Latest news with #NormanLear
Washington Post
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
I loved the ‘All In The Family' theme song. Now I actually get it.
I was too young to get the joke about 'Those Were the Days' back then, but it was the most arresting theme song on TV — if that's even the proper way to categorize its function on the 1970s megahit show technically called 'All in the Family,' but that we all referred to as 'Archie Bunker.'
San Francisco Chronicle
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Clean Slate,' the first sitcom to star a transgender actor, is canceled after one season
Amid a background of openly anti-transgender legislation and policies in American politics, the first ever sitcom starring a transgender performer and the last project from legendary progressive producer Norman Lear has been canceled. 'Clean Slate,' which premiered Feb. 6 on Prime Video, will end after season one. The news was revealed in an emotional guest column posted on Deadline on Friday, April 18, co-written by series star and transgender actor Laverne Cox, comedian and co-star George Wallace and co-creator Dan Ewen. 'We will push to keep the story alive, for the sake of the kind of people portrayed in it, the kind of people being legislated out of existence, or erased from history books,' the column said. 'It feels like it's time to fight like hell for nice things.' While Prime Video has not publicly revealed why it's scrapping the show, the streaming service is a division of Amazon, owned by Jeff Bezos, who has become a prominent donor and supporter of President Donald Trump's second term. In the president's first quarter, Trump has issued executive orders targeting transgender people, including barring trans athletes from playing in women's sports, and his administration has erased the mention of transgender people on government websites and passports. 'Clean Slate' stars Wallace as Harry, an Alabama car wash owner, who is surprised when his estranged son returns home after 17 years. Harry's child is now a proud trans woman named Desiree (Cox). Lear, known for progressive sitcoms such as 'All in the Family,' 'The Jeffersons' and 'Sanford and Son' that changed the face of television in the 1970s, signed on after Cox, Wallace and Ewen pitched the TV legend in the late 2010s. Together, they shepherded the project through a pandemic, Hollywood strikes and shifting broadcast partners. It was originally set up at Peacock before moving first to Amazon-owned Freevee before finally airing on Prime. What would be the only season had been entirely filmed by the time Lear died at age 101 in December 2023. 'Let it be known that Norman Lear's final comedy room was an intersectional, authentic thing of beauty, and the stuff of Marjorie Taylor Greene's nightmares,' the column said.
New York Times
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Trump's Revenge Now Includes His Takeover of the Kennedy Center
The trouble started in August 2017 when the television producer Norman Lear said he was skipping a White House reception for his Kennedy Center Honors award. Another honoree, the dancer and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade, pulled out after President Trump said there were 'very fine people on both sides' of a white supremacist rally and counterprotest in Charlottesville, Va. Mr. Trump, who ended up canceling the reception and shunning the annual awards ceremony all four years of his first term, got his revenge last week when he purged the bipartisan Kennedy Center board of Biden appointees, fired the center's president and made himself the new chairman. The question now is what a thin-skinned showman will do with an institution of music, theater and dance that has been central to Washington's cultural life for more than 50 years. Stephen K. Bannon, the longtime Trump adviser, thinks there should be an opening night performance of the J6 Prison Choir, made up of men once imprisoned for their role in the assault on the Capitol but now pardoned by Mr. Trump. The president could also emulate one of his favorite authoritarians, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into state-sanctioned art to glorify the nation and his leadership. The prevailing view in a stunned Washington is that a center that offers a smorgasbord of more than 2,000 events a year — everything from a towering production of Richard Wagner's Ring cycle to 'Sesame Street: The Musical' — will now feature more country music ahead of 2026, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Notably, the country singer Lee Greenwood, a Trump supporter whose signature song 'God Bless the USA' has become a Republican anthem, is on the board. Whatever the center's future, conservatives exulted that Mr. Trump's domination of Washington has extended to artistic expression and a pillar of the city's establishment. 'This Kennedy Center thing is big, folks — big,' Mr. Bannon said on his podcast last week. 'They're crushed over there.' He called the center 'the high church of the secular, atheistic administrative state that runs the imperial capital,' enthused that 'Visigoths' would now be filling the seats and recommended that the Jan. 6 choir replace an evening of opera. 'Just watch the meltdown of the Washington elite,' he said. Making the Center 'Hot' Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump's interim president of the center and a former U.S. ambassador to Germany known for savaging his critics on social media, did not respond to requests for comment about his plans. It remains unclear how long he will be in the job, since two days after his installation he told reporters he was considering running for governor of California in 2026 if former Vice President Kamala Harris enters the race. Mr. Trump has yet to reveal specific programming, though he said in a phone call to a meeting of the new Kennedy Center board — the audio was leaked to CNN — that 'we're going to make it hot. And we made the presidency hot, so this should be easy.' The president's stated reason for the takeover was to rid the center of drag shows last year that he said targeted young people, which seemed to be a reference to a drag-themed show the center hosted last year, 'Dragtastic Dress-up,' aimed at 'LGBTQ+ youth under 18,' according to marketing materials. In later comments to reporters on Air Force One, Mr. Trump said that some of the shows at the Kennedy Center 'were terrible,' but when asked if he had seen anything there, he said no. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Tuesday that 'the Kennedy Center learned the hard way that if you go woke, you will go broke.' (The center ran a $1 million deficit on a $268 million budget last year.) Mr. Trump and the new board, she said, will rebuild a center 'where all Americans, and visitors from around the world, can enjoy the arts with respect to America's great history and traditions.' Michael M. Kaiser, a former Kennedy Center president who is now the chairman of the DeVos Institute of Arts and Nonprofit Management, remains apprehensive. 'It's a scary time right now because we don't know what the ambition is,' he said. He was worried about the donor base, he added, and whether patrons from an overwhelmingly Democratic city would continue to come to events. As for Mr. Trump, he said, 'who knows how long this will be a priority when he realizes the chairman is expected to make a major gift every year and raise other money.' David Rubenstein, the purged chairman, billionaire philanthropist and co-founder of the private equity Carlyle Group, contributed $120 million to the Kennedy Center over 20 years on its board — the single largest donated sum of any individual or corporation in the center's history. Mr. Rubenstein also oversaw an effort to raise $100 million in donations each year. Some $43 million of the center's budget last year was paid for by federal aid to cover operations, maintenance and repair for the center itself, which was created as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy. The rest of the budget — $225 million — depends on ticket sales and donations. Mr. Rubenstein, who owns the Nantucket compound that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., has used for his family vacations, appeared to be on good terms with Mr. Trump ahead of his ouster. Mr. Rubenstein and his friend Caryn Zucker had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Mr. Trump and Melania Trump, the first lady, last year. Mr. Rubenstein also interviewed Mr. Trump for a book on the presidency that was published in September. Mr. Rubenstein has so far said nothing publicly about his dismissal, though in a post on social media last week, he thanked the entire Kennedy Center team and its fired president, Deborah F. Rutter, for 'helping to make the center the beacon for the performing arts its founders intended.' Scalia and Ginsburg at the Opera President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation in 1958 to create what was then called the National Cultural Center, but the effort changed its plans and name after Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The grand opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was in September 1971, featuring the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's 'Mass,' commissioned for the occasion. Critics often called the center, built on the banks of the Potomac River, a marble mausoleum of highbrow and not always superb art set apart from the life of the city. Its symphony, opera and ballet were never on par with the best that New York, Los Angeles or Chicago had to offer. It was as traditional as official Washington, but over time its repertoire expanded, improved and relaxed. Restaurants sprang up around it, and public transportation made getting there easier. On warm summer nights, people gathered on the outdoor plaza during intermission to see the twinkling lights of the city and planes headed for Reagan National Airport across the river. The goal was to have something for everyone. Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to the opera together, and Vice President Mike Pence saw 'The King and I.' Little girls in pink dresses flocked to see the ballet 'Swan Lake.' Young people filled the Opera House for the revival of Stephen Sondheim's 'Into the Woods.' There were free concerts, a country music festival and the smattering of drag shows that Mr. Trump said so offended him. 'Looking back, I now think it's wonderful,' said Tim Page, a professor emeritus of musicology at the University of Southern California, a former music critic for The Washington Post and a former reporter for The New York Times. The Kennedy Center Honors began in 1978 under George Stevens Jr., to recognize people and institutions for lifetime artistic achievement. Honorees at the December gala have varied from George Balanchine to Tennessee Williams to Dolly Parton to the Grateful Dead. Mr. Trump was the first president in 40 years to skip the event. A number of artists connected with the center resigned in protest last week, among them the renowned soprano Renée Fleming, who was an artistic adviser, and Shonda Rhimes, a famed television producer and writer, who was treasurer of the board. The board consists of 36 members who serve for six years each, meaning that even though presidents get to pick who serves, the board is not often evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. In Ms. Rutter's case, a majority of board members in recent years were Trump appointees from his first term, among them Pam Bondi, now the attorney general, and Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor who is Mr. Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Israel. 'I had a fantastic working relationship with Pam and Mike Huckabee,' Ms. Rutter said. New Trump appointees on the board include Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff; Cheri Summerall, Ms. Wiles' stepmother; and Dan Scavino, a longtime Trump aide. A Trump appointee from 2020 is Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent who discovered Melania Trump in Milan and introduced her to the future president at a 1998 party he hosted at the Kit Kat Club. He is now the United Nations ambassador of Dominica.
Chicago Tribune
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Biblioracle: A new biography of television's Norman Lear shows just how remarkable he was
For no particular reason that I can think of, lately I've been looking for good examples of people embodying the American spirit of hard work, creative entrepreneurship, and care for the well-being of others as part of a democratic society. Fortunately, I had an example that's been sitting at the end of my desk since last fall: 'Norman Lear: His Life and Times,' a biography of the legendary television producer by Tripp Whetsell. For those of us of a certain generation (namely mine), Norman Lear was television for a time: 'All in the Family,' 'Sanford and Son,' 'The Jeffersons,' 'One Day at a Time' and on and on. What made Lear's work indelible was not just its popularity but how his shows shaped the culture by depicting the variety of viewpoints in America. We experienced the emotional and moral journey of Archie Bunker from a racist and sexist but lovable curmudgeon to someone with a more fully developed view of the rights and potential of all individuals. With 'Sanford and Son,' 'Good Times' and 'The Jeffersons,' Lear helped give white America a window into a fuller range of African American experiences. 'Maude' tackled the challenges of being a feminist in the 1970s, often mixing drama and humor with serious topics like abortion and alcoholism. Lear's life is like something out of a storybook. He was born in 1922 and raised in Connecticut and Massachusetts with a father who was jailed when Lear was 9, leaving him bouncing among relatives after his emotionally distant mother gave up on tending her children. Lear dropped out of college during World War II to enlist in the Air Force, flying dozens of combat missions as a B-17 radio operator and gunner. After knocking around Los Angeles in entertainment-adjacent work, Lear secured a writing gig on the 'Colgate Comedy Hour,' then a producing role on 'The Martha Raye Show.' After years of trying, he managed to sell 'All in the Family' to CBS, launching his period as a dynastic force in television. Not everything Lear touched turned to gold. Remember 'a.k.a. Pablo' starring comedian Paul Rodriguez? Me neither. After the dynastic age of the 1970s, Lear's shows had less impact, with the charming but not exactly profound 'Diff'rent Strokes' being the top hit of his latter period. Lear used his fame and resources for good throughout his life, founding the People for the American Way. Well into his 90s, Lear was speaking out on issues important to him, including democracy and the environment. There are different schools of thought on biographies, with some writers trying for a grand narrative interpretation of the life of an important figure, while others work from a steady accumulation of details meant to bring the subject into focus. 'Norman Lear: His Life and Times' takes the latter route through a meticulous accounting of Lear's life, including details like the street Lear's family lived on, and the names of his high school friends, as well as specific conversations between Lear and network executives about his various shows. At times, I felt myself bogged down in information that was interesting but also made me question the relevance. Whetsell's research is impressively exhaustive but is also sometimes more exhausting than illuminating. I'm pleased to have spent time with the book, but I found myself picking it up, reading through an era and then letting is sit for a while before going back in. Different readers will have different experiences, depending on what you're looking for in a life story as amazing as Lear's. John Warner is the author of 'Why They Can't Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.' Twitter @biblioracle Book recommendations from the Biblioracle John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you've read. 1. 'Rejection' by Tony Tulathimutte 2. 'Y/N' by Esther Yi 3. 'The Candy House' by Jennifer Egan 4. 'Fire Sermon' by Jamie Quatro 5. 'Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead' by Emily Austin — John M., Chicago John is a previous request customer that was pleased with my choice of Percival Everett's 'Erasure.' I'm going to take another big swing with 'When We Cease to Understand the World' by Benjamin Labatut. 1. 'The Boys in the Boat' by Daniel James Brown 2. 'Remarkably Bright Creatures' by Shelby Van Pelt 3. 'There Are Rivers in the Sky' by Elif Shafak 4. 'A Gentleman in Moscow' by Amor Towles 5. 'Fever in the Heartland' by Timothy Egan — Harvey M., Northbrook 'Beautiful Ruins' by Jess Walter has the right mix of history and drama for Harvey and his book club. 1. 'Pineapple Street' by Jenny Jackson 2. 'The Wedding People' by Alison Espach 3. 'Tom Lake' by Ann Patchett 4. 'The Women' by Kristin Hannah 5. 'The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store' by James McBride — Beth T., Chicago I think Beth is a good candidate for the uncompromising, propulsive power of Sarah Manguso's 'Liars.'
CNN
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Laverne Cox says the country is ‘worried about the wrong %1' while reflecting on bans against trans population
Laverne Cox is no stranger to being marginalized, but has found an interesting way to frame it. While promoting her new series 'Clean Slate' costarring comedian George Wallace, Cox discussed the importance of remaining visible as a trans performer, and telling trans stories. In the show, she plays the estranged child of an older man who returns home as his daughter for the first time. 'In terms of the trans aspect of it, we're experiencing the most intense backlash against trans visibility that I've seen in my lifetime,' Cox said, in reference to new legislation against trans rights, following several similar laws in the past few years. 'You know, the Republican Party spent $215 million on anti-trans ads in this last election, and if you watched, you would think the last election was about trans people and immigrants,' she added. 'Executive orders limiting our rights, 26 states banned gender affirming care for young people, banning us from the military, from bathrooms… there's this whole anti-trans thing, and we're less than 1% of the population,' Cox said. 'Someone in my comment section said, 'They're worried about the wrong 1%.'' According to CNN reporting, a 2021 study found that 1.2 million Americans – out of a total population of around 337 million people in the country – identified as non-binary. The other '1%' Cox was referring to is often referred to as the 'top 1%,' namely the richest sliver of the population. Regardless of the situation, Cox continued to focus on the positives and what she hopes her show can accomplish. 'In 2025, as federal bans come down attacking trans people, what I love about this show and what I love about being an artist is that artists can be arbiters of empathy,' she observed, adding that empathy 'can foster humanity.' 'Trans people have been so deeply dehumanized over the past several years. Art,' she said, in reference to her new show, 'getting to know trans people as people, is a way to rehumanize.' She also touched on the comedy in her new show, which was developed with the late Norman Lear and counts him as an executive producer, and how comedy can often serve as the best weapon in the face of adversity. 'Laughter, because it's so catastrophic, it's ridiculous, and sometimes you have to laugh and we must laugh. And that is what Norman Lear always put first, is the laughter,' the 'Orange is the New Black' star said. 'I hope that – not just for trans people, but for everybody – ('Clean Slate') fosters more empathy, more love, more humanizing.' 'Clean Slate' premieres Thursday on Prime Video.
