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    Brian Wilson Wrote the California Dream, but He Didn’t Live It

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    An artist nearly synonymous with Los Angeles made his name crafting songs playing up his home state’s beachy vibes. His inner life, however, was anything but sunny.Even though Brian Wilson grew up only five miles from the Pacific Ocean, he rarely went to the beach. He’d felt scared by the size of the ocean on his first visit. Being light-skinned, he also feared sunburns. He tried surfing, but got hit on the head by his board and decided once was enough.And yet, in songs like “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “California Girls” and “Good Vibrations,” Wilson did as much as anyone to depict Los Angeles and California as a land of bikinis and warm, honey-colored sunsets. The songs he wrote about the West Coast, he said in “I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir,” were “more about the idea of going in the ocean than they were about actually going in the ocean.” Wilson didn’t like waves, but realized how they could serve as a metaphor for life.Wilson, whose death at 82 was announced by his family on Wednesday, was as closely associated with Los Angeles as anyone in music history. In 1988, The Los Angeles Times polled a passel of industry veterans and asked them to name the greatest L.A. band of all time; the Beach Boys came in second. (The Doors won, a dubious choice.) When Randy Newman wanted to mock the city in “I Love L.A.,” his covertly acerbic 1983 hit, he shouted, with almost-convincing enthusiasm, “Turn up the Beach Boys!”Wilson’s fantasia of California — a Zion where everyone wore huarache sandals and drove deuce coupes — thrilled millions of people worldwide and aligned with a period in the state’s growth. Between 1962 and 1970, the Beach Boys’ heyday, the population of California increased by three million people. Wilson couldn’t claim credit for the boom, but no tourism board or corporate recruiter could design a better pitch. The songs were specific and local, but also universal. How else to explain “Surfin’ Safari” topping the singles chart in Sweden?When they recorded their first 45, “Surfin’,” the local record label Candix suggested the band change its name from the Pendletones to the Beach Boys, to emphasize the surf theme. Dennis, the outgoing, often reckless Wilson brother, surfed regularly in South Bay, and told Brian it was a popular and emerging trend. The first single was successful, so Brian stuck with the theme. The beach was their brand. Four early Beach Boys singles and every one of their first three albums had the word surf in their titles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Haley Joel Osment Ordered to Attend A.A. After Ski Resort Arrest

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      The actor was charged in April with public intoxication and possession of cocaine and was recorded using the word “Nazi” and an antisemitic slur during his arrest. He later apologized.A judge has ordered the actor Haley Joel Osment to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and therapy sessions for the next six months as part of a deal to dispose of charges of public intoxication and cocaine possession after he insulted the police.Mr. Osment, who rose to fame as the child actor of “Sixth Sense” in 1999, was arrested in April at a ski resort in Mono County, Calif. Police footage of the arrest showed Mr. Osment refusing to answer questions from officers. He also asserted that he was being tortured and kidnapped by a “Nazi” and used an antisemitic slur while addressing an officer. Later he apologized for his words and said he had experienced a blackout.At a court appearance on Monday, a judge granted Mr. Osment’s request for a one-year diversion from prosecution, saying he would dismiss the charges if over the next six months the actor obeys all laws, attends three A.A. meetings a week and meets with his therapist twice a week.Diversion is an alternative procedure in criminal cases in many states that allows certain defendants to avoid prosecution and a criminal record by agreeing to complete a rehabilitation program and a period of probation.David Anderson, the Mono County district attorney, said in a statement that his office disagreed with the judge’s decision. “Based on Mr. Osment’s prior D.U.I. conviction, as well as his slurs toward the arresting officer, my office did not believe diversion was appropriate,” Mr. Anderson said.A representative for Mr. Osment did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. He is scheduled to reappear in court in January, when the court will review his compliance with the orders. If he does not complete the diversion program, criminal proceedings will be restarted.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Smokey Robinson Accuses Housekeepers of Defamation in Countersuit

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      Four of Mr. Robinson’s former employees had sued the Motown singer, saying he sexually assaulted them for many years. He argues their anonymity is a reason to dismiss their suit.Lawyers for the Motown singer Smokey Robinson, whom four former housekeepers have accused of sexually assaulting them dozens of times, filed a cross-complaint on Wednesday that accuses the women and their lawyers of defamation.Mr. Robinson’s lawyers also filed a motion to dismiss the women’s lawsuit, arguing that they should not have been granted anonymity.In the legal filings, Mr. Robinson’s lawyers said the housekeepers had “fabricated” the abuse allegations “in support of their extortionate scheme.” The countersuit describes a caring relationship that Mr. Robinson and his wife, Frances Robinson, had with the women, noting that they vacationed together, celebrated holidays and doted upon them with concert tickets and, in one case, a car.The court papers, which were filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court and ask for $500 million in damages, offered as evidence text messages in which the women wished Mr. Robinson a happy birthday, invited him to celebrations and gave other expressions of support. The filings said Ms. Robinson had considered at least one of the women a friend, including her in a will.“The Robinsons did not abuse, harm or take advantage of plaintiffs; they treated plaintiffs with the utmost kindness and generosity,” the countersuit said. “Unfortunately, the depths of plaintiffs’ avarice and greed knows no bounds.”John Harris and Herbert Hayden, lawyers for the former housekeepers, said in a statement that the countersuit was an attempt to silence and intimidate the women.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tory Lanez Is Attacked by Another Inmate in Prison

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      The rapper was hospitalized after being stabbed 14 times, his Instagram account said. He is serving a 10-year sentence for shooting the hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion. The Canadian rapper Tory Lanez was hospitalized on Monday after being attacked in the California prison where he is serving a 10-year sentence for shooting the hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion, the authorities said.Mr. Lanez, 32, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, was attacked by another prisoner on Monday morning at a prison in Tehachapi, near Bakersfield, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement.Mr. Lanez was transported to a medical facility outside the prison, the department said. It did not provide further details about Mr. Lanez’s condition, but a statement posted on his Instagram account late Monday said that he had been stabbed 14 times.“Both of his lungs collapsed, and he was placed on a breathing apparatus,” the statement said. “He is now breathing on his own.” A representative for Mr. Lanez said on Monday night that he had no updates beyond the statement.In August 2023, a Los Angeles judge sentenced Mr. Lanez to 10 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in both her feet following an argument three years earlier. He was convicted on three felony counts, including assault with a semiautomatic handgun.At the time of the shooting, Megan Thee Stallion had been on a steep trajectory to stardom, thanks in large part to blockbuster collaborations with Beyoncé and Cardi B.Last year, Megan Thee Stallion asked for a restraining order against Mr. Lanez. In court filings, her lawyers accused him of waging a “campaign of harassment” against her from prison, including by employing bloggers to spread defamatory statements about her.A judge granted a restraining order against Mr. Lanez until 2030, The Associated Press reported.Neil Vigdor More

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      in Television

      How ‘The Jennifer Hudson Show’ Took Over TikTok

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      I have never watched an episode of “The Jennifer Hudson Show.” Yet here I am at my desk, singing to myself: “Aaron. Pierre. That’s Mufasa.”If you’re familiar with the tune, you’re singing it now too. If not, picture Pierre, the dashing actor who voiced the title character in “Mufasa: The Lion King,” strut-dancing his way down a hallway surrounded by … Actually, just watch it below and then keep reading.

      @jenniferhudsonshow Aaron Pierre, that’s Mufasa #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #aaronpierre #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show OK, welcome back.“The Jennifer Hudson Show,” a daytime talk show, is not a top syndicated program, according to the ratings agency Nielsen. But it has amassed a huge social media following with its behind-the-scenes promotional videos.Before taking the stage, guests make their way down a hallway as members of the show’s staff serenade them with a complicated, customized hype song, sung entirely from memory. Some of the biggest names in American culture — Michelle Obama, Usher, Angela Bassett — have danced, skated or nervously shimmied through this “spirit tunnel” as the TikTok cameras roll.Some of the videos are awkward. Some are suave. Most go viral.During the show’s first season in 2022, members of the show’s staff learned that cheering for Hudson before she took the stage boosted her confidence and energy.

      @jenniferhudsonshow We got @imkevinhart #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #kevinhart #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show

      @jenniferhudsonshow It’s Gwen! @Gwen Stefani! S-T-E-F-A-N-I! #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #gwenstefani #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      There’s a Feeling We’re Not in Hollywood Anymore

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      Movies and TV productions are rapidly leaving California to film outside the United States, where labor costs are lower and tax incentives greater. Industry workers are exasperated.It would have been simple to shoot the game show “The Floor” in Los Angeles. The city has many idle studios that could have easily accommodated its large display screen and the midnight-blue tiles that light up beneath contestants.But Fox flies the show’s host, Rob Lowe, and 100 American contestants thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean to answer trivia questions about dogs, divas and Disney characters at a studio in Dublin. It makes more financial sense than filming in California.In the past few years, as labor costs have grown after two strikes, producers of reality shows, scrappy indie movies and blockbuster films have increasingly turned away from Los Angeles to filming locations overseas.Those business decisions have considerable consequences for the industry’s thousands of middle-class workers: the camera operators, set decorators and lighting technicians who make movies and television happen. Frustration has reached a boiling point, according to more than two dozen people who make their living in the entertainment industry. They say that nothing short of Hollywood, as we know it, is at stake.“This is an existential crisis — it’s an extinction event,” said Beau Flynn, a producer of big-budget movies like “San Andreas,” which despite being about an earthquake in California was filmed mostly in Australia. “These are real things. I am not a dramatist, even though I’m in the drama field.”Productions have been filmed outside the United States for decades, but rarely has Hollywood work been so bustling overseas at a time when work in Hollywood itself has been so scant. Studios in European countries are bursting at the seams, industry workers say. And film and television production in Los Angeles is down by more than one-third over the past 10 years, according to FilmLA data.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kids, Inc.

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      A pair of documentaries are calling attention to the dangers of child influencer content. But regulation can be difficult in an industry that blurs the line between work and home.The scenes leave a pit in your stomach. In Netflix’s “Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing,” two early teenagers are pressured to kiss by adults — a parent and a videographer — on camera. Hulu’s “The Devil in the Family: The Ruby Franke Story” shows the dramatic footage of Franke’s 12-year-old son showing up at a neighbor’s door with duct tape markings around his ankle, asking them to call police.The pair of documentaries, released this year, shine a light on the perils of child-centered online content. “Bad Influence” examines claims of abuse and exploitation made by 11 former members of the teen YouTube collective “The Squad” against Tiffany Smith — who ran the YouTube channel, which drew two million subscribers — and her former boyfriend Hunter Hill. Both denied the allegations, and the suit was settled for a reported $1.85 million last year.Ruby Franke, a mother of six, pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse in 2023 after denying her children adequate food and water and isolating them as she built a family YouTube channel that amassed nearly 2.5 million subscribers before it was taken down. She will serve up to 30 years in prison.Concerns about the treatment of child entertainers have abounded since the days of Judy Garland and through last year’s “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” in which former Nickelodeon actors described performing under harmful and sexually inappropriate conditions. Less examined is the working world of child influencers, who are now speaking out about the harsh, unsafe or emotionally taxing constraints of being broadcast by their parents.Viewers may be tempted to ask, “Aren’t there laws against this?”“We have pretty documented evidence of the troubling pipeline for Hollywood and child actors, but we don’t have nearly similar numbers for child influencers, primarily because the phenomenon of influencing is so young,” said Chris McCarty, the founder and executive director of Quit Clicking Kids, an organization dedicated to stopping the monetization of minors. “A lot of the kids are too young to even really fully understand what’s going on, let alone, like, actually speak out about their experiences.”Child entertainer laws — which in some cases make provisions for minors’ education, set limits on working hours and stipulate that earnings be placed in a trust — regulate theatrical industries. The world of content creators, where an account with a sizable following can generate millions of dollars a year for creators, is largely unregulated.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

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      My Red Carpet Quest: A Two-Year Search for Steve

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      Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Steve Olive was my white whale.I had been trying for two years to write a profile of Mr. Olive, the co-founder of Event Carpet Pros, the California-based company responsible for custom-making the colorful, though not always red, carpets for thousands of movie premieres, the Golden Globes, the Grammy Awards, the Super Bowl and, since 1997, the Academy Awards.I learned about Mr. Olive in 2023, while reporting an article about why the organizers of the Oscars were rolling out a champagne-colored carpet that year. My editor, Katie Van Syckle, and I had found the Event Carpet Pros website and we took turns calling the listed number in an effort to reach someone. Finally, Katie connected with Mr. Olive, and briefly interviewed him.But this mysterious, matter-of-fact, low-key man at the heart of the glitz and glamour of awards season stuck in my mind. I wanted to know more about him. How does one become a rug guy? What had he wanted to be when he grew up? Had he ever attended an award show himself?Last year, when the Oscars returned to a classic red carpet, Katie and I again agreed that I should pursue a story on Mr. Olive, but he was hesitant. But this year, with the encouragement of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he agreed. It was three weeks before the ceremony.Mission: Steve, as I termed it, had officially begun.I sent a barrage of frantic texts and placed several calls to Brooke Blumberg, a publicist for the academy, trying to nail down when the carpet, which was manufactured at a mill in Dalton, Ga., would arrive at the company’s warehouse in La Mirada, Calif., a city in Los Angeles County.My goal was to be there when the approximately 30 rolls, each weighing 630 pounds, were unloaded in the Event Carpet Pros parking lot, from a truck that had been driven about 35 hours, from Dalton. The scene, I imagined, would be akin to the arrival of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York City.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Who Makes the Red Carpet? Steve.

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      On a recent weekday morning in La Mirada, a suburb outside Los Angeles, Steve Olive, 58, walked among hundreds of carpet rolls in red, green and lavender in a white, sun-drenched, 36,000-square-foot warehouse.Laid out on the floor was a 150-foot stretch of rug, delivered by truck from Georgia a few days before, in the custom shade of Academy Red that is only available for the Oscars.Mr. Olive himself may not be famous, but celebrities have strolled the plush craftsmanship of his carpet for nearly three decades.His company, Event Carpet Pros, has supplied carpets for the Oscars, Golden Globes, Grammys and Emmys, as well as for Disney, Marvel and Warner Bros. movie premieres and the Super Bowl.And, at a moment when carpets have moved beyond the classic red and become splashier and more intricate, his handiwork has become more prominent. He has crafted custom designs like a shimmering, sunlit pool carpet for the 2023 “Barbie” world premiere and a green-and-black ectoplasm drip carpet for the “Ghostbusters” world premiere in 2016 that took a month to create.“I haven’t come across anything that we couldn’t do,” Mr. Olive, who founded the company with his brother-in-law, Walter Clyne, in 1992, said in an interview.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More