleased to share the first poster for Sofia Bohdanowicz's Measures for a Funeral (2024), designed by Charlotte Gosch of studio other types.

Eric Gilliland, a television producer and writer known for his work on the hit sitcom “Roseanne,” died of colon cancer on Sunday, his sister Lisa confirmed to Variety. He was 62.

Gilliland served as a producer and writer on the ABC series “Roseanne” from 1992 to 1996. He received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for the show’s 1992 episode, “The Dark Ages.”

Gilliland went on to work as a consulting producer for two episodes of the “Roseanne” spinoff series “The Conners” in 2019.

After his time on “Roseanne,” Gilliland worked as a consulting producer on “That ’70s Show” from 1998 to 1999, as well as wrote the first season’s third episode, titled “Streaking.” In the episode, Eric (Topher Grace), Kelso (Ashton Kutcher), Hyde (Danny Masterson) and Fez (Wilmer Valderrama) plan on running naked in front of President Gerald R. Ford during his visit to Point Place, Wis.

Gilliland also worked as a producer...

Eric Gilliland, a longtime comedy writer best known for his work on Roseanne, died Sept. 1. The cause was cancer.

Gilliland, an Illinois native and 1984 graduate of Northwestern University, wrote for the ABC comedy from 1992 to 1996. He went on to consult on The Conners in 2019.

His first big writing gig in TV was on Who’s the Boss? He went on to write for Living Dolls, The Wonder Years, Doogie Howser, M.D., That ’70s Show and My Boys. His most recent project was the podcast The Cinnamon Bear: A Holiday Adventure.

Gilliland received WGA Award nomination in 1994 for Roseanne. In 2019, he received a Daytime Emmy nomination for writing the children’s show The Was Was? Show.

Away from TV, Gilliland was quite the whistler. His tooting was featured on Sam Winch’s The Lullabadeer and on the soundtrack for an episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!.

Tributes to Gilliland continue to pour in on Facebook,...

Rodney Dangerfield was the king of telling dumb jokes about his wife, a practice he got away with because his own ineptitude as a romantic partner usually made him the butt of the joke. But in the name of spreading the wealth, here are plenty of classic and contemporary comics joining Dangerfield in delivering spousal punchlines. Before you head to marriage counseling, take these dumb wife jokes — please…

1 Hasan Minhaj

“I recently got married. It was like a reverse Lord of the Rings situation where I got a ring and then I lost half of my power.”

2 Rodney Dangerfield

“My wife and I were happy for 20 years. Then we met.”

3 Nate Bargatze

“She put Life360 on my phone. That’s so they can track you even when they’re not near you. You might not even know you have it on your phone. It’s worse than what the government’s doing.

Bob Booker, the veteran writer and producer whose crowning achievement was the hugely popular 1962 comedy album The First Family, which poked fun at President John F. Kennedy and won the Grammy for album of the year, has died. He was 92.

Booker died Friday of heart failure at his home in Tiburon, California, his family announced. He spent 75 years working in the recording industry and in radio, film and television.

Booker also teamed with George Foster to write the cult film The Phynx (1970), about a rock band who goes to Albania to rescue celebrities (among them Colonel Sanders and Leo Gorcey of The Bowery Boys) taken captive by communists.

He wrote and produced five seasons (1987-91) of the syndicated sitcom Out of This World, which starred Donna Pescow, Maureen Flannigan and friend Burt Reynolds, who as a favor agreed to voice the extra-terrestrial father on the show.

Booker and partner Earle Doud...

TV producer/writer Bob Booker, who spent 75 years working in television, radio, film, and the recording industry, died July 12 at his home in Tiburon, California, at age 92 from heart failure, according to his daughter, Laura Booker.

Booker was best known for the Grammy Award-winning album, The First Family,

In 1963, Booker, with partner Earle Doud, wrote and produced The First Family, a lampoon of President John F. Kennedy and his family starring Vaughn Meader. The album became the largest- and fastest-selling record in the history of the record industry, selling one million copies per week for the first six weeks and ultimately selling 7.5 million copies. The First Family went on to win the Grammy for Best Album that year.

JFK was known to have enjoyed parody, and when asked about the album, he replied, “I listened to Mr. Meader’s record, and frankly, I thought it sounded more like Teddy than it did me.

While Frosty the Snowman may not have been feeling very merry in this heat, you can make your season bright with classic holiday music on SiriusXM during Christmas in July. You better watch out, because Santa Claus is comin’ to town on Holiday Traditions (Ch. 602) or anytime on the SiriusXM app.

Holiday TraditionsTraditional holiday favoritesListen on the App

Listen on the App

Christmas in July Holiday Traditions on SiriusXM: What You’ll Hear

Spread Christmas cheer as you sing along to traditional holiday recordings from the ’40s through ’60s on Holiday Traditions. You’ll hear festive favorites from Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, Ray Conniff, Nat King Cole, Brenda Lee, Frank Sinatra, and more.

RadioClassics Christmas in July Programming

Additionally, head to RadioClassics (Ch. 148) to hear audio adaptations of iconic Christmas-themed movies and radio blocks. Tune in throughout the week or stream anytime on demand classics like “It’s a Wonderful Life,...

Larry David is known for his cantankerous rants, on talk shows, on Curb Your Enthusiasm and in real life. But here’s a secret, according to his Curb costar Susie Essman: David absolutely loves it when people yell at him.

Conan O’Brien used to be roommates with Jeff Garlin when the two young comics were on the rise, he told Essman on his Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast. “We’ve known each other forever, so I took particular joy when you would go after Jeff,” O’Brien said. “‘You fat fuck!’ I would be crying laughing.”

Maybe O’Brien didn’t notice, responded Essman, but as Curb progressed, her character spent less time yelling at Garlin and more time screaming at someone else. “Larry kind of saved me, as these seasons went on, he would save me more and more for him. Less and less for Jeff,” she explained.

Who is the best male TV star of all time? Our photo gallery above takes on the tough task of ranking the 50 greatest actors and performers. Agree or disagree with our choices?

With over 70 years of television to consider, we had to provide ourselves with a few rules to help simplify things. One of those was that every man in our gallery must have been an ongoing leading star at some point, preferably more often than not. That’s why you will not see such classic supporting actors as Art Carney, Tim Conway, Don Knotts, Peter Dinklage and more. We also do not include any news/sports anchors or journalists such as Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Peter Jennings, Howard Cosell since they are not performers.

In order to place them in the rankings, we were looking at a combination of quality (top rated shows with the public or critics...

Kicking off the start of Summer with the big Memorial Day weekend, a new documentary poses the question: What’s the “go-to” music for this season? Well, for the past 63 years, it’s been these pop icons out of Hawthorne, California, of course. Their signature songs invoke memories of ocean waves hitting the sand as eager athletes run through the foam with their trusty boards. Interestingly only one member of the original band surfed, though when watching a blonde adonis catching a “tasty wave”, you automatically, in your head, recall the sweet infectious harmonies of The Beach Boys.

After opening with glorious footage of an electric 1975 outdoor concert (naturally in the bright Summer sun), the doc springs back 15 or so years to the modest suburban home on 119th Street when the eldest Wilson brother Brian became fascinated by the careful vocal craftsmanship of the Four Freshmen along with other musical acts.

At the Academy Awards in 1929, Charles Reisner's "The Hollywood Revue of 1929" was nominated for Best Picture. "Revue" is a relative obscurity to modern audiences — even less well-known than that year's Best Picture winner "The Broadway Melody" — and it may even baffle certain viewers. True to its title, "The Hollywood Revue" is a collection of musical numbers, comedic sketches, and dramatic scenes, all played out "live" on a theater stage. A curtain closes and opens in between each number, and two emcees — Jack Benny and Conrad Nagel — introduce each vignette.

Such filmed stage performances may look a little odd to the modern eye, but they were common throughout the '20s and '30s. Few audiences had access to high-end live theater, and Hollywood was happy to step in to provide. Studios would distribute such revues as, essentially, a Broadway substitute, allowing distant viewers to experience the theater events...

There are entire generations that have no idea that Steve Martin was a stand-up comedian. They may recognize him as one-third of the trio that’s turned Only Murders in the Building into a streaming hit, or the long-suffering patriarch of the Father of the Bride movies, or maybe as that guy with the funny mustache who was in that one thing with Beyoncé (i.e. 2006 Pink Panther reboot). Some might have watched Parenthood or Planes, Trains and Automobiles with their parents when they were younger. He’s the celebrity who,...

“That movie was the President’s idea, not mine, but it was a demand, not a suggestion.”

The speaker was Jack Warner in a 1947 foreshadowing of his Donald Trumpian style. I recalled his remarks this week as I drove onto the Warner Bros lot, the fabled arena where Warner long reigned.

In his heyday, Warner was a Trump pre-clone in terms of temperament and rhetoric – a man who boasted about his mental acuity yet, to Hollywood’s power players, seemed occasionally unhinged.

I was visiting Warner Bros this week to spend some time with David Zaslav, a figure who, in temperament and politics, is the mirror opposite of Warner but whose empire is nonetheless a product of Warner’s erratic vision. Some believe that Zaslav’s studio – Hollywood in general – might still glean some insight from its founder’s idiosyncrasies.

A career maverick, Warner promoted gangster movies like Public Enemy...

Jack Warner had been shouldering in on credit from one of his studio’s top producers. At least that’s what Hal Wallis may have told you after the 1944 Academy Awards when Jack Warner accepted the Casablanca Oscar that some felt should have been palmed by Wallis, the Warner Bros. film’s producer. But who should accept the best picture award? Today it’s the producers, but during Hollywood’s Golden Age it was sometimes the producer, sometimes the studio chief.

Wallis had been with the company for many years, first joining the studio in 1923, their first year of incorporation. Soon, Wallis was managing essential Warner films such as Little Caesar (1931), The Petrified Forest (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1937), Dark Victory (1939), Sergeant York (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and, of course, Casablanca (1942). Despite being released in late 1942, Casablanca didn’t go into wide release until early 1943 and wasn’t...

In 1965, Martin Scorsese was 22 and surrounded by legends when he won the Jesse L. Laskey Intercollegiate Award at the Milestone Awards dinner hosted by the then-called Screen Producers Guild on March 8, 1965. Now, almost 60 years later, the filmmaker received the David O. Selznick Achievement Award at the 2024 PGA Awards in what he called a “full-circle” moment.

Guillermo del Toro introduced the Killers of the Flower Moon director and producer at Sunday’s award show, calling him an “indispensable titan.” When Scorsese, now 81, took the stage, he started to tell the story of the 1965 awards show and how he kissed German actress Elke Sommer on stage.

“On the stage, Alfred Hitchcock, James Stewart, Jack Benny, Samuel Goldwyn, Jack Warner and Norman Lear, Lew Wasserman, Julie Stein, Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, Janel Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, Elke Sommer and David O. Selznick,” said Scorsese. “They were the people on the dais at...

Martin Scorsese accepted the Producers Guild’s David O. Selznick Achievement Award at the PGA Awards tonight and took the Hollywood & Highland Ovation Ballroom down memory lane — to about 60 years ago, when he accepted a PGA nod for his student film, It’s Not Just You, Murray! at the ripe age of 22.

Painting the scene, the Killers of the Flower Moon filmmaker said: “On the stage, Alfred Hitchcock, James Stewart, Jack Benny, Samuel Goldwyn, Jack Warner and Norman Lear, Lew Wasserman, Julie SteinCary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, Janel Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, Elke Sommer and David O. Selznick. They were the people on the dais at the 13th edition of this event on March 8, 1965. That dinner was called the Milestone Awards Dinner and presented at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

“At the very end of the dais was me,” Scorsese continued. “I was all the way on the end. I was receiving the Jesse L.

The Academy Awards grew up at the 16th annual ceremony March 2, 1944. Since the first Oscar ceremony at the Hollywood Roosevelt’s Blossom Room in 1929, the Academy Awards were small banquet ceremonies for La La Land movers and shakers. But that all changed 80 years ago. World War II was in its third year and movies meant more than ever to war-weary audiences.

So, the Oscars moved to the then-Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood and bleachers were introduced giving fans a chance to see their favorites walk the red carpet. And instead of a select industry audience, attendees included members of all branches of the armed services many of whom sat in bleachers on the stage at the Chinese. The ceremony was heard locally on Kfwb; Jack Benny hosted the international broadcast for the troops on CBS Radio via shortwave. And for the first time, supporting performers finally received a full-size Academy Award.

Healthy trekkers can now find spas and wellness facilities at even modest hotels from Bangor to Baton Rouge, but Southern California has always been ahead of the curve — Two Bunch Palms first opened as the Desert Spa in 1940, and the famed Golden Door was unveiled in 1958 — and advances keep on coming. New retreats continue to open, while favorites update, expand and innovate. Below, seven havens worth checking into.

Cal-a-Vie Health Spa

The 500-acre expanse outside San Diego is designed to feel like Provence, down to the French Country furnishings, grape vines and lavender.

A spa room at Cal-a-Vie

It has also long been favored by such Hollywood stars as Julia Roberts and Shailene Woodley. Oprah Winfrey famously lured away one of the spa’s chefs years ago, and one can see why, as the menu, featuring caviar and chanterelle puree, is not one of deprivation. There is wine served twice a week,...

Imagine, if you will, a sleepy small town. The people who live there are hard-working, stubborn, and most of all, suspicious of outsiders. Enter one Bob Majors, a newspaperman from New York. Majors is a man of progress and change, but he's about to come up against a social wall the likes of which he's never seen. It's the kind of obstacle that can only be found in ... well, not "The Twilight Zone."

You might have read that description in the voice of famed "Twilight Zone" creator-narrator Rod Serling, but it's actually the premise of a totally different show in which Serling appeared — reportedly in his first non-narrator acting role — for just one episode in the early 1960s. The series was "Ichabod and Me," a poorly-received and short-lived series whose history is chronicled in David C. Tucker's book "Lost Laughs of '50s and '60s Television." The sitcom...

Disney's rule of not crediting voice actors in their early animated films prevented actors from receiving recognition and building their careers. The voice of a beloved Disney princess struggled to find work after the film's release and was even allegedly blacklisted by Disney, which ended her career. This actress was paid a meager amount for her three years of work on the film and eventually sued Disney for owed money, but the lawsuit was unsuccessful.

One actress' entire career was ruined after playing a Disney princess, and it was all because of one asinine company rule. Becoming associated with Disney often means that an actor receives massive recognition and fame. A rule that was in place for Disney's earliest animation projects, though, made it so that actors did not get the chance to reap the rewards of their hard work, and their contributions to the projects that became beloved by millions were not acknowledged.

Revered and reviled U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger, whose death at 100 on Nov. 29 was met with the widespread view that his realpolitik was responsible for some of this country’s worst global war crimes, loved American celebrity — both his own, an expression of state power, as well as that of others, especially performers. He was “the ultimate starfucker,” noted Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at the Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, in an appraisal published earlier this year on the occasion of Kissinger’s centennial.

Prior to meeting President Richard Nixon in 1967, Kissinger made frequent trips to Santa Monica to consult with the Rand Corporation, a global policy think tank. But after being appointed as national security adviser by the newly elected president in 1969, his profile skyrocketed — and the glitz of Hollywood was within reach. Fascinated since childhood with American popular culture, Kissinger pursued the...

Walt Disney Pictures didn't credit its voice actors in its early animated movies to preserve the magic and prevent the audience from associating the voices with real people. Adriana Caselotti, the voice of Snow White, was reportedly forbidden from revealing her role and struggled to find new acting opportunities afterward. The practice of not crediting voice actors ended in 1944 with the release of The Three Caballeros, and now Disney embraces casting well-known actors to voice its characters while still crediting them.

Walt Disney Pictures is a powerhouse in the world of animation, and it has welcomed a variety of actors and musicians to voice its animated characters, but in Disney’s early years, the studio didn’t credit its voice actors. Walt Disney Pictures was key in the development of animation, and in 1937, it released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length traditionally animated feature film. Snow White...

Longtime TV director and producer Stan Harris, who directed TV specials for Jack Benny, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, David Bowie and John Wayne, among many others, died of natural causes Monday while surrounded by family in Toronto, his son Danny Harris tells Deadline. He was 92.

Harris’ prolific live music and comedy directing career began at the CBC in Toronto working with peers Norman Jewison, Arthur Hiller and Eric Till. Among the highlights of his career up north were jobs directing Canada’s Hit Parade and a Nat King Cole special, Wild Is Love.

In the early ’60s, he and his family moved to NY, where Harris began his DGA career on series such as The Bing Crosby Show, The Steve Lawrence Show and The Milton Berle Show and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

In late ’60s , Harris relocated to L.A. for a steady gig directing the massively popular Smothers Brothers show.

Robert Klane, who wrote the screenplays for the irreverent comedy classics Weekend at Bernie’s and Where’s Poppa? and directed the disco-era favorite Thank God It’s Friday, has died. He was 81.

Klane died Tuesday in his Woodland Hills home of kidney failure after a long illness, his son Jon Klane announced.

He wrote for the films Every Little Crook and Nanny (1972), Fire Sale (1977), The Man With One Red Shoe (1985), National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985), Unfaithfully Yours (1984), Walk Like a Man (1987) and Folks! (1992).

Among his TV writing credits were six episodes of M*A*S*H* and The Odd Couple: Together Again, a 1973 reunion telefilm starring Jack Klugman and Tony Randall that he also directed. He also wrote and produced Tracey Takes On…, winning an Emmy for his work in 1997.

“Bob had a brilliant comedy mind that went deeper and deeper to get to the truth,” Rob Reiner, an actor in Where’s Poppa? (1970), said in a statement.

Screwball comedy is a subgenre of romantic comedy that saw its classic period run from the mid-1930s until the mid-1940s. Directors such as Frank Capra, Preston Sturges, and Howard Hawks, along with stars such as Cary Grant, Carole Lombard, William Powell, and Katharine Hepburn, all helped shape the foundation of the genre.

Screwball comedies are distinguishable from stereotypical romantic comedies because screwballs typically spoof notions of love rather than emphasize romantic ideals. Common elements found in screwball comedies are rapid-fire overlapping dialogue, zany slapstick antics, mistaken identities, and a battle of the sexes narrative. Many of cinema's classic screwball comedies rank among Hollywood's funniest films.

Related: 10 Rom-Coms Critics Loved But Audiences Hated

The Awful Truth (1937)

Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth is a screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne as a wealthy couple who decide to divorce but end up trying to sabotage each other's subsequent romantic conquests.

Milt Larsen, who wrote for the game show Truth or Consequences for nearly two decades and co-founded The Magic Castle in Hollywood, died Sunday of natural causes in Los Angeles, his family announced. He was 92.

Larsen produced TV specials for ABC, CBS and NBC and wrote songs with Richard Sherman, the Oscar winner who partnered with his late brother, Robert, to create tunes for such Disney classics as Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Jungle Book.

He also was the creator and consultant for the $50 million Caesars Magic Empire at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

In 1963, Larsen and his late brother, Bill, founded The Magic Castle in a 1909 French Chateau mansion on Franklin Avenue. With its many stages, labyrinthine corridors and old-fashioned decor, the place would become a renowned private club for magicians.

Larsen wrote five joke books and three books involving The Magic Castle, penned a weekly...

Milt Larsen, the magician and TV writer who co-founded Hollywood’s famed Magic Castle night spot, died May 28 in Los Angeles. He was 92.

Larsen had deep roots in the world of magic and in Los Angeles. His father, William Larsen Sr., was a prominent local defense attorney and a performing magician. His mother, Geraldine, made early appearances on TV as “The Magic Lady.” Milt Larsen worked as a writer for TV game shows including “Truth or Consequences” during 18 years of Bob Barker’s tenure as host in the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s.

Larsen teamed with his older brother, William Larsen Jr., and William’s wife, Irene, in the early 1960s to transform a Gothic renaissance mansion on Franklin Avenue in the heart of Hollywood into a clubhouse designed to cater to working magicians. The trio created the Academy of Magical Arts, but the venue became known as the Magic Castle.

The strange saga of Jamie Foxx's serious "medical complication" may be coming to a happy close.

The Academy Award-winning star of "Ray" has reportedly been hospitalized since April 12, but it appears that his mysteriously lengthy stay may be soon coming to an end. Alarms went up when, over the weekend, Foxx's friend Charlie Mack took to Instagram to post, "I need you all to constantly keep our beloved brotha @iamjamiefoxx up whom we all [love] & care for dearly in our Hearts, Minds & Prayers!!!" Given that the actor's precise condition has not been disclosed for nearly a month, this was legitimate cause for concern. Foxx is far from media shy. Put a camera in front of him, and he could effortlessly, hilariously put an end to the speculation.

Obviously, this is none of our business. Anyone with a lick of sense could compile a list of the many ailments that would preclude Foxx,...

Reid Scott might be best known for playing an asshole, so it’s understandable if fans of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” are on high alert this season.

Scott joins the Prime Video comedy in its final season as Gordon Ford, a late-night talk show host and Midge Maisel’s (Rachel Brosnahan) new boss as she tackles the unruly territory of an all-male television writers room. In Episode 3, Gordon tries to kiss her, and in Episode 4 he boldly asks her out despite being married.

“I’m drawn to these characters that have these different sides to them, where you can see underneath the surface,” Scott told IndieWire via Zoom. “And that was the great thing; every script, episode-to-episode, we get to peel back another little layer and learn a little bit more about this guy and it just keeps you renewed and refreshed.”

Scott’s performance is an amalgam of late-night...

Mark Russell, the sly satirist who skewered America’s political elite for more than a half-century by blending stand-up comedy with biting song parodies, died Thursday. He was 90.

Russell died at his home in Washington of complications from prostate cancer, his wife, Alison, told The Washington Post.

Perhaps best known for his series of one-man PBS comedy specials that aired from 1975-2004, Russell also served as one of the hosts of the popular 1979-83 NBC reality program Real People, and he wrote a syndicated column for the Los Angeles Times for several years.

However, he was most at home in front of a live audience, and he spent two decades on the speaking circuit, hitting his peak in 2000 when he racked up 100 appearances in 100 different cities.

“Mark Russell was a D.C. institution who did the hardest thing a comic can do … relentlessly and righteously mock his neighbors,” Jon Stewart said in a statement.

Jean Veloz, the innovative Lindy Hop dancer who dazzled in Swing Fever and other Hollywood musicals of the 1940s, has died. She was 98.

Veloz died Sunday at her home in Los Angeles, her friend, agent and manager Rusty Frank told The Hollywood Reporter. Frank co-produced the 2010 event A Tribute to the Groovie Movie, which celebrated Veloz and her contribution to dance.

“Jean innovated a style of swing dance that was admired around the world,” Frank said. “It was silky smooth and greatly contrasted the more jitterbug style prevalent during the 1930s-’40s.”

Generations of dancers idolized her.

In MGM’s Swing Fever (1943), Veloz whirled with servicemen portrayed by Lennie Smith and Don Gallagher in the high-octane number “One Girl and Two Boys,” accompanied by Kay Kyser’s band and sandwiched between Marilyn Maxwell’s singing.

She also did the jitterbug in Where Are Your Children? (1943), starring Jackie Cooper; danced with...

Having just arrived in Los Angeles, Prince Philip faced a covey of reporters with photographers snapping away. “You asked about my mission to America,” he said. “The Queen and I are dedicated to helping the underprivileged. Mind you, we realize that an underprivileged child in Los Angeles is one who doesn’t have his own swimming pool.”

This was a jaunty, relaxed Prince Philip, circa 1966, unworried about the social media (there weren’t any) as he made his rounds of Hollywood. Joining him for meals and visits to sets were Natalie Wood, Shirley MacLaine, Dick Van Dyke, Gregory Peck and Joey Bishop, who, observing the Prince’s chain of jokes, said, “He’s so funny, I may run for Prince.”

The tension-packed forays of William and Kate this week, with their dire media overtones, seemed in sharp contrast to the loose, pre-woke royal expeditions of the ‘60s. While there was...

Pierce Brosnan was two years out from making his long-awaited debut as James Bond in "GoldenEye" when he took on the thankless role of Stu Dunmeyer in "Mrs. Doubtfire." Stu is the handsome, charismatic new boyfriend of Sally Field's Miranda Hillard, who's filed for divorce from her overgrown child of a husband, Daniel Hillard, played by Robin Williams. The film is obviously a showcase for Williams, who transforms Daniel into an elderly British nanny so he can spend time with his children. This leaves Brosnan to play straight man, which he does remarkably well, but it's a bit like using a Lamborghini to haul furniture.

Brosnan, like just about everyone else who had the pleasure of acting alongside Williams, found his co-star to be ceaselessly inventive. And one scene he'll never forget finds the comedic dynamo pegging him in the back of the head with a lime.

A Poolside Humiliation

You know the scene.

The critical evolution of George Lucas' 1999 film "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" has been fascinating to behold. To this author's memory, no film — not even "Avengers: Endgame" — was more feverishly anticipated. The advertising machine kicked into overdrive. Using 1999-era dial-up internet, "Star Wars" enthusiasts would spend all day downloading the film's trailer, watching it at home, combing it for details, all before such activities became common hobbies and online cottage industries. Lucas' film may be seen as a fulcrum in geek culture. Fandom wouldn't be the same after. Fans camped outside of theaters for weeks, eschewing both work and bathing, hoping to be the first to get tickets. "The Phantom Menace" may have been the first instance of customers buying many tickets at one time, committing to seeing the film multiple times before they had even seen it once.

Then they saw it once.

It took a...

Jeff Garlin, the former star of ABC’s The Goldbergs whose controversial real-life departure from the show saw his character killed off on the sitcom last night, says he suffers from bipolar disorder, a diagnosis he revealed for the first time in a brief Instagram post today.

“Bipolar is a motherfucker,” Garlin writes. “Sometimes it’s just too much to deal with. I’m doing the best I can. This the first time that I’ve opened up about this.”

Garlin left The Goldbergs last December following Hr investigations into misconduct allegations. Although the killing off of his character Murray Goldberg was disclosed last month by showrunner Alex Barnow, the episode that included the explanation for Murray’s absence aired as the season 10 premiere last night.

In the episode, the character Adam Goldberg said in an opening voiceover that “Just a few months ago, out of nowhere, we lost my dad.

Jeff Garlin revealed he has bipolar disorder on Instagram, writing in a post: “Bipolar is a motherfucker. Sometimes it’s just too much to deal with. I’m doing the best I can. This the first time that I’ve opened up about this.”

Garlin shared the message the same day as “The Goldbergs” Season 10 premiere, in which his character Murray was killed off. Garlin exited the show during its ninth season. The actor’s controversial departure was a “mutual agreement” between him and Sony Pictures Television following an Hr investigation into his on-set behavior, which the actor chalked up to “silliness.”

In the first episode of Season 10, which aired Wednesday, adult Adam (voiced by narrator Patton Oswalt) announces: “Just a few months ago, out of nowhere, we lost my dad. We will always love you, Dad. Always. And we’ll find a way to continue on together, because after all,...

“The Goldbergs” alum Jeff Garlin opened up about his bipolar disorder diagnosis following an Hr investigation over misconduct allegations on the ABC series.

Garlin was at the center of a three-year Hr investigation over claims of perpetuating a toxic work environment involving accusations of demeaning workplace behavior, especially toward women. Garlin’s absence during Season 9 of “The Goldbergs” sparked controversy after a stand-in was used for Garlin’s character Murray. “The Goldbergs” showrunners Alex Barnow and Chris Bishop later confirmed Garlin would not be appearing in the upcoming Season 10, which premiered September 21.

Garlin took to Instagram the same day of “The Goldbergs” Season 10 premiere, writing, “Bipolar is a motherfucker. Sometimes it’s just too much to deal with. I’m doing the best I can.”

He added, “This the first time that I’ve opened up about this.”

Bipolar disorder is a manic-depressive illness of the brain that causes extreme...

Jeff Garlin is revealing that he’s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, Sept. 20, the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star went public for the first time about his mental health struggles.

“Bipolar is a motherf**ker,” he wrote. “Sometimes it’s just too much to deal with. I’m doing the best I can. This the first time that I’ve opened up about this.”

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Garlin’s revelation comes months after he parted ways with “The Goldbergs” at the end of last season in the midst of allegations of misconduct on the set of the ABC sitcom; perhaps not coincidentally, the season premiere of the show airs on Wednesday night.

Last December, Garlin addressed the allegations with Vanity Fair, insisting it was simply a case of his jokes being misunderstood. He did, however, reveal that...

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Gayle S. Maffeo, the three-time Emmy-nominated producer who worked on the first season of Roseanne and all eight seasons of another hit ABC sitcom, the Tim Allen-starring Home Improvement, has died. She was 81.

Maffeo died Friday at her home in Los Angeles after a brief battle with cancer, her daughter, Laura, announced.

Maffeo had produced specials starring Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny and George Burns in the 1960s and ’70s before she segued to sitcoms including Nell Carter’s Gimme a Break!, Dabney Coleman’s Buffalo Bill, Mary Tyler Moore’s Mary, Head of the Class and Open All Night.

She served as senior vp television for Matt Williams and David McFadzean’s Wind Dancer Productions, where she produced Roseanne in 1988-89, Home Improvement from 1991-99 and other shows such as Carol Burnett’s Carol & Company, Dan Aykroyd’s Soul Man, Thunder Alley and Buddies.