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Relatively Media has announced that they will be developing a a biopic based on American business magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller. They've hired Lasse Hallstrom (My Life as a Dog, Cider House Rules) to direct the movie, and Dallas Buyers Club screenwriter Craig Borten to write the script.

The film will be an adaptation of Ron Chernow’s 1998 book Titan: The Life Of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. In case you're not up to speed on your American history, Rockefeller co-founded Standard Oil Co. in 1870 and revolutionized the oil industry. It made him the world’s first billionaire. He also ended up giving away most of his fortune.

I strongly suggest you watch the History Channel event series The Men Who Built America if you want a solid and entertaining rundown of Rockefeller and several other men that took America to the next level of greatness in terms of business and industry.

Where have you gone, Mr. Potter? Oh – I see. You’re over there with your chums Goldfinger, Scrooge and his pseudo-doppelganger, Scrooge McDuck and, oh look! It’s Uncle Pennybags, stepping away from the Monopoly board. And what’s causing that breeze?. Somebody left the portal between fiction and history open and look who’s coming through! People who at one time actually existed: John Jacob Astor, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller… on goes the list.

That last bunch, the ones who had birth certificates, are sometimes labeled “robber barons” and now you’ll allow me to quote from the invaluable Wikipedia: “In social criticism and economic literature, Robber barons became a derogatory term applied to… powerful 19th century businessmen,,, who used what were considered to be exploitative practices to amass their wealth. These practices included exerting control over national resources, accruing high levels of government influence, paying extremely low wages,...

What do Beethoven, Capote and Auden have in common? Seb Emina discovers the strange daily rituals of our artistic heroes

During the late 1940s, John Cheever worked to an unconventional routine. In the morning he would put on his business suit, leave his apartment, and catch the lift downstairs with any commuters. Then, when they reached the ground floor, he would keep going, down to the basement, where he'd walk to his favourite storage room, strip down to his boxer shorts and spend the morning writing. At noon he put his suit back on and headed back upstairs. Lunch followed, then a leisurely afternoon.

It worked for him. Or rather, it worked for his work. Despite their drudging reputation, fixed routines have proved an indispensable tool to artists of all kinds, from George Sand (who wrote through the night supported by chocolate and tobacco) to David Lynch (who no longer...

In 1966 Kathryn Leigh Scott, fresh out of acting school and working part time as a Playboy bunny, was was cast as Maggie Evans the waitress-turned-governess on the ABC-tv cult serial Dark Shadows. In its prime, the Dark Shadows daytime series (which ran from 1966 to 1971) attracted 20 million viewers. The spooky, literate, romance and horror-driven show had universal appeal and came to be known as the program kids ran home from school to watch. Reruns and DVD releases of all 1,225 episodes have spawned new generations of Dark Shadows fans, who attend annual Dark Shadows Festivals where cast members reunite to celebrate the show’s unending popularity. During her tenure at the show, Kathryn Leigh Scott played several roles including Josette du Pres, the ghostly lover of Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), who was killed at Widow’s Hill in the 18th-century flashbacks. After leaving the series, she co-starred in The Great Gatsby (1974), and...

Lina Romay, whose role as a lead singer with Xavier Cugat's orchestra in the early 1940s led to a career in the movies and a stint decades later as a Spanish-language radio announcer for Hollywood Park, has died. She was 91. La Times reports that Romay died December 17 of natural causes at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, said her son, Jay Gould IV. Dubbed James Franco's muse, Romay, burst onto the genre scene with 1972's The Erotic Rights of Frankenstein and is best known for films such as Female Vampire, The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff, The Mystery of the Red Castle, Erotic Kill, and many, many more. In the Eighties Romay moved from the front of the screen to behind-the-camera as a director of a dozen different films.