Baldassare (Barney) Ales, a key executive at Motown Records during its 1960s prime and later its president, died of natural causes on Friday in Malibu, California, according to an announcement from his family. He was 85. Ales — pictured above right, with Marvin Gaye — was born May 13, 1934 in Detroit and as a
Matthew Seligman, who played bass for David Bowie, died of coronavirus complications on Friday. He was 64. His longtime friend and fellow musician Thomas Dolby shared details about Seligman’s death in a Facebook post, saying he suffered a severe hemorrhagic stroke on Friday. He had also been in an induced coma for two weeks after
Andy Richter is getting used to the idea of working from home… and it’s not so bad. Variety spoke to the “Conan” sidekick on Friday as he prepared to launch a new online series, the “Anidom Beyond Show,” which will air on the social broadcasting platform Caffeine over the next five Sunday nights at 10
Michelle Obama is cracking open some of her favorite children’s picture books — which the former First Lady will read aloud in free live-streams over the next four weeks for kids stuck at home. In “Mondays With Michelle Obama,” she’ll read aloud from a different classic children’s book every Monday at noon ET, starting April
Breaking news alert: Some time between the first prime-time coronavirus relief special three weeks ago (“Fox Presents the iHeart Living Room Concert for America”) and Saturday night’s “One World: Together at Home,” Elton John has gotten himself to a piano. Or a piano has gotten to him. The superstar on that earlier show that he’d
Jennifer Lopez joined a host of musicians for the “One World: Together at Home” concert, channeling Barbra Streisand for a cover of her 1964 song “People.” Lopez sang a subtle rendition of the classic while illuminated by a tree covered with strings of lights. Her performance was just one of the many highlights of the
The artists performing on Global Citizen’s “Together at Home” concert reached far and wide for thematically appropriate songs to sing, ranging from Stevie Wonder singing the late Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” as a medley with “Love’s in Need of Love Today” to Lizzo singing Sam Cooke’s classic “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Taylor Swift
Lady Gaga, John Legend, Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli brought “One World: Together at Home” to a close with soaring four-part harmony — and accompaniment by piano virtuoso Lang Lang — with “The Prayer,” the song that became an inspirational standard after Dion and Bocelli recorded it separately and together 21 years ago. It was
Nearly 60 years into their collective existence, it’s rare for the Rolling Stones to do something musically that they haven’t really done before — but that certainly happened on Saturday night for their performance of their 1969 classic “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” on Global Citizen’s “Together at Home” concert. Performing via a
Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” has practically become a hymn in the six decades since it was written, and it’s safe to say Lizzo took the song to church when performing it on Global Citizen’s “Together at Home” concert on Saturday night. She actually kept it low-key for the first half of the
The thing about standards is that it’s easy to do them badly — but that wasn’t the case on Saturday night when Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello teamed up for a cover of “What a Wonderful World,” which is probably best known in Louis Armstrong’s classic 1967 version. The two of them sat closely together
Lady Gaga kicked off the “One World: Together at Home” telecast with a soulful performance of “Smile,” a classic popularized by Nat King Cole and Jimmy Durante. Gaga, who coordinated with World Health Organization leaders, corporations and musicians for the virtual concert, opened the special, saying, “Tonight is not a fundraiser so put your wallets
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched the series finale of “Devs” on Hulu. Fans of the limited series “Devs” know that the “female software engineer investigating her boyfriend’s apparent suicide” logline hardly summarizes how the sci-fi thriller ultimately unfolded. The sci-fi series centered on Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno) who, yes, investigates
As the U.K. lockdown wears on and our reality still feels inconceivable, a TV show about a surreal TV drama became appointment viewing this week, underlining the lifeline that broadcasting has become to millions of people. Commercial broadcaster ITV consistently drew more than five million viewers across three nights for “Quiz,” from “The Crown” producer
Global Citizen’s “One World: Together at Home,” in collaboration with Lady Gaga, is uniting the biggest names in Hollywood for a two-hour special to support WHO (The World Health Organization) and health care workers, working the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s everything you need to know about the event. The global broadcast and digital
Hollywood studios have agreed to the Writers Guild of America’s proposal to start negotiations on a successor deal on May 11 with the expiration of the WGA contract extended two months to June 30. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers announced Saturday it had approved the starting date and a provision that both
Ranjit Chowdhry, an actor best known for playing Vikram in NBC’s “The Office,” died on Wednesday. He was 64. The Indian daily newspaper The Economic Times reported the news on Thursday. No cause of death has been announced. Chowdhry’s half-sister Raell Padamsee also revealed the sad news on Instagram, saying, “For all those who knew
During the 1997-98 NBA season, the Chicago Bulls allowed a film crew from NBA Entertainment to document what would be the last championship run for a historic team that included Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, head coach Phil Jackson and general manager Jerry Krause. The footage would sit on a shelf for two decades.
Check out the top new trailers released this week that you’ve gotta see! Let us know what you think in the comments below. ► Sign up for a Fandango FanAlert or Buy Movie Tickets: https://www.fandango.com?cmp=MCYT_YouTube_Desc Want to be notified of all the latest movie trailers? Subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to
The music video for the Cranberries’ “Zombie,” the 1994 political protest song written and sung by the late Dolores O’Riordan, has surpassed 1 billion views on YouTube. “Zombie” is the third video from the 1990s — and only the sixth from the 20th century — to reach the YouTube billion-views milestone. The others are Guns
It’s the kind of West Texas town you’ve seen in a thousand movies — not just tranquil but barren, stock-still, a real desolation row, like a postcard that may or may not contain living things. Michael Shannon, as a local police chief, explains that it’s the sort of small town that people once thought of
In today’s film news roundup, Universal is moving ahead on a supernatural romance, the Napa Valley Film Festival delays the event for a year and the Frameline unveils a variety of offerings after postponing its festival to the fall. PROJECT LAUNCHED Universal Pictures is developing supernatural romance “Dan and Sam,” based on the 2015 graphic
The top body in China’s highest legislature will convene in Beijing in late April, state media said Friday, in the latest sign of the country returning to normality in wake of coronavirus-imposed shutdown. For the first time in decades, China cancelled its annual parliamentary meeting scheduled for March. The key political gathering is typically known
New York City’s ambassador to the entertainment industry says “productive conversations” are underway to plan for a resumption of TV and film production and the live event industry as the nation cautiously eyes an end to the lockdown that has upended American life during the past month. Anne del Castillo, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office
The Writers Guild of America West has gone public with a dispute with CBS over its refusal to expand paid sick leave for its news writers who are working during the coronavirus pandemic. The guild asked its 10,000 members on Friday to sign a petition in support of the 100 WGA West members at CBS
No one does it like BTS when it comes to taking care of their fans (known as ARMY). The septet’s Seoul concerts this month, which would’ve kicked off their worldwide stadium tour to promote “Map of the Soul: 7,” were canceled in response to the coronavirus pandemic. But the Korean group has put together a
It’s a fine line between faux one-hit wonders and real one-hit Oneders when it comes to “That Thing You Do!,” which might be one of the most fondly remembered movies of the mid-’90s, but one that feels like an underdog, even now, 25 years later, with an entire generation’s worth of home video favoritism behind
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that cinemas might slowly be able to reopen in the coming months. The news, tucked into a larger set of guidelines detailing when — and how — the U.S. economy can resume during the coronavirus pandemic, was a beacon of hope for movie theater owners, whose business has been devastated
This time last year, audiences were buying tickets to see “Avengers: Endgame.” Now, pretty much the biggest new release — bypassing theaters and going straight to streaming, amid the turmoil caused by the coronavirus — is a movie called “Butt Boy.” But don’t worry. Governmental leaders are starting to share plans about a reopening of movie theaters,
In today’s TV news roundup, NBC announced it’s re-airing anepisode of “The Blacklist” to honor the recent passing of Brian Dennehy and Variety got an exclusive featurette of Quibi’s thriller series “The Stranger.” PROGRAMMING NBC has announced it’s re-airing a special episode of “The Blacklist” in honor of the show’s former guest star, Brian Dennehy, who