Latest news with #EdSullivanShow
Forbes
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Netflix Film Looks At How Ed Sullivan Battled Racism & Influenced American Culture
He was a cultural TV icon best known for introducing Elvis and the Beatles, but Ed Sullivan had a much deeper effect on American music and culture than most ever realized. For twenty-three years, tens of millions of people gathered around the television to see what new and different acts he might feature on his Sunday night show. 'If you were on the Ed Sullivan Show, it meant you mattered,' says Sullivan's granddaughter, Margo Precht Speciale, producer of Netflix documentary Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan. 'He didn't showcase only pop stars, he brought on opera, ballet, and Broadway artists, as well. He trusted the audience to care about all of it and made culture feel accessible to everyone during that time.' The show was originally called The Toast of the Town when it debuted in 1948. The name was later changed to The Ed Sullivan Show. He was a print journalist before making the move to TV, but Sullivan had an extensive background gauging talent as the Broadway columnist for The Daily News. He also had a strong connection to many New York entertainers who ended up as early guests on the show. The show hit the airwaves at a time America was deeply divided by segregation which resulted in a push for the show to have white guests only. And that pressure would continue in the years that followed. Sullivan was not only the host of the show, but the producer, as well. He had sole responsibity for booking guests. But despite political pressure, calls for advertising boycotts, and the risk of jeopardizing his career, Sullivan refused to follow the directive to exclude Black singers, musicians, or bands. He continued choosing guests based on the only criteria that mattered to him. 'He admired talent and that's what it came down to,' says Speciale. 'It wasn't about the color of your skin or your background. He really only cared about talent." Sunday Best looks back at Sullivan's dedication to highlighting Black artists and Black culture on prime-time television. While the country was sharply divided by racial lines in all other aspects, his weekly show brought a multi-cultural blend of all types of music into America's living rooms. The documentary has been ten years in the making and includes with the late Harry Belafonte, Dionne Warwick, Motown Founder Berry Gordy, and many others. 'When Ed Sullivan came along," Gordy says in the film, 'he seemed to be fearless and didn't seem to care what other people thought.' There are performances by Belafonte, a 13-year-old Stevie Wonder, the Jackson 5, and many other artists welcomed to the Ed Sullivan stage, despite the racial strife that raged across the country. At one point, CBS banned Belafonte from the network due to his involvement in the fight for Civil Rights. Sullivan had him on the show anyway. 'One of the things that was really important when we were making this documentary is not to just tell my grandfather's story, but also show what was happening in history outside the stage door,' Speciale explains. 'It was very significant and helps thread together what he was up against. It's very eye-opening.' When Sullivan 'did' spotlight Black artists on his show, CBS censors warned him not to get close, shake hands, or have any physical interaction. Clip after clip shows the television host doing the exact opposite. He greeted every guest with warmth and grace. 'He was just his authentic self,' Speciale says. 'He wasn't going to let people tell him how to act or what he was supposed to do. He just led from his heart.' The film also offers personal insight into Sullivan's private life, some of it through his own words. Viewers learn about his background growing up in New York, his time as a sportswriter, his love for his family, and his commitment to those he cared about. Sullivan was close friends with singer, actor, and tap dancer Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson. When Sullivan launched his show, there was no money to pay guests, so Robinson agreed to appear for free. Sadly, Robinson passed away the following year. When he died penniless, Sullivan both paid for and planned Robinson's funeral. It took place in downtown New York and served as a beautiful tribute to the legendary entertainer. Getting the chance to delve into her grandfather's life and work, and share his legacy, has been especially meaningful for Speciale. She has always cherished her childhood memories, but now, through her research on the documentary, she's come to also appreciate his courage and character, and far-reaching contributions to American culture. 'One thing I kept thinking as we were making this documentary is we hear so much about 'influencers' today and I realize he was an influencer even before we had that word,' Speciale says. 'He was never a crusader in that sense or civil rights activist, he would never have called himself that. But he did things in his own way, a quiet way, and he made a difference. And I'm really proud to be able to tell his story.' Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan is streaming now.
ITV News
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ITV News
Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen meet up in Liverpool during flying visit to LIPA
Music legends Sir Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen have met up as The Boss prepares to perform the second of two shows at Anfield as part of his current UK tour. The pair were visiting Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) on Mount Street, which Macca co-founded. Springsteen, 75, has made no secret of his admiration for the Fab Four, crediting the Beatles with heavily shaping his musical tastes, and he h's described performing on Merseyside as the fulfilment of a long-held dream. Members of the E-Street band Max Weinberg and Steven Van Zandt were also spotted making their way into LIPA through the crowds outside, all of which has fuelled wild speculation about whether Sir Paul will join Bruce on stage at Saturday night's concert. If he does it would not be the first time the pair have played together, with Springsteen joining Sir Paul on stage as a special guest during the 82-year-old's headline set at Glastonbury Festival in 2022. They also met up for additional gigs at Hyde Park and at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Growing up as a teenager in New Jersey as the Beatles took the USA by storm with a legendary appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, The Boss told audiences at Anfield: "It is great for us to be in Liverpool where, for us, it all began." As an additional nod to the Beatles he performed a version of Twist and Shout in the encore. Originally sung by The Top Notes the classic became synonymous with The Beatles when they released a cover version in 1963, and Springsteen has often played it on live shows previously. However, Wednesday's performance was just the second time the song has featured on the Land Of Hope and Dreams tour setlist so far. The power of the iconic venue itself was not lost on the American star, referencing Liverpool FC 's Premier League title win this season as he told the crowd: "'Come on! Is this the house of champions or what?'' Never afraid to speak his mind, the Boss also continued his war of words with President Donald Trump. Before he opened the show with My Love Will Not Let You Down, he said: "The America I love and have sung to you about for so long, a beacon of hope for 250 years, is currently in hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration. "Tonight we ask all of you who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices, stand with us against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!' Before Rainmaker, he said: "When conditions in a country are ripe for a demagogue, you can bet one will show up. This is for America's dear leader." Ahead of House of A Thousand Guitars, he said: 'The last check on power, after the checks and balances have failed, are the people. That's all that's left. "It's in the union of people around a common set of values. That's all that stands between democracy and authoritarianism.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Paul McCartney's Rare Photos to Feature in Special L.A. Exhibition
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Paul McCartney: Ringo rehearsing at the Deauville for our second live appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (light leak), Miami Beach, 15 February 1964 - Credit: © Paul McCartney/ Courtesy the artist and Gagosian This spring, the art gallery Gagosian LA will exhibit 36 of Paul McCartney's recently rediscovered photos, including some that featured in the former Beatle's Eyes of the Storm book and many that have never been shown before. The photos were taken between December 1963 and February 1964. And the exhibition, titled 'Rearview Mirror: Photographs, December 1963–February 1964,' opens April 25 and runs through June 21. More from Rolling Stone One never-before-circulated shot (above) is an artistic view of Ringo Starr in a loose-fitting white shirt, drumming at Miami Beach's Hotel Deauville ahead of the the Beatles' second Ed Sullivan Show appearance. McCartney took the photo on Feb. 15, 1964. Poolside at the Pollaks', Miami, 15 February 1964 'The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein arranged for the band to play two live appearances on the popular Sunday television program, The Ed Sullivan Show: the first on Feb. 9 from the show's New York-based studio, and the second a week later, on Feb. 16, from Miami,' Joshua Chuang, director specializing in photography at Gagosian, tells Rolling Stone. 'The second performance was broadcast from the Deauville Hotel, the beachside resort in Miami Beach where the Beatles also stayed. At this point, Beatlemania was officially gaining steam in America and cheering fans were a constant; the press nicknamed the hotel 'Beatle Central,' as fans milled about the grounds and wrote the band messages in the sand below their balconies. 'The Beatles rehearsed for their performance in the hotel's 'cool room' near its outdoor pool, wearing hotel-issued toweling shirts,' Chuang continues. 'McCartney took photographs of his bandmates as they practiced their six-song set. Lennon, ever-so-cool, strums his guitar while wearing sunglasses, while Starr is framed in a psychedelic fog — an inadvertent interaction of light and chemistry that resulted in a one-of-kind image.' The exhibition includes other photos taken at the Deauville, as well as early selfies and images of Beatlemania. Prices for the photos, which are individually signed, will range from $15,000 to the high five figures. Proceeds from the sales of the photos will benefit recovery efforts for those affected by the recent southern California wildfires. An exclusive video from Gagosian shows McCartney reflecting on the photos and signing them, as well as sharing stories behind songs like 'Yesterday' and the Beatles' visit to the States. 'We didn't really know how important Ed Sullivan was,' he says. 'We hadn't heard of him. … By the time we got to America, that was the coolest thing. But when we went on this show, we didn't realize the significance. It's just another TV show, we thought.' Gagosian's exhibition complements the 'Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm' exhibit, currently showing at San Francisco's de Young Museum. Chuang says the photos show McCartney's natural inclination toward visual art, citing the singer-songwriter's collaboration with artists like Peter Blake and Jann Haworth on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Richard Hamilton on the cover of 'The White Album.' He also notes that McCartney came up with the cover image for Abbey Road. 'Of course Paul is very much associated with the medium of photography — I'm thinking of the well-known photographs of him taken by the likes of David Bailey, Harry Benson, and Richard Avedon, and the fact that his first wife Linda and daughter Mary were and are photographers,' Chuang says. 'What isn't as well known, however, is Paul's own engagement with photography. There are a number of images from the mid-1960s of him with a camera, but his photos were never made public; he even forgot about them for a while! Their rediscovery is a major event, and working with Paul and his team to bring them into the world has been a privilege.' In his opinion, Chuang believes the photos provide an 'indispensable perspective' of the Beatles. 'I can't think of another time when a figure of such importance — not just musical but also cultural and historical — captured the very moment their impact was first being made with such compelling photographs,' he says. Best of Rolling Stone Sign up for RollingStone's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Telegraph
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Beatles pictures rediscovered by Paul McCartney in lockdown on sale for more than £60k
Beatles pictures rediscovered by Sir Paul McCartney during lockdown after 60 years are now going on sale for more than £60,000. Fans of the Fab Four will be able to purchase prints of images taken by the 82-year-old singer when the band took the US by storm in 1963. He had bought a new camera in the 60s, a little 35mm Pentax SLR, before boarding a Pan Am Flight to the US for their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. McCartney captured fun moments throughout the trip, from the flight to New York and their walks through Central Park to their time in Miami before appearing on the show. During the pandemic Sir Paul made the discovery of contact sheets, slides and negatives, which he had boxed away and forgotten about for 60 years. They went on display in the Eye of the Storm exhibition, which was initially unveiled at London's National Portrait Gallery in 2023. In the wake of its popularity, McCartney decided to take the images across the globe. The collections of photos titled Rearview Mirror: Photographs, December 1963–February 1964 is currently on display at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills until June 21. Solo images and contact sheets featuring dozens of frames are among the 36 works on sale in ultra-limited editions of six to 10 signed prints. Their prices range from £11,300 to over £64,000. The photos include a mix of colour prints, along with black-and-white images, including self-portraits and snapshots of Beatlemania, along with images from moving vehicles as they made a range of appearances. 'Pictures of a shared awe' Joshua Chuang, the gallery's director at the Beverly Hills venue, told The Hollywood Reporter: 'There's some overlap with the images from Eye of the Storm, but even those images look different in our show. And, yes, the big difference is the fact that you can purchase them. 'This is the only time I can think of where someone of Paul's cultural impact took very good pictures of the exact moment you'd want him to be taking pictures. 'There's almost a sense in his pictures of a shared awe about what was happening to them. Like even they couldn't believe it.' He added: 'Paul's not trying to launch another career as a fine art photographer. These are limited editions – six, eight, maybe 10 copies – and that's it.' Sir Paul was inspired to try painting following a discussion with Willem de Kooning, the Dutch expressionist artist, back in the early 1980s. The Beatle showcased his work in 2000 at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, and again at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, in 2002 – just under two decades before his work went on display at the the National Portrait Gallery, London, in 2023.
Daily Mail
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
JONATHAN BROCKLEBANK: It's not societal hatred that troubles Kneecap's supporters. No, they just want to be happy with the targets of it
There was a time in the 1950s when a young singer's gyrating hips were deemed too suggestive for television audiences. Elvis Presley was filmed only from the waist up on the Ed Sullivan Show. Ten years later the same US TV host demanded the Rolling Stones change the lyrics of their song Let's Spend the Night Together. If they were to perform it on his show they would have to sing instead about spending 'some time' together. In the 1970s the Sex Pistols swore on UK national television. People went nuts. I doubt if Mary Whitehouse ever recovered. Bill Grundy's Today show was axed weeks later and he never worked in prime time TV again. Looking back from the vantage point of 2025, my lather of moral indignation over the 'corrupting' influence of any of these acts is more of a millpond. It was the 1980s – the Thatcher years – which brought real toxicity to teenage listening. It pained me that artists I admired failed to appreciate there are lines that even they – cutting-edge youth culture figureheads – must never cross. The most egregious example is may be Margaret on the Guillotine, a 1988 offering by former Smiths frontman Morrissey. 'When will you die?' went the chorus. Verse one posited that 'kind people' dreamed of the Prime Minister getting her head chopped off. Verse two implored these kind people to 'make the dream real'. I was a big Smiths fan back in the day and no fan of Thatcher. I was sickened by this song. We imagine we live in more enlightened times. In the last decade, two MPs have been murdered in public as they went about their duties. The violent deaths of Labour's Jo Cox and the Conservatives' Sir David Amess were horrible crimes which demanded searching questions be asked about hatred in society. They demanded that we examine the triggers for it, who or what was inciting it and root them out. None of that happened. In Scotland, we got a Hate Crime Bill which fretted about people making prejudicial remarks about others on the basis of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation or transgender orientation. An off-colour observation about a trans person, made at the dinner table in your own home, could potentially bring prosecution. Across the UK we got the rise of no-platforming – a device used by one section of society, typically students, to deny the right of expression of another section of society, typically small c conservative. We got cancel culture. We got bar workers at entertainment venues bleating about being forced to hear opinions from comedians that they did not share – and we got performers getting their marching orders. We watched comedy shrivel into itself through terror of causing offence. We got post-woke conversion therapy mea culpas from TV stars such as Ant and Dec who now realised they were quite wrong to wear blackface for a jape in a sketch 20 years ago. We got trigger warnings for cotton wool-cocooned undergraduates who didn't have to read the scary Beowolf poem with the monsters if they didn't want to. We got ableism, classism, white savourism … And, in the midst of all this, we get a hip hop trio from West Belfast who take to the stage in London and declare: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory, kill your local MP.' At another gig, they appeared to voice support for banned international terrorist organisations Hamas and Hezbollah – a crime in the UK. All a bit fruity, wouldn't you say, in the present era of panicked self-censorship? And the name of this outfit? Kneecap – a chilling reference to the punishment meted out to those who displease the IRA. Quite rightly, the Eden Project in Cornwall took one look at this horror show and de-platformed the band, who were due to play there in July. The plug was pulled on a string of gigs in Germany too. But they are also due to play TRSNMT in Glasgow in July. That will never happen, surely. We have already discussed how sensitive we are to offence. Zero tolerance zone here, chaps. We'll have none of your hatred in our Dear Green Place. Curious, isn't it, that these are not the words we're hearing. From former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, now the leader of Alba, we learn that the reaction to clip of the band inciting hatred is 'ludicrous'. It was a 'throwaway remark' and 'taken entirely out of context'. If there is a context where it is appropriate to tell your audience to murder MPs then I must lack the imagination to conceive of it. Perhaps Mr MacAskill can elucidate. We have Niall Christie, a Scottish Greens supporting charity worker, responding to calls for Kneecap to be dropped from TRNSMT with this insight: 'Things welcome in Glasgow: Artists standing in solidarity with Palestinians', followed by a tick emoji, and then 'Tories' followed by a cross emoji. We have Stuart Murdoch, lead singer of Glasgow band Belle and Sebastian, equivocating for all he was worth on BBC Scotland's Debate Night, reminding viewers this is a 'free speech' issue. Free Speech? Not incitement to murder, then? Where was free speech when the thought police were ushered in to patrol our dinner table conversations in the Hate Crime Bill? Where was free speech when student bodies banned guest speakers such as Germaine Greer for the crime of having an opinion which challenged theirs? First Minister John Swinney, to his credit, has described the band's remarks as 'beyond the pale' and called for them to be axed from TRNSMT. I didn't hear SNP MSP Fulton MacGregor echoing his stance on Debate Night. What I heard was equivocation. Why do you suppose this is? Why, on Wednesday evening, did we have a statement signed by some 40 musical acts leaping to the defence of the Belfast trio, citing 'democracy' and 'political repression' and 'artistic freedom'? Paul Weller, Pulp, Shirley Manson and Massive Attack are among the artists seemingly appalled by the 'clear, concerted attempt to censor and ultimately de-platform ' Kneecap. There is that word again. And, for Mr MacAskill's sake, let's include the context. This band don't face the ignominy of de-platforming because someone thinks they are transphobic or they have strong views on immigration or Brexit. It's because of the 'kill your local MP' stuff. It's because terror group sympathies are a bad look. As for the band, they argue they would never seek to incite violence against any MP –or support Hamas or Hezbollah – and that an extract of footage, deliberately taken out of context, has been 'weaponised against them.' As before, we await the context which will make it all fine to say what they said. In the meantime, I have been searching my soul here because I enjoy some Paul Weller music just as I used to enjoy The Smiths and Morrissey. What is it they or I are not seeing? Why were people who wanted a guillotined prime minister 'kind'? What makes a band who say the terrible things Kneecap said 'victims'? I can conclude only that it's not societal hatred which troubles these musicians. They just want to be happy with the targets of it.
