Entertaining Posts

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner dumped at the altar

LOS ANGELES | Tue Jun 14, 2011 10:35pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Heartbroken Playboy founder Hugh Hefner said on Tuesday his wedding this weekend was canceled because his 25-year-old fiancee, a Playmate from his magazine, changed her mind.

Hefner, 85, and Crystal Harris were due to tie the knot in front of more than 300 guests at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles on Saturday. It would have been Hefner's third marriage.

"The wedding is off. Crystal has had a change of heart," Hefner wrote on Twitter.

"The breakup is a heart breaker, but better now than after the marriage," he added later.

He also denied a report on celebrity website TMZ.com that the couple had had "a nasty argument" on the phone.

Adding insult to injury, he said Harris took his favorite pet, a cocker spaniel named Charlie, when she moved out of the mansion.

On the other hand, Hefner said he has been consoled by his coterie of old pals and his former wife Kimberley Conrad, and announced he would be hosting a screening of "Runaway Bride."

Hefner proposed to Harris on Christmas Eve, he announced on Twitter at the time. Since then Hefner has been planning the nuptials in between serving as hands-on editor of Playboy and entertaining family and friends at movie screenings and backgammon games.

A two-hour TV special featuring wedding highlights was due to air July 13 on the women's cable channel Lifetime.

Hefner and second wife Conrad, a former Playmate now 48, divorced in 2010 after a lengthy separation. His first marriage to Mildred Williams ended in divorce in 1959. He has two children from each marriage.

Hefner, known around the world by his nickname, Hef, has championed sexual freedom and civil rights, published stories challenging McCarthyism and the Vietnam War, and backed gay causes and the legalization of marijuana.

With a cover featuring a calendar photo of Marilyn Monroe, Hefner put together the first issue of Playboy on the kitchen table in his Chicago apartment in 1953 at a cost of $600. It sold 51,000 copies -- enough to finance a second issue -- and led to a multimillion dollar international corporation, which Hefner recently took private.

Raised in San Diego by British parents, Harris met Hefner at his annual Halloween party in 2008.

She moved in to the mansion after a few weeks and became Playboy's Playmate of the Month in December 2009. She will be on the cover of the magazine's upcoming July issue.

(Reporting by Dean Goodman; Editing by David Lawder)

Springsteen says Clemons' health signs are "encouraging"

By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK | Tue Jun 14, 2011 5:06pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rock star Bruce Springsteen confirmed on Tuesday that saxophonist Clarence Clemons of his E Street Band has suffered a serious stroke, saying Clemons' "initial signs are encouraging" but he faces a long recovery.

Clemons, 69, who lives in Florida, fell ill over the weekend, according to sources on gossip and fan websites and Rolling Stone magazine. But representatives for the horn player known as "Big Man" had declined to disclose any information as to his condition.

Springsteen, in a statement issued through his publicist, said: "By now, many of you have heard that our beloved comrade and sax player Clarence Clemons has suffered a serious stroke.

"While all initial signs are encouraging, Clarence will need much care and support to achieve his potential once again," Springsteen said. "He has his wonderfully supportive wife, Victoria, excellent doctors and health care professionals, and is surrounded by friends and family.

"I thank you all for your prayers and positive energy and concern. This is a time for us all to share in a hopeful spirit that can ultimately inspire Clarence to greater heights," Springsteen said in the statement issued by publicist Marilyn Laverty.

Clemons underwent double knee-replacement surgery in 2008 and walked for the first time in three months when Springsteen and the E Street Band played the Super Bowl in 2009.

Springsteen's statement said fans could send email messages to Clemons at notestoclarence@clarenceclemons.com.

Clemons started playing with Springsteen in 1971 as a charter member of his E Street Band. His gritty, haunting solos power such hits as "Born to Run," "Jungleland," "Prove It All Night," "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" and "Badlands."

Away from the E Street Band, Clemons enjoyed a hit single in 1985 with "You're a Friend of Mine," a duet with Jackson Browne. He has dabbled in acting and worked with other artists including Ringo Starr, Aretha Franklin and Lady Gaga.

(Additional reporting by Dean Goodman. Editing by Peter Bohan)

Hugh Hefner dumped at the altar

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Art market buzzes ahead of Basel, London sales

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON | Tue Jun 14, 2011 9:22am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Billions of dollars of art will be on show in Basel at the annual fair this week and in London ahead of a big series of sales, with experts cautiously optimistic that buyers are set to snap up rare treasures.

Art Basel, described as the world's top fair for modern and contemporary works, opens on Wednesday with 300 galleries displaying works with a combined total worth of around $1.75 billion, according to specialist insurer Hiscox.

"We didn't do a calculation last year, but my guess is that this year is up about 15 percent (on 2010)," said Hiscox fine art specialist Robert Read.

He added that the mood in the market was generally confident, with the sharp contraction in global sales in 2009 already a fading memory.

"I think we're further away from the bad news," he told Reuters. "People forget things so quickly. Buying art is fun and sexy, and people were never going to give it up forever, were they?"

Once the wheeling and dealing in Basel is done by its close on June 19, the focus shifts to London where rivals Christie's and Sotheby's hold sales where the strength or otherwise of the market will be more visible.

Christie's described its upcoming season as "one of the company's richest and most exciting," and expects to raise more than 250 million pounds ($410 million) over four weeks.

The company has opened an exhibition in London this week of more than 100 works to be offered to super-rich collectors and investors, including a drawing by Michelangelo and paintings by George Stubbs, Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso.

Also on display will be a sculpture by Dutch artist Adriaen de Vries discovered during a routine Christie's valuation at a European castle and expected to fetch 5-8 million pounds.

Christie's starts its main sales of the season on June 21 with an impressionist and modern art evening sale.

CHINESE BUBBLE?

Sotheby's expects its equivalent series to raise in excess of around 215 million pounds, including what it said could be a record auction price for Austrian artist Egon Schiele, whose cityscape goes under the hammer on June 22.

The painting is being sold by the Leopold Museum and is estimated to be worth up to 30 million pounds ($50 million) which would comfortably surpass the current Schiele record of $22.4 million.

A Venetian view by Francesco Guardi has been valued at around 20 million pounds and is the highlight of the Old Masters sale on July 6.

Experts said the art market has yet to regain the giddy heights of the boom that preceded the 2009 slump, although Chinese art has soared in value as wealthy new buyers compete for the top lots.

Recent examples include the $65 million paid last month for a work by Qi Baishi and the $69 million price tag on a Chinese vase dated from the 1740s, 40 times its estimate, at a sale in London in November.

Chinese collectors have also branched out into Western art and could be a major factor in the market over the coming month, although some analysts have warned of the risk of an unsustainable art rush developing.

Vikram Mansharamani, a lecturer at Yale University, recently drew comparisons between China's influence on the art market and that of Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when buyers there smashed auction records only for the boom to turn to bust.

"It reflects a national overconfidence that has been a consistent ingredient in financial bubbles," he wrote.

"Prudent investors would take great pride in selling at world record prices. Wanting to buy at world record prices is a spectacular reflection of hubris in action."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Steve Addison)

Monday, June 13, 2011

"The Book of Mormon" scoops Tony Awards

By Chris Michaud

NEW YORK | Mon Jun 13, 2011 7:47am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Irreverent musical "The Book of Mormon," an affectionate spoof about Mormons from the creators of the TV show, "South Park," scooped the major honors at the Tony Awards held on Sunday, winning nine awards.

The hit show about two young present-day Mormon missionaries sent to Uganda won some of the night's top awards including best musical, original score, best book, best direction and best actress in a featured role in a musical at the awards for Broadway's best musicals and plays.

"We did this because we all secretly wanted to have a big, happy Mormon family and now we do," said co-creator Trey Parker on stage, before jokingly thanking their "co-writer," the late Joseph Smith Jr., who founded the Latter Day Saint movement, saying, "You did it Joseph, you got the Tony!"

The British import to Broadway, "War Horse," adapted by Nick Stafford from the 1982 novel of the same name, which uses puppets to tell the story of World War I and a soldier's quest to find his horse and bring him home, won a total of five awards, including best play.

Actress Frances McDormand won best actress in a leading role in a play for her turn as a tough single mother in the play, "Good People," and in accepting her first Tony predicted her current role would become "an American classic," before adding emphatically, "I love my job."

Mark Rylance beat out Al Pacino to win the top acting award in a play for his turn in "Jerusalem," and rather than giving a traditional speech, recited an excerpt from an obscure Midwestern poet -- as he did when he won a Tony in 2008.

The awards were handed out at New York's Beacon Theater in a live televised event hosted by actor Neil Patrick Harris.

Other major winners included best play revival winner, "The Normal Heart," a semi-autobiographical play that focuses on the AIDS crisis, which premiered in 1985. It won three awards, including for actors Ellen Barkin and John Benjamin Hickey.

In accepting her Tony, Barkin, 57, said, "it's the proudest moment in my career. It has transformed me, not just as an actor but as a human being," while Hickey backstage called the revival "extraordinary" that "so many young, gay people and so many young, straight people are coming to see this play."

Its playwright Larry Kramer said on stage, "I could not have written it had not so many of us so needlessly died."

A revival of the musical, "Anything Goes," won three awards, led by best actress in a musical winner Sutton Foster, while John Larroquette won best featured role in a musical for "How to Success in Business Without Really Trying."

MORMON DOMINATION

But it was "The Book of Mormon" that dominated the night, winning nine of 14 nominations but falling short of beating the record of the Mel Brooks musical comedy, "The Producers," which won 12 Tony Awards after it opened in 2001.

"The Book of Mormon" also won for best lighting, scenery and sound design and orchestrations. Nikki M. James, who won a Tony for her role as a member of an African village, said backstage, "I knew when I read the script this was going to get a lot of attention."

The four Tony Awards won by Parker for "The Book of Mormon," -- which he co-created with Matt Stone from "South Park" and composer Robert Lopez -- tied the record for the most Tony awards in one night set by Joshua Logan for the original 1949 production of "South Pacific."

"I want to thank the 'South Park' fans. If it weren't for you guys, we wouldn't be here," Parker said on stage in sharing the award for best direction with Casey Nicholaw.

But the show's two lead actors lost the best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical to Norbert Leo Butz, who called his FBI agent role modeled on his own father in "Catch Me If You Can" his greatest role but "not easy."

The short-lived musical "The Scottsboro Boys" was shut out of the awards after receiving 12 nominations, as was "The Merchant of Venice" which starred Pacino.

The show featured sprinklings of jokes about the current beleaguered and injury-prone $65 million musical "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark," which was panned by critics in previews before being revamped with its official opening this week. It missed the deadline for this year's awards.

Rock star Bono, who wrote the show's music along with his bandmate, The Edge, joked on stage: "WE used to be famous for being in U2."

(Writing by Christine Kearney; Editing by David Lawder and Paul Simao)