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    William Cran, ‘Frontline’ Documentarian, Is Dead at 79

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    Producing or directing, he made more than 50 films over 50 years, including a series on the English language and an exploration of J. Edgar Hoover’s secret life.William Cran, an Emmy-winning master of the television documentary whose expansive body of work, primarily for the BBC and the PBS program “Frontline,” delved into complex subjects like the history of the English language and the private life of the F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover, died on June 4 in London. He was 79.His wife, Vicki Barker-Cran, said cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease. He died in a hospital.Mr. Cran produced more than 50 documentaries over 50 years and directed many of them.He began his career with the BBC, but he mostly worked as an independent producer, toggling between jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.He was most closely associated with “Frontline,” for which he produced 20 documentaries on a wide range of subjects — some historical, like the four-part series “From Jesus to Christ” (1998) and “The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover” (1993), and some focused on current events, like “Who’s Afraid of Rupert Murdoch” (1995).Some of Mr. Cran’s documentaries were historical, like the four-part series “From Jesus to Christ” (1998).PBSHe won a slew of honors, including four Emmys, four duPont-Columbia University awards, two Peabodys and an Overseas Press Club Award.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 Movies

      How Jon Bernthal Became Hollywood’s Most Dependable Bruiser

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      When Jon Bernthal was cast as a petty drug dealer in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Martin Scorsese’s 2013 white-collar crime epic, the actor wasn’t even supposed to have many lines. But Bernthal went into that film intending to take his shot. So he came in for a wordless B-roll scene in which the script had him lifting weights in a backyard, asked the second-unit director to mic him and riffed for 45 minutes. Scorsese wasn’t there that day, but here’s what he saw in the footage: a shirtless Bernthal curling dumbbells, tormenting some teenage boys with a baseball bat and peacocking his virility. “Bring some of them chicks around here sometime,” he says. Then Bernthal makes a brilliant little decision about his tough guy’s whereabouts. “Hey, Ma, we got chicken or what?” he yells toward the house. “Ma!” There was no “Ma” in the script. No one even said he lived with his mother.The role introduced Bernthal as an excellent character actor. Since then, he has become the guy who shows up onscreen unexpectedly, delivers the most memorable performance in a scene or two and then vanishes. This is perhaps why he’s so often playing dead men in flashbacks. He’s the dramatic center of gravity in FX’s “The Bear,” appearing just once or twice per season as the deceased family patriarch, and the tragic romantic in the 2017 Taylor Sheridan film “Wind River.” Bernthal was so good in “The Accountant,” an improbable 2016 Ben Affleck-led movie about an autistic accountant turned gunslinger, that the filmmakers made this year’s sequel a two-hander.Bernthal has had leading roles too, most notably in “We Own This City,” the HBO miniseries about Baltimore police corruption in which the actor’s performance was criminally overlooked. But for the most part, he has carved out a career of supporting roles. So it made perfect sense when he told me that one of his favorite movies is “True Romance,” Tony Scott’s 1993 adaptation of Quentin Tarantino’s first script. Christian Slater may have been the lead, but it was the supporting characters played by Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt and Dennis Hopper who stole the film. “There are so many people who are in it for a scene or two,” Bernthal said, “but you could have made a movie about any one of those characters.”We were having breakfast in Ojai, Calif., where Bernthal lives. The previous day, he returned from New York where he was promoting “The Accountant 2.” Before that he was in Greece and Morocco, filming a role in “The Odyssey” with Christopher Nolan, which is perhaps the greatest honor that can be bestowed on a dramatic actor these days. In front of him was a pile of egg whites, spinach, fruit and gluten-free toast. “I’m like a gorilla,” he said. “I eat a lot.”Most actors, once they get lead roles, are advised to turn down anything smaller. But Bernthal is allergic to strategizing about how to become a leading man or listening to agents and managers who want to find him a “star vehicle.” The only real mistake he made in his career, he told me, happened because he let that sort of thinking get in his head. But he has switched agents since then. He knows he has become the guy who everyone calls for a favor, but then again “The Bear” was a favor. And that turned into one of the most rewarding experiences of Bernthal’s career. The intensity he brought to the role won him an Emmy, and now he has even co-written an episode in the upcoming season. “I can’t imagine deciding what you’re going to do in this super-tenuous field while being so dependent on some businessman’s strategy,” he said.Jon Bernthal, right, with Jeremy Allen White and Abby Elliott in the 2023 episode of “The Bear” that earned him an Emmy.Chuck Hodes/FX, via Everett CollectionWe 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

      Why Beyoncé and BET Keep Calling Jesse Collins

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      There’s a memorable scene in Beyoncé’s “Homecoming” documentary about her headlining performance at Coachella in 2018, when she asks a production crew member for a 30-foot-wide camera track. He tells her it doesn’t exist. She then proves him wrong.The Emmy-winning television producer Jesse Collins remembers that moment well, so when the pop superstar called on him to produce her Christmas Day N.F.L. halftime extravaganza “Beyoncé Bowl” for Netflix, he was ready to meet her demands.“Hell no, I will never tell her something doesn’t exist unless it really doesn’t exist,” he said recently with a laugh, “because she’ll Google it and she keeps up with technology. If it can’t happen, I am 1,000 percent certain it can’t happen.”Collins, 54, has worked closely with Beyoncé on awards show performances, including her raucous rendition of “Freedom” at the 2016 BET Awards, when she danced and kicked in a shallow pool of water.“The water was one of the most complicated things that I’ve ever done on any award show,” Collins recalled in a video interview from his office in Burbank, Calif., in a comfy black hoodie as the sun beamed behind him. “Most people try to get away from water,” he said, but an executive had promised it. “When you start the conversation with, ‘This was promised to Beyoncé,’ everybody’s like, ‘We’re going to make this happen.’”Making things happen is Collins’s specialty, and it’s why heavyweights like Oprah Winfrey and Jay-Z have recruited him for their projects.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

      Alf Clausen, Who Gave ‘The Simpsons’ Its Musical Identity, Dies at 84

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      He created the music for hundreds of episodes over 27 seasons, spanning jazz, rock, blues and musicals. He won two Emmys and was nominated for 28 more.Alf Clausen, a composer and arranger whose songs, interludes and closing credits for hundreds of episodes of “The Simpsons” were so central to the animated sitcom’s success that its creator, Matt Groening, often called him the show’s “secret weapon,” died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 84.His daughter, Kaarin Clausen, said the cause was progressive supranuclear palsy, a brain disorder similar to Parkinson’s disease.Mr. Clausen worked on every episode of “The Simpsons” across 27 seasons, from 1990 to 2017.He did not compose the show’s memorable opening theme — that was Danny Elfman — but he was responsible for everything else, including classic musical numbers like “Who Needs the Kwik-E Mart,” “We Do (The Stonecutters’ Song),” “We Put the Spring in Springfield” and “You’re Checking In.”Mr. Clausen won Emmys for the last two songs, in 1997 and 1998. He was nominated for 19 more awards for “The Simpsons,” and was nominated nine other times for earlier work.When Mr. Groening first approached Mr. Clausen to work on the show, he demurred. He wanted to work on dramas; cartoons and comedy did not interest him.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 Television

      George Wendt, Who Played Norm on ‘Cheers,’ Dies at 76

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      A burly, easygoing Chicago native, he became a staple of living rooms across the country for more than a decade as one of America’s favorite barflies.George Wendt, who earned six consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his role as the bearish, beer-quaffing Everyman Norm Peterson on the enduring sitcom “Cheers,” died on Tuesday morning at home in Studio City, Calif. He was 76.His death was confirmed by his manager, Geoff Cheddy, who did not specify a cause.Over more than four decades, Mr. Wendt racked up about 170 film and television credits. But he was best known for “Cheers.” He appeared on every episode of the sitcom during its 11-year run on NBC, which began in 1982. His streak of Emmy nominations for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series began in 1984.Mr. Wendt, a native of the South Side of Chicago, started his entertainment career in inglorious fashion, sweeping the floors at the Second City, the famed improvisational comedy club in his hometown that helped launch the careers of generations of stars, including John Belushi, Mike Myers, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.In 1974, he became part of the Second City’s touring production and resident company. “I had no acting experience in my background,” he said in a 2013 interview with The Democrat and Chronicle newspaper of Rochester, N.Y., “but something just clicked.” He remained with the company until 1980.With his easy charm and lunch-pail demeanor, Mr. Wendt headed for Hollywood to appear in the pilot for an NBC show called “Nothing but Comedy․” He later popped up on popular television shows like “Taxi,” “Alice” and “Hart to Hart” before becoming one of America’s favorite barflies on “Cheers.”He later said that his pronounced girth was key to the role, making Norm the relatable guy that viewers would feel like sidling up next to at their neighborhood bar.“One nice thing about being fat for a living is that you don’t worry about losing weight or dieting,” Mr. Wendt once said. “I don’t know how much I’d have to lose before it was noticeable. Anyhow, if I lost 100 pounds people would say, ‘Oh, no, not another fat comedian wanting to be a leading man!’”While the Norm character felt natural to who he was, he said, there were definitely differences between fiction and reality.“The Norm you see in ‘Cheers’ has been years in the making,” he said. “I have some characteristics in common with him besides our fondness for beer. But I think I’m a lot happier than Norm.”He added: “I was a beer drinker long before ‘Cheers.’ When I put a couple of six packs on top of my grocery shopping cart, people are pleased. I tell ’em I’m taking them home to rehearse.”A complete obituary will be published soon.Ash Wu More

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      in Movies

      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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      in Movies

      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

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      in Theater

      Helen Gallagher, Winner of Two Tonys and Three Emmys, Dies at 98

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      She was honored on Broadway for roles in “Pal Joey” and “No, No, Nanette” and then turned to TV, where she won three Daytime Emmys for her work on “Ryan’s Hope.”Helen Gallagher, who parlayed her song-and-dance skills into Tony Award-winning performances in revivals of the musicals “Pal Joey” and “No, No, Nanette,” and who turned to television to play the matriarch on the long-running soap opera “Ryan’s Hope” when theater no longer provided her a living, died on Sunday in Manhattan. She was 98.Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by Patti Specht, a friend and the executor of her will.Ms. Gallagher was 18 when she made her Broadway debut in 1944, in the chorus of a Cole Porter revue, “Seven Lively Arts.” Over the next several decades, she worked with an A-list group of choreographers, including Jerome Robbins (“High Button Shoes”), Agnes de Mille (“Brigadoon”), Bob Fosse (“Sweet Charity”) and Donald Saddler (“No, No, Nanette”).Ms. de Mille nearly fired her from “Brigadoon” in 1947. “Agnes wanted very lyrical work, and I’d just done ‘Billion Dollar Baby’ and everything came out bumps and grinds,” Ms. Gallagher told The New York Times in 1971.But in 1958, when she played Ado Annie, her favorite role, in a revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” at New York City Center, she unexpectedly earned Ms. de Mille’s praise.“She came in and restaged ‘All Er Nuthin’ for me, and she made it a little dance beside the song,” Ms. Gallagher said on the Behind the Curtain theater podcast in 2017.“She sent me an orchid on opening night,” she added, with a note saying, “‘You are truly a star.’”By then, Ms. Gallagher had been a Tony Award winner for six years. In 1952, she had portrayed the bitter chorus girl Gladys Bumps in a revival of “Pal Joey,” the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart musical about a notorious, womanizing nightclub owner, Joey Evans (Harold Lang), who is targeted by Ms. Gallagher’s character and a mobster in a revenge scheme.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 Television

      Allan Blye, 87, Dies; ‘Smothers Brothers’ Writer and ‘Super Dave’ Creator

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      In his wide-ranging career, he also helped write Elvis Presley’s comeback special and appeared on an early version of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”Allan Blye, a television comedy writer and producer who helped cement the Smothers Brothers’ reputation for irreverence in the late 1960s and later collaborated with Bob Einstein to create the hapless daredevil character Super Dave Osborne, died on Oct. 4 at his home in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 87.His wife, Rita Blye, confirmed the death. She said he had been in hospice care for Parkinson’s disease.Mr. Blye was a writer and singer on variety shows in Canada when he received a surprise call in 1967 from Tom Smothers asking him to join the writing staff of the series that he and his and his brother, Dick, would be hosting on CBS.“I couldn’t believe it was Tom Smothers,” Mr. Blye said in an interview with the Television Academy in 2019. “I thought it was Rich Little doing an impression of Tom Smothers.”Tom, left, and Dick Smothers on the set of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in 1967. Mr. Blye helped establish the show’s outspoken tone. CBS, via Getty Images“The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” was unlike any other variety show. The brothers were renowned as a comical folk-singing duo: Tom played the naïve, guitar-playing buffoon, and Dick, who played the double bass, was the wise straight man. They had creative control of the series, which emboldened them and their writers to be more outspoken as they addressed politics, the Vietnam War, religion and civil rights — and their forthrightness during a divisive era increasingly angered some viewers, CBS censors, some of the network’s affiliates and conservative groups.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