Latest news with #Grease
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mum pays tribute to Britain's Got Talent star who died aged 34
The mum of a passionate tap dancer who made it to the latter stages of Britain's Got Talent said: "Not many people in life get to make their dream come true, and she did." Chantel Bellew, from Widnes, "always had a smile on her face" before her mental health took a downwards turn, the Liverpool Echo reported. The 34-year-old, who appeared on the 2019 edition of Britain's Got Talent contest and wowed the judges with her performance, died on March 22 this year. READ MORE: 5 games released in 2025 guaranteed to take you back to the good old days of gaming READ MORE: The 5 simple tricks to speed up your broadband Her mum Jill Dawson told the Echo: "There are many girls who do dance and you're not always going to be a star. They go out dancing week on week and some never make it, but Chantel did, and she should be doing it now. That's what's so devastating. "It has not just shocked people in Widnes, it has shocked a lot of people in the dancing community. She always had a smile on her face. "Chantel was always the first one up at a party. Everybody said she just sparkled. She has friends who are grieving terribly. We're all broken. Chantel's love of showbusiness began when she was just three years old, when she joined a Morris dancing club. She later joined a professional dance school for tap and ballet. She bagged her first leading role in a production of Grease at The Bankfield School, where she played heroine Sandy. Following a successful audition, Chantel spent three years at The Hammond, honing her dancing and singing skills. She went on to perform on various cruise liners, as well as musicals productions including Top Hat, Scrooge, and White Christmas. Jill said: "When she went on her first cruise liner she was a dancer, but Chantel could tap, sing and perform. So when she went on the next ship she went as a singer. "That was Chantel. She had that much in her. She was very loving, caring for everybody, and always had a smile on her face when she was in that performing time of her life. Dancing was her world." Chantel, who lived in Atherton, Wigan, appeared on ITV's Britain's Got Talent in 2019 with a military-themed group dance routine, backed up by male dancers from The Holland. She narrowly missed out on the semi-finals, losing the crown to 89-year-old war veteran Colin Thackery. She returned to Widnes, where she started her own stage school, Chantel Bellew Workshops, teaching children to sing and tap dance. Sadly, Jill said the last years of her daughter's life "had not been kind to her" as her mental health took a turn for the worse. In November 2019, she was admitted to a unit as an inpatient during the Covid-19 lockdown. She was rushed to hospital on March 17 this year after taking an overdose of painkillers, the MEN reported. The 34-year-old was found at home by her wife Genna Timewell, who said she was "walking very unsteadily and looking disorientated". Ms Timewell called 999, then drove Chantel to Royal Bolton Hospital herself after being told an ambulance would take 40 minutes to arrive. Her condition deteriorated and she was transferred to St James University Hospital in Leeds for specialist treatment, where she died on March 22. Jill said: "She came to visit me one day and I thought she had bipolar because of the way she was eating, the way she couldn't look at me in the eye when she was talking, the way she was drinking her tea. I knew there was something wrong. "Chantel was bubbly before all this. Very caring. She would always listen to people. She loved teaching children. Dance was her life." "Her childhood dream was to star in 42nd Street (the musical) and she got to do it in Paris. I went to see her. I went to watch the show when I arrived on Christmas Eve and we spent Christmas Day in Disneyland Paris. It was amazing. "My daughter had reached a goal she had since she was eight. That's all she wanted to do and I'm so glad she got that. It wasn't a dream in the end, it was reality. "As a family we're so proud of her. Not many people in life get to make their dream come true and she did." At an inquest at Bolton Coroner's Court last month, coroner John Pollard said Chantel "took the excess of tablets knowing the outcome would almost certainly be fatal and that she deliberately did so... when she knew that Genna was not there to stop her". He handed down a conclusion of suicide. Jill said that, though she did not dispute that her daughter took her own life, she thought the inquest was "one-sided" and she believed she had not had the opportunity to speak at length about Chantel's life. She said: "It has been absolutely devastating and our lives will never been the same. I watched my daughter in a coma for two days, fighting for her life. I've had to stop working after 11 years due to it. I can't function right. My life is broken. "A lot of friends are still grieving. People are saying 'what happened?' She had such sparkle. She brightened up every room. I just want people to know there's always help out there."
The Herald Scotland
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Talk on Gaza is cheap. Why not take some proper action?
There may be a grain of truth in the Israeli foreign minister's retort that yesterday's joint statement is "disconnected from reality". There is something unreal about declaring opposition (or worse, expressing concern for Israel's reputation) and threatening further action while again doing nothing. There will be something equally unreal and disconnected in its maintaining it took every possible action to prevent it should all Gaza's people shortly be concentrated in the "humanitarian city" being built on the ruins of Rafah, to ready their displacement. Martin Johnstone, Lochwinnoch. Read more letters Drop-off charges are a disgrace Mike Dooley (Letters, July 19) is right to question the puerile excuses of the chief executive of Airport UK for dropping-off charges. However I can confirm that my taxi to the airport does suffer a dropping-off fee. Nevertheless that taxi produces the same fumes and occupies the same road space as a family car would, so the dropping-off charge does not help any environmental or traffic relief as claimed in those excuses. Outwith airports there are friends, family, or taxi drivers waiting in lay-bys or side streets to limit picking-up charges of pounds for minutes. Does this also help to reduce pollution or traffic flow? After the Glasgow Airport ram raid in 2007 all airports had to install expensive barriers and traffic control systems. Parking and drop-off charges were needed to cover these costs. That money has been recovered long ago so why are the charges for parking maintained at a higher level and why is a dropping-off charge needed at all? How do most European airports manage to balance their books without dropping-off fees? It is interesting that our hospitality industry questions possible tourist tax levies when airport charges must have a similar effect, albeit built into a different part of travel and stay costs home or away. We are perhaps fortunate that hospital parking is not priced in a similar manner. JB Drummond, Kilmarnock. Grease: a lost opportunity Brian Ferguson anticipates change at Pitlochry Festival Theatre ("Will Alan Cumming help Pitlochry become Scotland's next culture capital?", The Herald, July 22). Unfortunately a great opportunity has been missed this season. Last Saturday my wife and I were in the audience at the theatre for a performance of Grease. Musically, the show was excellent, with a cast of superb musicians and singers. (Take an extra bow, the girl on the bass guitar.) However, our enjoyment of the production was much diminished as the diction of the spoken passages was virtually unintelligible, due largely to the use of stupid American accents. Grease is, of course, originally set in late-fifties USA. But what an opportunity was missed to transpose the show to 1959 Scotland and present it in a Scottish idiom with local dialect and accents. Perhaps a little imagination by an artistic director will reap dividends. By the time we return, later in the summer, for The Great Gatsby, I hope some change may have been effected. Eric Begbie, Stirling. Foreign Secretary David Lammy (Image: Maja Smiejkowska/PA Wire) Ze answer I fully agree with your correspondents who dislike the use of "they/them" as being ungrammatical and confusing (Letters, July 18, 19, 21 & 22). May I point out that there already exists a gender-neutral pronoun in English? Though little used, it would be ideal for those not wishing to employ he or she. The word is "ze", pronounced "zee". It should, I think, be more widely used, and should be widely publicised. Do other correspondents agree? H Shearer, Cumbernauld. Grammar and the control freak I have been enjoying the recent correspondence about the poor use of grammar. Of course, football players, commentators and managers seem to take this to extremes. I'm sure many of the common mistakes they make are familiar to most of us: "The boy done good"; "The ball clearly has went over the line"; "He literally killed him with that tackle". Is it fair though that we expect those involved in the beautiful game to speak as eloquently as Cicero? Can we not offer congratulations when they have obviously been swotting up on the beautiful language? Listening to the radio as I drove home on the last day of the previous football season, I heard an interview with an under-pressure football manager prior to a very important game. I must applaud him for his wonderful use of the rhetorical device polyptoton: a figure of speech in which the same word is used in different forms in the same sentence. The example used by the beleaguered yet eloquent manager? "We can only control what we can control so we're going to be controlling the controllables." I'm not sure if his team won or if the match was lost due to his players' uncontrollability, but his copy of The Dark Arts of Rhetoric was obviously money well spended. Gordon Fisher, Stewarton. • While working in an inner city school in the late 1950, I heard 'I seen", "I done", 'I have went" and 'my pencil's broke" so often that I became converted and I began to believe that they were correct. Isobel McEwan, Skelmorlie.
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
John Travolta Surprises Fans with Epic Transformation Into 'Grease' Character 47 Years After Movie
John Travolta Surprises Fans with Epic Transformation Into 'Grease' Character 47 Years After Movie originally appeared on Parade. The movie Grease is one of those iconic films that has become a time-honored staple throughout several generations since its release in 1978. People just can't resist singing along to all of its classic songs, and the love story between Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson never fails to captivate viewers. The characters were defining roles for actors John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, who were 23 and 28 years old, respectively, at the time of filming. Forty-seven years have passed since the movie came out, but it still has such a huge fan base, so much so, that the Hollywood Bowl put on a sing-a-long screening on the evening of June 27. Those in attendance got the surprise of their lives when none other than John Travolta showed up to surprise the crowd -- by showing up dressed as his iconic Danny Zuko character! He shared a photo of his epic transformation on Instagram along with a video of himself walking on stage. Needless to say, the crowd went wild. "Tonight at the Hollywood Bowl, for the first time, I surprised everyone at the GREASE Sing-A-Long and dressed up as Danny Zuko. No one knew. Not even the cast. Thank you for a great evening." OMG. The hair. The leather jacket. The perfect smolder. He totally nailed it! Travolta's Instagram followers are loving it, with one saying, "You look amazing @johntravolta, what a great surprise for the cast and the audience, you are such an amazing guy! X❤️X" Another person added, "Awesome. I was 18 when it came out. Still one of the best memories of growing up. ❤️"Someone else noted, "Wish I was there 😍" The people who were lucky enough to be at the Hollywood Bowl last night will no doubt talk about Travolta showing up for years to come. He's just such a legend... and something tells us even Danny Zuko would be proud! 🎬SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬 John Travolta Surprises Fans with Epic Transformation Into 'Grease' Character 47 Years After Movie first appeared on Parade on Jun 28, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 28, 2025, where it first appeared. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Legendary Actor, 71, Is Unrecognizable 47 Years After Starring in 'Grease'
Legendary Actor, 71, Is Unrecognizable 47 Years After Starring in 'Grease' originally appeared on Parade. was nearly unrecognizable while in character for his upcoming film November 1963. Recently, the Grease actor was spotted while filming in Winnipeg, Canada, for a movie about the assassination of President —specifically, the criminal group the Chicago Outfit's alleged involvement. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 For the historical thriller, Travolta portrays Italian mobster Johnny Roselli. Pictures obtained by the Daily Mail show the actor in character while donning a navy blue suit, a white undershirt, a maroon fedora, and a pair of sunglasses. Between the hat, sunglasses, and sporting only a mustache instead of a beard, he looked utterly unlike addition to Travolta, the upcoming film stars , Robert Carlyle,, Jefferson White and Victoria Baldesarra, among others. A release date has not yet been announced. Aside from Grease, Travolta is known for his roles in Pulp Fiction (1994), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Get Shorty (1995) and more. In June, the '70s icon surprised fans by showing up in character as Danny Zuko at a Grease sing-along at the Hollywood Bowl. Next: Legendary Actor, 71, Is Unrecognizable 47 Years After Starring in 'Grease' first appeared on Parade on Jul 19, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 19, 2025, where it first appeared. Solve the daily Crossword
Metro
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Hollywood's 'fat funny friend' trope is dying - that might not be a good thing
For years, the 'funny fat friend' was one of the few ways fat women were allowed to exist on screen. Loud, self-deprecating, endlessly available for mockery, the fat actress was never the lead unless the story was about her becoming thin. She offered comic relief, emotional support, and often served as a human buffer to make thinner leads look more desirable, more serious, or more whole. If she was sexual, it was a punchline. If she was confident, it was exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Her humour was a shield and a survival tactic in a culture that treated her body as a problem to be solved. Think of Jan in the movie Grease, a Pink Lady whose only defining traits are her constant references to her size and her love of junk food. The cliché is all the more jarring given that the actress playing her wasn't noticeably larger than the other female characters. The trope is so blunt in this instance that near the end of the film, Putzie (one of the T-Birds) tells her, 'I think there's more to you than just fat' and she reacts like its the nicest thing anyone's ever said to her. And while fat men are certainly pigeonholed for their weight as well, bigger men have always had more space in media. From Oliver Hardy to John Candy to Jack Black, large male comedians were lovable, central, and often the stars. Their size might have been part of the joke, but it didn't define them completely. Countless other examples of the fat funny girl include characters like Fat Amy in Pitch Perfect, Melissa McCarthy's character Sookie in Gilmore Girls, and Nancy in Stranger Things. But now, the fat funny friend is vanishing from screens. At first glance, the decline of this archetype might seem like progress: Isn't it good that fat women are no longer required to joke about their bodies just to be visible? In theory, yes. But what's replacing her isn't better representation, it's just more thin people. The rise of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro has transformed the conversation around fatness. More people than ever – especially celebrities and influencers – are losing weight rapidly and dramatically, often without fully disclosing the methods they use. These drugs have become both miracle and metaphor: an escape hatch from shame and a pharmaceutical reset for anyone who once had to laugh their way through being fat. But instead of challenging the cultural narrative around body size, Ozempic has exposed just how deeply fatphobia still runs. For Emma Zack, self-identified fat activist and founder of the size-inclusive vintage shop Berriez, this moment has been fraught: 'It's been hard watching people who once proudly claimed the word fat suddenly slim down,' she tells Metro. 'I'm like, 'Wait, did you just want to be thin all along? Did you secretly hate yourself?' That's been the hardest.' The list of public figures who've transformed in the age of GLP-1s reads like a roll call of former 'fat but funny' icons: Rebel Wilson, Melissa McCarthy, Jonah Hill. While few have confirmed using medication, their weight loss has invited speculation and shifted public perception. Comedians like Amy Schumer and Jim Gaffigan have been open about using weight-loss drugs, despite having built careers partly on body-related humour. Even for those who have truly slimmed down through lifestyle changes, the cultural impact remains the same, and it's hard not to wonder if the availability of weight-loss drugs has made thinness more attainable and, in turn, more expected. And with that expectation comes intensified pressure to conform. Framed as personal triumphs, these transformations are often positioned as journeys of health, discipline, or self-love – which many of them very well maybe. Indeed, there's nothing wrong with someone losing weight for whatever reason they may choose and by whatever method they deem best for them (as long as they do so safely). But in a media landscape shaped by pharmaceuticals, it's worth asking how much of that 'health journey' and 'self love' branding is genuine and how much is a survival strategy in a world that punishes visible fatness. Emma admits she's felt pressure to try weight loss drugs: 'I would be lying if I said I didn't feel it. I've had this conversation with so many others… Fatphobia is so ingrained in our culture. You can't help but wonder if life would just be easier if you were thin.' This isn't just a physical shift, it's a narrative one. When fat actors vanish from screens by becoming thin, or when fatness becomes a temporary obstacle rather than a permanent facet identity, the culture isn't evolving. It's regressing – just with a cleaner, more discreet delivery system. For decades, humour was the only reliable pathway to visibility for fat women. Totie Fields in the '60s, Roseanne Barr in the '90s, Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, Rebel Wilson's Fat Amy all detonated comic relief roles into something bold and physical. But even when the characters were nuanced, their weight came first and it was the filter through which every other trait was interpreted. And even those rare moments of representation came with tight restrictions. Pitch Perfect 2 opens with Fat Amy splitting her pants mid-performance. In I Feel Pretty, Amy Schumer's character must suffer a head injury before she's allowed to feel attractive. The fat body, no matter how central to the story, was always the joke or the obstacle to overcome. The body positivity movement attempted to reframe this, promoting pride, visibility, and self-love. But over time, it was diluted into marketable slogans, co-opted by brands, and rarely centered the people most marginalized by fatphobia – especially Black, disabled, trans, and very-fat individuals. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Now, weight-loss drugs threaten to replace that movement with something quieter and more insidious: compliance. Why accept your body when you can afford to change it? Why be the funny fat friend when you can become the slender lead? But this isn't liberation. It's the erasure of a harmful stereotype, only to replace it with no fat people at all. In a culture where thinness is still the price of admission, choice becomes murky. Representation becomes hollow when those who once stood outside the norm quietly conform – not necessarily because they want to, but because the alternative still invites ridicule, judgment, and exclusion. Still, there are signs of something better. In Lena Dunham's hit new show Too Much, Megan Stalter's Jessica is messy, emotional, and deeply lovable and she doesn't constantly comment on her weight. The camera doesn't flinch from her softness or flatten her into a caricature. Her body is a fact; not a plotline. More Trending Emma points to Lena Dunham's work as another step forward: 'Her character is way more dynamic than just the funny fat girl, and she doesn't talk about her body in the episodes I saw. That's so important, because usually when a fat girl is the protagonist, the whole show is about her accepting her body. Like that's all she is.' Moments like these suggest a future where fat women aren't erased, but reimagined, not required to self-deprecate to be seen, and not expected to disappear to be respected. If fatness remains something we only ever see in 'before' photos – or something that must be overcome for the story to begin – then we haven't progressed, we've simply upgraded the tools of exclusion. The funny fat girl doesn't need to vanish. She needs to be freed from the obligation to make her own body the punchline and from the burden of being both mascot and martyr. She can still be funny, but her dignity doesn't need to be sacrificed for the laugh. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you.
