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      John Korty, Director of ‘Miss Jane Pittman,’ Is Dead at 85

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      He was best known for a series of ambitious television movies that examined racism, disability and other social issues.John Korty, a director best known for ambitious made-for-television projects, including the 1974 film “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” which won nine Emmy Awards, died on March 9 at his home in Port Reyes Station, Calif. He was 85.His brother, Doug Korty, said the cause was vascular dementia.“Miss Jane Pittman,” a CBS presentation based on the Ernest J. Gaines novel in which a Black woman recounts more than a century’s worth of memories, featured an acclaimed performance by Cicely Tyson as the title character. John J. O’Connor, reviewing the film in The New York Times, called it “a splendid night for television.”“John Korty’s direction is cool and restrained,” he added, “never underlining and always avoiding what could easily be mawkish.”The Emmys the film won included one for Mr. Korty for best directing of a single program, comedy or drama.Mr. Korty on the set of the 1974 television movie  “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” which went on to win nine Emmy Awards, including one for Mr. Korty.via Korty Family Cicely Tyson as the title character, a woman who recounts more than a century’s worth of memories, in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.”Bettmann via GettyMr. Korty also won both an Oscar and an Emmy for “Who Are the Debolts? And Where Did They Get 19 Kids?,” a documentary about a couple whose many children included hard-to-place adopted ones with disabilities or other challenges. American television networks weren’t interested in the documentary when Mr. Korty first offered it; it was initially released as a film in Japan, then shown at the San Francisco Film Festival in 1977, where it received a standing ovation.That brought it an Oscar for best documentary feature, but Mr. Korty still wanted to get it in front of TV audiences. With some persuasion from Henry Winkler, whose role as Fonzie on “Happy Days” had made him one of the network’s biggest stars, ABC finally broadcast a cut-down version in late 1978; that version won the Emmy for outstanding individual achievement for an informational program.Although Mr. Korty also directed lighter fare and the occasional Hollywood feature, including “Oliver’s Story,” the 1978 follow-up to the hit 1970 movie “Love Story,” he gravitated toward television movies that touched on social issues.In addition to “Miss Jane Pittman,” which covered a century’s worth of the Black experience, he directed “Go Ask Alice” (1973), about teenage drug addiction; “Farewell to Manzanar” (1976), about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II; “Second Sight: A Love Story” (1984), about a blind woman; “Resting Place” (1986), about a family’s attempt to have a Black officer who was killed in Vietnam buried in his hometown’s all-white cemetery; and “Eye on the Sparrow” (1987), about a blind couple trying to adopt.“I wouldn’t give up television movies,” Mr. Korty told The Times in 1986. “There is nothing like the response you get. Fifty million people saw ‘Jane Pittman’ in one night. That’s very different from even the biggest hit movie.”Mr. Korty on the set of “Farewell to Manzanar,” his 1976 TV movie about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.via Korty FamilyIn the best of his television work, Mr. Korty sought to illuminate subjects and perspectives not often addressed in the mainstream. In an essay he wrote for The San Francisco Examiner in 1978, he said that was his hope for the “Debolts” film, in which he showed the children’s disabilities in unflinching detail, rare for TV at the time.“It seems that most physically handicapped people have their greatest struggles not with their crutches, but with their identities — being accepted as individuals rather than as a distasteful class of outcasts,” he wrote. “We hope that by the end of our film the audience will forget who is on crutches and who isn’t.”John Van Cleave Korty was born on June 22, 1936, in Lafayette, Ind. His father, Richard, was an engineer, and his mother, Mary (Van Cleave) Korty, was a nurse.“I started drawing when I was 5 years old,” Mr. Korty said at a 2013 panel discussion of his work, “and for many, many years I thought I was going to be what you’d call a commercial artist.”But in 11th grade a teacher showed the class some of the innovative animated films of Norman McLaren, and Mr. Korty found a new interest. He soon made his first animated film, but, as he told The Abilene Reporter-News of Texas in 1986, he couldn’t afford new film stock. Instead he somehow obtained a reel of a Mickey Mouse cartoon and dumped bleach on it in his parents’ bathtub to erase the images, then hand-painted images on its 2,600 frames. The trick worked, he said, but it took him a week to scrub the bathtub clean.He earned a bachelor’s degree at Antioch College, where he continued to experiment with animation. In about 1963 he settled in the Bay Area, where he set up his own studio. One of his earliest professional efforts, “Breaking the Habit,” a documentary about smoking produced in cooperation with the American Cancer Society, was nominated for the short-subject documentary Oscar in 1965.Mr. Korty directed the independent features “The Crazy-Quilt” (1966), “Funnyman” (1967) and “riverrun” (1968) before he made his first television movies, drawing some critical acclaim and the attention of other young filmmakers who were interested in working outside the Hollywood system. Among them were Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, who came to visit his setup in 1968.“They showed up in two station wagons, and when Francis walked in, his mouth dropped open,” Mr. Korty told The Marin Independent Journal in 2011. “He said, ‘My God, you’ve done exactly what we want to do: get out of Hollywood and set up a studio. If you can do it, we can do it.’”A year later Mr. Coppola and Mr. Lucas would found their American Zoetrope studio in San Francisco. Mr. Korty had an office there for several years and went on to work with Mr. Lucas. He and Charles Swenson directed “Twice Upon a Time,” an animated feature made with Mr. Lucas’s Lucasfilm company in 1983, and the next year Mr. Korty directed “Caravan of Courage,” a Lucasfilm TV movie based on the Ewok creatures from the “Star Wars” movie “Return of the Jedi.”“I wouldn’t give up television movies,” Mr. Korty said in 1986. “There is nothing like the response you get. Fifty million people saw ‘Jane Pittman’ in one night. That’s very different from even the biggest hit movie.”via Korty FamilyThough the success of “Miss Jane Pittman” brought Mr. Korty offers to direct Hollywood films, he rarely accepted. “Oliver’s Story,” which he directed in 1978, was an exception. It was a bigger-budget movie than he normally attempted, with big stars — Ryan O’Neal, Candice Bergen — and Mr. Korty wasn’t entirely comfortable.“It’s the first movie I’ve ever made that I’ve felt not a part of,” he told The Sacramento Bee in December 1978 as the early reviews, many of them unflattering, were coming in. “I know I put things in this movie that I liked and the audience wouldn’t — and vice versa.”Mr. Korty’s marriages to Carol Tweedie in 1959 and Beulah Chang in 1965 ended in divorce. In 1989 he married Jane Silvia, who survives him, along with his brother; a sister, Nancy Korty; two sons from his second marriage, Jonathan and David; a son from his third marriage, Gabriel; and three grandchildren. More

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      Late Night Approves of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s High Ratings

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      A poll found strong support for the judge’s Supreme Court nomination, but “speechmaking and hissy-fitting” continued in the Senate, said Jimmy Kimmel.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.Upon ApprovalWednesday was the final day of questions for the Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, or, as Jimmy Kimmel referred to it, “another day of grandstanding, speechmaking and hissy-fitting in the Senate.”A newly released poll, conducted before the hearings began, found that 58 percent of Americans supported Judge Jackson’s appointment to the court.“It is the most support a Jackson has had since ‘Thriller’ came out.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Right now, Biden’s like, ‘Hey, I nominated you — it’s only fair that we split that approval rating, come on.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, the only way it could have been higher is if she ended today with a water bottle flip.” — JIMMY FALLON“She said the fact that she was even nominated shows how far we’ve come as a country, and so some of the Republican senators on the committee have been hard at work to show how far we haven’t.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“This is how low the United States government has fallen. We’ve gone from ‘Let’s put a man on the moon within the decade’ to ‘Maybe someday we can get at least one Republican to vote for a qualified woman.’” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Uninvited Edition)“In other news, despite the current state of affairs, Vladimir Putin is still planning to attend the G20 summit with other world leaders in Bali this fall — which explains this year’s theme: ‘Awkward.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Seriously, what is he doing? It’s like getting kicked out of high school and then showing up for the reunion.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yeah, it’ll backfire on Putin when he realizes it’s not a G20 summit; it’s an intervention.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth Watching“The Late Late Show” celebrated Reggie Watts’s 50th birthday by giving him a racecar bed.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightGwen Stefani will pop by Thursday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutThe artists Mónica Arreola, left, and Andrew Roberts, selected for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2022 Biennial, titled “Quiet as It’s Kept,” at the graffitied border wall in Tijuana.Alejandro Cossio for The New York TimesThe curators of this year’s Whitney Biennial expanded their reach to include Mexican perspectives on the border. More

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      Rachel Zegler, ‘West Side Story’ Star, Is Invited to the Oscars After All

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      On Sunday she revealed on Instagram that she had not been invited to the ceremony, prompting an outcry. She has since been added as a presenter.It looks as if Rachel Zegler, who plays Maria in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” is going to the Oscars.She has been invited to be a presenter at the Oscars, and Disney is working to rearrange the production schedule on her current project, a live-action version of “Snow White,” to make it happen, according to two people briefed on the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid a conflict with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hosts the Oscars.How the arrangement came together provides a glimpse into how the Hollywood gears can sometimes grind.It started on Sunday, when Zegler, 20, posted a photo of herself in a blue gown on Instagram. A follower commented, “Can’t wait to see what you’ll be wearing on Oscar night.”Zegler replied that she had not received an invitation to the ceremony, during which “West Side Story” is up for seven awards. The ceremony will be broadcast this Sunday on ABC from Los Angeles. ABC is owned by Disney, which released the film last year.“I’m not invited,” she wrote, “so sweatpants and my boyfriend’s flannel.”She added that she would support the film from her couch. “I hope some last minute miracle occurs and I can celebrate our film in person,” she wrote, “but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes, I guess.”The challenge involves much more than invitations. Zegler is filming “Snow White” in London, and getting her to the Oscars and back will require Disney to rework schedules for hundreds of cast and crew members. The film, already on a tight schedule because of delays related to the coronavirus pandemic, is a $200 million production.A spokeswoman for the academy, which confirmed Zegler’s addition to the presenter lineup in a statement later on Wednesday, declined to comment. A representative for Zegler did not respond to a request for comment.Word that Zegler had not been invited to the ceremony drew a swift backlash from her followers and others on social media, including Russ Tamblyn, who played Riff, the leader of the Jets street gang, in the original “West Side Story” in 1961. They wondered why a lead actress in a film that had received a best picture nomination would not be invited to the ceremony.The film’s Oscar nominations include best picture, best director for Spielberg and best supporting actress for Ariana DeBose. Zegler, who is not nominated for an Oscar, won a Golden Globe for her role.Vimal Patel More

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      Debra Messing Can Age Easily in ‘Birthday Candles.’ It’s Baking That’s Hard.

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      An actress with an obsessive work ethic, Messing is learning to make a cake onstage in “Birthday Candles” on Broadway.“Birthday Candles,” the existential dramedy now in previews on Broadway, relies on a simple recipe: an eight-step process for a golden butter cake. At every performance, the actress playing Ernestine, the show’s Everywoman heroine, bakes that cake onstage, in real time.Here, in Roundabout Theater Company’s production, that actress is Debra Messing, which means that “Birthday Candles” depends on yet another recipe: Find a Hollywood star. Rehearse. Repeat.If you’re wondering whether Messing is a baker, let’s just say that when she tried out the recipe during the first wave of the pandemic, the cake exploded. She had added nearly two cups of baking powder, rather than nearly two teaspoons.“It took me two days to clean out the oven,” she recalled in an interview. “I can honestly say that the baking has become the thing that I am most nervous about.”Considering that Messing never leaves the stage, and that Ernestine ages 90 years — from 17 to 107 — in 90 breathless minutes, this is saying something.MESSING, A 53-YEAR-OLD ACTRESS who marries daffy comedy to a ramrod work ethic, was speaking on a recent afternoon in an upstairs lounge at the American Airlines Theater, where “Birthday Candles” opens April 10. She wore a purple sweater and a surgical face mask, with her famous red hair mounded on top of her head — less of a bun than an entire gâteau.John Earl Jelks, left, with Messing in the play, which opens April 10 at the American Airlines Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAs Messing tells it, she has always been hungry: “to act, to learn, to progress.” Taken to “Annie,” a musical about a spunky redhead, as a 7-year-old, she decided that acting was for her. Even then, she took her craft seriously; the following summer, she played a blind girl in a play at camp and insisted on rehearsing with her eyes closed. She walked off the stage and into the orchestra pit. It was the first of many workplace injuries to come.Messing wanted to be a musical theater performer, a triple threat. Her dancing, she said, is merely adequate, so she tops out at a double threat. After college at Brandeis and graduate school at New York University, she talked herself into a lead role on the sitcom “Ned and Stacey.” Michael J. Weithorn, the creator, hadn’t thought that she came across as Jewish enough or neurotic enough. But Messing is, by her own proud admission, both of these things.“Happy neuroticism,” said Vivienne Benesch, who is directing “Birthday Candles” and has known Messing since graduate school. (Benesch has a lot of memories from those days; one involves a unitard.)“Ned and Stacey” ran for two years. When it ended, Messing booked “Will & Grace,” a sitcom about a gay lawyer (Eric McCormack) and his best friend, a straight interior designer (Messing). Though a conventional network sitcom, “Will & Grace” was a milestone for queer representation, and it allowed Messing to refine her gift for dizzy, kinetic physical comedy.“She’s not afraid to show up and fall over things in service of the story,” McCormack said in a phone interview, as he was recovering from emergency dental surgery — but still wanted to speak about his friend.McCormack also confirmed her reputation as something of a workaholic. “That is her strong suit,” he said. “She will delve.”When the original run of “Will & Grace” ended, in 2006, Messing starred in a mini-series, “The Starter Wife,” that later came back for an additional season. In 2011, she heard about a new musical drama, “Smash,” a brainchild of the playwright Theresa Rebeck and Steven Spielberg that was planned for Showtime before it moved to NBC.“I was like, ‘I have to be part of this,’” Messing said. “I am going to be able to play a character where I watch people sing and dance all day long.”She was cast as Julia, the book writer of a Broadway-bound musical about Marilyn Monroe. Rebeck recalled being glad to have her, saying: “She’s extremely beautiful. And she’s funny. She’s fearlessly funny.” (Rebeck also said, perhaps less generously, that Messing had a lot of input in Julia’s controversial, scarf-forward wardrobe.)Despite a strong pilot, “Smash” splintered. Messing blamed the firing of Rebeck after the first season, but problems had surfaced earlier. When it ended, after two seasons, Messing went to Broadway for John Patrick Shanley’s oddball romantic comedy “Outside Mullingar.” She played a detective on “The Mysteries of Laura,” another show that didn’t last for long. Then “Will & Grace” was revived — something Messing preferred not to discuss. When it finished in 2020, after three seasons, she was ready for Broadway again.“Birthday Candles,” by Noah Haidle, premiered at the Detroit Public Theater in 2018. A year later, Roundabout, which has a long relationship with Haidle, greenlit a cold reading. Haidle requested Messing because, he said, “She’s good at acting and a very famous person.”Messing, who listens to the “Birthday Candles” script as she falls asleep, said, “Doing the work gives me peace.”Kholood Eid for The New York TimesBenesch, the director, sent the script to Messing, who read it on her bed, laughing, then crying. She arrived for the reading more prepared than anyone Haidle had ever seen. Afterward, Todd Haimes, Roundabout’s artistic director, said that he wanted the play for Broadway. But it seemed as if there were other plays contending for a slot. So, to sweeten the deal, Messing sent him a cake, with sprinkles and “Let’s Do It” written in icing.Had she baked it?“Oh, hell no,” Messing said. “I wanted him to say yes.” The next day, he did, but then the pandemic pushed opening night back a couple of years.THE PLAY, WHICH GESTURES toward modernist classics like Thornton Wilder’s “The Long Christmas Dinner,” takes place on a single set: the kitchen of a middle-class home in Grand Rapids, Mich. Ernestine enters as a teenager. “I am going to be a rebel against the universe,” she says. “Wage war with the everyday.”When the lights go down 90 minutes later, she is a great-great grandmother, reconciled to the universe. In between there are births, death, comedies, tragedies. Every scene takes place on one of her birthdays and the golden butter cake is baked continuously, without benefit of a mixer. (They’re too loud.)During the pandemic lockdown, Messing caught up on “Real Housewives” shows and attempted the ukulele. She also studied the script for “Birthday Candles.” Some parts came to her easily; she identified with the young Ernestine’s passion and expansiveness. The breakdown of the middle-aged Ernestine’s marriage, her experiences of loss — these resonated, too. But what Ernestine undergoes later is unfamiliar. “I haven’t experienced any of it yet,” Messing said.She watched YouTube videos of centenarians: studying how they moved, how they sat. She also worked with a voice coach to learn about what happens to the larynx as women age. Ernestine never leaves the stage, so there are no prosthetics or wigs. Aging, then, is effected through body and voice, plus subtle changes in hairstyle and eyewear.“I’m not 107,” Messing said. “I don’t know anyone who’s 107. So part of it is trusting that the homework will protect me and support me.”It’s working, for Haidle anyway. “Whatever she’s doing,” he said, “it’s like a magic trick.”Part of this trick: Messing listens to the script every night while she sleeps. (“So intense,” Haidle said.) This, she believes, helps her learn lines. It also makes her feel that she is doing her utmost. “Doing the work gives me peace,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s helping or not, but putting it on and falling asleep to it, I like to think that it’s getting embedded in a deeper way.”Nothing about her approach seems light. Typically, actors move through technical rehearsals casually. But during a recent one — as Messing and a co-star, Enrico Colantoni, worked through a scene — she seemed to give a full performance for each pass. She even wanted him to do a real kiss.“Kiss me,” she insisted. “Kiss me, come on.” Under her sweater, blue this time, she was wearing a pain relief patch, because hunching over as a 107-year-old, as she had done in rehearsal the day before, had put a lot of strain on her lower back.Baking has required extra preparation. It’s a science, Messing said, and science was never really her thing. It doesn’t help that each stir, crack and sprinkle is precisely timed to Ernestine’s milestone events.“The milk is the thing that really just makes me want to go to a sanitarium,” she said.But Messing has practiced — and practiced, and practiced — and she believes that by the time the play opens, she will be able to bake the cake comfortably, reliably linking each step to Ernestine’s sweet and bitter journey through life.Still, there are limits. “Frosting?” she said. “Forget it.”At home, she has finally made the cake successfully and marveled at how humble staples — butter, sugar, eggs — combine into something astonishing, a moment of transcendence wrested from the ordinary. So even though allergies and intolerances and an eating plan she adopted around the time she turned 50 mean that Messing avoids nearly all of the ingredients, she tried a bite.“I was like, This is so delicious,” she said. “I was like, Oh yeah, I get it.” More

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      Late Night Sees Through Republican Questions for Ketanji Brown Jackson

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      “It’s funny listening to the same people who let the president get away with trying to overthrow the government call anyone ‘soft on crime,’ but that’s how it goes,” Jimmy Kimmel said.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.Soft SpotsJudge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings continued on Tuesday, and late-night hosts couldn’t help but notice how Republicans made their biases clear.“I think your dog whistle’s busted, guys. Everyone can hear it now!” Jimmy Kimmel said.“Today was the first of two days where senators can ask the nominee direct questions, so Democrats asked things like ‘Why are you so great?’ and Republicans asked things like ‘Why aren’t you Donald Trump?’” — JAMES CORDEN“But despite the gratuitous attacks, Judge Jackson has been very cool under pressure. They don’t have anything real to criticize, so they’ve been trying to portray her as being soft on crime, which is interesting because she’s been endorsed by both the International Association of Police Chiefs and the Fraternal Order of Police — and the band The Police. Even Sting is in her corner.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“How soft are Republicans talking here, do we think? Like, ‘not handing out maximum sentences’ levels of soft or, you know, ‘deciding to look the other way after Jan. 6’ levels of soft?” — JAMES CORDEN“It’s funny listening to the same people who let the president get away with trying to overthrow the government call anyone ‘soft on crime,’ but that’s how it goes.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (More K.B.J. Edition)“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson made an opening statement yesterday, got praise from both sides of the aisle. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said he liked it and his wife liked it, too. Judge Jackson got the coveted Barbara Grassley seal of approval.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“But not every Republican was impressed. Senators Marsha Blackburn and Josh Hawley were like, ‘You lost us at Ketanji.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yep, these hearings are never really fun, but then again there’s always a paper crinkle to really liven things up.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingSavannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb surprised Jimmy Fallon with a performance of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightSandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, “The Lost City” co-stars, will appear on Wednesday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutPerformers at the “Bridgerton” ball, which will travel to Washington, Chicago and Montreal after its Los Angeles run.Maggie Shannon for The New York Times“Bridgerton” fans can enjoy a royal ball straight out of their favorite Netflix series. More

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      Amanda Bynes, Former Child Star, Is Released From Conservatorship

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      A judge in California freed the former Nickelodeon star from the arrangement that had governed her life after highly publicized struggles with substance abuse.A judge ruled on Tuesday to end the conservatorship that for the better part of a decade has governed the life of Amanda Bynes, who shot to fame as a child star on Nickelodeon and went on to have highly publicized struggles with substance abuse.A court in California first ordered that Ms. Bynes be put in a conservatorship — a legal arrangement typically reserved for people who are older, ailing or have disabilities — in 2013, after erratic public behavior and a series of arrests. Over the years, Ms. Bynes’s parents have overseen her life, taking control of medical and mental health decisions and, for a time, her finances.The conservatorship system has come under intense scrutiny in the last year, after Britney Spears condemned her own as abusive and accused her father and others of exploiting her and seeking to capitalize off her wealth and stardom. A judge agreed to terminate Spears’s conservatorship in November.But Ms. Bynes’s conservatorship appeared to reach a smoother ending. Her mother, Lynn Bynes, who had acted as her conservator, told the court that she agreed that her daughter was now ready to live without that level of oversight, and a psychiatrist signed off, writing that Ms. Bynes had “no apparent impairment in alertness and attention, information and processing, or ability to modulate mood and affect.” Ms. Bynes’s lawyer, David A. Esquibias, held her case up as an example of how a conservatorship could be effective in rehabilitating a person while allowing them a degree of autonomy.“For the most part, mom has allowed Amanda to live freely,” Mr. Esquibias said. “She never wanted to be conserved, but she understood why.”At Ventura County Superior Court on Tuesday, Judge Roger L. Lund granted Ms. Bynes’s request to terminate the conservatorship. “She’s done everything the court has asked over a long period of time,” Judge Lund said.Ms. Bynes, 35, gained prominence as a young cast member of “All That,” Nickelodeon’s “Saturday Night Live”-style show, before headlining her own sketch comedy program, “The Amanda Show,” which helped define the network’s goofy brand of non sequitur humor. Ms. Bynes then graduated to roles in mainstream romantic comedies including “She’s the Man” and “Easy A.”A series of run-ins with the law in 2012 and 2013 drew intense media coverage, as she was arrested and accused of driving under the influence, hit and run and possession of marijuana. Ms. Bynes was held involuntarily in a psychiatric hospital in 2013 after setting a small fire in a driveway, and was later ordered into a temporary conservatorship.In an interview with Paper Magazine in 2018, Ms. Bynes said, “I got really into my drug usage and it became a really dark, sad world for me.” She told the magazine that she had been sober for nearly four years.At a time of reassessment of how the media, the entertainment industry and the public have treated female celebrities going through mental health or substance abuse struggles — spurred in part by Ms. Spears’s case — Ms. Bynes offers another example of a young woman raised in the spotlight whose subsequent breakdown was breathlessly covered by tabloids.In recent years, Ms. Bynes’s life has stabilized, her lawyer said. She is now studying at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles and lives in an apartment community for women “poised to transition into an autonomous lifestyle,” according to papers filed with the court last month that requested Ms. Bynes’s conservatorship be terminated.“Ms. Bynes desires to live free of any constraint,” the filing said.The former actress has said little publicly about the conservatorship, aside from a video posted to social media in which she took issue with the cost of her mental health treatment.Conservatorships, often called guardianships, have received a great deal of public interest as a result of Ms. Spears’s case, disability rights advocates say, and a bill in California making its way through the state legislature would make it easier for conservatorships to be terminated and would require courts and potential conservators to consider alternative options first.Judy Mark, the president of Disability Voices United, a nonprofit organization that is working to get the legislation passed, said that while she supports the termination of Ms. Spears’s and Ms. Bynes’s conservatorships, she is not seeing it getting easier for a more typical conservatee to assert their freedoms.“Not everyone has Instagram accounts with millions of followers and a fan base that cares about them,” Ms. Mark said. “Most people conserved are normal people with disabilities, and most courts are very paternalistic.”Ms. Bynes and her parents have long been preparing for the termination of the conservatorship to ensure a smooth transition, said Tamar Arminak, a lawyer for Ms. Bynes’s parents. (The conservatorship of Ms. Bynes’s estate was ended several years ago, leaving the conservatorship in charge of her person, which involved medical and basic life decisions.) The court’s ruling allows Ms. Bynes to make personal choices that she did not have before, such as getting married to her fiancé, Ms. Arminak said.“The moment that it was clear and apparent that Amanda would do well off this conservatorship we agreed to terminate this conservatorship,” she said. More

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      Netflix Lures ‘Bridgerton’ Fans With Live Event: The Queen’s Ball

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      LOS ANGELES — The wisteria drips from the archway while classical music plays over the loudspeakers. Powder-wigged valets present champagne to guests who gaze at Empire-waist dresses, peer into a room filled with makeup and accessories or head to a stage for a quick oil portrait (actually a digital photo with a Regency England-esque filter).This is The Queen’s Ball: A Bridgerton Experience, an immersive, Instagram-ready confection held in the ballrooms of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles and tailor made for die-hard fans of the global Netflix hit. The 200 to 300 guests aren’t able to meet Regé-Jean Page, the breakout star of the first season of “Bridgerton,” who declined to return to the 19th-century drama. But they can bow before an actress doing her best impression of Queen Charlotte (right down to the haughty glare), learn a dance set to a string quartet version of Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams,” participate in a Lady Whistledown scavenger hunt and possibly even be granted the coveted honor of being named the “diamond of the evening.”The 90-minute experience — which will open to the public on Thursday and run for at least two months before traveling to Washington, Chicago and Montreal — is Netflix’s most ambitious real-world event to date. (A similar version opened in London this month.) The streaming giant hopes it serves as a marketing tool for “Bridgerton” and appeals to the show’s primarily female fan base, which is often ignored when it comes to fan culture.Performers at the “Bridgerton” ball, which will travel to Washington, Chicago and Montreal after its Los Angeles run.Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesIt is also a bid to amplify the kind of water-cooler buzz that has been elusive for streaming shows. Since their episodes tend to be released in one batch, the week-to-week anticipation familiar to fans of traditional network television can be diluted.“This really goes towards my vision of what I’ve always wanted us to be able to do,” the “Bridgerton” creator Shonda Rhimes said in a Zoom interview from her home in New York, before bringing up two of her popular ABC dramas, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal.” “People who watched ‘Grey’s’ weren’t just watching ‘Grey’s’ on Thursday night — they were trying to find other ways to consume it. ‘Scandal’ was not a show that people watched on Thursday nights and then just didn’t talk about it the rest of the week.”In its 18th season, “Grey’s Anatomy” is still broadcast television’s No. 1 show in the critical 18-to-49-year-old demographic. “Scandal” ended in 2018 after seven seasons.“Being at Netflix allows us to take that desire for the fans and to create a thing where you’re allowing them to be part of the experience more than just on one night of the week or one hour a week,” added Ms. Rhimes, who recently renewed her lucrative Netflix deal for five more years, adding additional revenue streams like podcasts and video games.In addition to The Queen’s Ball, which costs between $49 and $99 to attend, Netflix has teamed up with Bloomingdale’s for a pop-up shop both online and at the flagship Manhattan store ($995 lilac Malone Souliers floral appliquéd pumps, anyone?). There is also a line of cosmetics from Pat McGrath, a British makeup artist whose makeup was used in the production of “Bridgerton”; a soundtrack featuring pop hits played by a string quartet; and a Netflix book club, whose March pick is “The Viscount Who Loved Me,” the second book in the series, by Julia Quinn, that serves as the show’s source material.“Bridgerton” tea for sale at the ball.Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesMakeup can be purchased, too.Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesTraditional Hollywood studios have been playing this game for a long time. For instance, the second that one of its shows or movies is a hit, Disney starts pumping out related products. But it is a relatively new strategy for Netflix. (The streamer did roll out “Squid Game” tracksuits in partnership with the South Korean brand Musinsa late last year, soon after the series took off.)Inside the World of “Bridgerton”The Netflix series, whose second season is out this March, infuses period-drama escapism with modern-day sensibilities.Sparkling Period Piece: The show is a Regency romance and society drama with unstuffy pop aesthetic, writes our television critic.The Secret Is Out: A big reveal in the first season put Nicola Coughlan at the center of the action. Here is what the star says about her new fame.Approach to Race: Departing from most period dramas, “Bridgerton” imagines a 19th-century Britain with Black royalty and aristocrats.Fashion Trends: The show has helped fuel the resurgence of period clothing, corsets included. And the costumes are only the beginning.Across the Pond: “Bridgerton,” which is filmed in Bath, is one of several productions made in Britain, drawn by the labor pool and tax incentives.In the past couple of years, Netflix has placed an emphasis on live, out-of-home experiences. First there was a Covid-conscious “Stranger Things” drive-through event in 2020, then an event where participants searched for a bank vault in a heist experience tied to the series “La Casa de Papel.” Recently, the company held a virtual reality event for Zack Snyder’s zombie film “Army of the Dead.”What does all this do for Netflix’s bottom line? The company says over one million people have attended its live events, a number it expects to increase significantly as long as Covid-19 remains on the wane.Netflix wouldn’t discuss the economics of the events, but Ted Sarandos, its co-chief executive, referred to the “Bridgerton” live experience on the company’s January earnings call as part of its efforts to create franchises out of “whole cloth.” He predicted that “fans will flock to and flood their social media feeds with” photos from The Queen’s Ball.Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s head of global TV, added in a recent interview, “I really love that we’re building these universes and doing these consumer products that are completely just so much about female fandom.”Organizers say demand for The Queen’s Ball in Los Angeles has been as manic as the early reception for “Bridgerton”: 88 percent of tickets had been bought two weeks before its opening.Michael Vorhaus, a longtime digital media consultant, said such events helped prolong interest in content that in the Netflix universe is consumed and discarded faster than a sparsely filled-out dance card.“It’s Harry Potter for adults,” he said of “Bridgerton.” “You’ve got eight books. And if the consumption numbers hold up, then presumably they will make all eight, and who knows beyond that? Every dollar they’re spending now building a community, every dollar that builds buzz for them, they’re getting paid off over eight seasons.”Jaqi Harris, left, and Sarah Durnesque, guests at the ball, reading the gossip in Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers.Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesPlus, with an audience that’s primarily women ages 18 to 45, Netflix is appealing to a group that is traditionally not courted as rabid consumers of pop culture.“It’s a very underserved fan base,” said Greg Lombardo, head of experiences at Netflix. “In this space there are not a lot of offerings out there that are really geared towards a female audience.”Indeed, it was a milestone when the cast of the first “Twilight” movie showed up at Comic-Con in 2008, introducing a new demographic to the predominantly male-skewed fan convention. “Fifty Shades of Grey” followed suit with an extensive line of merchandising. “Outlander” and “Downton Abbey” have also proved the purchasing power of a largely female fan base.“It’s not that revolutionary to suggest that women are enormous consumers of products, and when they are a fan of something, they are hard-core fans of something,” Ms Rhimes said. “I have known that for the 20-something years I’ve been doing my job. The difference here is that we are now in an era in which the people who create those universes are not strictly men.”But more often than not, big mainstream franchises are still primarily aimed toward young men, with spaces carved out for others to join, said Katherine Morrissey, a professor at Arizona State University who studies fan culture.“It seems like Netflix is very aware that the audience for ‘Bridgerton’ is not necessarily going to think of itself as a fandom in the way that we kind of stereotype fandoms,” she said. “They’re very aware that their consumers are going to be interested in similar things but are going to want them packaged in totally different ways. They’re not necessarily going to be self-identified like, ‘This is the thing I did at Comic-Con.’”The soapy, sexy romance novels seem perfect for Ms. Rhimes’s streaming ambitions. Each book focuses on a child of the Bridgerton family and the efforts to marry the child off successfully (i.e., for love) per the customs of early-19th-century England. Each features a self-contained story line — a dream for Ms. Rhimes, who has had to keep churning out plot twists for her long-running network shows. Now she can tell distinct stories, plus a spinoff season dedicated to Queen Charlotte, who was the wife of King George III and may have been England’s first Black queen, a character Ms. Rhimes has been obsessed with for years.Netflix has already greenlit Seasons 3 and 4 of “Bridgerton” and the Queen Charlotte spinoff, which will enter production shortly.“It’s an incredible gift,” said Betsy Beers, Ms. Rhimes longtime producing partner. “It really provides for an incredible fluidity of storytelling and also, economically, is very sensible on both the practical and production end.”It has also allowed for Netflix’s six-person live events team to adapt the “Bridgerton” experience for future seasons. (An anthropomorphized bumblebee makes a foreboding entrance in the new live show, something only the fans who have binged the whole second season will immediately understand.)“This really goes towards my vision of what I’ve always wanted us to be able to do,” said Shonda Rhimes, who created the Netflix hit.Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesBack at the Biltmore, once the guests have curtsied their way to an introduction to the queen and learned their dance moves, they are escorted into a larger ballroom for a dance performance between a handsome duke and a coquettish duchess. With a string quartet playing pop songs, the guests are then encouraged to join in the fun, while the queen evaluates them for their diamond potential. (With bars stationed strategically throughout the experience, Netflix realizes lowered inhibitions augment the event. Sixteen dollars gets you one of an array of cocktails, including the Whistledown & Dirty, which contains Absolut vodka, mint and San Pellegrino limonata.)From on high, over the quartet’s playing of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” bellows the voice of Lady Whistledown’s protégé, Lady Heartell, who was created for the ball: “I don’t know about all of you, but I got what I came for.”If Netflix has planned it correctly, the audience did, too. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel Ribs Republicans Over Ketanji Brown Jackson

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      Kimmel said Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings could make the G.O.P.’s worst nightmare could come true: “Having this decided by two Black women whose names they can’t pronounce.”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.‘Subtle Racism Jamboree’Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings kicked off in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday.Jimmy Kimmel joked that the hearings “give a number of our Republican senators a chance to compete in one of their favorite events: the subtle racism jamboree.”“She doesn’t need any Republican votes to get confirmed because the vice president is the tiebreaker, which would be — that would be the G.O.P.’s ultimate nightmare: having this decided by two Black women whose names they can’t pronounce.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I actually think they should treat Ketanji Brown Jackson exactly like they treated Brett Kavanaugh: Interview every single person who has accused her of sexual assault. Don’t stop, even though there are none. Do not stop.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (K.B.J. Edition)“Well, guys, today confirmation hearings began for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. The hearing process will last four days. It’s basically C-SPAN’s version of Coachella.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, Jackson will face days of tough questions. Brett Kavanaugh was like [imitating Kavanaugh slurring]: ‘It’ll be fine. I did it for four days after the second day, after the s — after the second day, it’s kind of a blur.’” — JIMMY FALLON“I saw that top Republican leading the hearings, Chuck Grassley, is 88 years old. Wow. When it was his turn to speak he was like, ‘Tell us who you are, and then tell me who I am.’” — JIMMY FALLON“But this is cool: I saw that Judge Jackson’s parents were at the confirmation hearing. Even crazier, so were Chuck Grassley’s.” — JIMMY FALLON“The next two days are for questions, and I think it’s going to be a huge missed opportunity if one of the judiciary committee members doesn’t start a question with ‘I’m sorry, Miss Jackson, ooh? I am for real — what is your judicial stance on federal financial oversight?’” — JAMES CORDEN, riffing on Outkast’s song, “Ms. Jackson”The Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Fallon and Questlove played a game of Charades with Leslie Mann and Mikey Day, the host of “Is It Cake?” on Monday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightJamie Lee Curtis will pop by Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutSharon Stone in the interrogation scene in “Basic Instinct,” which opened on March 20, 1992.Rialto PicturesThe erotic thriller “Basic Instinct” is still a hit 30 years after its highly contested premiere. More