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    Kirstie Alley, Emmy-Winning ‘Cheers’ Actress, Dies at 71

    She also starred in the NBC sitcom “Veronica’s Closet,” which aired from 1997 to 2000.Kirstie Alley, the actress whose breakout role as the career-minded Rebecca Howe in the sitcom “Cheers” catapulted her career and earned her an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe, died on Monday. She was 71.The cause was cancer, according to a statement from her family on Twitter.Ms. Alley quickly won over millions of viewers while playing Rebecca in “Cheers,” the timeless NBC show that ran for 11 seasons in the 1980s and ’90s. She had stepped in to replace Shelley Long in the ensemble cast in 1987, at the height of the series’ popularity, and remained through the final season.Critics noted how Ms. Alley had brought a refreshing new dynamic to the character, with scripts giving her a more fun arc that helped create a “denser joke machine,” as one writer noted. At times, Rebecca, who managed the bar in the show, appeared to be a hapless and gold-digging mess. In other moments, Ms. Alley portrayed Rebecca with a faux-bravado, and with an attitude of indifference to others romantic advances.Her character gradually evolved from being a corporate-pleasing manager to a full-fledged, genial member of the gang who was perky yet perpetually disappointed.In an interview with “Entertainment Tonight” in 2019, Ms. Alley looked back on her “Cheers” years as a somewhat chaotic time, with all kinds of misbehavior being the norm on a set that included co-stars like Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson.“We never paid attention, we were always in trouble,” she said. “We never showed up on time.”Kirstie Alley with Ted Danson, left, and Woody Harrelson in “Cheers.”Photo by Kim Gottlieb Walker/NBCU via Getty ImagesIn addition to her 1991 Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for “Cheers,” Ms. Alley also won the 1994 Emmy for lead actress in a mini-series for the title role in “David’s Mother,” a drama about a mother who raises her autistic son alone.Ms. Alley, who acted regularly for about four decades, also starred in the NBC sitcom “Veronica’s Closet,” which ran from 1997 to 2000. Her character was the successful head of a lingerie company.Marta Kauffman, a creator and an executive producer of “Veronica’s Closet,” said of Ms. Alley in 1997: “She is crazy most of the time, and I mean that in the best sense of the word.”Ms. Alley was born on Jan. 12, 1951, in Wichita, Kan., where she was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She was particularly close with her grandfather, a lumber-company owner.She attended Kansas State University but dropped out to become an interior decorator. Around that time, she developed an addiction to cocaine.She eventually moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in Narconon, a rehabilitation program affiliated with the Church of Scientology.When asked by Barbara Walters in 1992 why she had joined a religion with a problematic past, Ms. Alley said that she had “not come across anything” negative.“It answered a lot of questions for me,” Ms. Alley said in 1997 of the church. “I was a pretty able person. I wasn’t looking for something like that. But I wanted to get rid of the barriers keeping me from what I wanted, to be an actress. It’s just part of my life.”While living in Los Angeles, Ms. Alley began to take an interest in acting. In 1982, she made her film debut in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” playing a half-Vulcan, half-Romulan lieutenant with pointy ears.In 1989, she starred alongside John Travolta in the film “Look Who’s Talking,” a comedy in which a baby’s thoughts are narrated by Bruce Willis. Vincent Canby, who reviewed the movie in The Times, wrote that “cute” was the “operative word” for a movie that starred “some good actors doing material that is not super.”In 2005, Ms. Alley shifted her attention to a mock-reality show about her weight. She said at the time that the show, “Fat Actress,” drew from her experience as a woman in Hollywood who did not meet the industry’s stereotypically slim beauty standards. Another show, “Kirstie Alley’s Big Life,” also focused on Ms. Alley’s weight-loss journey.Ms. Alley was married to Bob Alley, and the two eventually divorced. A later marriage to Parker Stevenson also ended in divorce.She is survived by her two children, True and Lillie Parker. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.Ms. Alley told The New York Times in 1997 that she had sought out TV series throughout her career in order to have a normal schedule and be closer to her family.“It’s the best life style,” Ms. Alley said. More

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    Review: ‘The Far Country’ Brings a Neglected History Closer

    Early 20th-century San Francisco and Guangdong, China, overlap in Lloyd Suh’s artful examination of the emotional price of immigration.A young man in a fine suit outlines the terms of the deal: The ocean crossing will be maddening, the detention that follows worse. Even assuming release, a person of Chinese descent will feel no welcome in America. The “Gold Mountain” that has been promised? It’s a mirage. And yet, if one wishes to pay for passage, the young man will offer — for a very high price — his American name and scant protection.This is the devil’s bargain at the center of Lloyd Suh’s fluid, artful “The Far Country,” at the Atlantic Theater Company. Set in the early decades of the 20th century, in both China’s Guangdong Province and San Francisco, it examines the cost — literal and emotional — of immigration. Those who have suffered in their pursuit of a larger, more prosperous life might, the play suggests, inflict that same suffering on others. Then again, they might also find redemption.The drama, directed with sensitivity and spirit by Eric Ting, begins in 1909. Han Sang Gee (Jinn S. Kim) sits at a table in an interrogation room. A more recent iteration of the Chinese Exclusion Act has made his citizenship tenuous, and Gee must substantiate his American birth. He has difficulty proving his status to a skeptical white interrogator (Christopher Liam Moore), as his papers have been destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake. But a sympathetic interpreter (Whit K. Lee) gives him subtle aid. (Translation is another interest of Suh’s.)Most spectators’ sympathies will incline immediately toward Gee, owing both to Kim’s sturdy affability and to our innate compassion for anyone demeaned or distrusted by officialdom. But Suh and Ting aren’t interested in easy answers; there’s a more sophisticated moral calculus at play here.Citizenship is, among other things, a moneymaking tool. Its possession will lead Gee to China, where he can offer others the chance at an American life, however constricted that life may be. In Guangdong, Gee encounters a widow (Amy Kim Waschke) and her teenage son, Moon Gyet (Eric Yang, in an impressive Off Broadway debut). Moon Gyet, in his turn, will make a vexed proposal to a young woman (Shannon Tyo, a Suh regular, always dynamic).Clint Ramos’s set, with shadowed illumination by Jiyoun Chang, appears simple at first: a square platform backed by a dark mirror. But no element — walls, floor, mirror — is exactly what it seems. Like our sympathies, the set shifts and shifts again. Fan Zhang’s rumbling sound design suggests layers below the surface.As with Clint Ramos’s shifting set, no element of Ting’s production is exactly as it seems.Richard Termine for The New York TimesAt the center of the play’s overlapping worlds is Angel Island, a detention center that opened in 1910 as a curb to immigration. The majority of its detainees were Chinese men, men like Moon Gyet, who undergoes his own interrogation there. Some eventually gained entry; others were deported. In 1970, nearly three decades after the center had closed, a park ranger discovered poems etched into its walls, lyrics of despair and love that had re-emerged from beneath putty and paint. Here is one: “Nights are long and the pillow cold; who can pity my loneliness?/After experiencing such loneliness and sorrow,/Why not just return home and learn to plow the fields?”Like Suh’s other plays (“The Chinese Lady,” “Charlie Francis Chan Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery”), “The Far Country” meditates on ethnicity and identity. It is also an act, loving and sorrowful, of reclamation, salvaging the history of early generations of Chinese Americans. These men left their fields for the same reason almost any immigrant does: the promise of a better life. Suh is specific in his imagining of the particulars of the Chinese American, but as America is a nation of immigrants, there is space here for others (including others like me, whose great-great-grandparents came from Eastern Europe) to trace vestiges of their own histories.“The Far Country” ends in 1930. That ending isn’t necessarily abrupt. But it does feel somewhat arbitrary. Why not 1950? Or 1970? There is so much more history to recover. More love. More promise. More pain. Moon Gyet claims that the strenuous physical labor required of an immigrant is nothing compared with the work of being Chinese in America. This takes patience and focus, he says. A serious mind and a necessary grace. Suh possesses these qualities in full. He has more work to do, more stories to tell.The Far CountryThrough Jan. 1 at the Linda Gross Theater, Manhattan; atlantictheater.org. Running time: 2 hours. More

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    Review: ‘A Beautiful Noise’ Spotlights a Morose Neil Diamond

    In the new Broadway show, Will Swenson plays the superstar, who seems perpetually dissatisfied, as if on a quest — but for what?For decades, Neil Diamond was on top of the world. He toured arenas packed with shrieking fans. He wrote “Sweet Caroline,” an irresistible anthem that continues to trigger Pavlovian singalongs — a feat that would delight most performers, but Diamond didn’t leave it at that and was a prolific hit machine.A 1986 profile in The New York Times described him in these words: “Olympian aspiration, raw aggression and agonizing self-doubt.”As unlikely as this might sound, it is that last trait that forms the narrative engine of “A Beautiful Noise, the Neil Diamond Musical,” the ambitious, often rousing, occasionally heavy-handed biographical show that opened on Broadway on Sunday at the Broadhurst Theater. We meet a superstar with no confidence, despite being known to engage the beast mode in concert and prowling stages in tight pants and a wide-open satin shirt. He seems perpetually dissatisfied, as if on a fruitless quest — but for what? What gnaws at him?To answer those questions, the book writer, Anthony McCarten, put Diamond on the couch, or more exactly in an armchair: “A Beautiful Noise,” directed by Michael Mayer, is framed as an extensive therapy session between the aging singer (Mark Jacoby) and a psychologist (Linda Powell).Diamond is there because his wife Katie — spoiler alert: she’s the third one — and kids forced his hand. Apparently Diamond is “a little hard to live with these days,” we’re told. Maybe his family is frustrated by his grouchiness and poor interpersonal communication skills, at least based on his laconic sullenness with the doctor. When she presses him for insights, he curtly says, “I put everything I have into my songs.” Fine, then let’s see what they have to tell us about the man who wrote them.Mark Jacoby, seated left, as Neil Diamond and Linda Powell, seated right, as his therapist in the musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnd so Diamond makes a second entrance, but now he is in his prime and portrayed by Will Swenson (“Les Misérables,” “Assassins”) in a gravity-defying statement pompadour. This is a swaggering coif that means business, but it is contradicted by the 1965 Diamond’s passive posture and apologetic stammering.As the doctor and the older singer revisit his catalog — often commenting on the action from their chairs, like a double vision of the narrator in “The Drowsy Chaperone” — we retrace Diamond’s journey, starting with his early days at the Brill Building. One of the influential American hit factories, the location also played a key role in “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” and it’s where the mighty Ellie Greenwich (an amusingly perky Bri Sudia) starts mentoring the shy young man from Brooklyn in the mid-1960s.Diamond, after writing hits for others, like “I’m a Believer” for the Monkees, sets out to perform his own material, with smashing results. In one of the most entertaining episodes, he signs with Bang Records, a mob-associated label run by Bert Berns (Tom Alan Robbins), himself a songwriter good enough to earn his own tribute musical, “Piece of My Heart.”By the end of the ’60s, Diamond was a serial chart-topper; by the early ’70s, he had mutated into the Lord Byron of soft rock, all strutting gloom and troubled romanticism. That turning point is when Swenson, a stage veteran and Tony nominee for the 2009 Broadway revival of “Hair,” really takes ownership of the role. While he doesn’t entirely let go during the concert scenes — a common issue with Broadway performers playing rockers — Swenson gets close to Diamond’s swaggering sexuality and delivers hit after hit with a relaxed confidence: “Sweet Caroline,” of course, and especially “Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show.” But there is no “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon,” the epitome of Diamond in his louche Lee Hazlewood mode, which could have really spiced up a musical that can feel timid; likewise, the show’s title echoes Diamond’s 1976 album and one can’t help but wonder what would have happened if his 1968 LP “Velvet Gloves and Spit” had inspired McCarten instead.In any case, the superstar continues seeking, especially love. While still married to his first wife, Jaye (Jessie Fisher), he falls for Marcia (Robyn Hurder, channeling Ann-Margret). The latter gets some of the numbers directly connecting a character’s motivation or emotion with a song — she sings “Forever in Blue Jeans,” for example, when feeling neglected by her constantly touring husband.Robyn Hurder as Marcia and Will Swenson as the younger Diamond.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut much of the time McCarten — who wrote the screenplays for the Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” and whose play “The Collaboration” opens on Broadway later this month — refrains from shoehorning new meaning into existing lyrics by manipulating the context in which the songs are used, à la “Mamma Mia!” Many of this show’s most effective moments simply use the songs as surface signposts, an approach that defeats the purported point of the book but reflects the way many listeners experience pop music: We associate it with events and moods, recall what was happening when a hit came on the radio or when we attended a concert.One such scene is Diamond’s debut at the Bitter End. He performs “Solitary Man” and the audience members, sitting at nightclub tables, slowly lean forward, like flowers drawn to the sun. This is the most striking example of Steven Hoggett’s subtle choreography, which to its credit looks like nothing else on Broadway right now: The movement is fluidly, organically incorporated into the scenes, rather than awkwardly grafted onto them.As Diamond sharpens his live persona in Act II, David Rockwell’s set, until then dominated by hanging lamps, morphs into a “Hollywood Squares”-like concert stage that incorporates the orchestra. (Considering how energized Diamond was when performing, having to retire from touring in 2018 because of Parkinson’s disease must have been especially painful.) It all looks and sounds great, but the clock is ticking — therapy! — and we are no closer to understanding the real Neil.Until, at long last, the older singer cracks and stops obfuscating. Naturally, the source of his discontent can be found in his childhood, and the show finally makes the essential connection between Diamond’s artistry and his roots, including his Jewishness. By that point it feels rushed and not quite earned, not to mention a little too nakedly sentimental.And yet, the beating heart of “A Beautiful Noise” is that sequence, featuring “Brooklyn Roads” and “America” leading into “Shilo,” which becomes Diamond’s Rosebud and is performed with almost unbearable grace by the ensemble member Jordan Dobson. Never mind: naked sentimentality is just fine.A Beautiful NoiseAt the Broadhurst Theater, Manhattan; abeautifulnoisethemusical.com. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. More

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    ‘Fat Ham,’ a Pulitzer-Winning Riff on ‘Hamlet,’ Is Broadway-Bound

    The play, by James Ijames, will be at the American Airlines Theater starting March 21.“Fat Ham,” a comedic and contemporary riff on “Hamlet” set in a backyard in the American South, will transfer to Broadway next spring, one year after winning the Pulitzer Prize in drama.The play, by James Ijames, is about a family that, like the royal family in Shakespeare’s story, centers on a lonely young college student unsettled by his mother’s decision to marry her dead husband’s brother. But in this version, Ijames seeks to use comedy and his own plot twists to challenge the cycle of violence. (Also, in this version, the family is Black, and the young man is gay.)The Pulitzer board described “Fat Ham” as “a funny, poignant play that deftly transposes ‘Hamlet’ to a family barbecue in the American South to grapple with questions of identity, kinship, responsibility and honesty.”The play had an initial production online, at the height of the pandemic, filmed by the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, where Ijames is one of three artistic directors. Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times, called the show “hilarious yet profound” and said “it is the rare takeoff that actually takes off — and then flies in its own smart direction.”The play then had a run earlier this year at the Public Theater in New York, co-produced by the National Black Theater. Maya Phillips, a critic-at-large for The Times, also praised the work, writing, “For all that Ijames dismantles in Shakespeare’s original text, he builds it back up into something that’s more — more tragic but also more joyous, more comedic, more political, more contemporary.”The Broadway production will feature the same cast as at the Public, directed by Saheem Ali, who is an associate artistic director at the Public, and starring Marcel Spears as the Hamlet figure, Juicy. The production is scheduled to begin previews March 21 and to open April 12 at the American Airlines Theater.“I feel really proud, and excited that it’s going to reach a larger audience,” Ijames said in an interview. “This play is for people who are looking for a new path, people who are trying to figure out how to talk to their family about difficult things, queer people who want to see their reflection, Black people who want to see their reflection, people who love Shakespeare and folks who have never seen a Shakespeare play. It’s for everyone.”Ijames said he has made some minor changes to the script for Broadway, but the more significant changes will be to the staging, as it shifts from an amphitheater-like setup at the Public to the more traditional proscenium theater at the American Airlines. Ali said he would seek to preserve the show’s sense of a communal gathering, as well as its elements of supernatural magic, as it moves to the larger venue.The show will be the first National Black Theater production to transfer to Broadway, and only the third play to transfer to Broadway from any Black theater, according to a news release.The show will also be the first produced by Public Theater Productions, which is a for-profit subsidiary of the nonprofit Public Theater. Under that structure, the Public could make money if “Fat Ham” turns a profit, but the nonprofit has no liability if the show loses money, and no donor funds are involved. A similar financing structure has in the past been used by the Manhattan Theater Club, another prominent New York nonprofit.Also producing the show are Rashad V. Chambers, a talent manager who has previous producing credits on a number of Broadway shows, including “Topdog/Underdog,” and No Guarantees, which is the production company led by Christine Schwarzman, an intellectual-property lawyer who has also been actively investing in Broadway for several years. Although the American Airlines Theater is operated by the nonprofit Roundabout Theater Company, “Fat Ham” is a commercial production; Roundabout will offer the show to its subscribers, but is not among the show’s producers.One unusual bit of trivia: “Fat Ham” will be the sixth Pulitzer Prize-winning play to open on Broadway this season, following “Cost of Living,” “Death of a Salesman,” “The Piano Lesson,” “Topdog/Underdog” and “Between Riverside and Crazy.” (Additionally, two Pulitzer-winning musicals that opened during previous seasons are currently running on Broadway: “Hamilton” and “A Strange Loop.”) More

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    Review: ‘Becky Nurse of Salem’ Brings the Witches but Forgets the Magic

    Deirdre O’Connell shines as a modern-day descendant of an accused witch in Sarah Ruhl’s unfocused new play at Lincoln Center Theater.A wax statue of a 17th-century Salem woman stands at the center of the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater’s spare stage. We’re in the Salem Museum of Witchcraft, and this woman, wearing a fearsome scowl and a black frock, was one of the victims of the town’s infamous witch trials.If that brings to mind your English class lesson on Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” or what Becky, a Salem museum tour guide, dismissively refers to as her town’s “goddamn Christmas pageant,” that’s part of the intention of this new Sarah Ruhl play, “Becky Nurse of Salem.” The Lincoln Center Theater production, which was directed by Rebecca Taichman and opened on Sunday, brings in the witches but forgets the magic.Becky (Deirdre O’Connell), who introduces herself to the audience as descendant of the wax woman, Rebecca Nurse, goes off script delivering a colorful, expletive-ridden summary of Miller’s work to a tour group. On another tour, she sets the record straight on “The Crucible”: Abigail, the young woman who supposedly seduced the older, married John Proctor, wasn’t 17 as rendered in the play, but 11. And that one of Miller’s personal inspirations for the work was his lust for the younger Marilyn Monroe.After Becky is fired for her improvisations, she turns to a local witch (Candy Buckley) for help. One spell leads to another, and soon Becky is magically manipulating her interpersonal relationships, including those with her longtime friend (and crush) Bob (Bernard White) and her granddaughter, Gail (Alicia Crowder), who has been hospitalized for depression.When Becky isn’t dealing with the repercussions of using hocus-pocus to fix her life, she’s conversing with her dead daughter or stepping into Rebecca’s memories. And the play is strongest in these scenes, when it bridges Rebecca Nurse’s witch trial with Becky Nurse’s contemporary witchcraft.O’Connell, left, and Alicia Crowder as Gail. Riccardo Hernández’s spare set design leaves a lot to the imagination.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn her afterword to the play, Ruhl (“In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play,” “The Clean House”) writes, “I thought that I would end up writing my own historical drama about the Salem witch trials, but every time I tried to dip my toe into the 17th century my pen came back and told me to stay in my own era.” That bit of authorial indeterminacy, unfortunately, is apparent in the script, whose disparate elements are like individual puzzle pieces rather than one cohesive portrait.The technical elements also feel incongruous. The folky original music, composed by the singer-songwriter Suzzy Roche, is too sentimental for the show’s tone. And the lighting, a range of flashy disco-magic hues and otherworldly flickering designed by Barbara Samuels, comes across as too enchanting for a staging that is short on whimsy. Riccardo Hernández’s set design leaves a lot to the imagination — a large black feathered wing is suspended from the ceiling, while an unadorned stage with a cedar clapboard back wall evokes the forest.Set during the Trump presidency, “Becky Nurse of Salem” obliquely comments on the ways women are portrayed and judged in society. The most exciting part of this work is halfway through, when the cast, all in Puritan garb, circle Becky, now Rebecca, chanting “lock her up.” Suddenly the play becomes frightening, the stakes more immediate. But soon the references are dropped and the play moves on.Then there are Becky’s more existential issues: She feels trapped in her hometown, facing limited job prospects, being in love with her married best friend, and trying to raise a granddaughter. Also in the mix is opioid addiction, which has rocked Becky’s family.The more realistic bits of Becky’s story feel like little more than loose sketches of characters and circumstances, and there’s a lack of chemistry among cast members. Her boss at the museum, Shelby (Tina Benko), is a sneering academic with little empathy. Bob is the sweet friend who’s always loved her. Gail is the grieving teenager who wants to both connect with and liberate herself from Becky. And Stan (Julian Sanchez), Gail’s new morose, goth boyfriend, seems to be there to provide another conflict in Gail and Becky’s relationship.O’Connell, who won a Tony this year for her performance in Lucas Hnath’s “Dana H.,” elevates the not quite three-dimensional Becky, giving her a rough-around-the-edges New England charm — along with the nasal, r-dropping accent to match.The production, under Taichman’s tepid direction, is full of short scenes whose transitions have the cast quickly and unceremoniously rolling furniture on and off the set. O’Connell carries much of the humor, but otherwise the show’s comic timing is oddly off, and flat attempts at laughs, like the witch’s unique pronunciations of words like “oil” (“ull”), are unrelenting.In its final minutes, “Becky Nurse of Salem” tries to wrest its themes together via a heartfelt monologue and a cloying ritual. But by that time it’s too late. The play spends two hours dancing around a vaguely defined feminist message. That’s the very problem in this production: It hasn’t figured out the spell that will bring real magic to the stage.Becky Nurse of SalemThrough Dec. 31 at Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, Manhattan; lct.org. Running time: 2 hours. More

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    Gary Oldman Found James Dean and His Wife at a Gallery

    The Oscar-winning star of “Slow Horses” on Apple TV+ likes comedians in dramas, makes photos the hard way and is still discovering the Beatles.The actor Gary Oldman knows a few things about playing spies.He picked up the first of his three Oscar nominations for his portrayal of George Smiley, the agent at the heart of the 2011 movie “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” which was adapted from John le Carré’s thriller by the same name. (He won in 2018, for “The Darkest Hour.”)In the Apple TV+ series “Slow Horses,” based on Mick Herron’s “Slough House” novels, Oldman is a similarly unglamorous spy, one of several dealing with divorce, alcoholism, gambling problems and other misfortunes. As Oldman said in a phone interview last month, they are far from “that rather sort of glossy world of Jason Bourne and James Bond.”There is certainly no gloss to Oldman’s character, Jackson Lamb, a perpetually rumpled and frequently drunk MI5 agent who oversees spies tucked away for being embarrassing or otherwise undesirable. But Oldman has decided to spend more time with him than with any other character in his more than 40-year career.“He publicly humiliates. He’s provocative. He’s deliberately confrontational. He’s all of those things,” he said. “And yet, he has an incredible sort of moral compass, and he’s very loyal, and I think that is sort of, if you like, redeeming.”Season 2 of “Slow Horses” premiered Friday, while the third season is in production. (A fourth has been ordered.) Oldman talked about the books he’s giving for Christmas, the music he makes on his iPhone and the plays he performs on Zoom. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Richard Miller I collect photographs. Once, I was looking for a print of a photograph of James Dean on a break during the shooting of “Giant,” sitting on a sofa, reading a Look magazine with Elizabeth Taylor on the cover. Next to him on the sofa is Elizabeth Taylor, with her head on his arm, asleep. I went over to the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles to see if they had a print. I described it but said I didn’t know who it was by. A voice behind me said, “Oh, that’s Richard Miller.” I turned around and met the gallery’s director, Gisele Schmidt, who is now my wife.2. “The Dumb Waiter” I’ve had a chance to work with a wonderful actor and a lovely man lately called Arliss Howard. We recently got onto Zoom and read “The Dumb Waiter,” a one-act play by Harold Pinter about a pair of hit men. We did it for ourselves — you know, just keeping your hand in the game. I don’t know if it’ll go anywhere. Maybe Arliss and I will do it one of these days.3. iPhone Music Recordings Again, purely for the hell of it, a friend in Canada and I have been recording songs by David Bowie, who was a very good friend of mine. We send tracks back and forth to each other by email and text. I’ll put down, say, the piano track, and he’ll put guitar on it. You’ll be amazed what you can do with an iPhone. When you hear these tracks put together, you would think they were recorded live in a studio with a band.4. London’s National Portrait Gallery The National Portrait Gallery, the Imperial War Museums, the National Gallery — these are all places that are part of growing up in England. They’ve always been there. Always been accessible. Every time I go back to the National Portrait Gallery, I see new things.5. The Beatles A friend of mine, the painter George Blacklock, always says that if you could look at a painting and get it all in five minutes, then it wouldn’t be worth painting it. They reveal new things to you over time. I feel that way about the Beatles. My God, the artistry. I am constantly in awe and total admiration for what they achieved.6. John le Carré John le Carré had an eye for detail that I think is quite remarkable. “Tinker, Tailor,” for me, is the jewel in the crown of his writing. But I liked one of his next George Smiley novels, “Smiley’s People,” very much. We were going to do it. It never happened, for a variety of reasons, but I would’ve loved to have revisited George again.7. Stella Adler The other day, I was talking to Saskia Reeves — who plays Catherine Standish on “Slow Horses” — about the many methods and techniques of acting. She’s sort of from the Stanislavski school, as many of us are, and she was talking about Uta Hagen and, I think, Sanford Meisner, but she was sort of unfamiliar with the great actor and teacher Stella Adler. So I think the book “Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov” will be in Saskia’s Christmas stocking.8. Comedic Actors Working on Dramas I loved “The Patient” with Steve Carell and happen to think he’s a really wonderful dramatic actor. I also liked “Severance.” I was shocked to see that some episodes were directed by Ben Stiller. I knew he’d directed before, but it was really quite masterful. Sometimes we go: “Oh my God, this person can be funny and be dramatic!” And yet, for years, the wonderful Jack Lemmon bounced between the two.9. Family Christmas This year, we’re having Christmas at the house, and it’s our first big, big, big Christmas. We have 14 for Christmas Day and five dogs. So, it’s going to be a houseful. We’re going to try and coax my son Charlie into making his carbonara.10. Wet-Plate Photography I started learning about the wet-plate photography process when I was writing a script about the 19th-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge. I made one good plate and thought, “I’ve been searching all my life for this — why haven’t I discovered it earlier?” I find it incredibly satisfying, and it takes me away from my main job. More

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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘His Dark Materials’ and the People’s Choice Awards

    The third and final season of “His Dark Materials” begins on HBO. And the 2022 People’s Choice Awards air on NBC.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Dec. 5 -11. Details and times are subject to change.MondayHIS DARK MATERIALS 9 p.m. on HBO. Following the trilogy structure of the Philip Pullman novels on which it is based, the fantasy series “His Dark Materials” is slated to end after its new, third season, which debuts on Monday. The first season introduced Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen), a runaway living in an authoritarian fantasy world who is pulled into a quest that involves multiple realities. The second season ended on the brink of a war. Reviewing the first season for The New York Times, James Poniewozik wrote that the show conjures a spectacle without losing sight of the weightier ideas of the source material. It “has a more rebellious, questioning outlook — adolescent, in a good way — than some other fantasy sagas,” he wrote. “Where the Harry Potter series and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ presumed that the ruling institutions were essentially good, if vulnerable to corruption, ‘His Dark Materials’ suggests that its theocracy is rotten all the way up.”TuesdayKenan Thompson at the 2021 People’s Choice Awards. He will return to host this year’s show.Alberto Rodriquez/E! Entertainment/NBCPEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS 9 p.m. on NBC. Kenan Thompson returns for a second consecutive year to host the People’s Choice Awards. The show casts a large net, handing out prizes in movies, TV, music and general pop-culture categories. It’s a looser affair than the Oscars, Grammys or Emmys: “Social celebrity of 2022” is one honor here, and nominees for the top movies category include “Jurassic World Dominion,” which you’re probably unlikely to find in the running for best picture at the Academy Awards.CASABLANCA (1942) 10:15 p.m. on TCM. The perennial best-of-list classic “Casablanca” premiered in New York on Nov. 26, 1942, but decades later, its story of wartime love and displacement still has plenty to say. New Yorkers can pair an 80th-anniversary viewing with a trip to the Neue Galerie in Manhattan, where a showcase of memorabilia spotlights the Central European exiles who made the movie.WednesdayTITANIC (1997) 8 p.m. on Paramount Network. James Cameron is set to return to theaters next week with the sci-fi sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water.” For a refresher on Cameron’s special ability to create a spectacle, revisit his “Titanic,” with Kate Winslet (who is also in “Avatar: The Way of Water”) and Leonardo DiCaprio.ThursdayFrom left, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan and Eliza Scanlen in “Little Women.”Wilson Webb/Columbia PicturesLITTLE WOMEN (2019) 3 p.m. on FXM. Greta Gerwig adapted Louisa May Alcott’s 19th-century novel “Little Women” for a new generation with this film version, in which Gerwig moves between the four March Sisters — played here by Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan and Eliza Scanlen — as adults and as younger versions of themselves, creating something of a before and after coming-of-age story. In his review for The Times, A.O. Scott said that this adaptation can appeal to both fans of Alcott’s book and newcomers. “Without resorting to self-conscious anachronism or fussy antiquarianism,” Scott wrote, “Gerwig has fashioned a story that feels at once entirely true to its 19th-century origins and utterly modern.”OCEAN’S ELEVEN (2001) 5:15 p.m. on TNT. When the director Steven Soderbergh released this blockbuster heist movie remake in 2001, the review in The Times by the critic Elvis Mitchell referred to the film’s cast as “a Who’s Who of People magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive.” George Clooney and Brad Pitt were in it. Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and Andy Garcia, too. And of course, don’t forget Carl Reiner. These days, “Ocean’s Eleven,” which places a group of thieves in a Las Vegas casino-robbing plot, makes for a taut 2000s time capsule. TNT will show it on Thursday in a marathon alongside its contemporary sequels — though the more interesting pairing might involve watching this version with the 1960 original, which has Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin in its cast, and airs Friday on TCM at 3:45 p.m.CMA COUNTRY CHRISTMAS 9 p.m. on ABC. The country-pop singer-songwriter Carly Pearce will host the 13th edition of this annual Christmastime special. The lineup of performers includes Maren Morris, the War and Treaty, Molly Tuttle and Steven Curtis Chapman.FridayELLA WISHES YOU A SWINGING CHRISTMAS WITH VANESSA WILLIAMS 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The singer Vanessa Williams and the American Pops Orchestra pay tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and her classic album of jazzy Christmas music in this hourlong special. The program originally aired in 2020, the 60th anniversary of the album, but, like the album it celebrates, it has evergreen appeal as a seasonal treat.SaturdayFrom left, Christian Bale, John David Washington, and Margot Robbie in “Amsterdam.”20th Century StudiosAMSTERDAM (2022) 7:45 p.m. on HBO. Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington play three friends pulled into an over-the-top murder conspiracy in 1930s Europe in this crackpot mystery from David O. Russell (“American Hustle”). The plot kicks off with a dead man, and an autopsy that leaves questions unanswered. What follows is “a handsome period romp,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The Times, “a 1930s screwball pastiche filled with mugging performers who charm and seduce as they run around chasing down a mystery, playing detective, tripping over their feet and navigating an international conspiracy that is best enjoyed if you don’t pay it too much attention.”SundayNATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING: CELEBRATING 100 YEARS 8 p.m. on CBS. The annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Washington dates back to the presidency of Calvin Coolidge. The 2022 ceremony, which took place Nov. 30 and will be broadcast on Sunday, two weeks before the holiday, includes performances by LL Cool J, Shania Twain, Yolanda Adams, Ariana DeBose, the United States Marine Band and more.MASTER OF GLASS: THE ART OF DALE CHIHULY 9 p.m. on Smithsonian Channel. With colorful, dizzying glass works often installed far outside the walls of museums, the artist Dale Chihuly, 81, has for decades been one of the most recognizable artists of his generation. His life has also included well-documented physical and mental struggles. This program looks at Chihuly’s career. More

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    Bob McGrath, Longtime ‘Sesame Street’ Star, Dies at 90

    He was an original cast member who, for nearly half a century, played a sweater-clad and easygoing music teacher who dispensed advice.Bob McGrath, who played the sweater-clad neighborhood music teacher and general advice-giver on “Sesame Street” for almost half a century, died at his home in New Jersey on Sunday morning. He was 90.Mr. McGrath’s daughter Cathlin McGrath confirmed his death by email on Sunday. She said Mr. McGrath died from complications after a stroke. She said that the night before Mr. McGrath passed, his family had decorated his room for Christmas, and sung and danced around him. “We just knew that he wanted to go the way he lived.”Mr. McGrath wasn’t particularly interested when an old Phi Gamma Delta fraternity brother stopped him one night to tell him about his new project, a children’s show on public television. But then he had never heard of Jim Henson, the puppeteer, and he had never seen a Muppet. After his first meeting and a look at some of the animation, he knew this show would be different.“Sesame Street” had its premiere in November 1969, with Mr. McGrath and other cast members gathered around an urban brownstone stoop, in front of the building’s dark green doors, beside its omnipresent collection of metal garbage cans. His character, conveniently and coincidentally named Bob, was reliably smiling, easygoing and polite, whether he was singing about “People in Your Neighborhood” (the butcher, the baker, the lifeguard), discussing everyday concerns with young humans and Muppets, or taking a day trip to Grouchytown with Oscar the Grouch.Viewers were outraged when Mr. McGrath and two other longtime cast members — Emilio Delgado, who played Luis, and Roscoe Orman, who played Gordon — were fired in 2016. When HBO took over the broadcasting rights to “Sesame Street,” their contracts were not renewed.But Mr. McGrath took the news graciously, expressing gratitude for 47 years of “working with phenomenal people” and for a whole career beyond “Sesame Street” of doing family concerts with major symphony orchestras.“I’m really very happy to stay home with my wife and children a little bit more,” he said at Florida Supercon, an annual comic book and pop culture convention, later in 2016. “I’d be so greedy if I wanted five minutes more.”Robert Emmett McGrath was born on June 13, 1932, in Ottawa, Ill., about 80 miles southwest of Chicago. He was the youngest of five children of Edmund Thomas McGrath, a farmer, and Flora Agnes (Halligan) McGrath.Robert’s mother, who sang and played the piano, recognized his talent by the time he was 5. He was soon entering and winning competitions in Chicago and appearing on radio. He did musical plays and studied privately but, as a practical matter, intended to study engineering.But he was invited to attend a music camp outside Chicago the summer after his high school graduation. Teachers there encouraged him to change his plans, and he “did an about-face,” he remembered in a 2004 video interview for the Television Academy Foundation.He majored in voice at the University of Michigan, graduating in 1954. He spent the next two years in the Army, mostly in Stuttgart, Germany, where he worked with the Seventh Army Symphony. Then he went to New York, where he received a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music.He took a job with St. David’s, a private boys’ school in Manhattan. Freelance singing assignments, obtained through a vocal contractor, paid the bills until 1961, when “Sing Along With Mitch” came along. He was one of 25 male singers who appeared every week on that show, on NBC, performing traditional favorites like “Home on the Range,” “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” and “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.”As St. Patrick’s Day approached, the program’s host and producer, Mitch Miller, asked Mr. McGrath if he knew the song “Mother Machree.” He was so impressed with Mr. McGrath’s rendition and his light lyric tenor — he had been singing the sentimental Irish American number since he was a little boy — that he doubled his salary and made him the show’s featured male soloist.After “Sing Along With Mitch” ended in 1964, the cast played Las Vegas and did a 30-stop tour in Japan. That led to an unusual chapter in Mr. McGrath’s career: teenage idol.Schoolgirls chanted his name at concerts and organized fan clubs. Their demand brought him back to Japan nine times over the next three years, and he recorded nine albums there, singing in both English and Japanese. His repertoire included Japanese folk ballads on which he was accompanied by a shakuhachi, or bamboo flute. Back home, he amused American television viewers by singing “Danny Boy” in Japanese.When “Sesame Street” began, it led to a very different collection of albums for Mr. McGrath, with names like “Sing Along With Bob” and “Songs and Games for Toddlers.”He also learned American Sign Language, which he used regularly on camera with Linda Bove, a cast member who was born deaf.Asked about important memories of his years on the series, Mr. McGrath often named the 1983 episode devoted to children’s, adults’ and Muppets’ reactions to the death of Will Lee, who had played Mr. Hooper on the show for 13 years. Another favorite was the holiday special “Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” (1978), particularly the Bert and Ernie segment inspired by the O. Henry story “The Gift of the Magi.”In 1958, Mr. McGrath married Ann Logan Sperry, a preschool teacher whom he met on his first day in New York City. They had five children. He is survived by Ms. McGrath, who is 89, and their five children, Liam McGrath, Robert McGrath, Alison McGrath Osder, Lily McGrath and Cathlin McGrath, as well as eight grandchildren. He is also survived by an elder sister, Eileen Strobel.“It’s a very different kind of fame,” Mr. McGrath reflected in the Television Academy interview about his association with “Sesame Street.”He recalled a little boy in a store who came up to him and took his hand. At first he thought he had been mistaken for the child’s father. When he realized that the boy seemed to think they knew each other, Mr. McGrath asked, “Do you know my name?” “Bob.” “Do you know where I live?” “Sesame Street.” “Do you know any of my other friends on Sesame Street?”“Yep,” the boy answered and promptly gave an example: “Oh, the number 7.”Livia Albeck-Ripka More