Latest news with #LosAngelesCityCollege
The Citizen
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
The Cane Cutter ready for release after challenges
DR Eubulus Timothy is excited about the direction The Cane Cutter's project is heading in. He is the director of the film, described as a fractured love story. Timothy is an award-winning writer, director and producer of film and television, and the founding chair of the Cape Film Commission. He served two terms as vice chairperson of the Writers Guild of SA. His film career spans over 23 years, with a solid foundation from the Los Angeles City College where he obtained his diploma in cinematography. The Cane Cutter was shot in Durban two years ago, boasting a crew of 20 members and seven cast members, with Razeen Dada and Dr Kajal Lutchminarian on leads. It was produced under Durban-based Trinity Pictures by Shan Moodley. Also read: Film set to explore reconciliation in families Timothy shared, 'Through the trials, we managed to have a couple of focus groups before we locked the picture. We were supposed to release The Cane Cutter in November last year. But due to personal issues that impacted my family and me, right up to mid-December, I had to put the release date on hold. Even now, we are dealing with these issues. 'The movie is now ready for sound mix, music and colour grading. It's very exciting and we had some amazing feedback from our focus group,' he enthused. Timothy offered some insight into the story, 'A young man in pursuit of his identity meets a young woman fighting for her independence. Two teens meet on the last indenture ship, the Umlazi. A Telugu indentured boy and a paid passenger, a Gujarati girl. Like so many others, they never found each other. Over a hundred years ago, their great-grandchildren met and fell in love.' Also read: Local young filmmakers aim for stars Focus group member Dr Michelle van Tonder said, 'I had the privilege of being invited. This poignant and nostalgic drama weaves an epic love story into the fabric of a defining era in South African history, spotlighting the resilience and rise of hardworking Indian communities as they shaped their place in the nation's evolving identity.' Another focus group member, Tash Reddy, echoed, 'The twist and turns of the love story reminds one of real life, where not everything works out like in the land of fables. The movie inspires all people groups to honour culture, reality and truth as it embellishes this true life story into the heart of the movie enthusiast.' Timothy's film career has seen him co-write the film adaptations of Shakespeare's Othello, and direct a short Spanish film El Gotico in Hollywood alongside Rosanna Travares of the Pussycat Dolls. For more from Berea Mail, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also check out our videos on our YouTube channel or follow us on TikTok. Click to subscribe to our newsletter – here At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
New York Times
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Lynne Marie Stewart, Miss Yvonne on ‘Pee-wee's Playhouse,' Dies at 78
Lynne Marie Stewart, who played Pee-wee Herman's perky, bouffant-wigged neighbor, Miss Yvonne, in the 1980s children's television series 'Pee-wee's Playhouse' and the sweet, timorous mother of one of the main characters in 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,' died on Friday in Los Angeles. She was 78. The cause of her death, at her sister's home, was cancer, said her manager, Bette Smith. Her doctors found a tumor shortly after Ms. Stewart finished filming a movie called 'The Dink,' a comedy starring Jake Johnson and Ben Stiller, in December, Ms. Smith said. Ms. Stewart played a variety of characters in a career that spanned six decades, and had nearly 150 credits as a screen, stage and voice actress starting in 1971, according to IMDb, the entertainment database. But she was perhaps best known for her role as Miss Yvonne, or the 'most beautiful woman in Puppetland,' in 'Pee-wee's Playhouse,' which ran for five seasons on Saturday mornings on CBS. She was a fixture on the show as Pee-wee Herman's extravagant neighbor with creative hairdos and a chipper personality. With its whimsical and slyly subversive sense of humor, the show swiftly attracted an audience beyond its core demographic of preadolescent children, and Ms. Stewart and other members of its cast embraced its anarchic and surreal spirit of make-believe. 'I would go on commercial interviews and be labeled as a woman over 40,' Ms. Stewart told The New York Times in 2004. 'Then I would go to my day job' on the 'Pee-wee's Playhouse' set, 'where I got to be a storybook princess.' Lynne Marie Stewart was born in Lynwood, Calif., on Dec. 14, 1946. Her sister, Gayle Stewart, is her only immediate survivor. Ms. Stewart developed an interest in acting while attending Beverly Hills High School and went on to study theater arts at Los Angeles City College. She was still attending Los Angeles City College when she befriended another student and aspiring actress, Cindy Williams. As she established herself as a working performer, Ms. Stewart would appear with Ms. Williams in seven episodes of the sitcom 'Laverne & Shirley' and performed onstage with her in New Jersey in a production of 'The Female Odd Couple.' In the 1970s, Ms. Stewart joined the Groundlings, the Los Angeles improvisational theater company that has trained several well-known comedic performers. It was there that she befriended Paul Reubens, who created the Pee-wee Herman character. He recruited her to perform as Miss Yvonne in 'The Pee-wee Herman Show,' which was billed as a 'live onstage TV pilot.' She reprised the role in a national tour and a 1981 HBO special, as well as in 'Pee-wee's Playhouse' and a 2010 Broadway revival. She also appeared with Mr. Reubens in three Pee-wee Herman films, though not as Miss Yvonne: 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure' (1985), 'Big Top Pee-wee' (1988) and 'Pee-wee's Big Holiday' (2016). Starting in 2005, she had a recurring role on 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' as Bonnie Kelly, the good-natured, if high-strung, mother of Charlie Day's character, Charlie Kelly. She often performed with Sandy Martin, who plays the mother of Rob McElhenney's character, Mac, as a couple of dysfunctional mothers and odd-couple roommates. Ms. Stewart was a proud alumna of the Groundlings and stayed involved with the organization long after she had moved on to film and television roles. Her time with the troupe, she said, prepared for the success she found late in her career on 'It's Always Sunny,' the longest-running live-action sitcom in U.S. history. 'Besides characters, you could work on the character of yourself,' she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2013. When she was cast as Bonnie, she said, 'I came in with the confidence of knowing that I can improvise as myself, and that was straight from the Groundlings.'
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Friends of Eaton fire victim mourn a Renaissance woman with a generous streak
You should have seen the bookcases in Patricia McKenna's Altadena home. It was an astonishing personal library, her friends recalled: a collection on art, fashion, history and design tomes that bowed even the sturdiest shelving. When a friend developed an interest in Scythian culture, McKenna handed over her library's entire section of ancient Central Asian design books — not a book, mind you, but close to a dozen academic works on Bactrian and Thracian art, dress and culture. She'd acquire books and give them away, then buy more books to fill the space. The shelves would sag, her husband would cheerfully hammer up more reinforcements, and the cycle continued from there. 'That's the way she operated. She loved introducing people to other sources of information and giving things that she knew would be meaningful to them,' said Cat Winesburg, a longtime friend of McKenna's and the beneficiary of her Scythian bequest. Her voice grew quiet. 'The library is now ash,' she said. On Monday, the county medical examiner confirmed that McKenna, a longtime Altadena resident, perished in her Punahou Street home during the Eaton fire that consumed more than 9,400 structures in an area of nearly 22 square miles. She was 77. McKenna is one of 17 people known to have died in the Eaton fire, all of them west of Lake Avenue. Read more: Altadena had soul, solitude and community. Can those qualities survive devastating firestorm? The news was a blow to communities who recalled McKenna at her creative best: former students and faculty at Los Angeles City College, where she worked for years in the theater department, and fellow members of the Queen Medb Encampment, a Celtic historical reenactment group. 'The world, and our Encampment, lost a grand lady in the Eaton fire,' said Robert Seutter, a member of the group. 'She was a classy lady [with] a wry, dry wit, and was a keen observer.' McKenna grew up in Whittier with her brother and two sisters, Winesburg said. She became interested early on in historical costumes, a passion she put to use in her personal and professional life. As costume shop forewoman at LACC, McKenna pulled together technically impeccable and historically accurate costumes for everything from Neil Simon's 'Lost in Yonkers' to the midcentury French drama 'Cher Antoine.' She helped Winesburg construct her wedding dress, a historically faithful reproduction of Elizabethan garb. McKenna drew from an encyclopedic knowledge of fashion from the medieval age onward, said her friend Jenny, who asked to withhold her last name for privacy concerns. 'If somebody needed to know something about costuming, Pat was the one they could go to,' she said. 'She had a generous nature and a generous spirit like no one I've ever known.' Around 1985 McKenna married Tom Wellbaum. Decades later, few friends can recall the precise nature of Wellbaum's work — something in engineering? — but all remember vividly his impish sense of humor, and his devotion to McKenna. She moved with him into the 1923 Sears, Roebuck and Co. kit house on Punahou Street that Wellbaum had purchased as a teenager and fixed up with his father. For nearly two decades the couple traveled, went to Renaissance fairs and historic festivals, and hosted friends and family, even after Wellbaum was disabled in a workplace accident. McKenna stood a regal 6 feet tall, and could be snippy and imperious when annoyed, friends said. Yet she was also consistently generous — giving nearly-new clothes and jewelry to friends she thought better suited for them; keeping a petty cash fund just for veterinary bills for loved ones' ailing pets. In the early 2000s, Wellbaum was struck by a car while crossing the road in his mobility scooter. He died soon afterward. By her friends' reckoning, a piece of McKenna went with him. Her health began to falter. She went out far less often than she used to. A few years after Wellbaum's death, a heart attack sent her to the hospital. She left with a defibrillator and a diagnosis of broken heart syndrome, a colloquial term for rapid weakening of the heart muscle. 'But we could have told him that,' Jenny said of the doctor. 'When Tom passed ... it took her whole heart.' A series of falls left McKenna with injuries that made it difficult to get around. When Winesburg visited in July, McKenna was starting to talk about cleaning her place out, and the eventual possibility of moving to an assisted living facility. Read more: Fire victims seek answers about rebuilding, cleanup timeline The two women wept together over the realization that it was almost certainly the last time they would see one another, given their mounting health issues, Winesburg said. A friend spoke to McKenna on the evening of Jan. 7, about an hour after the Eaton fire began, Winesburg said. McKenna said she had a go bag packed and would sit tight until the evacuation order came. It never did. Her home was in an area west of Lake Avenue that did not receive evacuation warnings until the early hours of Jan. 8, when the fire was already threatening the neighborhood. For days, friends called emergency shelters, hospitals and the Red Cross looking for her. A week later, family learned that human remains were found at the site where her house once stood. It took nearly a month for forensic testing to confirm that they were McKenna's. Her loved ones hope she slept through it all, Winesburg said. They find some comfort knowing that McKenna did not have to see her beloved home in ashes. 'She would not have been happy at all, or interested in rebuilding a house she loved,' Winesburg said. 'The house she lived with Tom in was gone.' Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
12-02-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
Friends of Eaton fire victim mourn a Renaissance woman with a generous streak
You should have seen the bookcases in Patricia McKenna's Altadena home. It was an astonishing personal library, her friends recalled: a collection on art, fashion, history and design tomes that bowed even the sturdiest shelving. When a friend developed an interest in Scythian culture, McKenna handed over her library's entire section of ancient Central Asian design books — not a book, mind you, but close to a dozen academic works on Bactrian and Thracian art, dress and culture. She'd acquire books and give them away, then buy more books to fill the space. The shelves would sag, her husband would cheerfully hammer up more reinforcements, and the cycle continued from there. 'That's the way she operated. She loved introducing people to other sources of information and giving things that she knew would be meaningful to them,' said Cat Winesburg, a longtime friend of McKenna's and the beneficiary of her Scythian bequest. Her voice grew quiet. 'The library is now ash,' she said. On Monday, the county medical examiner confirmed that McKenna, a longtime Altadena resident, perished in her Punahou Street home during the Eaton fire that consumed more than 9,400 structures in an area of nearly 22 square miles. She was 77. McKenna is one of 17 people known to have died in the Eaton fire, all of them west of Lake Avenue. The news was a blow to communities who recalled McKenna at her creative best: former students and faculty at Los Angeles City College, where she worked for years in the theater department, and fellow members of the Queen Medb Encampment, a Celtic historical reenactment group. 'The world, and our Encampment, lost a grand lady in the Eaton fire,' said Robert Seutter, a member of the group. 'She was a classy lady [with] a wry, dry wit, and was a keen observer.' McKenna grew up in Whittier with her brother and two sisters, Winesburg said. She became interested early on in historical costumes, a passion she put to use in her personal and professional life. As costume shop forewoman at LACC, McKenna pulled together technically impeccable and historically accurate costumes for everything from Neil Simon's 'Lost in Yonkers' to the midcentury French drama 'Cher Antoine.' She helped Winesburg construct her wedding dress, a historically faithful reproduction of Elizabethan garb. McKenna drew from an encyclopedic knowledge of fashion from the medieval age onward, said her friend Jenny, who asked to withhold her last name for privacy concerns. 'If somebody needed to know something about costuming, Pat was the one they could go to,' she said. 'She had a generous nature and a generous spirit like no one I've ever known.' Around 1985 McKenna married Tom Wellbaum. Decades later, few friends can recall the precise nature of Wellbaum's work — something in engineering? — but all remember vividly his impish sense of humor, and his devotion to McKenna. She moved with him into the 1923 Sears, Roebuck and Co. kit house on Punahou Street that Wellbaum had purchased as a teenager and fixed up with his father. For nearly two decades the couple traveled, went to Renaissance fairs and historic festivals, and hosted friends and family, even after Wellbaum was disabled in a workplace accident. McKenna stood a regal 6 feet tall, and could be snippy and imperious when annoyed, friends said. Yet she was also consistently generous — giving nearly-new clothes and jewelry to friends she thought better suited for them; keeping a petty cash fund just for veterinary bills for loved ones' ailing pets. In the early 2000s, Wellbaum was struck by a car while crossing the road in his mobility scooter. He died soon afterward. By her friends' reckoning, a piece of McKenna went with him. Her health began to falter. She went out far less often than she used to. A few years after Wellbaum's death, a heart attack sent her to the hospital. She left with a defibrillator and a diagnosis of broken heart syndrome, a colloquial term for rapid weakening of the heart muscle. 'But we could have told him that,' Jenny said of the doctor. 'When Tom passed ... it took her whole heart.' A series of falls left McKenna with injuries that made it difficult to get around. When Winesburg visited in July, McKenna was starting to talk about cleaning her place out, and the eventual possibility of moving to an assisted living facility. The two women wept together over the realization that it was almost certainly the last time they would see one another, given their mounting health issues, Winesburg said. A friend spoke to McKenna on the evening of Jan. 7, about an hour after the Eaton fire began, Winesburg said. McKenna said she had a go bag packed and would sit tight until the evacuation order came. It never did. Her home was in an area west of Lake Avenue that did not receive evacuation warnings until the early hours of Jan. 8, when the fire was already threatening the neighborhood. For days, friends called emergency shelters, hospitals and the Red Cross looking for her. A week later, family learned that human remains were found at the site where her house once stood. It took nearly a month for forensic testing to confirm that they were McKenna's. Her loved ones hope she slept through it all, Winesburg said. They find some comfort knowing that McKenna did not have to see her beloved home in ashes. 'She would not have been happy at all, or interested in rebuilding a house she loved,' Winesburg said. 'The house she lived with Tom in was gone.'
