Entertainment category, Page 248
George Romero documentary to debut Thursday
Zombies are as much a part of Pittsburgh’s cultural cachet as the Steelers and Primanti’s sandwiches. And we have George Romero to thank for that. The father of the modern zombie film, who began creating his horror classics in the Steel City in the late 1960s, is the subject of...
Wilkinsburg author Deesha Philyaw in running for 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Wilkinsburg author Deesha Philyaw is continuing to rack up literary accolades. Philyaw’s “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies” was named to the longlist for the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America’s largest peer-juried literary prize, on Tuesday. In October, Philyaw’s story collection was named a finalist in the fiction category...
Pittsburgh native Jamie Tarses, 1st female TV network entertainment head, dies at 56
Jamie Tarses, who helped bring “Friends” to NBC and broke the glass ceiling in network TV when she became the top entertainment executive at ABC, died Monday after suffering complications from a cardiac event last fall. She was 56. Tarses’ death was confirmed by her family. She was among the...
‘Saved by the Bell’ star Dustin Diamond dies of cancer at 44
“Saved by the Bell” star Dustin Diamond died Monday after a three-week fight with carcinoma, according to his representative. He was 44. “Dustin did not suffer. He did not have to lie submerged in pain. For that, we are grateful,” the actor’s spokesman, Roger Paul, said in a statement. Diamond,...
TV Talk: ‘The Chair’ adds to cast; WPXI may go off DirecTV, AT&T TV
Netflix’s latest series to film in Pittsburgh, “The Chair,” is rounding out its cast with the addition of several actors, including Philadelphia’s David Morse, who previously spent two seasons in Pittsburgh filming WGN America’s “Outsiders” and before that appeared in the filmed-in Pittsburgh Will Smith film “Concussion.” Most recently Morse...
Tony Bennett reveals battle with Alzheimer’s disease
NEW YORK — Tony Bennett has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease but it hasn’t quieted his legendary voice. The singer’s wife and son reveal in the latest edition of AARP The Magazine that Bennett was first diagnosed with the irreversible neurological disorder in 2016. The magazine says he endures “increasingly...
Carnegie Museum’s 1st podcast series looks at pros, cons of AI
Carnegie Museum of Art today is launching its first-ever podcast series, investigating the intersection of photography, surveillance and artificial intelligence. Each episode of the free, six-part series, “Mirror with a Memory,” will feature artists, writers and academics exploring a different facet of the conversation surrounding AI and photography. The host...
Botticelli painting sells for $92 million at auction in New York
NEW YORK — A small painting by Sandro Botticelli sold at Sotheby’s in New York for $92.2 million, an auction record for the Renaissance master. The work, “Young Man Holding a Roundel,” from about 1475, depicts a young nobleman holding a round painting of a saint. It is one of...
Rod Stewart lawyer: Plea deal in works in hotel altercation
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Rod Stewart and his son have worked out details for a plea deal to settle misdemeanor battery charges stemming from an altercation with a security guard at a posh Florida hotel, a lawyer for the rock icon says. Defense attorneys said Friday that Stewart and...
Sophie, Grammy-nominated Scottish musician, dies at age 34
LONDON — Sophie, the Grammy-nominated Scottish disc jockey, producer and recording artist who had worked with the likes of Madonna and Charli XCX, has died following an accident in the Greek capital of Athens. She was 34. In a statement, U.K. label Transgressive said the musician, whose full name was...
5 great Cloris Leachman screen performances
In May 2019 when actor Ed Asner came to Pittsburgh to perform in the “The Soap Myth” at Rodef Shalom, he spoke to the Tribune-Review about a number of topics including, of course, his time as Lou Grant on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” As a list of the show’s...
Robinson man wins home theater system on ‘Let’s Make a Deal’
Michael Murray is going to feel like a king watching movies in his new home theater. The Robinson man dressed like royalty to appear on today’s episode of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Offered a choice between $1,000 and something concealed behind a door, he made the right choice. He came...
TV Talk: Pittsburgh families renovate, go ‘Home Again with the Fords’ on HGTV
The Pittsburgh-set home renovation series “Restored by the Fords” morphs into “Home Again with the Fords” for a new season that premiered at 9 p.m. Tuesday on HGTV. Pittsburgh natives and siblings Leanne (the designer) and Steve (the builder) Ford refer to it as “Season 3-1” since it’s their third...
Freeport native Alex Isenberg making all the right moves
Freeport native Alex Isenberg had been dancing his way through life, landing professional gigs with celebrities such as Madonna and Liza Minnelli and performing around the world. Then the pandemic brought much of the entertainment industry to a halt. “No live shows, no filming, no in-person auditions, nothing,” said Isenberg,...
Cicely Tyson, groundbreaking award-winning actor, dies at 96Video
NEW YORK — Cicely Tyson, the pioneering Black actor who gained an Oscar nomination for her role as the sharecropper’s wife in “Sounder,” a Tony Award in 2013 at age 88 and touched TV viewers’ hearts in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” died Thursday at age 96. Tyson’s death...
Westmoreland-based Derek Woods Band wins national music awardVideo
“I really didn’t see that coming,” said musician Derek Woods about winning an award at Wednesday’s Hollywood Music in Media Awards. The Westmoreland-based Derek Woods Band took honors for Americana/Folk/Singer Songwriter Song of the Year for “Unforgiving Tree” during a livestreamed program that Woods and his band mates watched from...
Greasepaint Players’ ‘Beauty and the Beast Jr.’ plans livestream, live audience
Greensburg Civic Theatre’s Greasepaint Players are working on a production of “Beauty and the Beast Jr.” to play for both livestream and in-person audiences. About having a live audience, director Becky Ziegler Koch said, “People might say, ‘Why are you doing this now?’ But we thought it was important to...
TV Talk: Weekend anchor Brittany Hoke leaves WTAE-TV
WTAE-TV weekend evening anchor/reporter Brittany Hoke announced on her Facebook page she chose to walk away from her “dream job” at Channel 4 in favor of “freedom.” In her lengthy post, Hoke wrote there are “a lot of” reasons for her departure — she does not name them — but...
Stamp honoring August Wilson will be dedicated through virtual ceremony
A Forever stamp honoring award-winning playwright August Wilson will be dedicated today by the U.S. Postal Service. The virtual ceremony can be viewed starting at 11:30 a.m. on the postal service’s Facebook and Twitter pages. “August Wilson was an American trailblazer and literary genius who richly deserves this recognition as...
Interest continues to grow in inaugural poet Amanda Gorman
Within hours of Amanda Gorman’s reading of the inaugural poem last week, bookstores were hearing from their customers. “Hopefully this will be a bridge that brings a lot of people to poetry,” says Mike Wysock, who manages The Book Stall in Winnetka, Illinois. Interest in the 22-year-old Gorman and demand...
TV Talk: Media companies prioritize streaming services over cable
If one thing became clear about the TV business in the past year, it’s that media conglomerates are more interested in their streaming services than in their legacy broadcast and cable networks. Viewers can see it in the diminishing number of original series on basic cable networks (particularly among scripted...
Pittsburgh to honor local jazz musicians virtually for Black History Month
Pittsburgh jazz legend Roger Humphries marches to his own beat. The musician from Pittsburgh’s North Side began playing the drums at the age of 3. He wanted to be like his older brothers. “Music is in my blood,” said Humphries, who turns 77 on Saturday. “I recall lying on the...
Oscar and Emmy-winning actor Cloris Leachman dies at 94Video
LOS ANGELES — Cloris Leachman, an Oscar-winner for her portrayal of a lonely housewife in “The Last Picture Show” and a comedic delight as the fearsome Frau Blücher in “Young Frankenstein” and neighbor Phyllis on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” has died. She was 94. Leachman died in her sleep...
Black artists’ work creates ‘constellation’ in Downtown Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh-based fashion designer Tereneh Idia says she’s been thinking about constellations since visiting the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. “I’ve been obsessed with the idea of how constellations are made and how we identify constellations in space,” she said. “I saw that there are peoples of these countries...
Munhall comic book creator Ed Piskor launching horror title ‘Red Room’Video
Munhall’s Ed Piskor knows his new comic book series “Red Room” isn’t for everybody. The gore-soaked, sci-fi/horror monthly series launches in May. Here’s the synopsis of “Red Room”: “In Red Room, criminals livestream murders on the dark web for fun and profit. The series will be told through a series...
