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      Michael Gambon, Dumbledore in the ‘Harry Potter’ Films, Dies at 82

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      After he made his mark in London in the 1970s, he went on to play a wide range of roles, including Edward VII, Oscar Wilde and Winston Churchill.Michael Gambon, the Irish-born actor who drew acclaim from both audiences and peers for his stage and screen work, and who won even wider renown as Albus Dumbledore, the firm but kindly headmaster of the Hogwarts wizarding school, in the “Harry Potter” films, died on Wednesday night. He was 82.Mr. Gambon’s family confirmed his death in a brief statement issued on Thursday through a public relations company. “Michael died peacefully in hospital with his wife, Anne, and son Fergus at his bedside, following a bout of pneumonia,” the statement said. It did not identify the hospital where he died.The breakthrough that led the actor Ralph Richardson to call him “the great Gambon” came with Mr. Gambon’s performance in Bertolt Brecht’s “Life of Galileo” at London’s National Theater in 1980, although he had already enjoyed modest success, notably in plays by Alan Ayckbourn and Harold Pinter.Peter Hall, then the National Theater’s artistic director, described Mr. Gambon (pronounced GAM-bonn) as “unsentimental, dangerous and immensely powerful.” He recalled in his autobiography that he had approached four leading directors to accept him in the title role, only for them to reject him as “not starry enough.”After John Dexter agreed to direct him in what Mr. Gambon was to describe as the most difficult part he had ever played, the mix of volcanic energy and tenderness, sensuality and intelligence he brought to the role — in which he aged from 40 to 75 — excited not only critics but also his fellow performers.Mr. Gambon in the title role of Bertolt Brecht’s “Life of Galileo” at the National Theater in London in 1980. He called it the most difficult part he had ever played.Donald Cooper/AlamyAs Mr. Hall recalled, the dressing-room windows at the National, which look out onto a courtyard, “after the first night contained actors in various states of undress leaning out and applauding him — a unique tribute.”That brought Mr. Gambon a best-actor nomination at the Olivier Awards. He would win the award in 1987 for his performance as Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge” at the National Theater. Again it was his blend of vulnerability and visceral force that impressed audiences; Miller declared that Mr. Gambon’s performance as the embattled longshoreman was the best he had seen. Mr. Ayckbourn, who directed the production, described Mr. Gambon as awe-inspiring.“One day he just stood in the rehearsal room and just burst into tears — no turning upstage, no hands in front of his face,” Mr. Ayckbourn said. “He just stood there and wept like a child. It was heartbreaking. And he did angry very well too. That could be scary.”Michael John Gambon was born in Dublin on Oct. 19, 1940. He became a dual British and Irish citizen after he and his seamstress mother, Mary, moved to London to join his father, Edward, an engineer helping to reconstruct the city after it had been badly bombed in 1945.By his own admission he was a dreamy student, often lost in fantasies of being other people, and he left school “pig ignorant, with no qualifications, nothing.” When the family moved from North London to Kent, he became an apprentice toolmaker at Vickers-Armstrongs, which was famous for having built Britain’s Spitfire fighter planes.The teenage Mr. Gambon had never seen a play — he said he didn’t even knew what a play was — but when he helped build sets for an amateur dramatic society in Erith, Kent, he was given a few small roles onstage. “I went vroom!,” he recalled. “I thought, Jesus, this is for me, I want to be an actor.” He joined the left-leaning Unity Theater in London, performing and taking lessons in improvisation at the Royal Court.This emboldened him to write to Micheal MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards, the founders of the Gate Theater in Dublin, claiming to be a West End actor passing through the city en route to New York. An invitation ensued, as did a job as the Second Gentleman in “Othello,” followed by an offer to join Laurence Olivier’s new National Theater, which (Mr. Gambon said) was seeking burly six-footers like himself to play spear carriers.Several small or nonspeaking roles followed — Mr. Gambon remembered little but saying “Madam, your carriage awaits” to Maggie Smith in a Restoration comedy — until Olivier himself advised him to seek better parts in the provinces. That he did, closely modeling an Othello in Birmingham in 1968 on the Moor famously played at the National by Olivier, an actor Mr. Gambon said he always regarded with “absolute awe.”Mr. Gambon didn’t make his mark in London until 1974, when he played a slow-witted veterinary surgeon in Alan Ayckbourn’s trilogy “The Norman Conquests.” One scene, in which he sat on a child’s chair so low that only half his face was visible, became celebrated for the hilarity it generated. Indeed, Mr. Gambon said, he actually witnessed a man “laugh so much he fell out of his seat and rolled down the gangway.”Mr. Gambon in 1987, the year he won an Olivier Award for his performance in Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge.”John Stoddart/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesMr. Gambon said he disliked looking in mirrors; so unpleasant did he find his face that he compared it to a crumpled plastic bag. His jowls and his heavy build meant that he never played Hamlet or any obviously heroic or conventionally good-looking characters, yet he won universal admiration for his versatility. He seemed able to grow or shrink at will. For a man compared to a lumberjack, he was astonishingly fleet and nimble. One critic saw him as a rhinoceros that could almost tap-dance.And he brought a paradoxical delicacy to many a role: King Lear and Antony, which he played in tandem for the Royal Shakespeare Company; leading roles in Pinter’s “Betrayal” and “Old Times”; Ben Jonson’s Volpone at the National Theater; and the anguished restaurateur in David Hare’s “Skylight,” a performance he took from London to Broadway, where it earned him a Tony Award nomination for best actor in 1996.At the time he was best known in the United States for a television performance as the daydreaming invalid in Dennis Potter’s acclaimed 1986 mini-series, “The Singing Detective.” Though he always said that the theater was his great love and he pined for it when he was away, he often appeared on screens both large and small during a career in which he was virtually never out of work.Before being cast as Dumbledore, Mr. Gambon was best known in the United States for his performance as the daydreaming invalid in Dennis Potter’s acclaimed 1986 mini-series, “The Singing Detective.”BBCFrom 1999 to 2001, he won successive best-actor BAFTA awards, for “Wives and Daughters,” “Longitude” and “Perfect Strangers.” His portrayal of Lyndon B. Johnson in the 2002 mini-series “Path to War” won him an Emmy nomination, as did his Mr. Woodhouse in the 2009 adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma.”His television roles varied from Inspector Maigret to Edward VII, Oscar Wilde to Winston Churchill. And in film he played characters as different as Albert Spica, the coarse and violent gangster in Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover,” and the benign Professor Dumbledore.Mr. Gambon took over the role of Dumbledore, a central character in the Harry Potter saga, when Richard Harris, who had originated it, died in 2002. Reviewing “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” in which he first appeared in the role, A.O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that the film, though noteworthy for its special effects, was also, like the two earlier films in the series, “anchored by top-of-the-line flesh-and-blood British acting,” and noted that “Michael Gambon, as the wise headmaster Albus Dumbledore, has gracefully stepped into Richard Harris’s conical hat and flowing robes.” Mr. Gambon continued to play Dumbledore through the final movie in the series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” released in 2011.For all the attention that role brought him, Mr. Gambon claimed not to see this or any other performance as a great accomplishment; he tended to answer interviewers who questioned him about acting by saying, “I just do it.” But in fact he prepared for his roles conscientiously. He would absorb a script, then use rehearsals to adapt and deepen his discoveries.“I’m very physical,” he once said. “I want to know how the person looks, what his hair is like, the way he walks, the way he stands and sits, how he sounds, his rhythms, how he dresses, his shoes. The way your feet feel on the stage is important.” And slowly, very slowly, Mr. Gambon would edge toward what he felt was the core of a person and, he said, rely on intuition to bring him to life onstage.Though he was no Method actor, Mr. Gambon did use memories when strong emotions were needed. He found it easy to cry onstage, he said, sometimes by thinking of the famous photograph of a naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack. Acting, he said, was a compulsion, “a hard slog, heartache, misery — for moments of sheer joy.”Mr. Gambon in the 1989 film “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.”Steve Pyke/Getty ImagesIn person Mr. Gambon was elusive; he said that he didn’t exist aside from his acting and that he hated the idea of celebrity, even popularity. He adamantly refused to reveal anything about his private life to interviewers, though it’s on public record that he married Anne Miller when he was 22 and that together they had a son, Fergus. They both survive him. It is believed that they remained on good terms even after he had two other sons, Tom and William, with the set designer Philippa Hart.He was knighted in 1998.His engineering apprenticeship left him fascinated with the workings of mechanical things: clocks, old watches and especially antique guns, of which he possessed scores. He also took delight in fast cars; he once appeared on the television show “Top Gear” and drove so recklessly that a section of the track he’d taken on two wheels was renamed Gambon Corner.He became notorious for impish behavior on and off the stage. A qualified pilot, he promised to cure a fellow actor of his fear of flying by taking him up in a tiny plane, then mimed a heart attack as, his tongue lolling, he nose-dived toward outer London. Mr. Ayckbourn recalled a moment in “Othello” when Mr. Gambon shoved Iago’s head into a fountain. “Shampoo and set, shampoo and set,” roared the Moor — but such was the emotion already generated the audience reportedly didn’t notice.“I’m actually serious about my work,” Mr. Gambon once said. However, much of that work came to a premature end after he played a wily, drunken, needy Falstaff at the National Theater in 2005, followed by the alcoholic Hirst in Pinter’s “No Man’s Land” in 2008.Having admitted that he often felt terrified before making an entrance, he had panic attacks while rehearsing the role of W.H. Auden in Alan Bennett’s “The Habit of Art” in 2009 and was twice rushed to a hospital before withdrawing from the production. By then he was finding it difficult to remember lines. After playing the nonspeaking title character in Samuel Beckett’s “Eh Joe” in 2013, he announced that he would no longer perform onstage.He continued to appear on film and television, notably as the ailing title character in “Churchill’s Secret” in 2016. But his departure from theater meant that he ended his stage career with a deep sense of loss.“It’s a horrible thing to admit,” he said. “But I can’t do it. And it breaks my heart.”Alex Marshall More

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      Onstage, Michael Gambon’s Depth Transcended the Unspoken

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      The actor conveyed the gravitational force of mortality, tugging the men he played so commandingly toward a void beyond meaning, our critic writes.Even in silence, he thundered. Make that, especially in silence.The last two times I saw the mighty Michael Gambon onstage, his characters didn’t have much to say, and in one case, nothing at all. Both the plays in which this British actor, who died on Wednesday at the age of 82, was appearing on those occasions were by Samuel Beckett, “Eh Joe” and “All That Fall.”Few, if any dramatists, made better use of the resonance of the unspoken than Beckett. And few actors brought such profound visceral weariness — and agitation — to Beckett’s wordlessness. Even in performances that required him to bellow, quip or speechify, Gambon made sure we were aware of the gravitational force of mortality, tugging the men he played so commandingly toward a void beyond meaning, beyond will, beyond life.He was not an obese man, but he was an uncommonly solid and fleshly presence in live theater, from his haunted, corrugated face to his bearlike torso and unexpectedly expressive feet. Here was someone, you felt, whom it was better never to cross.That impressive avoirdupois made him a natural onscreen for roles as different as the magisterial wizard Dumbledore in the “Harry Potter” movies; the terrifying, vengeful gangster in Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover”; and the hospital patient, fantasist mystery writer in Dennis Potter’s sublime television mini-series “The Singing Detective.” Onstage that presence allowed Gambon to convey, effortlessly, the subliminal menace and explosiveness in the husband and lover of Harold Pinter’s “Old Times” and David Hare’s “Skylight,” and the rueful rage beneath Falstaff’s heartiness in the Henry IV plays.Yet he always gave the impression that all that powerful density might melt into the helplessness we associate with the newborn and the dying, a sense that thrums like a bass line through Beckett’s work. In “Eh Joe,” a television play that was brought to the London stage by the director Atom Egoyan in 2006, Gambon’s role was almost entirely passive.The only words we heard were spoken by an unseen woman, who voiced a droning litany of accusations of a life lived in bad faith. It was Egoyan’s conceit to have Gambon’s face projected on a scrim in immense, simultaneous video close-up, registering each blow of memory with flickers of expression so subtle as to seem subterranean.It was a device that reminded us of the miraculous way cameras can discover, in certain seemingly unchanging faces, a multitude of conflicted feelings. The astonishment was how even more complete a portrait Gambon provided through the physicality of his live presence, when the camera wasn’t running.Wearing a threadbare bathrobe in a shadowed, shabby room, Gambon’s Joe began the play by running his fingers across window curtains as he closed them, then sitting with immense weariness onto his bed. For much of those opening moments, you couldn’t even see his face.Nonetheless, you sensed you had been vouchsafed a vision of a man at his most defeated, so overcome by his own futility that movement had become pointless. The very set of his shoulders let us know that Joe was so raw, so spent that you felt, as you sometimes do with great actors, that you were violating a privacy you had no right to witness.I am sorry I missed Gambon in Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape” in London in 2010. But I did get to see him in a lesser-known Beckett work, “All That Fall,” three years later in New York. Brought to the stage by the director Trevor Nunn, “All That Fall” follows a day in the life of the chattery, scrappy Mrs. Rooney (played, wonderfully, by Eileen Atkins), who goes to pick up her blind, broken-down husband at the train station.Gambon’s Mr. Rooney made his entrance late and didn’t begin to match his wife in loquacity. His physique, though, spoke volumes. He was, I wrote at the time, “a crumpled Goliath,” as he sloped onto the frail support of Atkins’s shoulder. Just to see the two of them, side by side, alone, in their codependency, was to understand the dynamic of a marriage.It is, however, as perhaps befits what was originally a radio play, a single sound that I remember most vividly from that production. The wife had quoted the text from the local church sermon: “The Lord upholdeth all that fall and raiseth up all those that be bowed down.”And with those words, Gambon and Atkins roared, coarsely and deeply, with laughter. To grasp the absurdity of the text, you had only to look at the derelict couple before you. But there was the triumph of defiance in their laughter.That triumph was implicit in every performance that Gambon gave us. More

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      Nashawn Breedlove, Rapper Who Dueled Eminem in ‘8 Mile,’ Dies at 46

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      He drew praise for his scene in the film, in which he belittled Eminem’s character with sarcastic lyrics, a gruff voice and an imposing presence.Nashawn Breedlove, the actor who received acclaim for his scene in the rap-to-riches film “8 Mile,” in which he delivers a tenacious freestyle in a battle against the character portrayed by the rapper Eminem, commanding the gloomy stage with his blustery lyrics and imposing presence, has died. He was 46.Mr. Breedlove’s mother, Patricia Breedlove, confirmed his death in a statement on Facebook, though she did not share the date or a cause of his death.The 2002 film “8 Mile” starred the rapper Eminem, in a story that is loosely based on his life growing up poor in a trailer park on the northern edge of Detroit. The film is renowned for its gritty portrayal of an artist hustling to make it big in the rap world, depicting a community that can be ruthlessly critical of bland artists yet rapturous when a talent twists lyrics into a clever diss or vituperation. It regularly ranks among the best hip-hop movies ever made.Mr. Breedlove, who in the film portrayed the rapper Lotto, a member of a rival rap group, projected a sense of bravado in his scene with Eminem’s character, Jimmy, who raps as B-Rabbit.Set in a small, cramped and darkly lit venue, their battle scene shows both characters onstage — Lotto, his arms muscular and voice gruff, visibly more amped up, and Jimmy, his black beanie snugged and eyes downcast, appearing relaxed and even somewhat disinterested.After calling Jimmy a “coward,” Lotto takes the mic first and injects his rap with mentions of race and Jimmy’s lack of self-worth, all while playfully adding sarcastic notes of politeness, like when he says “I hate to do this” and tells Jimmy to “have a nice day” right after lobbing a profanity at him.In one verse, Lotto compares Jimmy to the titular character in the midcentury sitcom “Leave It to Beaver,” saying, “Call me your leader, I feel bad that I got to murder that dude from ‘Leave It to Beaver.’”After finishing his freestyle, Lotto drops the mic and receives resounding cheers from the audience.Then the mic is handed to Jimmy, who stares at Lotto before charging into his belittling verse that describes Lotto as someone “paranoid” who needs “another steroid.”Then Jimmy continues to target Lotto’s muscles: “Looking like a cyclone hit you, tank top screaming, ‘Lotto, I don’t fit you!’”Jimmy is named the winner of the battle, but compared to how others fared against Eminem’s character — including his final opponent in the film, who famously chokes when confronted with Jimmy’s self-deprecating verses — Lotto’s rap stood out for its forceful yet lucid delivery.A complete list of Mr. Breedlove’s survivors was not immediately available, and relatives could not be reached for comment on Wednesday night.Mr. Breedlove also appeared on the soundtrack to the 2001 comedy “The Wash,” which starred Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, according to the music publication HipHopDX.On Monday, Mickey Factz, a rapper, said on Instagram that Mr. Breedlove would be remembered as “one of the few emcee’s to beat Eminem.” More

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      Gérard Depardieu’s Art Collection Sells for $4.2 Million at Paris Auction

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      Over 230 pieces went under the hammer, including sculptures by Rodin. The French actor — now dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct — once played the artist in a movie.The near-entirety of an art collection belonging to Gérard Depardieu, the prolific French actor whose career was clouded in recent years by accusations of sexual assault and harassment, was sold at a two-day Paris auction this week that brought in 4 million euros, including fees, or about $4.2 million.Over 230 items went under the hammer on Tuesday and Wednesday at a sale organized at the Hôtel Drouot by the Ader auction house, including paintings by Alexander Calder and sculptures by Auguste Rodin, whom Depardieu played in the 1988 movie “Camille Claudel.”About 100 people crammed into the auction room on Tuesday night for the sale of the collection’s most prominent items, including a small oil painting of a flower vase by Odile Redon, which sold for €50,000, and the three small Rodin sculptures, which sold for €15,000 to €65,000.The star of the night seemed to be a 4.5-foot enlargement of “Walking Man,” a bronze sculpture originally made by Germaine Richier in 1945. The enlargement, which used to dominate Depardieu’s living room, was hammered up to €510,000 — but the auction house said in a statement Wednesday that the actor decided at the last minute not to sell the sculpture, and withdrew the lot.“This is a serious collection,” David Nordmann, one of the two auctioneers at Ader in charge of the sale, said in an interview. “This is not the collection of a celebrity who bought artwork just to show off.”“The Walking Man” by Germaine Richier, which once stood in Depardieu’s living room.Adagp, ParisNordmann had previously worked with Depardieu when the actor sold off the contents of a Parisian fine dining restaurant that he owned. The two men stayed in touch and discussed the sale his art collection. Depardieu gave the go-ahead in early 2023, and let the auctioneer pick the pieces and set the prices.“He loved to collect,” Nordmann said, recalling how Depardieu spent hours telling him about Matisse’s superiority to Picasso the first time he entered the actor’s home. But “at some point,” he added, “he reached the end of that process.”He has also faced a growing number of sexual abuse accusations. In interviews in April with Mediapart, an investigative news site, 13 women — actresses, makeup artists and production staff — accused Depardieu of making inappropriate sexual comments or gestures during the shooting of films released between 2004 and 2022. Two other women made similar accusations against him in interviews this summer with France Inter, a radio station. Depardieu declined to be interviewed for this article, but has always denied any criminal behavior.The turmoil in his personal life might have factored into his decision to sell, Nordmann said, “but not in the sense that he is trying to prove a point” or distract from the accusations.“He wants to move on,” he said.Some items sold at prices much higher than expected, including a 1928 portrait by Christian Jacques Bérard that sold for €55,000 euros, 11 times the low estimate, and a monochromatic ink composition by Jean Arp that sold for €20,000. But most pieces sold within the estimated range.The collection, which skews heavily toward postwar abstraction and contemporary art, includes widely recognizable names — a Duchamp collage; several pieces by Miró. Depardieu appears to have favored rugged compositions, bold colors, thick brushstrokes and raw materials, in keeping with his larger-than-life personality, Nordmann said.He refused to lend pieces for shows, Nordmann said, including the Richier sculpture, which was recently requested for a show at the Centre Pompidou.Depardieu in the Netflix TV show “Marseille.” The actor has appeared in over 250 movies.Anne-Christine Poujoulat/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe sale did not include any Depardieu memorabilia. But it attracted unusually large crowds, both during the sale and beforehand, as thousands of curious visitors crowded the Hôtel Drouot to get a peek at the actor’s collection before it was snapped up.Depardieu is one of France’s most prominent and prolific lead actors, an internationally recognized figure who has played in the last 50 years in more than 250 movies, including “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “The Man in the Iron Mask,” and in TV shows like “Marseille.”Over the past decade, though, Depardieu’s popularity has waned as personal scandals overtook his acting career. He became a Russian citizen in 2013 to avoid taxes in France, and has expressed a strong friendship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, although last year he denounced the invasion of Ukraine.But the accusations of sexual abuse against Depardieu have been more damaging. He has not been convicted in connection with any of the accusations.But Depardieu has been charged with rape and sexual assault in a case involving Charlotte Arnould, a French actress who has accused him of sexually assaulting her in Paris in 2018, when she was 22, during informal rehearsals for a theater production. Prosecutors had initially dropped that investigation in 2019, citing of a lack of incriminating evidence, but it was reopened in 2020.The French movie industry has grappled with several high-profile accusations of sexual abuse in recent years and taken steps to address them. But mixed reactions to the #MeToo movement in France — which has also given a warm reception to artists accused of abuse — exposed sharp cultural divides between France and the United States.Juliette Guéron-Gabrielle More

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      Hollywood Gala Will Welcome Striking Stars, but Not Studio Bosses

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      How will the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures put on its star-studded fund-raiser this year, amid the polarizing strike? Very carefully.Meryl Streep, who was chosen to be honored at the gala next month for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, was initially under the impression that the Hollywood actors’ strike would prevent her from attending.The strike, after all, had already forced the Academy to delay one gala in November, where Angela Bassett and Mel Brooks were to receive honorary Oscars. In the case of the fund-raising event planned for Oct. 14, it was unclear at first if SAG-AFTRA, the union representing TV and movie actors, would allow striking members to attend, and, if it did, whether any would want to go.Would it be OK to appear at such a celebratory event while the industry is on the ropes? Should actors sit at tables (costing $250,000 to $500,000) that in some cases are paid for by the studios they are striking against? And what about the potential for vitriol and tension, or at least deep social awkwardness?But after negotiations and quiet diplomacy that determined who could attend and what kinds of work could be honored, the gala — which typically attracts Hollywood’s A-listers and moguls and raises more than $10 million for the popular museum — will proceed. The biggest change: Executives from the studios being struck, some of which are among the museum’s biggest sponsors, will not be there.Streep will be, though, since she has approval from her union. “I have been assured that SAG-AFTRA has encouraged members to attend the gala — that the museum deeply depends on this event for its educational and community outreach, and that no industry executives from struck companies will be in attendance,” she said in an email. “So I am steaming my dress and heading West.”Meryl Streep, armed with permission from the actors’ union to attend the gala where she is being honored, said, “I am steaming my dress and heading West.” Arturo Holmes/Getty ImagesStreep’s initial confusion is emblematic of the fraught territory that the industry finds itself in as it tries to navigate the dos and don’ts of the strike — from awards shows and fund-raisers to social events, films and television shows.It can be confusing: Some talk show hosts have stumbled in trying to do decide whether to return to the air, and the writers’ union picketed “Dancing With the Stars” although its cast had received a green light from SAG-AFTRA to work. The tentative deal reached Sunday by the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers was a hopeful sign, but the actors remain on strike, and securing their union’s blessing was crucial for the Academy gala.“The basic guidance we’ve given people is, so long as it is not focused on a particular project or a particular struck company, it’s OK for our members to participate in those events and to acknowledge someone’s body of work,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the national executive director and chief negotiator of the actors’ union, said in an interview. “There will be members who choose not to participate in these things who don’t feel it’s the right thing to do at this point, since it is a serious time for people who work in the industry. I imagine our members will make judgments for themselves.”The gala is vital for the nascent museum, in an effort to raise millions of dollars and the institution’s profile. The event’s knack for drawing bold-faced names has led some to think of it as a West Coast Met Gala. The question this year is whether the lack of studio executives, and qualms on the part of striking actors, could make this year’s party less buoyant or its red carpet less buzzy.But assuming the honorees show up as planned, there will be guaranteed star power present: In addition to Streep, the Academy will honor Oprah Winfrey, Michael B. Jordan, and Sofia Coppola. The chairs of the gala, which is raising money for exhibitions, education and public programs, are the director Ava DuVernay, the actor Halle Berry, the producer Ryan Murphy and the producer Dr. Eric Esrailian, a physician and a trustee.Oprah Winfrey is being honored for her “exemplary leadership and support” of the museum. Roy Rochlin/Getty Images“This event is about raising vital funds to ensure that this work will go on in service to the public,” said Jacqueline Stewart, who last year became the museum’s director and president. “The work of the museum is a common ground despite the strikes.”Behind the scenes, union representatives have been in discussions with the museum to set certain ground rules: Individual actors can be honored, but not individual projects, and bodies of work can be highlighted, but not specific films, studios or streaming services. If the gala ventures out of bounds, Crabtree-Ireland said, members will be expected to get up and leave to avoid incurring disciplinary measures.Stewart said that no guests had declined invitations citing the strike as a reason. While some studios have contributed funds to the gala, she said, “given the particular circumstances this year, there will be no executives from struck companies in attendance.” The majority of table and ticket buyers are not from the studios, the museum said, but are a mix of corporate supporters, philanthropists, and museum trustees.Some union members hope that the museum gala can be an opportunity to highlight the labor dispute, which was prompted by concerns about pay, artificial intelligence and working conditions and which has halted virtually all production.“I get that the optics are bad when some of our members are walking the picket line and others are putting on black tie and jewels and walking the red carpet,” said Greg Cope White, who had to pause production on a Netflix adaptation of his memoir — for which he is also a screenwriter — “The Pink Marine,” about a gay 18-year-old who joins the U.S. Marine Corps.“The gala is an opportunity to get some attention to our cause,” White added. “Meryl Streep and Oprah are great speakers. Hopefully they’ll give passionate sound bites that will bring some light to us.”The Academy Museum opened in 2021, and has become a popular attraction. Tanveer Badal for The New York TimesEach honoree will receive a different award — Streep, for her “global cultural impact”; Jordan for “helping to contextualize and challenge dominant narratives around cinema”; Winfrey for her “exemplary leadership and support” of the museum; and Coppola for innovations that “have advanced the art of cinema.”After numerous delays, the Academy Museum finally opened in 2021, a seven-story, $484 million concrete-and-glass spherical building designed by the architect Renzo Piano that was widely welcomed as an example of the city’s cultural fertility. An exhibition dedicated to John Waters, the cult filmmaker who directed “Pink Flamingos,” “Polyester” and “Hairspray,” opened there on Sept. 17.Although the gala is approaching fast, some actors and writers remain hopeful that the strike will be resolved by the time the limousines start to roll down Wilshire Boulevard. “If I could open the envelope at the Oscars,” White said, “It would say, ‘Strike is over.’” More

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      Hollywood Turns to Actors’ Strike After Writers Agree to Deal

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      The studios and the actors’ union haven’t spoken for more than two months, but a deal is needed before the entertainment industry can fully return.Hollywood’s actors are back in the spotlight.With screenwriters reaching a tentative agreement with the major entertainment studios on a new labor deal on Sunday night, one big obstacle stands in the way of the film and TV industry roaring back to life: ending the strike with tens of thousands of actors.The two sides have not spoken in more than two months, and no talks are scheduled.Leaders of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, have indicated a willingness to negotiate, but the studios made a strategic decision in early August to focus on reaching a détente with the writers first. A big reason was the rhetoric of Fran Drescher, the president of the actors’ union, who made one fiery speech after another following the strike, including one in which she denounced studio executives as “land barons of a medieval time.”“Eventually, the people break down the gates of Versailles,” Ms. Drescher said after the actors’ strike was called in July. “And then it’s over. We’re at that moment right now.”Ms. Drescher has been less vocal in recent weeks, however. Only a resolution with the actors will determine when tens of thousands of workers — including camera operators, makeup artists, prop makers, set dressers, lighting technicians, hairstylists, cinematographers — return to work.The actors’ union offered congratulations to the Writers Guild of America, which represents more than 11,000 screenwriters, in a statement on Sunday night, adding that it was eager to review the tentative agreement with the studios. Still, it said it remained “committed to achieving the necessary terms for our members.”With a tentative deal in hand, the Writers Guild suspended picketing. But protests by actors will begin again on Tuesday, after a break for Yom Kippur on Monday. “We need everyone on the line Tuesday-Friday,” the actress Frances Fisher, a member of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee, said on Sunday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Show us your #Solidarity!”Dozens of Writers Guild members vowed to support the actors. “I know there’s a huge sign of relief reverberating through the town right now, but it’s not over for any of us until SAG-AFTRA gets their deal,” Amy Berg, a Writers Guild strike captain, wrote on X.Their support will go only so far, however. Writers Guild negotiators were unsuccessful in receiving the contractual right to honor other unions’ picket lines; writers will be required to return to work, perhaps before a ratification vote is final.It has been 74 days since the actors’ union and representatives of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the studios, have talked. That will probably soon change given the high stakes of salvaging the 2024 theatrical box office, which will be in considerable jeopardy should Hollywood not be able to restart production within the next month. The TV production window for the remainder of the year is also closing, given the coming holidays.Restarting talks with the actors’ union is a bit more complicated than it sounds. For a start, SAG-AFTRA officials will need time to scrutinize the deal points achieved by the Writers Guild; those wins and compromises will inform a new bargaining strategy for the actors. Also, talks between studios and writers restarted only after leaders on both sides spent time back-channeling about the thorniest issues and seeing if there was a willingness to negotiate. Studios are likely to try the same strategy with the actors.The soonest that negotiations between actors and the studios could restart is next week, according to a person directly involved in the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the strike.Neither SAG-AFTRA nor the studio alliance commented on Monday.“There’s tremendous pressure on both sides to get this done,” said Bobby Schwartz, a partner at Quinn Emanuel and a longtime entertainment lawyer who has represented several of the major studios. “The deal that the Writers Guild and the studios struck economically could have been worked out in May, June. It didn’t need to go this long. I think the membership of SAG-AFTRA is going to say we’ve been out of work for months, we want to go back to work, we don’t want to be the ones that are keeping everybody else on the sidelines.”The dual strikes by the writers and the actors — the first time that has happened since 1960 — have effectively shut down TV and film production for months. The fallout has been significant, both inside and outside the industry. California’s economy alone has lost more than $5 billion, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.Warner Bros. Discovery said this month that the impact from the labor disputes would reduce its adjusted earnings for the year by $300 million to $500 million. Additionally, share prices for other major media companies like Disney and Paramount have taken a hit in recent months.The industry took a meaningful step toward stabilization on Sunday night, though, with the tentative deal between the writers and studios all but ending a 146-day strike.The deal still needs to be approved by union leadership and ratified by rank-and-file screenwriters. “I’m waiting impatiently to see what the exact language is around A.I.,” said Joseph Vinciguerra, a Writers Guild member and a professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.The approval vote by union leadership is expected on Tuesday.Though the fine print of the terms has not been released, the agreement has much of what the writers had demanded, including increases in compensation for streaming content, concessions from studios on minimum staffing for television shows and guarantees that artificial intelligence technology will not encroach on writers’ credits and compensation.“We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional — with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership,” the Writers Guild’s negotiating committee said in an email to members.On Monday, President Biden released a statement applauding the deal, saying it would “allow writers to return to the important work of telling the stories of our nation, our world — and of all of us.”The prospective writers’ deal should provide a blueprint for the actors, since many of their demands are similar.Union leaders for the actors said their compensation levels, as well as their working conditions, were worsened by the rise of streaming. Like screenwriters, actors have been terrified by the prospects of artificial intelligence. They are worried that it could be used to create digital replicas of their likenesses — or that performances could be digitally altered — without payment or approval, and are seeking significant guardrails to protect against that.The actors, however, have had several demands that the studios balked at, including a revenue-sharing agreement for successful streaming shows. The actors have also asked for significant wage increases, including an 11 percent raise in the first year of a new contract. The studios last proposed a 5 percent raise.Though the entertainment industry had been bracing for a work stoppage by the writers going back to the beginning of the year, the actors’ uncharacteristic resolve this past summer caught studio executives off guard.The actors last went on strike in 1980. By comparison, the writers previously walked out in 2007 for 100 days.The first worrying sign came in June when more than 60,000 actors authorized a walkout with 98 percent of the vote — a margin that even eclipsed the writers’ strike authorization. Then, as bargaining began, the studios saw the actors’ list of demands. Union leaders handed over a list that totaled 48 pages, nearly triple the size of their asks during the last contract negotiations in 2020.While bargaining was going on, more than 1,000 actors, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and Ben Stiller, signed a letter to guild leadership saying that “we are prepared to strike.” The union called for a strike a little more than two weeks later. More

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      in Television

      David McCallum, Actor in ‘NCIS’ and ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,’ Dies at 90

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      An experienced character actor, he found fame in the 1960s as the enigmatic Illya Kuryakin, and again in the 2000s as an eccentric medical examiner on “N.C.I.S.”David McCallum, the Scottish-born actor who became a surprise sensation as the enigmatic Russian spy Illya Kuryakin on “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” in the 1960s and found television stardom again almost 40 years later on the hit series “N.C.I.S.,” died on Monday in New York. He was 90.“N.C.I.S.” announced his death in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The announcement did not include any further information.Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, Mr. McCallum was an experienced character actor who could use an accent or an odd piece of clothing to give depth to a role. He played a wide range of parts across theater, film and television, from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in Central Park in 2000 to the voice of Professor Paradox on the animated television series “Ben 10: Ultimate Alien,” a decade later.He was hired in 1964 to play Illya Kuryakin, the Russian-accented sidekick of Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo, on “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” a tongue-in-cheek series about secret agents working for the fictional United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. His part was meant to be small; he had just four lines in the first episode. He suggested that Illya be made more interesting by having him be closemouthed about his personal life (“Nobody knows what Illya Kuryakin does when he goes home at night,” he told one interviewer) and somewhat antagonistic to Solo.The writers began to build up his character, and he became a fixture of the series and a two-time Emmy Award nominee. Somewhat to his annoyance, he also became a sex symbol.With his mysterious air, his Beatle haircut and his trademark black turtleneck, Mr. McCallum was a magnet for teenage fans. Sent on a publicity junket for the show to Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge in 1965, he was mobbed by screaming female students and had to be rescued by police officers.“McCallum’s motorcades are now, by order of the police chiefs of the cities he visits, forbidden to stop anywhere along the line of drive,” The New York Times reported in a 1965 profile. “If the entourage slowed, there would be carnage in the streets.”“The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” ended in 1968, and Mr. McCallum retreated happily to lower-profile roles. He continued to work steadily, mostly in B-movies and in supporting parts on television. He also played the title role in the short-lived series “The Invisible Man” (1975-76) and Emperor Joseph II in a revival of “Amadeus” on Broadway in 1999.But everywhere he went, he said, the Russian secret agent stalked him. “It’s been 30 years, but I can’t escape him,” he told The Times in 1998. “Illya Kuryakin is there 24 hours a day.”In 2003, the Russian shadow finally met his match in the bow-tied, bespectacled and eccentric medical examiner Donald Mallard, better known as Ducky, on the hit CBS crime series “N.C.I.S.” He remained with the show, which consistently ranked in the Nielsen Top 10, for two decades. He was still a member of the cast at his death.Mr. McCallum as the eccentric medical examiner Donald Mallard, known as Ducky, on the CBS crime series “N.C.I.S,” a role he played for 20 years.Monty Brinton/CBSIn interviews, Mr. McCallum said that besides Julius Caesar, Dr. Mallard was his favorite role, in part because it taught him so much about forensics. He studied with pathologists in Los Angeles and even sat in on autopsies, learning enough that the show’s writers would ask him for technical advice.David Keith McCallum Jr. was born on Sept. 19, 1933, into a musical family in Glasgow. His father was the first violinist for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London; his mother, Dorothy Dorman, was a cellist. He would later tell interviewers that his Scotch Presbyterian upbringing had left him emotionally circumscribed.“We Scots, we tend to be awfully tight inside,” he told TV Guide in 1965. “It has hurt me as an actor to be so — so naturally restricted.”Expected to follow in the family footsteps and pursue a career in music, he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Music to study oboe. But he found himself drawn to acting and switched to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. (He never completely lost interest in music, however; at the height of his “U.N.C.L.E.” fame, Capitol Records released several albums under his name, on which he conducted instrumental renditions of pop hits.)Mr. McCallum was drafted into the British military in 1951 and served two years, including 10 months in what is now Ghana as a small-arms expert. Not long after his discharge, he signed with the Rank Organization, a British production company, and began acting both in movies and on television.He met Jill Ireland, already a rising actress in Britain, when they were both cast in the Rank production “Robbery Under Arms” in 1957. He proposed seven days after they met, and they married that spring. In 1961, when he was cast as Judas Iscariot in “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (the movie would not be completed and released until 1965), the couple moved to Los Angeles.They appeared to flourish. They had three children. She became a busy TV actress and made several guest appearances on “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” playing three different characters.But the strain of Mr. McCallum’s stardom took a toll on their marriage, and she left him for the actor Charles Bronson, whom she had met when Mr. McCallum and Mr. Bronson were both filming “The Great Escape” (1963). Less than a year after their divorce in 1967, Mr. McCallum married Katherine Carpenter, a model.She survives him. Further information about his survivors was not immediately available. Mr. McCallum and his wife lived in Manhattan. The Associated Press said that CBS said he died at a Manhattan hospital but did not explain why he had been hospitalized.When “N.C.I.S.” made Mr. McCallum a television star for the second time, he found fame much less oppressive than he had the first time. “In New York now I leave 15 minutes — because I walk everywhere in New York — between appointments because I am going to be stopped on the street to talk about N.C.I.S. for at least 15 minutes,” he told BBC Radio in a 2009 interview.“I love it,” he said, when asked if he ever grew tired of that kind of attention. “I’ve never got fed up with anything in my whole life.” More

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      in Theater

      Review: Andrew Scott Plays Every Part in ‘Vanya.’ Why?

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      In London, transforming Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” into a one-man show is an impressive feat, but it costs the play its pathos.Most of us will live unfulfilled lives: This brutal and eternal truth has accounted for the enduring appeal of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” since it was first staged by Konstantin Stanislavski in Moscow in 1899. An ambitious new adaptation of this bleakly funny play looks to tease out its essence by stripping it down to its barest elements.“Vanya,” adapted by Simon Stephens and directed by Sam Yates, runs at the Duke of York’s Theater, in London, through Oct. 21, and features Andrew Scott — best known for playing the forbidden love interest in the hit TV series, “Fleabag” — in all eight roles. Scott gives an accomplished and engaging performance, but the one-man-show format throws up challenges, and ultimately doesn’t quite do justice to the play’s moral complexity and emotional resonance.Small details have been changed here and there, but the contours of the story are familiar. Alexander, an aging and infirm filmmaker (a professor in the original play), returns to the country estate that has funded his cosmopolitan lifestyle, accompanied by his beautiful and much younger second wife, Helena. He hangs out with his middle-aged brother-in-law, Ivan (the titular Vanya), who has managed the estate for many years; his former mother-in-law, Elizabeth; his daughter, Sonia; and receives frequent visits from a doctor, Michael.Regrets and frustrations abound. Alexander is acutely conscious that his powers are waning; Ivan feels he has wasted his potential by eking out an existence as a rural dogsbody, rather than chasing his dreams; Sonia has an intense crush on Michael, who only has eyes for Helena. In short, everyone is miserable. The only solace comes in the form of vodka.Scott flits between the various parts by nimbly modulating his voice and bearing. If a certain amount of realism is sacrificed — to help orientate the audience, the characters’ names are mentioned more frequently than is natural, and the female characters occasionally come off a bit campy — it is nonetheless an impressive feat.“Vanya,” is a stripped down version of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” adapted by Simon Stephens and directed by Sam Yates.Marc BrennerSometimes, when switching from one character to the next, Scott will shoot the audience a knowing look as he skips to another point a few feet away, channeling the tongue-in-cheek demeanor of a clown or pantomime artist. The conceit is played for laughs at several points, such as when one relatively minor character pipes up for the first time about 15 minutes into the show, prompting another character to ask how long he’d been sitting there.It’s a lot to take on, and, perhaps inevitably, Scott bumps up against some limitations. He does a fine line in affable awkwardness — the coy half-smirks, pregnant pauses and knowing glances that so endeared him to viewers of “Fleabag” — but he really needs a foil. Without one, we have the strange, and somewhat dissatisfying, spectacle of a man flirting with himself.There is, moreover, an emotionally shallow quality to Scott’s onstage presence, a certain glassy inscrutability that suggests he’s a little too steeped in wry self-awareness to comfortably inhabit any other mode. He is great when rendering the human comedy of unrequited love, frustrated lust and drunken self-pity, but in the earnestly melancholic moments — this is Chekhov after all — the best he can serve up is an ironic facsimile of wistfulness.The set, designed by Rosanna Vize, is carefully calibrated to evoke nothing in particular: A laminate desk; a fiberboard door frame; a generic, possibly midcentury, kitchenette. Scott’s attire is likewise neutral. Even the play’s title has been stripped down. Everything is geared toward an experience of pure, no-frills theater, enabling the audience to commune directly with the actor and text.It’s a noble aim, but a question niggles away: What artistic benefit is derived from having a single actor play all the parts? I was reminded of the French avant-garde writers’ circle, Oulipo, whose members enjoyed subjecting themselves to technical constraints. One of them, Georges Perec, famously composed an entire novel without the letter “e”: an interesting thing to do, but what was the point?The end product is what counts, and in this instance, the play is not well served; if anything, its pathos is diluted. Constraint for its own sake is self-indulgence, and there’s a fine line between a conceit and a mere gimmick.VanyaThrough Oct. 21 at the Duke of York’s Theater, London; dukeofyorks.com. More