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    Alan Rachins, ‘L.A. Law’ and ‘Dharma & Greg’ Actor, Dies at 82

    He became recognizable as a performer whose specialty was difficult men, in both absurd comedies and tense dramas.Alan Rachins, who delighted TV watchers by playing two very different kinds of histrionic middle-aged men in two hit shows, “L.A. Law” and “Dharma & Greg,” died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 82.The death, at a hospital, was caused by heart failure, his family said.After spending decades trying to break through as an actor, Mr. Rachins (pronounced RAY-chins) became widely recognizable for his roles on the two shows. Each character, an officious lawyer and an aging hippie, was acerbic and eccentric, but in extremely different ways.Mr. Rachins first came to public attention by appearing on nearly every episode of “L.A. Law,” which ran on NBC for eight seasons, from 1986 to 1994.The show was created by Terry Louise Fisher and Steven Bochco, who a few years earlier had helped create “Hill Street Blues,” a critically acclaimed police drama. “L.A. Law” used a similar formula: It mixed drama and comedy, employed an ensemble cast and was generally credited as being more realistic and daring than the average show.“L.A. Law” was popular enough that several lawyers at the time worried how recent episodes would affect juries’ behavior. In 1990, one lawyer told The New York Times, “Any lawyer who doesn’t watch ‘L.A. Law’ the night before he’s going to trial is a fool.”The show concerned a law firm called McKenzie, Brackman. Mr. Rachins played Douglas Brackman Jr., a senior partner whose father had helped found the firm. He was eloquent, mercenary and obnoxious — traits that set up the character for frequent humiliations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Don’t Make Kelly Reilly Go Beth Dutton on You

    If Beth Dutton were Kelly Reilly’s friend, if she were sitting here, in the garden of a SoHo hotel, Reilly would worry. She would urge Beth to stop smoking, to drink less, to give therapy a try.“If she were my best friend, I’d be like, ‘Give yourself an easier time,’” Reilly said.But Beth Dutton is no one’s friend. She is the brutal, wounded, savagely funny heroine of the Montana-set Paramount Network drama “Yellowstone.” Reilly, 47, has played her since the show began in 2018. The second half of the fifth and apparently final season arrives on Paramount and CBS on Nov. 10. They will be the show’s first episodes without its star Kevin Costner, who departed the series, citing scheduling issues, amid reports of tensions between him and the creator, Taylor Sheridan.During the series, Beth has faced down attempted rape, attempted assassination, professional back stabbing, personal betrayal. Through it all, Reilly has played her with a kind of animal ferocity (take, for example, a Season 1 scene of Beth scaring off a wolf) shot through with unexpected tenderness. Hers is the rare performance that feels authentically dangerous — for the actor, for the character, for anyone watching at home.Reilly, with Cole Hauser in “Yellowstone,” plays Beth with a mix of ferocity, tenderness and sex appeal. “Her femininity is to be celebrated,” Reilly said. “It can intimidate and it can seduce and it can terrify.”Emerson Miller/Paramount NetworkThat the Emmys haven’t recognized Reilly suggests that there is something at least a little wrong with Emmys. But Beth remains a favorite among the show’s fans. There are TikToks and supercuts of Beth’s most vicious comebacks, mugs and T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like “Don’t make me go Beth Dutton on you” and “You are the trailer park, and I am the tornado.”Reilly is no Beth Dutton. She is English by birth and a redhead. In person, she is softer, more thoughtful, profoundly empathetic in a way that Beth would find embarrassing. When I met her at that boutique hotel, on an afternoon in mid September, Reilly wore loose silk separates, not an out-for-blood business suit, and ordered tea for us (regrettably) in place of Beth’s preferred bourbon.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    How ‘Yellowstone’ Captured America

    When the television series “Yellowstone” began in 2018, it was with a chip on its shoulder. HBO had passed on the show, pitched by its writer-director-executive producer Taylor Sheridan as “The Godfather” on horseback, for not quite fitting its prestige-oriented lineup. It was picked up instead by the fledgling network Paramount, which greenlit 10 episodes, to be broadcast on a rebranded version of Spike TV.Since that relatively low-profile debut, “Yellowstone,” now in its fifth season, has gone from cable underdog to becoming one of the most-watched scripted shows on TV, one that has spawned prequels and spinoffs, a cottage industry of merch and a bit of internal drama among its cast members and producers. Most notably, its best-known actor, Kevin Costner, will not return as John Dutton, Yellowstone’s taciturn patriarch, for the show’s final episodes when they begin airing on Nov. 10.The neo-Western wrapped contemporary ideas of rugged individualism inside the soapy drama of a land-hoarding family’s succession planning. As “Yellowstone” prepares to finally reveal whether one of John Dutton’s kids — Beth (Kelly Reilly) or Kayce (Luke Grimes) or Jamie (Wes Bentley) — can take over the family business, we look back at how the series became both a chronicle of America’s culture wars and appointment viewing across the United States.Filling a Red State VoidFor millions of Americans, “Yellowstone” tapped into a deep unease they have about their changing communities.Emerson Miller/Paramount NetworkSometime in summer 2018, my phone rang in Los Angeles. It was my brother calling from Montana, where we both grew up and he still lives. He wanted to talk about a new Western television show called “Yellowstone.”For the first time ever, he said, Hollywood had gotten something right. Everyone in Montana was abuzz about it — his fishing buddies, the local radio hosts, the waitress at Pay’s Cafe down by the livestock auction yards in Billings. What did I think?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Book Review: ‘Carson the Magnificent,’ by Bill Zehme with Mike Thomas

    Johnny Carson dominated late-night television for decades, but closely guarded his privacy. Bill Zehme’s biography, “Carson the Magnificent,” tries to break through.CARSON THE MAGNIFICENT, by Bill Zehme with Mike ThomasMaybe late-night TV shouldn’t be called “late-night TV” anymore, with so many viewers consuming it in clips the morning after, on their phones. Yet the genre’s hallmarks — the avuncular host, the sidekick, the band, the monologue, the desk, the guests — linger. Most were stamped on America’s consciousness by Johnny Carson.A new biography about an old reliable, Bill Zehme’s “Carson the Magnificent” harks back to an era when doom and scroll were biblical nouns and Carson’s “Tonight Show” was a clear punctuation mark to every 24-hour chunk of the workweek — less an exclamation point, maybe, than a drawn-out ellipsis. “They want to lie back and be amused and laugh and have a nice, pleasant and slightly … I hate the word risqué … let’s say adult end to the day,” is how a producer in 1971 described the millions tuning in from home, to Esquire.Carson went off the air in 1992, after three decades on “Tonight,” and left this Earth in 2005. Zehme, a journalist known for his chummy celebrity profiles, struck a book deal almost immediately but struggled to get purchase on his subject— “the ultimate Interior Man,” he despaired to a source, “large and lively only when on camera” — and then was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. He died himself last year at 64, and a former “legman” and friend, Mike Thomas, has finished the project, giving it a doubly valedictory feel.Short but florid, “Carson the Magnificent” is a memorial of the monoculture; a steady parade of mostly men chatting companionably to one another on a padded sectional.Carson was a white whale for Zehme (he’d managed to harpoon Hugh Hefner, Frank Sinatra and the “Tonight” successor Jay Leno, though rather delicately, as if with cocktail toothpicks). After months of faxes and some time backstage inhaling the “cloud of spiced cologne that trails him like an entourage,” Zehme formally met Carson in 2002 and the two men, both said to have unusual professional empathy, had a long lunch at Schatzi on Main, the Santa Monica restaurant owned by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over the years Zehme amassed piles of Carsonia, like a paisley polyester necktie, and interviewed scores of his intimates, including two of his four wives. (The first was named Joan, though she went by Jody, and the next two Joanne and Joanna. “The man just won’t go for new towels,” Bob Newhart joked.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Kamala Harris Visits ‘Saturday Night Liver’

    The vice president made a brief appearance on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend.Heading into a new “Saturday Night Live” hosted by the frequent guest John Mulaney on the last weekend before the presidential election, viewers were prepared for surprises. And they surely got one: a cameo appearance from Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia.And — oh yes — a visit from Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, who played herself in the show’s opening sketch, alongside Maya Rudolph, who frequently impersonates Harris on “S.N.L.”In the sketch, Rudolph played Harris preparing for a rally in Philadelphia, speaking into a mirror and saying, “I wish I could talk to someone who’s been in my shoes. You know, a Black, South Asian woman running for president. Preferably from the Bay Area.”The real-life Harris appeared as Rudolph’s reflection and gave her some words of inspiration. “I’m just here to remind you: You got this,” Harris said. “Because you can do something your opponent cannot do: You can open doors.”“S.N.L.” has a tradition of featuring presidential candidates on the show, sometimes just days before the conclusion of the presidential election.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Janey Godley, Scottish Comic Who Brought Humor to Harrowing Topics, Dies at 63

    A Scottish performer, she said she believed there were “funny sides” to terrible experiences, including some that she drew from her own times of loss and hardship.Janey Godley, a Scottish comedian, actor and writer whose hard-hitting, candid wit established her as a comedy star and who became widely known for her parody voice-overs of elected leaders during the coronavirus pandemic, died on Saturday in Glasgow. She was 63.Her death, at the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice, was caused by ovarian cancer, according to her manager, Chris Davis. Ms. Godley announced in September that she had exhausted her treatment options and had entered palliative care.She gained a following during the coronavirus pandemic performing parodies that reimagined what officials were saying — or perhaps secretly thinking — during their public addresses. One favorite subject was Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s leader at the time.Ms. Sturgeon seemed to appreciate the humor, calling Ms. Godley her “alter ego.” Ms. Godley’s videos, some observers said, led her to become a distinctive voice helping to spread public health messages during the pandemic.Other world leaders were not spared Ms. Godley’s voice-over treatment. Her targets also included Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Theresa May of Britain, President Donald J. Trump and Queen Elizabeth II.“Here’s the thing: Women my age are constantly being told we don’t know how to work the internet — but I nailed it,” she joked in an interview. “I showed these 22-year-olds how it’s done.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Specials by Tom Papa and Others to Distract You From the News

    Tom Papa, James Adomian and Emily Catalano take very different, very funny approaches in their new hours.Tom Papa, ‘Home Free’(Stream it on Netflix)If the scroll of election news has you in the mood for some light distraction and cheer-me-up laughs, Tom Papa’s latest special arrives just in time. The ultimate escapist comedian, Papa has built a soothingly funny body of work with a persona that stands out in these anxious times: a sensible optimist who thinks you are too hard on yourself. The title of his last special sums up his message: “You’re doing great!”Papa — the perfect name for his brand of middle-aged dad comedy — tells well-crafted jokes about family secrets and hot-dog-eating contests with the spirit of a self-help guru. Even his complaints come out as gratitude. “A good day is any day I don’t have to retrieve a username and password,” he once joked.In his new special, he opens with an unexpectedly sunny take on being an empty-nester. It’s set up with an unshowy deftness that lets you know you are in good hands. His delivery is lilting and subtle. When one of my daughters was getting a little weepy about the prospect of her sister leaving home, I showed this joke to her and the mood lightened. Papa shot the special in Washington, D.C., and nods to Americans’ exhaustion with politics, before suggesting we take a break from the news now and then. “You can know too much,” he says. “Ignorance is bliss” is a theme.He loves that therapy is popular, but it’s not for him. “I’m having a good time,” he says. “If I go to therapy, they’re going to stop it.” And yet, Papa can sound like a therapist — or at least a comedian version of one.He asks questions that reframe your perspective to something healthier. Is there some “power of positive thinking” hokum here? Sure. But there’s also an entertainer’s ethos that the job is to make you forget your troubles — come on, get happy. This doesn’t mean avoiding darkness. In fact, Papa understands that grim news is necessary to find the incongruity that will make you laugh. In explaining to a child what “nuclear Armageddon” means, he gives it as rosy a slant as one could. “We’re all going to die someday and there’s a way we can all die on the same day.” Then he smiles and does a little dance.James Adomian, ‘Path of Most Resistance’(Stream it on YouTube)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    New Comedy Specials by Tom Papa and Others to Distract You From the News

    Tom Papa, James Adomian and Emily Catalano take very different, very funny approaches in their new hours.Tom Papa, ‘Home Free’(Stream it on Netflix)If the scroll of election news has you in the mood for some light distraction and cheer-me-up laughs, Tom Papa’s latest special arrives just in time. The ultimate escapist comedian, Papa has built a soothingly funny body of work with a persona that stands out in these anxious times: a sensible optimist who thinks you are too hard on yourself. The title of his last special sums up his message: “You’re doing great!”Papa — the perfect name for his brand of middle-aged dad comedy — tells well-crafted jokes about family secrets and hot-dog-eating contests with the spirit of a self-help guru. Even his complaints come out as gratitude. “A good day is any day I don’t have to retrieve a username and password,” he once joked.In his new special, he opens with an unexpectedly sunny take on being an empty-nester. It’s set up with an unshowy deftness that lets you know you are in good hands. His delivery is lilting and subtle. When one of my daughters was getting a little weepy about the prospect of her sister leaving home, I showed this joke to her and the mood lightened. Papa shot the special in Washington, D.C., and nods to Americans’ exhaustion with politics, before suggesting we take a break from the news now and then. “You can know too much,” he says. “Ignorance is bliss” is a theme.He loves that therapy is popular, but it’s not for him. “I’m having a good time,” he says. “If I go to therapy, they’re going to stop it.” And yet, Papa can sound like a therapist — or at least a comedian version of one.He asks questions that reframe your perspective to something healthier. Is there some “power of positive thinking” hokum here? Sure. But there’s also an entertainer’s ethos that the job is to make you forget your troubles — come on, get happy. This doesn’t mean avoiding darkness. In fact, Papa understands that grim news is necessary to find the incongruity that will make you laugh. In explaining to a child what “nuclear Armageddon” means, he gives it as rosy a slant as one could. “We’re all going to die someday and there’s a way we can all die on the same day.” Then he smiles and does a little dance.James Adomian, ‘Path of Most Resistance’(Stream it on YouTube)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More