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    Chita Rivera’s Book Will Introduce Fans to the Real Her

    Over the last seven decades, the Broadway star Chita Rivera has taken on and defined some of American musical theater’s most iconic roles: Anita in “West Side Story,” Rose in “Bye Bye Birdie,” Velma Kelly in “Chicago.”In her forthcoming memoir, Rivera introduces her fans and readers to a character she has rarely played in public: her alter ego of sorts, Dolores. And Dolores, which is Rivera’s given name, can be a little prickly, according to Rivera’s co-author, the journalist Patrick Pacheco.When they first sat down to discuss the memoir in the summer of 2020, Pacheco asked Rivera what people didn’t know about her.“She said, ‘Well, I’m not nearly as nice as people think I am,’” he recalled. “I said, ‘Great, let’s introduce the public to her.’”In her still-untitled book, which is due out in 2023 from HarperOne and will be released simultaneously in English and Spanish, Rivera describes her unlikely path to stardom. Born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero in 1933, Rivera grew up in Washington, D.C., where her mother worked as a government clerk and her father was a clarinet and saxophone player for the U.S. Navy Band.She was so rambunctious and theatrical at home that her mother enrolled her in ballet school. She won a scholarship to George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet and went on to land roles in musicals like “Call Me Madam,” “Guys and Dolls,” “Can-Can” and “West Side Story,” where she delivered a breakout performance as Anita in the musical’s original production. Over the decades, she has been nominated for 10 Tony Awards and has won twice, and received a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2009, President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.Early in her career, Rivera, who is of Puerto Rican descent, worked to defy the stereotypes that were imposed on her in a largely white creative industry.“She was always very empowered from the beginning to play anything she felt she was capable of playing,” Pacheco said.Some of the theater world’s most influential composers and choreographers were drawn to Rivera’s magnetism and perfectionism. In her memoir, she describes working with Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, Bob Fosse, Hal Prince and Fred Ebb, and her experiences with stars and castmates like Elaine Stritch, Dick Van Dyke, Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis Jr.Rivera, who turned 89 this month, has done career retrospectives before, including “The Dancer’s Life,” a musical celebrating her career. But while friends and colleagues had nudged her over the years to write a memoir, she never felt compelled to until recently.“I’ve never been one to look back,” Rivera said in a statement released by her publisher. “I hope my words and thoughts about my life and career resonate and readers just might discover some things about me they never knew.”Though she’s had a lasting influence on theater as a performer, Rivera is not a writer, and Pacheco was a natural collaborator — he first met her in the 1970s and had already interviewed her extensively in 2005 when he was brought on as a researcher for “A Dancer’s Life.”He and Rivera would meet or talk on the phone once or twice a week as they were working on the book, and he urged Rivera to open up about her private life and to be candid about her not-so-nice side, Pacheco said. “Let’s put them in the room with Chita,” he remembered telling her, “but let’s also put them in the room with Dolores.” More

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    Joe Exotic Is Resentenced to 21 Years for ‘Tiger King’ Murder-for-Hire Plot

    Joe Exotic, the former Oklahoma zoo owner who was the central figure in the 2020 Netflix documentary series “Tiger King,” was resentenced to 21 years in prison on Friday for the failed murder-for-hire plot targeting Carole Baskin, a self-proclaimed animal-rights activist who had criticized his zoo’s treatment of animals, his lawyers said.The new sentence reduces his punishment by one year. The original sentence, for 22 years in prison, was vacated as improper by a federal appeals court last summer.John M. Phillips, a lawyer for Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, said in a statement, “We are unsatisfied with the court’s decision and will appeal.” At a news conference, he said that Mr. Maldonado-Passage was disappointed.In court documents on Friday, Mr. Maldonado-Passage said, “Please don’t make me deal with cancer in prison waiting on an appeal.”In November, Mr. Maldonado-Passage said he received a diagnosis of an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer.Mr. Maldonado-Passage, 58, was initially sentenced to prison in 2020 after twice attempting to hire people — including an undercover F.B.I. agent — to kill Ms. Baskin; their rivalry was one of the main plot lines of “Tiger King.” He was also found guilty of falsifying wildlife records and violating the Endangered Species Act for his role in trafficking and killing tigers.Last summer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled in favor of Mr. Maldonado-Passage’s appeal that his sentence was too long. Lawyers for the reality TV star had argued that a Federal District Court in Oklahoma had not grouped his two murder-for-hire convictions when his sentence was calculated. If the two counts had been grouped instead of considered for separate sentences, his prison term could have been as short as 17 and a half years, the court said.After the ruling, in a recording that his lawyers provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maldonado-Passage said his original sentence was “absolute crap.”Mr. Maldonado-Passage has always maintained his innocence and waged public campaigns, mostly through social media, for his release from prison. He failed to receive a pardon from former President Donald J. Trump in 2021 after months of petitioning and has since refocused his efforts on President Biden. After he received his cancer diagnosis, Mr. Maldonado-Passage was later transferred to a medical facility in North Carolina, according to his lawyer, Mr. Phillips.The next month, court documents showed that Mr. Maldonado-Passage was delaying treatment until after his resentencing, according to The Associated Press.At the courthouse in Oklahoma City on Friday, supporters of Mr. Maldonado-Passage attended the hearing, some wearing animal-print masks and T-shirts that read: “Free Joe Exotic,” The A.P. reported.Johnny Diaz More

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    Peter Robbins, Original Voice of Charlie Brown, Dies at 65

    Mr. Robbins, who first gave voice to the “Peanuts” character in a 1965 Christmas special, had struggled with mental illness and addiction in recent years.Peter Robbins, whose voice brought the “Peanuts” character Charlie Brown to life on television in the 1960s but who struggled with mental illness and served prison time later in his life, died on Jan. 18 in Oceanside, Calif. He was 65.The cause of death was suicide, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner.A list of his survivors was not immediately available.At age 9, Mr. Robbins achieved a breakthrough when the producers of the 1965 TV movie “A Charlie Brown Christmas” cast him as the voice of the hapless but endearing central character.Introduced in Charles M. Schulz’s popular comic strip “Peanuts,” Charlie Brown would become a sentimental presence on the screen with his catchphrase, “Good grief!,” familiar yellow shirt and frequent teasing by his friend Lucy.Mr. Robbins, who was born Louis G. Nanasi, would share in the franchise’s success, narrating at least six other television and movie productions, including “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” in 1966 and “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown” a year later.During his career, Mr. Robbins appeared in episodes of the television shows “Rawhide,” “The Munsters,” “Get Smart” and “My Three Sons,” according to IMDb.In the decades after his work as the voice of Charlie Brown, Mr. Robbins was unable to sustain his early success and publicly grappled with mental illness and substance abuse.In a 2019 interview with KSWB-TV, a Fox station in San Diego, he said that he had bipolar disorder. The station spoke to Mr. Robbins after his release from prison, where he had served 80 percent of a nearly five-year sentence for threatening several people, including the San Diego County sheriff and the property manager of a mobile home park near San Diego.In 2013, Mr. Robbins pleaded guilty to threatening his onetime girlfriend and stalking a doctor who performed breast-enhancement surgery on her, the station reported.He was arrested again in 2015 for violating the terms of this probation, according to the station, which reported that Mr. Robbins had made criminal threats toward a judge and written letters from jail offering to pay $50,000 to have William D. Gore, the San Diego County sheriff, killed.“I went on a manic phase where I bought a motor home, a mobile home, two German sports cars and a pitbull named Snoopy,” Mr. Robbins told the station in 2019.The actor said he regretted not getting help sooner for his mental illness.“I would recommend to anybody that has bipolar disorder to take it seriously,” he said, “because your life can turn around in a span of a month like it did to me.”If you are having thoughts of suicide, in the United States call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Go here for resources outside the United States.Susan Campbell Beachy More

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    Karen Pittman Isn’t the New Samantha on 'And Just Like That'

    The actress, who stars in “And Just Like That,” finds peace at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.“World peace,” the actress Karen Pittman said, placing one penny beneath a stone fox. “And my peace.”This was on a misty Sunday just after New Year’s and Ms. Pittman had paused at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden to set some intentions for the new year, leaving pennies alongside the coins and oranges offered by other visitors.The garden stands near her apartment in Prospect Heights. When she returned from Los Angeles, where “The Morning Show,” on AppleTV+, is filmed, to Brooklyn for HBO Max’s “And Just Like That,” she rented it for this exact reason.Most weekday mornings, after Ms. Pittman sees her two children off to school, she slips into the garden to decompress from the stresses of life and work. “I used to be able to meditate,” she said. “Now it’s just too stressful trying to figure out how to meditate in a pandemic.” So she sits in the garden instead. “It just immediately replenishes,” she said.That Sunday she had found a new space for replenishment. The shrine, hidden among conifers, is dedicated to Inari, the Shinto spirit who blesses the harvest. For Ms. Pittman, who declined to give her age, the harvest of the past few years has been plentiful.After lead roles on Broadway (“Disgraced”) and off (“Pipeline”), she has graduated to major roles on television: as Mia Jordan, an overextended producer on “The Morning Show,” and as Nya Wallace, a Columbia law professor contending with infertility on “And Just Like That.”Ms. Pittman plays a law professor in “And Just Like That,” opposite Cynthia Nixon, right.   Craig Blankenhorn/HBO MaxNya is one of four new characters devised, it seems, to correct the overwhelming whiteness of “Sex and the City,” the predecessor of “And Just Like That.” The show’s creators had promised that Nya — along with Che (Sara Ramirez), Seema (Sarita Choudhury) and Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) — would join Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte as main characters.The ‘Sex and the City’ UniverseThe sprawling franchise revolutionized how women were portrayed on the screen. And the show isn’t over yet. A New Series: Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte return for another strut down the premium cable runway in “And Just Like That,” streaming on HBO. Off Broadway: Candace Bushnell, whose writing gave birth to the “Sex and the City” universe, stars in her one-woman show based on her life. In Carrie’s Footsteps: “Sex and the City” painted a seductive vision of Manhattan, inspiring many young women to move to the city. The Origins: For the show’s 20th anniversary in 2018, Bushnell shared how a collection of essays turned into a pathbreaking series.In the early episodes, Nya’s scenes mostly abetted Miranda’s journey toward self-actualization. But later episodes have offered Ms. Pittman more substantial material and even a sex scene of her own. “I don’t feel like I need 10 episodes to tell a great story about my character,” she said. “I am much more interested in the ensemble work.”Whether the role is large or small, casting directors typically don’t hire Ms. Pittman for frivolous or lightweight parts. She almost always gets cast as hyper-competent professional women with messy inner lives.“That’s certainly been my life experience,” she said. As a woman who juggles co-parenting with her former husband with a successful career, she can relate. “I bring that deeper, resonant emotional life to the characters that I play,” she said. “This thing of having it all, like, it actually doesn’t work.”On that morning, however, Ms. Pittman seemed to be giving it a try. The garden was dressed for winter — bare branches, untenanted beds, patches of dirt. But Ms. Pittman had dressed for spring in a lilac Altuzzara coat and spindly gold heels with eye shadow to match, mixing meditation with glamour. (Sensibly, she switched to flats after posing for a few photos.)After entering the garden, she made her way through the cherry esplanade, where she stopped to compliment a toddler on her bright blue boots. She then headed to the water garden, passing an installation for the garden’s winter lightscape, which she had visited with her children on Christmas Eve.“It was all very festive,” she said. “There was mulled wine and hot chocolate. We were in the middle of that surge. And people were trying to stay away from each other. But it was very Christmas-y.”And just past the children’s garden, she lingered to admire some winterberries, which appeared scarlet and orange against the gray sky, and a Norwegian spruce that seemed to be extending a branch to her. “A tree that comes out and gives you a hug,” she said.Did she need a hug? Last year had been difficult, she said. Shooting “The Morning Show” in the middle of the pandemic had meant constant testing and frequent stoppages. (She and some colleagues had taken to calling it “The Next Morning Show.”)Olivia Galli for The New York Times“There were days where I was like, definitely going to catch this thing today. Definitely,” she said. And the turbulent emotional life her character Mia, a producer who had a consensual relationship with the disgraced former host played by Steve Carrell, hadn’t helped.“My character went through so much,” she said.A child in a stroller seemed dazzled by Ms. Pittman. The child stared at her, then offered her a rock, which she kindly let the child keep. Past the lily pads and the magnolias and the hill of daffodils, all resting for winter, she paused at the Shakespeare Garden, which contains every botanical mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays.Opposite some lemon balm, she recited a line of Cleopatra’s — “The poison is as sweet as balm, as soft as air” — which she remembered from her classical training in the graduate acting program at New York University. Shoes aside, she looked every inch the queen.Finishing her walk at the Hill-and-Pond Garden, she admired the koi rippling just below the pond’s still surface. Even though she didn’t have extra pennies, she set one more New Year’s intention for herself.“I love ensemble work, but I need to lead a story,” she said. “Power is being able to tell the story you want to tell. That’s real power. I’m ready.” More

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    Citing Pandemic, This Year’s Obie Awards Will Include Streaming Theater

    The Obie Awards, an annual ceremony honoring theater work performed Off and Off Off Broadway, this year for the first time will consider digital, audio and other virtual productions.The awards administrators decided to expand their scope in recognition of the adaptations made by many theater companies during the coronavirus pandemic, which prevented most New York theaters from staging in-person performances for at least a year, and in many cases considerably longer. Numerous theaters pivoted to streaming, and some experimented with audio.“We wanted to make sure that the work that did happen was eligible,” said Heather Hitchens, the president and chief executive of the American Theater Wing, which presents the awards. “The Obies respond to the season, and to the evolving nature and rhythms of theater.”This year’s Obie Awards are expected to take place in November, which would be 28 months after the last ceremony, reflecting the extraordinarily disruptive role the pandemic has played in theatermaking. The ceremony will consider productions presented by Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway theaters between July 1, 2020 and Aug. 31, 2022.The exact date for the ceremony has not been chosen, but Hitchens said she expects it to be in-person (the last one was streamed) and she expects it to have a host (or hosts).This year’s Obie Awards will be the first presented solely by the Wing, which also founded and copresents the Tony Awards. The Obies were created by The Village Voice and first presented in 1956; in 2014, as The Voice struggled, it entered a partnership with the Wing to preserve the ceremony, and now The Voice has granted the Obies trademark to the Wing, Hitchens said.The Obies, always a mixture of prestige and quirkiness, have long been distinguished by their lack of defined categories — each year, the judges decide what works to recognize, and for what reason. This year’s awards will be chaired by David Mendizábal, who is one of the leaders of the Movement Theater Company, and Melissa Rose Bernardo, a freelance theater critic. The judges will include David Anzuelo, an actor and fight choreographer; Becca Blackwell, an actor and writer; Wilson Chin, a set designer; Haruna Lee, a playwright; Soraya Nadia McDonald, the culture critic for The Undefeated; Lisa Peterson, a director and writer; Heather Alicia Simms, an actor; and Kaye Voyce, a costume designer. More

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    Los Angeles Is Changing. Can a Flagship Theater Keep Up?

    LOS ANGELES — For 55 years, the Center Theater Group has showcased theater in a city that has always been known for the movies. Its three stages have championed important new works — “Angels in America,” “Zoot Suit” and “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” to name three of its most acclaimed offerings — while importing big-ticket crowd pleasers from Broadway (coming this spring: “The Lehman Trilogy”).But this Los Angeles cultural institution is at a crossroads as it goes through its first leadership change in 17 years, and confronts questions about its mission, programming and appeal in a changing city, all amid a debilitating pandemic.Michael Ritchie, the organization’s artistic director, announced last summer that he would retire nearly 18 months before his contract ended in June 2023; he stepped down at the end of the December, citing the need for the organization to move in a new direction in response to social changes and debate about the theater’s future. The organization, which is a nonprofit, is using the transition to consider how to adjust to what is sure to be a very different post-Covid era — a sweeping discussion that theater administrators said would involve some 300 people, including its board of directors, staff, actors, director and contributors.“At the age of 50, you start to think about the next chapter,” said Meghan Pressman, the managing director of the Center Theater Group. “There’s so much happening now. Coming out of a pandemic. Coming out of a period of a racial crisis. Years of inequity.”“We are no longer your mother’s C.T.G. anymore,” she said.The obstacles are considerable.The Ahmanson Theater, in downtown Los Angeles, had to cut short a run of “A Christmas Carol” in December.Ryan MillerLike theaters everywhere, Center Theater Group — the Ahmanson Theater and the Mark Taper Forum at the Music Center downtown, and the Kirk Douglas Theater 10 miles to the west in Culver City — is grappling with empty seats, declining revenues and the coronavirus. The Ahmanson cut short a run of “A Christmas Carol” with Bradley Whitford in December, canceling 22 performances after positive coronavirus tests in the cast and crew at the height of what in a normal year would have been a holiday rush.The cancellation cost the Center Theater Group $1.5 million in lost revenues, including ticket returns. That came after the organization was forced to make millions of dollars in spending cuts over the course of the pandemic, cutting its staff to 140 this season from 185 and reducing its annual budget to $47 million for this fiscal year, $10 million less than the budget for the fiscal year before the pandemic.And the theater group is struggling to adjust to sweeping reassessments of tradition that have emerged from social unrest across the country over the past two years. It was reminded of this new terrain by the uproar that greeted the announcement of a 2021-22 season for the Taper and the Douglas, 10 plays that included just one by a woman and one by a transgender playwright. Jeremy O. Harris, the writer of “Slave Play,” which was on the schedule, announced that he would withdraw his play from the season before agreeing to go forward only after the Taper pledged to program only “women-identifying or nonbinary playwrights” next season.The Center Theater Group has been a hugely influential force in Los Angeles culture since the Mark Taper Forum, above, and the Ahmanson opened in 1967 at the Los Angeles Music Center.Tom BonnerThe Center Theater Group has been a hugely influential force in Los Angeles culture for decades.It “is still the flagship theater company of L.A.,” said Stephen Sachs, the co-artistic director of the Fountain Theater, an influential small theater on the East Side of the city. “I think it’s at a moment of reckoning, like everything that is theater in Los Angeles. The C.T.G. is the bar that we compare ourselves to. They set a standard for L.A., not only for ourselves but for the country.”The Music Center, the sprawling midcentury arts complex on top of Bunker Hill, across from Frank Gehry’s billowing Walt Disney Concert Hall, is at the center of cultural, arts and society life in Los Angeles. The project was driven by Dorothy Buffum Chandler, the cultural leader who was the wife and mother of publishers of the Los Angeles Times, and also houses the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, which was the site of the Academy Awards off and on from 1969 to 1999. “Before the Music Center, it was really a cultural wasteland,” Marylouise Oates, who was the society columnist for the Los Angeles Times in the late 1980s, said, referring to the city.Theaters across the country are struggling to find the balance between pleasing and challenging their audience as they confront declining ticket sales and the threat of competition in the form of a screen in a living room. Theater here has also long existed in the shadow of Hollywood, to the annoyance of those involved in what is by any measure a vibrant theater community.“I don’t see how anyone can say it’s not a theater town,” said Charles Dillingham, who was the managing director of the Center Theater Group from 1991 through 2011.The Kirk Douglas Theater, in a former movie palace in Culver City, opened in 2004.Craig SchwartzFor its first 40 years, the theater group’s personality — adventurous and daring more often than not — was forged by Gordon Davidson, who was recruited by Chandler to be the first artistic director at the Taper. He was of a generation of force-of-nature theater impresarios, like Joseph Papp in New York and Tyrone Guthrie in Minneapolis.“I could not have created ‘Twilight’ anywhere else,” said Anna Deavere Smith, the playwright who wrote and acted in “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” at the Taper. “I’ll never forget Gordon sitting down, taking out his buck slip and saying, ‘What do you need?’”The Taper opened with the “The Devils,” by the British dramatist John Whiting, about a Catholic priest in France accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun. The subject matter caused a rustle, but Chandler, who died in 1997, stood by Davidson.“She wasn’t always happy,” said Judi Davidson, who was married to Gordon Davidson, who died in 2016. “She said, ‘I’ll make a deal with you. You tell which plays I should come to and which plays I shouldn’t come to.’ ”The Taper staged “Zoot Suit,” by Luis Valdez, in 1978, a rare production of a work by a Latino writer, which went on to Broadway; as well as a full production of both parts of “Angels in America,” by Tony Kushner, in 1992, before it moved to Broadway. “I could not have created ‘Twilight’ anywhere else,” said Anna Deavere Smith, the playwright who wrote and acted in “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” at the Taper.Jay Thompson In recent years, the theater has come under criticism for too often catering to an older audience hungry for the comfort of familiar works. Still, under Ritchie, who declined a request for an interview, it presented the premieres of acclaimed works, including “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,” which had its world premiere at the Douglas before moving to the Taper.Harris, the writer of “Slave Play,” said the Center Theater Group had responded quickly when he objected to the overwhelmingly male lineup of writers. “When I raised my issues and pulled my play, they didn’t act defensively,” Harris said. “They acted. Other places would have let the play move on and figure out a way to blame me.”The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4Omicron in retreat. More

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    Late Night Supports Biden’s Supreme Court Strategy

    Trevor Noah joked that Biden will nominate a Black woman to replace Stephen Breyer “because he cares deeply about representation and winning Georgia.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.He’s Got a TypeOn Thursday, Justice Stephen Breyer officially announced his plans to retire from the Supreme Court. President Biden reaffirmed his campaign promise to nominate a Black woman to the court, “because he cares deeply about representation and winning Georgia,” Trevor Noah joked on “The Daily Show.”“After White House press secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday that President Biden will stand by his commitment to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court, a Fox News panel criticized the administration’s selection process. I’ll take a wild guess and say they have exactly two problems with a Black woman.” — SETH MEYERS“Joe Biden is going to pick a Black woman who is also qualified. These people act like Biden is just going to show up at the mall and be, like, ‘Yo, Shaniqua, come with me.’ ‘Uh, my name is Regina.’ ‘It doesn’t matter — just put on these robes, I need help with abortion.’” — TREVOR NOAH“No, she’s going to be qualified — and why is that a bad thing? Why not make the Supreme Court a little more representative of the country it represents? I mean, their rulings impact the lives of every person in the country, so it would be nice to have at least one justice on there who’s had to ask the Walgreens guy to unlock the shampoo shelf.” — TREVOR NOAH“At the same time, I also hear what the Fox people are saying, you know? It shouldn’t matter whether you’re Black or white, this position should only go to the most qualified judge who also thinks that guns are people.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Minnie’s New Look Edition)“In honor of the park’s 30th anniversary and Women’s History Month in March, Disneyland Paris announced yesterday that Minnie Mouse will wear a dark blue and black, polka-dotted pantsuit designed by Stella McCartney. Unfortunately, that still won’t make up for the fact that you brought your wife to Paris and then took her to Disneyland.” — SETH MEYERS“Minnie’s new look will debut in March at Disneyland Paris, which is just like regular Disneyland, only more existential.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Unfortunately, Donald Duck is still running around with his cloaca out, just waving in the wind.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It’s a fun little story, and you’d have to be a desperate, culture war troll to take issue with it, which is why Fox News took issue with it.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“No one is talking about Minnie Mouse on the other channels. If Minnie Mouse getting a new outfit upsets you, I would recommend turning 4 years old.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Honestly, genuinely, I’d wear it.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingSamantha Bee made a case for why Kyrsten Sinema has annoyed Democrats for longer than most Americans might be aware.Also, Check This Out“Playing ‘Jeopardy!’ has been the most fun I’ve ever had and I didn’t want it to end,” Amy Schneider said. “I knew it would some time, but it was tough to realize that the moment was finally there.”via Jeopardy Productions, Inc.Amy Schneider’s whirlwind “Jeopardy!” winning streak ended with a loss during her 41st game on Wednesday. More

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    Amy Schneider on Her Whirlwind ‘Jeopardy!’ Run

    She seemed unstoppable, but on Wednesday, it happened. After 40 wins, Amy Schneider, the “Jeopardy!” champion whose information recall often seemed faster than a search engine, was defeated.Schneider ended with the second longest streak in the history of the game and $1.4 million in total winnings. She was beat by Rhone Talsma, a 29-year-old librarian from Chicago, who answered the Final Jeopardy clue correctly when Schneider did not. His face after his win was one of absolute shock. (He said in an interview Wednesday that he had thought defeat was inevitable because of Schneider’s record.)Schneider, 42, an engineering manager who lives in Oakland, Calif., has been through a whirlwind couple of months, fulfilling a longtime dream of being on the show and contending with becoming a public figure as she rocketed to game-show fame.As a transgender woman, she dealt with bigotry online, responding to it graciously on social media; she also received a stream of encouragement and affirmation from those thrilled to see a transgender person succeed so mightily on television.In an interview on Wednesday, she spoke about her final game and what her run on “Jeopardy!” has meant to her. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Do you have one overwhelming emotion right now, or is it a mix of them?It’s definitely a mix. A lot of it is emotions that I had at the time, but the one that’s really different is that my fans on Twitter and everything are going to be sad. And it bums me out.Take me back to the beginning of this game. Do you remember how you were feeling?You know, I had a feeling about that day, some reason. You wouldn’t really think so from looking at the scores of the last week, but once I passed Matt Amodio, there was this like motivation — I could feel it slip. You know, Ken’s record still seems so far away. And the fatigue of this taping was really starting to add up. I couldn’t explain it even to myself, but I just could feel that something was slipping a little bit, however much I tried to fight it.Read More About ‘Jeopardy!’A New Legend: Her dazzling 40-game run is over, but Amy Schneider reached historic milestones for money won and consecutive victories.On a Roll: Schneider’s long streak is not a one-off: The show has seen an unusual trend of big winners lately. But why?Hosting Duo: Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik are sharing the role this season, putting an end to the speculation around the job — for now.A Rattled TV Institution: Replacing the late Alex Trebek has been an ongoing saga for the show. Here’s how the messy succession unfolded.How many games had you played that day?This was the third. It was right after lunch. And another thing I did kind of have a feeling about was Rhone. Ken would often say how, when he was eventually defeated, it was the person who was just friendly and wanted to hang out, wasn’t intimidated by him. That was definitely true of Rhone. And he was also really a fun guy to hang out with. And I was like, well, if it had to be someone, I’m glad it was him.What was the turning point of that game?There was one clue that both of us knew the answer to, and he beat me on the buzzer and then that gave him the Daily Double. And he — I think quite correctly — made the bold move and bet everything to really go for the win and it paid off for him. And once he had gotten that Daily Double, I knew that, at the very least, it was going to come down to Final Jeopardy.Walk me through that Final Jeopardy. How are you feeling about the category (Countries of the World)?I felt great about the category. Geography has always been a strong subject of mine. And then the clue came up, and it just wasn’t coming to me. And it was very frustrating.[The clue: The only nation in the world whose name in English ends in an “H,” it’s also one of the 10 most populous.]I remember my mind, as it was hopping through the world. I was like, “India; no. Pakistan; no. Nepal; no.” And then it just moved on and I was right there by Bangladesh and I didn’t get it.A lot of times during this run you’ve been totally secure going into Final Jeopardy. So this was kind of unusual, right?Yeah, it had happened a few times before, but not anytime recently. And so I’d sort of forgotten what that fear was like and that kind of pressure.How did it feel sinking in that it was over?I mean, it was tough. Playing “Jeopardy!” has been the most fun I’ve ever had and I didn’t want it to end. I knew it would some time, but it was tough to realize that the moment was finally there. That said, there was some relief as well. One of the first thoughts I had was, well, I don’t have to come up with any more anecdotes. And it had been a lot, going out of town every week, and it was just nice to be like, OK, I can just get back to my normal life with Genevieve [Schneider’s girlfriend].I can only imagine how mentally and emotionally taxing it was. Describe how you felt after a day taping five games.Just done. I would call Genevieve and let her know what happened and then go back either to the hotel room or the airport, depending what day it was, and just like sit there, lie there and just do nothing. Not think, not read on my phone, just like nothing for like an hour every time.What did you learn from this experience, first in terms of trivia, and then in terms of your life and who you are?Well, definitely Bangladesh. I can tell you that. It’s mainly around some of the stuff I missed. Like the Field Museum the other day [the correct response to Final Jeopardy] — that was frustrating.And in terms of your life more broadly?I think the main thing that I got out of this was being OK with myself, how I look, how I present to the world. I’ve been openly trans for a little under five years now, and there’s still definitely lingering worry and dysphoria and things like that.Just to get so much positive feedback, so much support and so much acceptance, it enabled me — by the end of it — to look at myself on TV and be like, “Oh, you know, she’s pretty, she’s fun, what a likable person.” And I’ve never been able to see myself that way before.What kind of feedback have you heard from transgender “Jeopardy!” fans or just transgender people in general who have reached out to you?Just a ton of support. That’s been really great and really meaningful. I think that just as great, just as meaningful, has been hearing from parents, grandparents, loved ones of trans people and hearing either that they understand their trans loved ones better, or, a lot of times too, that I’ve eased their fears for their trans loved ones, seeing that trans people can succeed and they’re not going to be as limited as maybe they feared that they would be. More