Latest news with #Harrah's
The Guardian
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
America used to fire the world's imagination – but now the cultural conversation is being silenced
This week, fresh data revealed the United States has seen its biggest drop in Australian tourists since Covid. It's hardly surprising. Innocent people are being snatched by authorities from American streets. Citizens of foreign countries are being stopped, shackled and detained. The EU is now sending its emissaries with burner phones, lest personal social media posts critical of President Trump be discovered by border agents and … who knows what happens next? Forcible relocation to a Salvadorian supermax prison, seemingly without chance of release, is suddenly not out of the question. It all seems like something from Hollywood dystopia; the V series, maybe. Or Escape from New York. It's pretty much the plot line of the first season of Andor – which I strongly recommend that everyone watch before the Trump regime clocks what that show is advising and it vanishes faster than a copy of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl from an American high school library. The harassment of visitors seems disproportionate. This is not merely because Americans were once champions of free speech, but because they used to champion democratic rights, the rule of law and statements of fact. America isn't doing facts any more. Hence the defunding of science agencies and a political interference in education and research they are imposing on researchers beyond their borders. The Australian National Tertiary Education Union secretary, Damien Cahill, explains it with sad simplicity: Australian universities are having projects defunded 'because they don't fit with Trump's authoritarian rightwing agenda'. As a tourist pitch for America, 'Come see Hamilton on Broadway!' had a stronger appeal. 'Experience Burning Man!' offered pure vibes and 'What Happens in Vegas …' was tempting to many. It's a diverse world, people have diverse tastes. Some Australians long to see Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and Donald Judd sculptures in the context in which they were created. Some want to play blackjack at Harrah's with a jazz musician they befriend in a bar. Sometimes you want both of those experiences, so you return to America time after time, marvelling at the orange rainbow of autumn trees that inspired Rachel Carson to save American wildlife, and zipping along in a cable car like Michael Douglas in The Streets of San Francisco. But no one goes anywhere to be trapped in a small room with border agents who call them 'retarded', insist they are a drug dealer and brag that 'Trump is back in town'… which allegedly happened to an Australian who had a valid working visa for the US, and was reported in the Guardian last week. Similar stories have spread from our shared-language cousins the Canadians and the Brits. Friends are cancelling their holidays to the US, making the calculation that lost deposits are a smaller price to pay than the anxiety of risk. After a French academic was denied entry to the US over some anti-Trump messages on his phone, Australian academics have foregone conference travel for zooming in. The Victorian LGBTQIA+ commissioner, Joe Ball, has warned LGBTQIA+ Australians about the risks of travel to the country that once mainstreamed Queer Eye, Caitlyn Jenner, James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein and RuPaul. Ball has personally cancelled travel plans, revealing he did not want to make himself – or his family – unsafe. The Australian government's Smartraveller website has – like other countries – upgraded its travel warnings. Advice that consular assistance cannot help you at the border chills the blood. There's a cost to this beyond the tourist dollars and economic impacts others will analyse. It's the great silencing of a cultural conversation once led by America, rooted in values of social freedom and personal liberty that influenced the imagination of the world. Watching a Melbourne production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies recently, it struck me that the cultural context of its creation – to address and critique the (musical) traditions and practices it inherited, its story of individuals confronted by the implications of their own free choices – is not the American hegemony any more. Every US cultural persona, text and institution I have mentioned in this piece, from cop shows to modernist poetry, articulates either a demand for freedom or an expression of how to live with it, however bravely or imperfectly. This was the American greatness, and why its cultural products inspired everyone from the kids of conformist societies to the adults of deeply oppressed ones to engage with its values. Once upon a time, America was not afraid to be asked by the rest of the world how well it managed to live those values. Now you can't be sure what treatment awaits you at the border. Those once Trump-positive politicians from Australia, Canada and the UK struggling to understand a paradigm shift in which the Maga hats they wore at Christmas have become a headwear mark of Cain are not adapting well. 'I don't know Donald Trump' doesn't work coming from a Peter Dutton who insists he could have landed special treatment regarding Trump's tariffs. I suggest their problem is as politicians they're misjudging the current anti-Trump moment as policy fallout, when for ordinary TV-watching, book-reading, show-going, music-listening people, it's cultural grieving. Australians and other world citizens are not merely declining to visit the United States. We have started to cease to imagine it. Van Badham is a Guardian Australia columnist
Fox News
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Donny Osmond admits he ‘stole' wife from his brother after Elton John concert
Donny Osmond had some competition from his own family to win over his wife of 47 years, Debbie. "She dated my brother, and I stole her from my brother," Osmond told Fox News Digital. "That's a true story." He explained, "I was dating a girl named Tammy. And [my brother] Jay took Debbie out. We went on a double date to an Elton John concert. And I vividly remember when Elton sat down at the piano to sing 'Your Song.' I looked over at my brother's date and thought to myself, 'I think I'm going to marry that girl someday.' And I did." Osmond said he later told Elton John the story. "I said, 'You're responsible for my marriage.' He thought that was kind of funny." The 67-year-old also revealed that the couple crossed paths in childhood. WATCH: DONNY OSMOND 'STOLE' HIS WIFE FROM HIS BROTHER AFTER AN ELTON JOHN CONCERT "I actually met her when she was 3. So I've literally known her all my life," he said. The entertainer was traveling through Billings, Montana, where Debbie was born, with his brothers and Andy Williams and were at the airport during a layover. "Her family happened to be at the airport waiting for her uncle. And they said, 'Oh, those are those little Osmond boys on the "Andy Williams Show,"' and they got our autograph. So I met her when she was 3 and I was 5." The couple married in 1978 and have five children: Don, Jeremy, Brandon, Chris and Josh. "I looked over at my brother's date and thought to myself, 'I think I'm going to marry that girl someday.' And I did." "It's a lifetime of bliss. I mean, she's an amazing woman and very patient, you know?" Osmond said. "When you see your husband dancing with other women on 'Dancing with the Stars,' that's tough, I would imagine, on her. But we have such a great relationship. We were friends before we were married." Osmond's entertainment career has spanned decades, and the legendary entertainer's residency at Harrah's in Las Vegas, which just announced an extension through November this year, has a modern technological element to it. The singer will be joined onstage by an AI hologram of his 14-year-old self to perform a duet of his classic song, "Puppy Love." "I've always had this idea in my mind. Ever since I was a teenager, I thought, this kind of technology is going to happen someday," he said. Osmond worked with the company Zerospace, the same people behind the Robert Zemeckis movie "Here," starring a de-aged Tom Hanks, to create a replica of himself as a teenager. There's a family element, too, as Osmond's grandson, Daxton, provided the base model for the performance, then the singer's face, body and voice are reworked through AI to recreate "Puppy Love"-era Osmond. "It's quite difficult to begin with, the technology is there. But it's to make it right without any artifacts or anything like that. It's painstakingly difficult. With the voice and not just the face, to make it as authentic as possible," he said, noting that the company explained having a look-alike on-hand made the job much easier. When Osmond saw the final product, he was truly amazed. WATCH: DONNY OSMOND SAYS AUDIENCES WILL 'FREAK OUT' OVER AI VERSION OF HIMSELF "Can you imagine what I feel like? You know, looking at myself every night? 53 years ago. It's incredible. In fact, that's exactly what my grandson said. He saw it last week for the first time, and he looked at me afterwards backstage as a grandpa. That was incredible. He's looking at himself, but it's grandpa." Daxton is already following in his famous grandfather's footsteps, participating in musical theater, making him a natural fit for the role. "He has stage presence. And so, he was the perfect candidate for it. Not just age-wise, but stage presence. And we have a cute little bond. I call him D14. It's his nickname." But Osmond isn't going to offer advice to the young performer. "I'm not the father. I let [my son] Brandon, his dad, do that. But he nailed it." He continued, "I mean, he would rehearse at home. Brandon told me this, he said he would rehearse the lines at home and everything. And when we got to the studio, he was ready. It was all rehearsed. He had everything memorized. Extremely professional. And I only had to give him a couple little things, little notes here and there of how … to present himself in front of the camera. But he was all set. He was ready to go." As a show business veteran, Osmond himself has received his share of advice, often from some well-known names like Elvis Presley and a member of The Rat Pack. "Sammy Davis Jr. gave me some advice when I was a little boy because he said, 'Do you get nervous when you go on stage?' And I think I probably said yes. And he said, 'Don't ever stop getting nervous,' which I thought was a very strange thing to say. And then he said, 'The day you stop getting nervous is the day you should quit, because that means you don't care anymore.'" Osmond added, "So, you know, I don't get nervous before stage, but they're butterflies because you want to do the best you can, because every audience is a little bit different, and every show that I do in Vegas is slightly different because of a segment I call the request segment, and it's 20 minutes of improv, and the audience could pick any song I've ever recorded from any one of the 65 albums. And so that always is different. So. I care about the show." Osmond has his own advice for anyone looking to become an entertainer. "One thing that I always tell them is just don't be afraid of work, because in order to stay relevant…you can have a lot of fun on stage, but get in front of a mirror and work your tail off. Just look at yourself as other people see you and don't believe your own hype. You know, just when the curtain closes, you're just a normal person. Come back down to earth." The work ethic has kept the "Too Young" singer in the game since the start, even when he made the rocky transition between teen idol to mature performer. He recalled having "all kinds of crazy things" suggested to him to shake up his image and garner attention, good and bad. "But I guess I did it the hard way with, you know, just doing with my music rather than trying to create headlines," he said. "A lot of people just want to create headlines because they become popular, [they] get likes, just to be popular. But I don't think it's sustaining because it's not based on talent. And it's a harder way to go because you'd love to get those drastic headlines. "But I've turned down a lot of things that would shock people. But I'm not into that. I just want people to come to my show and just say I was thoroughly entertained." Osmond said he'd been offered roles that weren't a fit. "Just look at yourself as other people see you and don't believe your own hype." "I thought, no, it's not me. You know, I'd rather be authentic," he said, adding, "and that's the way I always will be, because I think authenticity wins out in the end. But I'd rather be known as an entertainer rather than a popular person, a personality." The Las Vegas mainstay has maintained his reputation as a consummate entertainer and said he's continuing to find new audiences through social media. WATCH: DONNY OSMOND TURNED DOWN 'THINGS THAT WOULD SHOCK PEOPLE' TO SHAKE UP TEEN IDOL IMAGE He explained the biggest change he's seen in the industry since he got his start is that "the bar has been raised so much." "And with that bar, the expectations from the audience have been raised so much. That's why I added this [AI element], I think, is because, I think, years ago, you just get up there and do a concert and that would be fine. But nowadays, the audience attention is that of a gnat. Oh, I like it. OK. What's next, what's next, what's next? And so you constantly have to keep reinventing yourself, which I don't mind because I love to produce and create and things like that. Be innovative." "They want an experience, not just a show," he continued. "And with that experience, they want authenticity. And they want to walk away saying that was worth more than the price of admission. And that's my philosophy in show business, is that I want the audience to say that was more than what I expected, and I hear it all the time. People say, 'I didn't know what to expect in a Donny Osmond show, but I wasn't expecting that.'"
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Our Company Could Not Coexist' with Trump as a Partner
THE MOST PRESCIENT AND POINTED WARNING about Donald Trump may have been raised by a Harrah's executive. In 2016. Phil Satre wasn't a celebrity, but he stood out in at least two ways: He was Trump's partner on an Atlantic City casino project in the 1980s. And he was willing to stick his neck out and write about it in the Reno Gazette Journal. The column Satre wrote was so spot-on that in my role then as commentary editor of USA Today, I republished it in our newspaper in hopes it would influence voters throughout the land. That was back when the extent of the Teflon Don syndrome had not fully penetrated our brains—when we still thought, or hoped, that reason and facts could make a difference. Here's just one paragraph of Satre's column: In 1985 I filed an affidavit with the court over Trump's claims of mismanagement: Referring to Trump I said, 'His written response to my letter of May 10 is characteristic of the bluster, threats, intemperance and unsupported and unsupportable falsehoods that have permeated the correspondence we have received from him and his key management employees almost since the beginning of our partnership.' My opinion of Donald Trump from the 1980s has not changed. The negative publicity about Donald Trump during this campaign—his conduct toward women, his business failures and his explosive temperament—matches my dealings with him. As we know, reason and facts did not prevail. Satre's words, so blunt and vivid, probably had the most impact inside my own brain. They have come to mind repeatedly during the first two months of Trump's return to office. Call it the boomerang presidency. Or the whiplash or rug-pull presidency. The bottom line is the same, whether we're talking about tariffs, Ukraine, Social Security, immigration, or anything else: You cannot count on Trump. You cannot trust him. Also, he knows nothing about the economy. 'I don't have a changed view of him,' Satre told me in a phone call this week—the first time we'd ever talked. 'His whole approach during the periods that I was involved with him in a partnership were examples of somebody who talked a lot about himself with a great deal of bombast. And there was no regard to accuracy of what he said or truthfulness. And as a consequence, ultimately, our company could not coexist with him as a partner.' Keep up with all our articles, newsletters, podcasts, and livestreams: Negotiating with Trump then sounds a lot like negotiating with him now. 'What was negotiated in those days was his name and how valuable his name was. We had lots of disagreements about that,' Satre said, deadpan, and we both chuckled. Were they resolved? 'No, they weren't,' he said. In a way, though, they were. Satre and the rest of the Harrah's team decided to sell their half-interest in the project back to Trump. They didn't lose any money in the transaction, Satre said, but Trump nevertheless claimed it was 'a great deal for him.' Harrah's went back to operating its 'very successful' Marina District casino in Atlantic City, which had opened in 1980. And Trump went back to doing what he does best, or worst. The Trump Plaza, as Trump called it after the partnership ended, 'filed for bankruptcy in 1992. It closed in 2014 after additional bankruptcies,' Satre wrote in 2016. And lest you're inclined to blame economic conditions, he made a point of noting that 'in contrast, Harrah's flourished during this same period, and I retired as Chairman in 2005.' And furthermore: 'I am convinced he simply does not have the temperament to be president, or more importantly, commander in chief: His hair-trigger temper, bluster, racial rhetoric and divisive domestic and international views will endanger our democracy and risk permanent damage to our society.' Not surprisingly, both Satre and I thought immediately of his long-ago op-ed after the volcanic Oval Office meeting between Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. When Satre read about it and watched clips, he had flashbacks to some of his sessions with Trump. 'We had several of those just really angry outbursts,' he told me. Satre did not write anything about Trump last year. 'I didn't feel like I could say anything different than what I said then. I actually was quite shocked in 2024, shocked by the outcome,' he said. Join now The enduring mystery, for Satre and so many of us, is why Trump's skills at selling and marketing himself have worked so well and for so long. They weren't in evidence, nor was there any hint he had a political future, at the time Satre was trying to work with him. That came later, he says, when Trump was riding high with The Apprentice: 'He had become a media personality more than a developer personality, and he started talking about running for president and all that. I began to run into people who said we should elect him president. I said 'Really?' The Apprentice. People were attracted to that.' Satre, now the non-executive chairman of the board of Wynn Resorts, has had a long and respected career in the gaming industry. But like millions of Americans, maybe tens of millions, he has failed at one big thing: Turning the electorate away from Donald Trump. Years ago, when he and other Harrah's executives contemplated a continued future with Trump, 'We made the decision that we'd be well served by terminating our relationship with him,' he said during our call. 'We decided to do it and we were very happy.' If only Republicans could find the courage and will to do the same. If I were a betting woman, I'd say they, and their country, would be very happy. Send this article around—to friends or followers or family. Share
