Latest news with #NormanLear
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
LGBTQ Representation In Movies Hits 3-Year Low, GLAAD Finds
After reaching a record high in 2022, LGBTQ representation continues to decline in movies. On Wednesday, GLAAD released the 13th edition of its Studio Responsibility Index (SRI), which found that LGBTQ-inclusive films dropped to 23.6% of releases from 10 top studio distributors during the 2024 calendar year, down from 27.3% in 2023 and 28.5% in 2022. More from Deadline Pride Month Viewing: 20 Buzzy LGBTQ Movies Of 2025 'I Don't Understand You's Husband Writing-Directing Duo Talks "Horror Movie" Adoption Experience, "Amazing" Italian Crew & Their Son's Cameo 'Queer as Folk' Cast Reuniting For 25th Anniversary At Pride Live! Hollywood, Plus 'Golden Girls' Birthday & Norman Lear Tribute The SRI also found that, only two films (less than 1%) featured transgender characters; 37% of LGBTQ characters had less than one minute of screen time; only 27% had more than 10 minutes of screen time, down from 38% last year; LGBTQ characters of color made up the lowest percentage since 2019 at 36%; and there were no LGBTQ characters living with HIV in any of the 250 films tracker. 'This year's findings are a wake-up call to the industry. At a time when LGBTQ people are facing unprecedented attacks in politics and news media, film must be a space for visibility and truth,' said Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD president and CEO. 'Representation isn't about checking a box — it's about whose stories get told, whose lives are valued, and creating worlds that mirror our own society today. When done authentically, LGBTQ representation builds audience and buzz, while humanizing LGBTQ people as those in power are actively working to take away our humanity.' Meanwhile, gender parity was reached among LGBTQ characters for the first time in five years, at 50% women, 48% men and 2% nonbinary; and A24 was the only studio to receive a 'Good' rating with the highest percentage of LGBTQ films. Looking at releases from A24, Amazon, Apple TV+, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount Global, Sony Pictures Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery, as well as their subsidiaries and streaming services, films were judged based on the basic standard for meaningful LGBTQ inclusion, as outlined by GLAAD's Vito Russo Test, named after a co-founder of the organization. The 2024 titles that passed the Vito Russo Test include Love Lies Bleeding (A24), Problemista (A24), My Old Ass (Amazon), Drive-Away Dolls (NBCUniversal), Mean Girls (Paramount Pictures), Fancy Dance (Apple TV+), Good Grief (Netflix), Rez Ball (Netflix), Sweethearts (Warner Bros. Discovery), Housekeeping for Beginners (NBCUniversal), The Radleys (Lionsgate), Ricky Stanicky (Amazon), Between the Temples (Sony Pictures Entertainment) and Prom Dates (The Walt Disney Company). Following the Trump administration's attacks on DEI and recent attempt to cancel Pride Month, several LGBTQ films are finding their ways to the screen this year. Best of Deadline 'Stick' Release Guide: When Do New Episodes Come Out? 'Stick' Soundtrack: All The Songs You'll Hear In The Apple TV+ Golf Series 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery
Business Insider
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
10 celebrities who lived to 100 — and how they did it
Norman Lear Iconic screenwriter and producer Norman Lear, who died in December 2023 at the age of 101, said that work (and loving his job) is what kept him going. "Some people run. I don't run. I wake up and do the things that please me. That's my present to myself. That's my prayer. That's everything," he told USA Today as he turned 100 in 2022. He reiterated this in a chat with the Los Angeles Times in 2020. "When I go to sleep at night," he said, "I have something that I'm thinking. Among other things, it's about something I'm doing tomorrow." He added, "So today is over, and we're on to the next." There's evidence to suggest that delaying retirement could add years to your life. A 2015 study that followed 83,000 adults over 65 for 15 years, published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, found that, compared with people who retired, people who worked past age 65 were about three times more likely to report being in good health. Jimmy Carter The 39th president lived to be 100, dying in December 2024, almost three months after his landmark birthday. He credited one person with helping him live that long: his wife, Rosalynn. They were married for 77 years before her death in 2023. "It's hard to live until you're 95 years old," he told People in 2019. "I think the best explanation for that is to marry the best spouse: someone who will take care of you and engage and do things to challenge you, and keep you alive and interested in life," he said. Research suggests that having strong social bonds can help you live longer. A 2021 meta-review published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology found that the link between social support and longevity is as strong as the link between not smoking and longevity. Bob Hope Bob Hope, known for his vaudeville, acting, comedy, and his hosting gig at the Academy Awards a record 19 times, died in July 2003, two months after his 100th birthday. Back in the '80s, when he was a spry 78, he said he made sure to walk 2 miles every day, no matter where he was, per Men's Health. He learned this lesson from his grandfather. "When he was 96 years old, he walked two miles to the local pub every day to get a drink. He died within a month of his 100th birthday, and he remained mentally sharp till the very end," said Hope. There's science to back up their method. A 2024 study published in the British Journal of Sports Science analyzed health and mortality data from the 2019 US Census, the 2003—2006 National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey, and the National Center for Health Statistics. Using a mathematical model, the authors predicted that people who walk for around 160 minutes a day live an average of five years longer than their sedentary peers. They speculated that if the least active Americans walked for an extra 111 minutes daily, they could live up to 11 years longer. Dolores Hope Bob Hope lived to be 100, but his wife, Dolores, managed to outlive him. She died in 2011 at the age of 102. While Dolores didn't publicly share theories on how she made it to triple-digits, her daughters had their own ideas. Her oldest daughter, Linda (who's now in her 90s herself), told ABC7 in 2009: "Laugh a lot. Laughter is something that's been part of our lives, and I have to think that is a large part responsible for their happiness and for their long lives." Olivia de Havilland The "Gone with the Wind" star lived to be an impressive 104 years old. She died in July 2020. De Havilland, in addition to crediting the "three Ls" (love, laughter, and light) with her longevity, told Vanity Fair in 2016 that she kept her mind sharp by doing The New York Times crossword every single day. In a 2022 study published in the journal NEJM Evidence, 107 adults with mild cognitive impairment were asked to do an intensive program of web-based crossword puzzles or games for 12 weeks, followed by booster sessions up to 78 weeks. The authors found that 37% of participants in the crossword groups improved by two points on an Alzheimer's scale. Kirk Douglas The Hollywood icon and star of films such as "Spartacus" and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" lived to 103. He died in February 2020. Douglas wrote an essay for Newsweek in 2008, when he was 91, about growing old. "Humor helps longevity," he wrote. "Try to think of others, try to help them. You will be amazed how that lessens your depression. That satisfaction is priceless," he added. "The greatest dividend to old age is the discovery of the true meaning of love." Gloria Stuart Much like her "Titanic" character Rose, Stuart lived to become a centenarian, briefly. She turned 100 in July 2010 and died two months later. As her 1999 memoir, "I Just Kept Hoping," suggests, Stuart used her career to fuel her into her old age. "I was driven then [in the 1930s], and I'm driven now," she told SF Gate at the time. After Stuart's death in 2010, NPR host Ari Shapiro added, "Her daughter says that during her long life, her mother did not believe in illness. She paid no attention to it, and it served her well." Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother The Queen Mother died in 2002 at the age of 101. Clearly, longevity runs in the family, as her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, lived to be 96 before dying in September 2022. The Queen Mother had some frank advice for living a long life. In her official biography, she said, "'Wouldn't it be terrible if you'd spent all your life doing everything you were supposed to do, didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't eat things, took lots of exercise, and suddenly, one day, you were run over by a big red bus and, as the wheels were crunching into you, you'd say, 'Oh my God, I could have got so drunk last night.' That's the way you should live your life, as if tomorrow you'll be run over by a big red bus." George Burns The vaudeville star and comedian knew people would be curious about how to live to 100, so he decided to write the book "How To Live To Be 100 Or More." Burns, who died in March 1996 at 100 years old, told UPI Hollywood, "You'll be happier and live longer if you find a job you love; that way you avoid stress. Never take stress to bed with you. Work on it in the morning." He also confirmed that he did 45 minutes of exercise every day before taking a "brisk 15-minute walk around the neighborhood." He also had "two or three drinks a day" and always had a cigar close by (though, according to him, he never inhaled). He steered clear of cigarettes, however. Being active is linked to living longer in better health. A 2022 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that of 99,713 participants aged 55 to 74, those who did regular aerobic exercise and strength training were 41% less likely to die from any cause in the seven to 10 years after. "I don't believe a lot of this medical stuff. They say everything you eat and drink causes cancer. Don't pay too much attention to that," Burns added. Eva Marie Saint Saint, the oldest living and earliest surviving Oscar winner, will turn 101 in July 2025. "I continue to take walks out in the fresh air, like watching baseball — especially the Los Angeles Dodgers, and enjoy time with my family and friends," she told People ahead of her 100th birthday last year.
Washington Post
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
I loved the ‘All In The Family' theme song. Now I actually get it.
I was too young to get the joke about 'Those Were the Days' back then, but it was the most arresting theme song on TV — if that's even the proper way to categorize its function on the 1970s megahit show technically called 'All in the Family,' but that we all referred to as 'Archie Bunker.'
San Francisco Chronicle
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Clean Slate,' the first sitcom to star a transgender actor, is canceled after one season
Amid a background of openly anti-transgender legislation and policies in American politics, the first ever sitcom starring a transgender performer and the last project from legendary progressive producer Norman Lear has been canceled. 'Clean Slate,' which premiered Feb. 6 on Prime Video, will end after season one. The news was revealed in an emotional guest column posted on Deadline on Friday, April 18, co-written by series star and transgender actor Laverne Cox, comedian and co-star George Wallace and co-creator Dan Ewen. 'We will push to keep the story alive, for the sake of the kind of people portrayed in it, the kind of people being legislated out of existence, or erased from history books,' the column said. 'It feels like it's time to fight like hell for nice things.' While Prime Video has not publicly revealed why it's scrapping the show, the streaming service is a division of Amazon, owned by Jeff Bezos, who has become a prominent donor and supporter of President Donald Trump's second term. In the president's first quarter, Trump has issued executive orders targeting transgender people, including barring trans athletes from playing in women's sports, and his administration has erased the mention of transgender people on government websites and passports. 'Clean Slate' stars Wallace as Harry, an Alabama car wash owner, who is surprised when his estranged son returns home after 17 years. Harry's child is now a proud trans woman named Desiree (Cox). Lear, known for progressive sitcoms such as 'All in the Family,' 'The Jeffersons' and 'Sanford and Son' that changed the face of television in the 1970s, signed on after Cox, Wallace and Ewen pitched the TV legend in the late 2010s. Together, they shepherded the project through a pandemic, Hollywood strikes and shifting broadcast partners. It was originally set up at Peacock before moving first to Amazon-owned Freevee before finally airing on Prime. What would be the only season had been entirely filmed by the time Lear died at age 101 in December 2023. 'Let it be known that Norman Lear's final comedy room was an intersectional, authentic thing of beauty, and the stuff of Marjorie Taylor Greene's nightmares,' the column said.
New York Times
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Trump's Revenge Now Includes His Takeover of the Kennedy Center
The trouble started in August 2017 when the television producer Norman Lear said he was skipping a White House reception for his Kennedy Center Honors award. Another honoree, the dancer and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade, pulled out after President Trump said there were 'very fine people on both sides' of a white supremacist rally and counterprotest in Charlottesville, Va. Mr. Trump, who ended up canceling the reception and shunning the annual awards ceremony all four years of his first term, got his revenge last week when he purged the bipartisan Kennedy Center board of Biden appointees, fired the center's president and made himself the new chairman. The question now is what a thin-skinned showman will do with an institution of music, theater and dance that has been central to Washington's cultural life for more than 50 years. Stephen K. Bannon, the longtime Trump adviser, thinks there should be an opening night performance of the J6 Prison Choir, made up of men once imprisoned for their role in the assault on the Capitol but now pardoned by Mr. Trump. The president could also emulate one of his favorite authoritarians, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into state-sanctioned art to glorify the nation and his leadership. The prevailing view in a stunned Washington is that a center that offers a smorgasbord of more than 2,000 events a year — everything from a towering production of Richard Wagner's Ring cycle to 'Sesame Street: The Musical' — will now feature more country music ahead of 2026, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Notably, the country singer Lee Greenwood, a Trump supporter whose signature song 'God Bless the USA' has become a Republican anthem, is on the board. Whatever the center's future, conservatives exulted that Mr. Trump's domination of Washington has extended to artistic expression and a pillar of the city's establishment. 'This Kennedy Center thing is big, folks — big,' Mr. Bannon said on his podcast last week. 'They're crushed over there.' He called the center 'the high church of the secular, atheistic administrative state that runs the imperial capital,' enthused that 'Visigoths' would now be filling the seats and recommended that the Jan. 6 choir replace an evening of opera. 'Just watch the meltdown of the Washington elite,' he said. Making the Center 'Hot' Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump's interim president of the center and a former U.S. ambassador to Germany known for savaging his critics on social media, did not respond to requests for comment about his plans. It remains unclear how long he will be in the job, since two days after his installation he told reporters he was considering running for governor of California in 2026 if former Vice President Kamala Harris enters the race. Mr. Trump has yet to reveal specific programming, though he said in a phone call to a meeting of the new Kennedy Center board — the audio was leaked to CNN — that 'we're going to make it hot. And we made the presidency hot, so this should be easy.' The president's stated reason for the takeover was to rid the center of drag shows last year that he said targeted young people, which seemed to be a reference to a drag-themed show the center hosted last year, 'Dragtastic Dress-up,' aimed at 'LGBTQ+ youth under 18,' according to marketing materials. In later comments to reporters on Air Force One, Mr. Trump said that some of the shows at the Kennedy Center 'were terrible,' but when asked if he had seen anything there, he said no. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Tuesday that 'the Kennedy Center learned the hard way that if you go woke, you will go broke.' (The center ran a $1 million deficit on a $268 million budget last year.) Mr. Trump and the new board, she said, will rebuild a center 'where all Americans, and visitors from around the world, can enjoy the arts with respect to America's great history and traditions.' Michael M. Kaiser, a former Kennedy Center president who is now the chairman of the DeVos Institute of Arts and Nonprofit Management, remains apprehensive. 'It's a scary time right now because we don't know what the ambition is,' he said. He was worried about the donor base, he added, and whether patrons from an overwhelmingly Democratic city would continue to come to events. As for Mr. Trump, he said, 'who knows how long this will be a priority when he realizes the chairman is expected to make a major gift every year and raise other money.' David Rubenstein, the purged chairman, billionaire philanthropist and co-founder of the private equity Carlyle Group, contributed $120 million to the Kennedy Center over 20 years on its board — the single largest donated sum of any individual or corporation in the center's history. Mr. Rubenstein also oversaw an effort to raise $100 million in donations each year. Some $43 million of the center's budget last year was paid for by federal aid to cover operations, maintenance and repair for the center itself, which was created as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy. The rest of the budget — $225 million — depends on ticket sales and donations. Mr. Rubenstein, who owns the Nantucket compound that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., has used for his family vacations, appeared to be on good terms with Mr. Trump ahead of his ouster. Mr. Rubenstein and his friend Caryn Zucker had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Mr. Trump and Melania Trump, the first lady, last year. Mr. Rubenstein also interviewed Mr. Trump for a book on the presidency that was published in September. Mr. Rubenstein has so far said nothing publicly about his dismissal, though in a post on social media last week, he thanked the entire Kennedy Center team and its fired president, Deborah F. Rutter, for 'helping to make the center the beacon for the performing arts its founders intended.' Scalia and Ginsburg at the Opera President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation in 1958 to create what was then called the National Cultural Center, but the effort changed its plans and name after Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The grand opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was in September 1971, featuring the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's 'Mass,' commissioned for the occasion. Critics often called the center, built on the banks of the Potomac River, a marble mausoleum of highbrow and not always superb art set apart from the life of the city. Its symphony, opera and ballet were never on par with the best that New York, Los Angeles or Chicago had to offer. It was as traditional as official Washington, but over time its repertoire expanded, improved and relaxed. Restaurants sprang up around it, and public transportation made getting there easier. On warm summer nights, people gathered on the outdoor plaza during intermission to see the twinkling lights of the city and planes headed for Reagan National Airport across the river. The goal was to have something for everyone. Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to the opera together, and Vice President Mike Pence saw 'The King and I.' Little girls in pink dresses flocked to see the ballet 'Swan Lake.' Young people filled the Opera House for the revival of Stephen Sondheim's 'Into the Woods.' There were free concerts, a country music festival and the smattering of drag shows that Mr. Trump said so offended him. 'Looking back, I now think it's wonderful,' said Tim Page, a professor emeritus of musicology at the University of Southern California, a former music critic for The Washington Post and a former reporter for The New York Times. The Kennedy Center Honors began in 1978 under George Stevens Jr., to recognize people and institutions for lifetime artistic achievement. Honorees at the December gala have varied from George Balanchine to Tennessee Williams to Dolly Parton to the Grateful Dead. Mr. Trump was the first president in 40 years to skip the event. A number of artists connected with the center resigned in protest last week, among them the renowned soprano Renée Fleming, who was an artistic adviser, and Shonda Rhimes, a famed television producer and writer, who was treasurer of the board. The board consists of 36 members who serve for six years each, meaning that even though presidents get to pick who serves, the board is not often evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. In Ms. Rutter's case, a majority of board members in recent years were Trump appointees from his first term, among them Pam Bondi, now the attorney general, and Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor who is Mr. Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Israel. 'I had a fantastic working relationship with Pam and Mike Huckabee,' Ms. Rutter said. New Trump appointees on the board include Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff; Cheri Summerall, Ms. Wiles' stepmother; and Dan Scavino, a longtime Trump aide. A Trump appointee from 2020 is Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent who discovered Melania Trump in Milan and introduced her to the future president at a 1998 party he hosted at the Kit Kat Club. He is now the United Nations ambassador of Dominica.
