The 18th Tribeca Film Festival moved uptown on Wednesday for an opening night that honored an elder New York institution: the Apollo Theater.

Roger Ross Williams’ “The Apollo” premiered at the iconic Harlem music hall whose 85-year history is chronicled in Williams’ documentary. The movie and setting added up to a gala tribute to the 125th Street mecca of African American culture, where everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to James Brown to Chris Rock has come to forge their legacies.

“The story of black people in America is the story of the Apollo,” Williams said in an interview ahead of the premiere.

Tribeca isn’t the first New York film festival to uproot to the Apollo for a special event. Lincoln Center’s New York Film Festival came there last year to debut Barry Jenkins’ James Baldwin adaptation “If Beale Street Could Talk.”

But Tribeca, the festival founded by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, has made a habit of celebrating the city’s cultural institutions on opening night through documentaries about “Saturday Night Live” and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“In these disturbing times, when the administration is promoting divisiveness and racism, we’re making a statement by being here tonight that we reject it,” said De Niro, a well-known critic of President Donald Trump, introducing the film on the Apollo stage. “No, you don’t! Not in this house, not on this stage!”

“The Apollo,” which HBO will air in the fall, survey’s the theater’s expansive history but also its vibrant present. It follows the production of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me,” a production that Apollo president Jonelle Procope says perfectly reflects the theater’s mission for the future.

“We want to develop this new 21st century performing arts canon that focuses on telling the African American and African diaspora stories,” said Procope. “We are really the only performing arts organization in the country that is from a performing arts standpoint focused on the African American narrative. Our legacy is to create opportunities for emerging talent and nurture their talent and let them push the envelope.”

Opened in 1914 as a burlesque theater, the Apollo began catering to the black community in the 1930s. Its famed Amateur Night, begun in 1934, has been the first introduction of countless stars, including Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder (introduced as a 12-year-old “genius”) and the Supremes.

Amateur night remains the signature Apollo show: a crucible through which endless performers have had to pass to confirm their talent. Anyone lacking will hear it from the audience. In Williams’ film, Dave Chappelle is seen saying his Apollo experience was the best thing that ever happened to him. “After that, I was fearless,” says Chappelle.

“I grew up in the black church and there’s a very similar dialogue that happens, the call and the response,” said Williams. “The Apollo, in a sense, is church. It’s a sacred space and a gathering of community in Harlem.”

The Apollo’s history can be staggering. Through its doors have come Duke Ellington, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson and Richard Pryor. James Brown recorded one of the most revered live albums at the Apollo.

“When we first watched the film, I had this gut-wrenching emotional reaction. I was just crying like a baby,” said Williams. “The journey that black people have taken in America is a painful and difficult journey and our music is one of the tools we use to talk about that pain, to talk about that oppression, to escape from that pain. Our musical journey is a powerful one.”

With such an overwhelming legacy, the Apollo has striven to be more than a museum. After falling on hard times in the 1970s, it was named a state and city landmark in 1983. It was purchased by New York State in 1991 and turned into a nonprofit theater. Its long-running variety show “Showtime at the Apollo” was most recently rebooted on Fox last year.

Now, for the first time in its history, it’s plotting an expansion. The Apollo Performing Arts Center plans to in the fall of 2020 open two adjacent theaters, two doors down from the Apollo. One will seat 99, the other 199 — much smaller spaces than the 1,506 capacity Apollo.

Procope said the new theaters will allow the Apollo to program more expansively, add master artist residencies, host more speaking series, delve deeper into dance and create new streaming and podcasting possibilities.

“I think people understand where we’ve been,” said Procope. Soon, she says, they will see where the Apollo is going.
…

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The 18th Tribeca Film Festival moved uptown on Wednesday for an opening night that honored an elder New York institution: the Apollo Theater.

Roger Ross Williams’ “The Apollo” premiered at the iconic Harlem music hall whose 85-year history is chronicled in Williams’ documentary. The movie and setting added up to a gala tribute to the 125th Street mecca of African American culture, where everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to James Brown to Chris Rock has come to forge their legacies.

“The story of black people in America is the story of the Apollo,” Williams said in an interview ahead of the premiere.

Tribeca isn’t the first New York film festival to uproot to the Apollo for a special event. Lincoln Center’s New York Film Festival came there last year to debut Barry Jenkins’ James Baldwin adaptation “If Beale Street Could Talk.”

But Tribeca, the festival founded by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, has made a habit of celebrating the city’s cultural institutions on opening night through documentaries about “Saturday Night Live” and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“In these disturbing times, when the administration is promoting divisiveness and racism, we’re making a statement by being here tonight that we reject it,” said De Niro, a well-known critic of President Donald Trump, introducing the film on the Apollo stage. “No, you don’t! Not in this house, not on this stage!”

“The Apollo,” which HBO will air in the fall, survey’s the theater’s expansive history but also its vibrant present. It follows the production of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me,” a production that Apollo president Jonelle Procope says perfectly reflects the theater’s mission for the future.

“We want to develop this new 21st century performing arts canon that focuses on telling the African American and African diaspora stories,” said Procope. “We are really the only performing arts organization in the country that is from a performing arts standpoint focused on the African American narrative. Our legacy is to create opportunities for emerging talent and nurture their talent and let them push the envelope.”

Opened in 1914 as a burlesque theater, the Apollo began catering to the black community in the 1930s. Its famed Amateur Night, begun in 1934, has been the first introduction of countless stars, including Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder (introduced as a 12-year-old “genius”) and the Supremes.

Amateur night remains the signature Apollo show: a crucible through which endless performers have had to pass to confirm their talent. Anyone lacking will hear it from the audience. In Williams’ film, Dave Chappelle is seen saying his Apollo experience was the best thing that ever happened to him. “After that, I was fearless,” says Chappelle.

“I grew up in the black church and there’s a very similar dialogue that happens, the call and the response,” said Williams. “The Apollo, in a sense, is church. It’s a sacred space and a gathering of community in Harlem.”

The Apollo’s history can be staggering. Through its doors have come Duke Ellington, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson and Richard Pryor. James Brown recorded one of the most revered live albums at the Apollo.

“When we first watched the film, I had this gut-wrenching emotional reaction. I was just crying like a baby,” said Williams. “The journey that black people have taken in America is a painful and difficult journey and our music is one of the tools we use to talk about that pain, to talk about that oppression, to escape from that pain. Our musical journey is a powerful one.”

With such an overwhelming legacy, the Apollo has striven to be more than a museum. After falling on hard times in the 1970s, it was named a state and city landmark in 1983. It was purchased by New York State in 1991 and turned into a nonprofit theater. Its long-running variety show “Showtime at the Apollo” was most recently rebooted on Fox last year.

Now, for the first time in its history, it’s plotting an expansion. The Apollo Performing Arts Center plans to in the fall of 2020 open two adjacent theaters, two doors down from the Apollo. One will seat 99, the other 199 — much smaller spaces than the 1,506 capacity Apollo.

Procope said the new theaters will allow the Apollo to program more expansively, add master artist residencies, host more speaking series, delve deeper into dance and create new streaming and podcasting possibilities.

“I think people understand where we’ve been,” said Procope. Soon, she says, they will see where the Apollo is going.
…

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The 25th James Bond movie and Daniel Craig’s last one as 007 is heading home to Jamaica.

Craig, Bond producers and director Cary Fukunaga on Thursday launched the film from the Caribbean island nation where Ian Fleming wrote all of his Bond novels. The still untitled film will be partly set in Jamaica, also a setting in “Dr. No” and “Live and Let Die.”

Rami Malek is joining the cast as the villain. The recent Oscar-winner said in a videotaped message that he’ll make sure Bond “will not have an easy ride of it” in Bond 25.

Fukunaga took over directing from Danny Boyle, who departed last year over creative differences. Bond 25 is due out in April 2020.
…

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The 25th James Bond movie and Daniel Craig’s last one as 007 is heading home to Jamaica.

Craig, Bond producers and director Cary Fukunaga on Thursday launched the film from the Caribbean island nation where Ian Fleming wrote all of his Bond novels. The still untitled film will be partly set in Jamaica, also a setting in “Dr. No” and “Live and Let Die.”

Rami Malek is joining the cast as the villain. The recent Oscar-winner said in a videotaped message that he’ll make sure Bond “will not have an easy ride of it” in Bond 25.

Fukunaga took over directing from Danny Boyle, who departed last year over creative differences. Bond 25 is due out in April 2020.
…

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If your tastes are eclectic, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival poses a problem: Which of a dozen acts do you want to hear? Earth, Wind & Fire, Alanis Morissette, or Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band? Van Morrison, Al Green, Johnny Rivers, or all five Marsalis jazzmen playing together?

The festival’s first producer recently contemplated the 50th anniversary lineup for the eight-day festival, which begins Thursday. “I think what I want to see is the Marsalis family together, because I haven’t seen them together for a long time,” George Wein, 93, said in a telephone interview.

Pianist Ellis Marsalis and his sons — trumpeter Wynton, saxophone player Branford, trombonist Delfeayo and percussionist Jason Marsalis — close out the festival’s first weekend at the Jazz Tent. It’s among 10 music stages and tents, along with the Kids’ Tent, an interview stage and a cultural exchange pavilion.

Other first-weekend acts include Katy Perry, Bonnie Raitt, Boz Scaggs and Santana.

There’s also a juried arts and crafts show, an African marketplace, a Louisiana heritage marketplace and enough food to leave you in a two-week-long stupor.

About 450,000 fans came last year, across seven days. Wein said he always knew the festival would grow, but not to the current extent.

The first Heritage Fair had more performers than audience members, as lesser-known locals performed at the daytime fair. Duke Ellington, Mahalia Jackson, Al Hirt, Pete Fountain and other top acts played at nighttime indoor Jazz Festival concerts.

The next year brought four night concerts and three afternoons in Congo Square, with four stages: blues, Cajun, gospel and street music. That first day was “a ragged little carnival of sound” with 25 acts sometimes clashing, The Associated Press wrote. The enclosure also held “two beer counters, a souvenir store, a cotton candy machine and a food tent where tourists tried red beans and rice but seldom braved the crimson boiled crawfish.”

One fan who had paid $2 demanded, “We drove all the way over here from Galveston to hear some jazz. Where is it?” Patty Mouton told Wein his Newport Jazz Festival was great, but “You call this jazz? That old woman singing hymns over there?”

“Sure that’s jazz,” he replied. “Those hymns are jazz and so is the guy beating on those oil drums. This is the grassroots jazz.”

The Heritage Fair moved in 1972 to the New Orleans Fair Grounds racetrack infield, where the New Orleans Jazz Festival and Heritage Fair is still held, adding a second weekend in 1976 .

New Orleans “Queen of Soul” Irma Thomas, who began playing Jazz Fest in 1974, said it gave local artists like herself a chance to be seen by national and international audiences.

“A lot of us worked for years without having agents, and Jazz Fest has been sort of the agent for the locals who have been around since mud and have not been recognized,” she said.

Gospel and Zydeco performers also began getting invitations to perform at other festivals and events worldwide after being heard at Jazz Fest, producer Quint Davis said.

By 1976, when about 175,000 people attended over six days, some people said the outdoor fair had grown too big, calling it Son of Mardi Gras.

The record crowd was an estimated 650,000 over seven days in 2001. That festival’s lineup included B.B. King, Dr. John, Widespread Panic, Van Morrison, Paul Simon, Allen Toussaint and the Neville Brothers.

Widespread Panic is back this year because health problems knocked the Rolling Stones and replacement Fleetwood Mac out of the lineup. Jerry Lee Lewis, 83, also had to send regrets after a stroke in March.

Wein’s favorite memory over the festival’s first 49 years is hearing Ella Fitzgerald and Stevie Wonder together.

It was in 1977. Wonder, at the height of his career, joined Fitzgerald on stage at the city’s Municipal Auditorium. They sang his 1973 hit, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.”

“Stevie’s still a star,” Wein said.
…

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If your tastes are eclectic, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival poses a problem: Which of a dozen acts do you want to hear? Earth, Wind & Fire, Alanis Morissette, or Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band? Van Morrison, Al Green, Johnny Rivers, or all five Marsalis jazzmen playing together?

The festival’s first producer recently contemplated the 50th anniversary lineup for the eight-day festival, which begins Thursday. “I think what I want to see is the Marsalis family together, because I haven’t seen them together for a long time,” George Wein, 93, said in a telephone interview.

Pianist Ellis Marsalis and his sons — trumpeter Wynton, saxophone player Branford, trombonist Delfeayo and percussionist Jason Marsalis — close out the festival’s first weekend at the Jazz Tent. It’s among 10 music stages and tents, along with the Kids’ Tent, an interview stage and a cultural exchange pavilion.

Other first-weekend acts include Katy Perry, Bonnie Raitt, Boz Scaggs and Santana.

There’s also a juried arts and crafts show, an African marketplace, a Louisiana heritage marketplace and enough food to leave you in a two-week-long stupor.

About 450,000 fans came last year, across seven days. Wein said he always knew the festival would grow, but not to the current extent.

The first Heritage Fair had more performers than audience members, as lesser-known locals performed at the daytime fair. Duke Ellington, Mahalia Jackson, Al Hirt, Pete Fountain and other top acts played at nighttime indoor Jazz Festival concerts.

The next year brought four night concerts and three afternoons in Congo Square, with four stages: blues, Cajun, gospel and street music. That first day was “a ragged little carnival of sound” with 25 acts sometimes clashing, The Associated Press wrote. The enclosure also held “two beer counters, a souvenir store, a cotton candy machine and a food tent where tourists tried red beans and rice but seldom braved the crimson boiled crawfish.”

One fan who had paid $2 demanded, “We drove all the way over here from Galveston to hear some jazz. Where is it?” Patty Mouton told Wein his Newport Jazz Festival was great, but “You call this jazz? That old woman singing hymns over there?”

“Sure that’s jazz,” he replied. “Those hymns are jazz and so is the guy beating on those oil drums. This is the grassroots jazz.”

The Heritage Fair moved in 1972 to the New Orleans Fair Grounds racetrack infield, where the New Orleans Jazz Festival and Heritage Fair is still held, adding a second weekend in 1976 .

New Orleans “Queen of Soul” Irma Thomas, who began playing Jazz Fest in 1974, said it gave local artists like herself a chance to be seen by national and international audiences.

“A lot of us worked for years without having agents, and Jazz Fest has been sort of the agent for the locals who have been around since mud and have not been recognized,” she said.

Gospel and Zydeco performers also began getting invitations to perform at other festivals and events worldwide after being heard at Jazz Fest, producer Quint Davis said.

By 1976, when about 175,000 people attended over six days, some people said the outdoor fair had grown too big, calling it Son of Mardi Gras.

The record crowd was an estimated 650,000 over seven days in 2001. That festival’s lineup included B.B. King, Dr. John, Widespread Panic, Van Morrison, Paul Simon, Allen Toussaint and the Neville Brothers.

Widespread Panic is back this year because health problems knocked the Rolling Stones and replacement Fleetwood Mac out of the lineup. Jerry Lee Lewis, 83, also had to send regrets after a stroke in March.

Wein’s favorite memory over the festival’s first 49 years is hearing Ella Fitzgerald and Stevie Wonder together.

It was in 1977. Wonder, at the height of his career, joined Fitzgerald on stage at the city’s Municipal Auditorium. They sang his 1973 hit, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.”

“Stevie’s still a star,” Wein said.
…

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Feminist author and activist Gloria Steinem once said, “Women have always been an equal part of the past. We just haven’t been a part of history.”

But American women became an important part of history when they gained the right to vote in 1920.

Making waves

Reaching that groundbreaking milestone was the culmination of decades of struggle by women working at the state and national levels for political empowerment. Women such as social reformer Susan B. Anthony, abolitionists Sojourner Truth and Lucy Stone, and activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who helped organize the first women’s rights convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York.

Now, a major new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., explores that complex period in American history.  “Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence” offers a rich visual presentation of the women’s suffrage movement over a span of 130 years, ahead of the 100th anniversary of passage of the 19th Amendment.

Portraits of persistence

“As a historian, I was really interested to look at the 19th Amendment and what that meant in 1920, and how its legacy unfolded,” said historian and exhibit curator Kate Clarke Lemay.

She explained that the suffrage movement didn’t just appear out of nowhere.

“They had these abolitionist foundations. They had partnerships with the temperance movement. And that is really how they built momentum across the country in the very early stages.”

The seven-room exhibit features more than 120 objects from 1832 to 1965. Photographic portraits and paintings, videos depicting historical footage, and books, banners and posters, provide an in-depth look at the people and events that helped shape American history.

It highlights well-known and lesser-known figures associated with the women’s movement.

How many people know, for example, that Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for president, on a third party ticket in 1872? Or that activist Lucy Burns served six different prison sentences for picketing the White House? Or that a group of American women, while studying abroad in England, were inspired by the British suffragette movement to organize at home? Led by suffragist Alice Paul, they staged the first major nonviolent march on Washington on March 3, 1913, which attracted between 5,000 and 8,000 women.

Silent sentinels

“It’s really important for the Smithsonian, and certainly the National Portrait Gallery, to put faces to the women who really marched toward getting the vote and the passing of the 19th Amendment in 1920,” said Kim Sajet, National Portrait Gallery director.

“This exhibition is really about that journey, and about the women who really agitated for the vote, but also for the women who were left out of the history books,” she said. About a third of the collection includes representations of women of color, she said, “because they’ve really been erased from history in many ways.”

That includes African American women, who were often excluded by white women from the main suffrage organizations.

That is particularly relevant, given that “black women were organizing just as much as white women,” Lemay said.

“So this exhibition works to show a more complete history of the women’s suffrage movement by looking at biographies of African Americans, Native Americans, and other women of color, to complement the better-known story that we have in our textbooks.”

The exhibit includes abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond, who filed one of the earliest lawsuits protesting race segregation; Ida B. Wells, who advocated for federal laws against lynching; and Mary Church Terrell, who established the National Association of Colored Women.

Women today

American women have immense political power today, Lemay observed. They make up a huge voting bloc, more than 120 women now serve in Congress, and many others are in major leadership roles.

“If you start from where the exhibition starts in the 1830s … and then trace that thread with the suffrage movement up to this very day when women are actually leading our country, you can see the great continuum and the grand narrative journey that these women had to undergo to achieve that,” Lemay said. “And I’m really excited to see what happens from here on.”

“Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence” is part of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, “Because of Her Story,” and one of the country’s most ambitious undertakings to research, collect, document, display and share the compelling story and history of American women. 

The museum hopes the exhibit, which runs through January 5, 2020, will deepen people’s understanding of women’s contributions to the nation and the world.
…

your ads here!

Feminist author and activist Gloria Steinem once said, “Women have always been an equal part of the past. We just haven’t been a part of history.”

But American women became an important part of history when they gained the right to vote in 1920.

Making waves

Reaching that groundbreaking milestone was the culmination of decades of struggle by women working at the state and national levels for political empowerment. Women such as social reformer Susan B. Anthony, abolitionists Sojourner Truth and Lucy Stone, and activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who helped organize the first women’s rights convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York.

Now, a major new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., explores that complex period in American history.  “Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence” offers a rich visual presentation of the women’s suffrage movement over a span of 130 years, ahead of the 100th anniversary of passage of the 19th Amendment.

Portraits of persistence

“As a historian, I was really interested to look at the 19th Amendment and what that meant in 1920, and how its legacy unfolded,” said historian and exhibit curator Kate Clarke Lemay.

She explained that the suffrage movement didn’t just appear out of nowhere.

“They had these abolitionist foundations. They had partnerships with the temperance movement. And that is really how they built momentum across the country in the very early stages.”

The seven-room exhibit features more than 120 objects from 1832 to 1965. Photographic portraits and paintings, videos depicting historical footage, and books, banners and posters, provide an in-depth look at the people and events that helped shape American history.

It highlights well-known and lesser-known figures associated with the women’s movement.

How many people know, for example, that Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for president, on a third party ticket in 1872? Or that activist Lucy Burns served six different prison sentences for picketing the White House? Or that a group of American women, while studying abroad in England, were inspired by the British suffragette movement to organize at home? Led by suffragist Alice Paul, they staged the first major nonviolent march on Washington on March 3, 1913, which attracted between 5,000 and 8,000 women.

Silent sentinels

“It’s really important for the Smithsonian, and certainly the National Portrait Gallery, to put faces to the women who really marched toward getting the vote and the passing of the 19th Amendment in 1920,” said Kim Sajet, National Portrait Gallery director.

“This exhibition is really about that journey, and about the women who really agitated for the vote, but also for the women who were left out of the history books,” she said. About a third of the collection includes representations of women of color, she said, “because they’ve really been erased from history in many ways.”

That includes African American women, who were often excluded by white women from the main suffrage organizations.

That is particularly relevant, given that “black women were organizing just as much as white women,” Lemay said.

“So this exhibition works to show a more complete history of the women’s suffrage movement by looking at biographies of African Americans, Native Americans, and other women of color, to complement the better-known story that we have in our textbooks.”

The exhibit includes abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond, who filed one of the earliest lawsuits protesting race segregation; Ida B. Wells, who advocated for federal laws against lynching; and Mary Church Terrell, who established the National Association of Colored Women.

Women today

American women have immense political power today, Lemay observed. They make up a huge voting bloc, more than 120 women now serve in Congress, and many others are in major leadership roles.

“If you start from where the exhibition starts in the 1830s … and then trace that thread with the suffrage movement up to this very day when women are actually leading our country, you can see the great continuum and the grand narrative journey that these women had to undergo to achieve that,” Lemay said. “And I’m really excited to see what happens from here on.”

“Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence” is part of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, “Because of Her Story,” and one of the country’s most ambitious undertakings to research, collect, document, display and share the compelling story and history of American women. 

The museum hopes the exhibit, which runs through January 5, 2020, will deepen people’s understanding of women’s contributions to the nation and the world.
…

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Feminism has been defined as “the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes,” and “organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.” But the idea of feminism can vary depending on where you live. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo looks into what feminism means for Africans.
…

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Feminism has been defined as “the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes,” and “organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.” But the idea of feminism can vary depending on where you live. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo looks into what feminism means for Africans.
…

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Ken Kercheval, who played perennial punching bag Cliff Barnes to Larry Hagman’s scheming oil baron J.R. Ewing on the hit TV series “Dallas,” has died. He was 83.

Kercheval died Sunday in the city of Clinton in his native Indiana, said Jeff Fisher, his agent. The cause of death was being kept private by family, Fisher said Wednesday.

He was in “Dallas” for its full run, from 1978 to 1991, and returned as oilman Cliff opposite Hagman for a revival of the prime-time drama that aired from 2012-14.

He expressed fondness for his beleaguered character, also part of two TV `90s movies, in a 2012 interview with a “Dallas” fan website, The Dallas Decoder.

Cliff was a nice guy, but with brother-in-law J.R.’s constant battering he had to defend himself, Kercheval said. “If I did something that wasn’t quite right, it’s because I had to,” he added.

Kercheval was born in Wolcottville, Indiana, and raised in Clinton by his father, a physician, and his mother, a nurse. He studied at the University of Indiana and the University of the Pacific, according to profiles.

His early roles were on stage, with Broadway performances in musicals including “The Young Abe Lincoln” in 1961 and “The Apple Tree” and “Cabaret” in the late ’60s.

Kercheval’s big-screen credits included “Pretty Poison” (1968), “The Seven-Ups” in 1973 and “Network” in 1976.

He made frequent guest appearances on TV series, stretching from “Naked City” and “The Defenders” in the 1960s to “ER” and “Diagnosis Murder” in the 1990s and 2000s. His last online credit is for the film “Surviving in L.A.”

In a first-person piece for People magazine in 1994, Kercheval detailed his arduous treatment for lung cancer and advocated that others quit smoking, as he was “99 percent” successful in doing.

Kercheval’s survivors include three children, Caleb, Liza and Madison, his agent said. 
…

your ads here!

Ken Kercheval, who played perennial punching bag Cliff Barnes to Larry Hagman’s scheming oil baron J.R. Ewing on the hit TV series “Dallas,” has died. He was 83.

Kercheval died Sunday in the city of Clinton in his native Indiana, said Jeff Fisher, his agent. The cause of death was being kept private by family, Fisher said Wednesday.

He was in “Dallas” for its full run, from 1978 to 1991, and returned as oilman Cliff opposite Hagman for a revival of the prime-time drama that aired from 2012-14.

He expressed fondness for his beleaguered character, also part of two TV `90s movies, in a 2012 interview with a “Dallas” fan website, The Dallas Decoder.

Cliff was a nice guy, but with brother-in-law J.R.’s constant battering he had to defend himself, Kercheval said. “If I did something that wasn’t quite right, it’s because I had to,” he added.

Kercheval was born in Wolcottville, Indiana, and raised in Clinton by his father, a physician, and his mother, a nurse. He studied at the University of Indiana and the University of the Pacific, according to profiles.

His early roles were on stage, with Broadway performances in musicals including “The Young Abe Lincoln” in 1961 and “The Apple Tree” and “Cabaret” in the late ’60s.

Kercheval’s big-screen credits included “Pretty Poison” (1968), “The Seven-Ups” in 1973 and “Network” in 1976.

He made frequent guest appearances on TV series, stretching from “Naked City” and “The Defenders” in the 1960s to “ER” and “Diagnosis Murder” in the 1990s and 2000s. His last online credit is for the film “Surviving in L.A.”

In a first-person piece for People magazine in 1994, Kercheval detailed his arduous treatment for lung cancer and advocated that others quit smoking, as he was “99 percent” successful in doing.

Kercheval’s survivors include three children, Caleb, Liza and Madison, his agent said. 
…

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Marvel superhero movie “Avengers: Endgame” set an opening-day record in China with an estimated $107.2 million in ticket sales, distributor Walt Disney Co said on Wednesday.

“Endgame” is the final chapter of a story told across 22 Marvel films featuring popular characters such as Iron Man, Thor and Black Widow.

The movie earned rave reviews from critics and is expected to draw huge crowds as it debuts in the rest of the world this week.

As of Wednesday morning, 97 percent of “Endgame” reviews collected by the Rotten Tomatoes website were positive.

The film picks up after last year’s “Avengers: Infinity War,” when many of Marvel’s big-screen superheroes appeared to turn to dust. In “Endgame,” the survivors plot to kill the supervillain Thanos.
…

your ads here!

Marvel superhero movie “Avengers: Endgame” set an opening-day record in China with an estimated $107.2 million in ticket sales, distributor Walt Disney Co said on Wednesday.

“Endgame” is the final chapter of a story told across 22 Marvel films featuring popular characters such as Iron Man, Thor and Black Widow.

The movie earned rave reviews from critics and is expected to draw huge crowds as it debuts in the rest of the world this week.

As of Wednesday morning, 97 percent of “Endgame” reviews collected by the Rotten Tomatoes website were positive.

The film picks up after last year’s “Avengers: Infinity War,” when many of Marvel’s big-screen superheroes appeared to turn to dust. In “Endgame,” the survivors plot to kill the supervillain Thanos.
…

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Actress, businesswoman and children’s advocate Jennifer Garner is featured on the cover of People magazine’s annual beautiful issue, the magazine said on Tuesday.

People said it chose the 47-year-old “Alias” actress for balancing her career and charitable work with the raising of her three children with ex-husband Ben Affleck.

In addition to film and TV roles, Garner co-founded organic baby food company Once Upon a Farm and works as an ambassador for advocacy group Save the Children.

Garner told People that she never considered herself “one of the pretty girls” when she was growing up in West Virginia. She described her style at the time as “band geek-chic.”

Her current “uniform” more often than not is workout clothes, or jeans, a sweater and sneakers, if she is not dressed up for a red carpet or photo shoot.

When she does get glammed up, Garner said her kids will ask “‘Can you wash your face? Can you put your hair in a ponytail and put your glasses and sweats on?'”

“And I see the compliment in that,” she said. “They just want me to look like Mom.”

People’s beautiful issue will hit newsstands on Friday.
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Actress, businesswoman and children’s advocate Jennifer Garner is featured on the cover of People magazine’s annual beautiful issue, the magazine said on Tuesday.

People said it chose the 47-year-old “Alias” actress for balancing her career and charitable work with the raising of her three children with ex-husband Ben Affleck.

In addition to film and TV roles, Garner co-founded organic baby food company Once Upon a Farm and works as an ambassador for advocacy group Save the Children.

Garner told People that she never considered herself “one of the pretty girls” when she was growing up in West Virginia. She described her style at the time as “band geek-chic.”

Her current “uniform” more often than not is workout clothes, or jeans, a sweater and sneakers, if she is not dressed up for a red carpet or photo shoot.

When she does get glammed up, Garner said her kids will ask “‘Can you wash your face? Can you put your hair in a ponytail and put your glasses and sweats on?'”

“And I see the compliment in that,” she said. “They just want me to look like Mom.”

People’s beautiful issue will hit newsstands on Friday.
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Film critics unleashed overwhelmingly positive reviews on Tuesday of “Avengers: Endgame,” the highly anticipated final installment in a decade-long superhero story from Walt Disney’s Marvel Studios.

As of Tuesday afternoon, all but one of 56 “Endgame” reviews collected by the Rotten Tomatoes website were rated as positive.

USA Today’s Brian Truitt called the three-hour film “Marvel’s glorious greatest-hits package” with callbacks to previous adventures that will thrill fans who have faithfully followed characters such as Iron Man and Thor.

“It’s also a singular, sprawling and hugely satisfying tale that begins with a brutal, emotional gut punch and takes you on quite the trip with the original Avengers crew,” Truitt said.

Highest-grossing franchise

“Endgame” concludes a story that has unfolded over 21 previous films since 2007 and become the highest-grossing franchise in movie history. It picks up where last year’s “Avengers: Infinity War” left fans hanging when several beloved heroes appeared to turn to dust.

CNN’s Brian Lowry said “Endgame” delivered a worthy finale.

“The filmmakers have sought to reward movie-goers with a spectacle that’s epic in every way,” Lowry said.

“The overall journey not only produces several genuine surprises — no small feat in this context — but plenty of humor, with an assortment of lighter moments to augment the stir ring and, yes, emotional ones,” he added.

A.O. Scott of The New York Times said the movie provided the “sense of an ending,” even though many characters are expected to return in future films, and “a chance to appreciate what has been done before the timelines reset and we all get back to work.”

“We’ve lived with these characters and the actors playing them for more than a decade,” Scott wrote. “For the most part, it’s nice to see them again, and a little sad to say goodbye.”

Box office experts say “Endgame” may break the opening weekend record for ticket sales in the United States and Canada, which now stands at $257.7 million for “Infinity War.”
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Egypt’s government is drawing up a plan to turn over as many as 150 crumbling historic buildings to the private sector to refurbish and lease out for profit, the Minister of Public Enterprise said on Tuesday.

The plan could potentially save an eclectic mix of neo-classical, beaux arts, art nouveaux, art deco and early modern styles built mostly in the first half of the 20th century then nationalized in the early 1960s.

It could also revitalize important tourism districts in central Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said on the Suez Canal. The buildings have fallen into various degrees of disrepair for lack of funding and maintenance, with many tenants paying tiny sums for units that have remained rent controlled for more than half a century.

‘Revenue-sharing basis’

Public enterprise minister Hesham Tawfik said the government would follow the model of privately owned Al Ismaelia for Real Estate Investment, which has been slowly renovating 23 historic buildings it has bought in downtown Cairo.

“They take the buildings, they settle with individuals or companies who are renting these apartments, they do the necessary renovations, inside and outside, and they simply rent them to the private sector. And they are making some decent return on their investment,” Tawfik said.

“We intend to do this by offering parcels of buildings, and by parcels I mean four to five buildings per transaction, for the private sector to repeat what Ismaelia did, on a revenue-sharing basis,” he said at business conference.

The plan was being studied at the state Insurance Holding Co. which along with the state insurance company owns 350 buildings, 150 of which are classified as historic.

“Probably they will come up with something very soon to offer to private developers, who we will insist be Ismaelia-style, with the right social background to be able to make sure that the development is done at the right level,” Tawfik said.  

Repaying debts

The government was also preparing to sell about 2 million square meters of unused land owned by state holding companies to help pay back more than 38 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.22 billion) in debts owed to other public entities, he said.

These include the National Investment Bank, the Ministry of Petroleum, the Ministry of Electricity, pension funds and the tax authority.

Once paid, any extra proceeds will be used to finance restructuring plans for companies under the ministry, including 21 billion pounds for textile industry and 5 billion pounds for chemical and metallurgical industries, Tawfik said.

 
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Egypt’s government is drawing up a plan to turn over as many as 150 crumbling historic buildings to the private sector to refurbish and lease out for profit, the Minister of Public Enterprise said on Tuesday.

The plan could potentially save an eclectic mix of neo-classical, beaux arts, art nouveaux, art deco and early modern styles built mostly in the first half of the 20th century then nationalized in the early 1960s.

It could also revitalize important tourism districts in central Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said on the Suez Canal. The buildings have fallen into various degrees of disrepair for lack of funding and maintenance, with many tenants paying tiny sums for units that have remained rent controlled for more than half a century.

‘Revenue-sharing basis’

Public enterprise minister Hesham Tawfik said the government would follow the model of privately owned Al Ismaelia for Real Estate Investment, which has been slowly renovating 23 historic buildings it has bought in downtown Cairo.

“They take the buildings, they settle with individuals or companies who are renting these apartments, they do the necessary renovations, inside and outside, and they simply rent them to the private sector. And they are making some decent return on their investment,” Tawfik said.

“We intend to do this by offering parcels of buildings, and by parcels I mean four to five buildings per transaction, for the private sector to repeat what Ismaelia did, on a revenue-sharing basis,” he said at business conference.

The plan was being studied at the state Insurance Holding Co. which along with the state insurance company owns 350 buildings, 150 of which are classified as historic.

“Probably they will come up with something very soon to offer to private developers, who we will insist be Ismaelia-style, with the right social background to be able to make sure that the development is done at the right level,” Tawfik said.  

Repaying debts

The government was also preparing to sell about 2 million square meters of unused land owned by state holding companies to help pay back more than 38 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.22 billion) in debts owed to other public entities, he said.

These include the National Investment Bank, the Ministry of Petroleum, the Ministry of Electricity, pension funds and the tax authority.

Once paid, any extra proceeds will be used to finance restructuring plans for companies under the ministry, including 21 billion pounds for textile industry and 5 billion pounds for chemical and metallurgical industries, Tawfik said.

 
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A fee dispute between actor Bill Cosby and one in a string of law firms hired to address his legal problems shows the firm was billing Cosby $1 million a month in the run-up to his first sex assault trial.

The imprisoned Cosby is challenging a California arbitration award that trims the $9 million bill from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to below $7 million.

Cosby, 81, accuses the firm of elder abuse and “egregious” billing practices, and of fraud for representing both him and the insurance company he was battling in court, American International Group Inc., over his coverage.

The arbitration panel found that Quinn Emanuel told Cosby’s personal lawyer and “general counsel,” Monique Pressley, of the potential conflict, but not the actor himself, and voided Cosby’s 2015 contract with the law firm that included $1 million retainer. However, the panel found the potential conflict never caused Cosby any harm, and the firm did solid work for Cosby.

The Quinn Emanuel team was led by partner Christopher Tayback, the son of the late actor Vic Tayback. Quinn Emanuel lawyers charged about $500 to $1,000 an hour. Cosby is seeking refunds of the approximately $4.3 million he has paid the firm, while the arbitration panel ordered him to pay an additional $2.4 million, for a total of about $6.7 million.

Cosby said that, given his age and blindness, he did not understand the scope of the work or other parts of the contract when he signed it in October 2015. The firm worked on the case, along with local lawyer Brian McMonagle and others, through Cosby’s arrest two months later and several key pretrial hearings. They parted ways with Cosby less than a year later, long before his first criminal trial in June 2017 or the April 2018 retrial, when he was convicted of drugging and molesting a woman at his Philadelphia-area home in 2004.

The Quinn Emanuel team was among more than a dozen lawyers to help Cosby defend a dizzying array of legal problems across the country as dozens of women came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct or defamation. The firm was hired to work on civil cases involving just three accusers, but its work grew to include cases involving 10 women, and 40 “same-act” witnesses lodging similar accusations, across the country, according to the arbitration papers.

Over nine months of work, the firm said it racked up more than 11,000 hours of work by lawyers, along with costs including $300,000 in online searches and $48,000 for a lawyer’s work reading two gossip novels and a book about the Playboy Mansion, where one of the alleged Cosby assaults occurred. The retired judges on the arbitration panel rejected those two items.

The law firm did not immediately return a message left late Monday seeking comment. Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt said he has not been involved in the fee dispute, which echoes an earlier lawsuit, later settled, that a Philadelphia firm lodged against Cosby over unpaid legal bills.

Cosby is serving a three- to 10-year prison term after he was convicted at a 2018 retrial near Philadelphia. He is appealing the conviction.
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German champion football club Bayern Munich has signed an agreement to open its first soccer school in Africa, locating it in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

FC Bayern Munich told VOA’s Horn of Africa Service that it is inspired by the young football players and fans in Ethiopia, which is ranked 150th worldwide, according to the international soccer governing body, FIFA.

“Two-thirds of the Ethiopian population is younger than 25 years. We will support the Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) in terms of young development and coaches education programs,” Holger Quest, team leader of media operations at FC Bayern Munich, told VOA. 

Last week, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder, other state officials and FC Bayern executive board members traveled to Addis Ababa to sign the agreement.

Soeder told Ethiopian media the agreement would bring Bavarian expertise in football to the sports-hungry nation of Ethiopia. 

“That is a good basis for a promising partnership,” he said.

The international FC Bayern Youth Cup tournament took place in Nigeria in 2018 and 2019. The success of the tournament led to the idea to give young athletes around the world a way to showcase their talents, and include those players from disadvantaged areas.

FC Bayern Munich has developed many world-class players in their academy, including Thomas Mueller, Mats Hummels and Toni Kroos Kolgers. 

“We want to share our knowledge to help football grow across all continents and nations,” FC Bayern media head Quest said.

Speaking to VOA Horn by telephone from Addis Ababa, EFF President Esayas Jira said Ethiopia would benefit from the coaching and training to be offered by FC Bayern.

The soccer school would accept 30-40 young athletes ages of 8-10, with their training costs covered by Bayern Munich, Jira said.

“The kids would have a chance to join Bayern Munich youth academy” once they successfully completed school training,” he added. 

In the agreement, Bayern Munich said it would also finance the school training and education. FC Bayern coaches would lead youth coaches to train local players in Addis Ababa starting May 3, Jira told VOA.

FC Bayern’s club mission states their programs help equip children with the tools to play football, and combines FC Bayern strategy of football with the lessons of “our philosophy and mentality, which typifies qualities like ambition, respect, ‘fair play’ and a strong team spirit that are beneficial both on and off the pitch.”

Bayern Munich’s football school provide young athletes three days of weekly training “to give youngsters a sense of what it is like to train like a professional football (player),” Jira said.

The FC Bayern club also hopes the new school increases exposure to the team in Africa.

When Bayern officials and Bavarian Prime Minister Soeder met with Ethiopia’s first female president, Sahle-Work Zewde, to discuss the details of the agreement, they presented her with a Bayern Munich shirt with “Sahle-Work 1” on the back.

FC Bayern has also established football schools in China, Thailand, Japan, Singapore and the United States as well. 
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German champion football club Bayern Munich has signed an agreement to open its first soccer school in Africa, locating it in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

FC Bayern Munich told VOA’s Horn of Africa Service that it is inspired by the young football players and fans in Ethiopia, which is ranked 150th worldwide, according to the international soccer governing body, FIFA.

“Two-thirds of the Ethiopian population is younger than 25 years. We will support the Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) in terms of young development and coaches education programs,” Holger Quest, team leader of media operations at FC Bayern Munich, told VOA. 

Last week, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder, other state officials and FC Bayern executive board members traveled to Addis Ababa to sign the agreement.

Soeder told Ethiopian media the agreement would bring Bavarian expertise in football to the sports-hungry nation of Ethiopia. 

“That is a good basis for a promising partnership,” he said.

The international FC Bayern Youth Cup tournament took place in Nigeria in 2018 and 2019. The success of the tournament led to the idea to give young athletes around the world a way to showcase their talents, and include those players from disadvantaged areas.

FC Bayern Munich has developed many world-class players in their academy, including Thomas Mueller, Mats Hummels and Toni Kroos Kolgers. 

“We want to share our knowledge to help football grow across all continents and nations,” FC Bayern media head Quest said.

Speaking to VOA Horn by telephone from Addis Ababa, EFF President Esayas Jira said Ethiopia would benefit from the coaching and training to be offered by FC Bayern.

The soccer school would accept 30-40 young athletes ages of 8-10, with their training costs covered by Bayern Munich, Jira said.

“The kids would have a chance to join Bayern Munich youth academy” once they successfully completed school training,” he added. 

In the agreement, Bayern Munich said it would also finance the school training and education. FC Bayern coaches would lead youth coaches to train local players in Addis Ababa starting May 3, Jira told VOA.

FC Bayern’s club mission states their programs help equip children with the tools to play football, and combines FC Bayern strategy of football with the lessons of “our philosophy and mentality, which typifies qualities like ambition, respect, ‘fair play’ and a strong team spirit that are beneficial both on and off the pitch.”

Bayern Munich’s football school provide young athletes three days of weekly training “to give youngsters a sense of what it is like to train like a professional football (player),” Jira said.

The FC Bayern club also hopes the new school increases exposure to the team in Africa.

When Bayern officials and Bavarian Prime Minister Soeder met with Ethiopia’s first female president, Sahle-Work Zewde, to discuss the details of the agreement, they presented her with a Bayern Munich shirt with “Sahle-Work 1” on the back.

FC Bayern has also established football schools in China, Thailand, Japan, Singapore and the United States as well. 
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