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    Inside L.A.’s Vidiots, a Video Rental Store Where DVDs Still Have a Waiting List

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    Vidiots, a holdover from the golden age of VHS, is staging a comeback as a community hub.A companion to T’s 212 series about New York institutions, the 213 column highlights beloved landmarks in and around Los Angeles.In 1985, when Patty Polinger and Cathy Tauber opened their video store, Vidiots, in a former bail bonds storefront a few blocks from Santa Monica beach, the movie rental industry was just gaining momentum. Blockbuster, the mega-chain, opened that same year in Dallas, while smaller rental franchises like Captain Video and Video Station were springing up all over California. Polinger and Tauber, childhood friends who grew up in West Los Angeles, had been working in international film distribution and business management, respectively, when they decided to change course. “We were tired of working in corporate environments that were dominated by men. We wanted to be in business for ourselves,” says Tauber when we met on a recent video call with Polinger.The two friends came across a magazine article detailing the rise of video stores across the country — by the mid-1980s, there were some 15,000 movie rental outlets in the United States — and decided to take a leap. “Neither of us had ever worked retail before. We were in our early 30s and thought we were over the hill,” says Tauber with a laugh. “This was our chance.” When banks wouldn’t give them a loan, they cobbled together money from family. They knew they wanted a neon sign for the storefront but could only afford seven letters. A brainstorming session led to the name Vidiots.Cathy Tauber (left) founded Vidiots in 1985 in Santa Monica, Calif., with Patty Polinger (right). Maggie Mackay (center) is the Vidiots Foundation executive director. Photographed at the Eagle Theatre in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles on June 12, 2025.Carlos JaramilloPolinger and Tauber set out to distinguish their shop as an alternative video store, and one more welcoming than other niche retailers. They didn’t want customers to think that they “had to know every director,” says Polinger. “We were against that snobbery in other stores.” Initially they offered just 800 VHS cassettes for rental ($2.50 per day for members), including the Beatles documentary “Let It Be” (1970) and Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast” (1946). The founders were also determined to make Vidiots — just 1,000 square feet — a community hub of sorts by hosting events. The year after it opened, customers were invited to a late-night gathering with the experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger. Another early event had Polinger and Tauber baking a breast-shaped cake for the director Russ Meyer, known for campy sexploitation films like “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” (1965). “Many women wore bras for tops and Russ was happy to autograph them,” recalls Tauber.Rare VHS cassettes on display at Vidiots. Many of the tapes are not available to rent because of their fragile condition, but the foundation has plans to digitize much of the collection.Carlos JaramilloThe store held puppet shows and limbo contests and threw a polka party for the documentarian Les Blank. An Elvis impersonator performed after the screening of the documentary “Mondo Elvis” (1984), and musicians from the nearby Venice Beach boardwalk would drop by to play drums on paint cans inside the store. “The vibe at night, especially on the weekends, was a party,” says Tauber.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

      ‘American Idol’ Music Supervisor and Her Husband Are Found Slain

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      The music supervisor was found shot to death in a home in Los Angeles with her husband, Thomas Deluca, the police said. A 22-year-old was arrested in connection with the case.A longtime music supervisor for “American Idol” and her husband were discovered dead inside a Los Angeles home on Monday afternoon, the police said.The supervisor, Robin Kaye, 70, and her husband, Thomas Deluca, 70, were found dead of apparent gunshot wounds, Jennifer Forkish, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department, told The New York Times late Tuesday afternoon. A suspect was in custody on Tuesday, Ms. Forkish said.In a statement provided to The Times earlier in the day, a spokesperson for “American Idol” confirmed a TMZ report saying that the program’s longtime music supervisor and her husband had died.“We are devastated to hear of Robin and her dear husband, Tom’s, passing,” the statement said. “Robin has been a cornerstone of the ‘Idol’ family since 2009 and was truly loved and respected by all who came in contact with her. Robin will remain in our hearts forever and we share our deepest sympathy with her family and friends during this difficult time.”The police responded to a home in the Encino neighborhood around 2:30 p.m. on Monday after being asked to perform a welfare check there, Officer Rosario Cervantes, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department, said. Fire Department paramedics pronounced the victims dead at the scene.Homicide investigators have identified the suspect as Raymond Boodarian, 22, also of Encino, Ms. Forkish said. She added that the police have yet to determine a motive.The authorities took Mr. Boodarian into custody without incident, she said. Investigators are attempting to determine whether Mr. Boodarian had any connection to Mr. Deluca and Ms. Kaye, and if he had been involved in any past calls for police assistance to the residence.Ms. Kaye worked on more than 200 episodes of “American Idol,” according to her IMDB page. Her work was recognized over the years by the Guild of Music Supervisors, which gave her its award for best music supervision in reality television in 2014.Kirsten Noyes More

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      in Music

      Doechii Criticizes Trump’s Response to L.A. Protests at BET Awards

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      The rapper drew attention to the president deploying the military against protesters in Los Angeles and said it was her responsibility as an artist to speak up for all oppressed people.The rapper Doechii accepted the BET award for best female hip-hop artist on Monday night, but instead of using her acceptance speech as a victory lap, she criticized President Trump for deploying the military against protesters in Los Angeles.“There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order,” Doechii said, pointing to ongoing protests over Mr. Trump’s immigration policies. “Trump is using military forces to stop a protest.” The 25th Annual BET Awards were held downtown at the Peacock Theater.The protests began on Friday when federal agents searched the city’s garment district for workers whom they suspected were undocumented immigrants. The action was part of the Trump administration’s new focus on raiding workplaces.Demonstrations continued over the weekend. Though mostly peaceful, there have been scattered protests that became violent, prompting the authorities to make about 150 arrests and in some cases to use tear gas and crowd-control munitions against protesters. Mr. Trump, calling the protesters “insurrectionists,” mobilized the National Guard, a step Gov. Gavin Newsom has said was “purposefully inflammatory” and intended to create a spectacle.By Monday, the protests had turned calmer, but Mr. Trump doubled the number of deployed California Guard troops to 4,000 and ordered a battalion of 700 Marines to the city.Several hours before the awards ceremony began, a spokesman for BET said the network was working with the Los Angeles Police Department and monitoring the situation for safety reasons, CNN reported. The show went on despite the administration’s escalation of the federal response to the demonstrations.Doechii, who beat out Cardi B, Doja Cat, GloRilla, Latto, Megan Thee Stallion, Nicki Minaj, Rapsody and Sexyy Red, continued her acceptance speech by asking the audience to consider why the government would deploy the military against its people who exercise their constitutional right to protest. She also criticized the Trump administration’s raids on workplaces and aggressive deportation policies.“People are being swept up and torn from their families, and I feel it’s my responsibility as an artist to use this moment to speak up for all oppressed people, for Black people, for Latino people, for trans people, for the people in Gaza,” she said. “We all deserve to live in hope and not in fear, and I hope we stand together, my brothers and my sisters, against hate, and we protest against it.”Her speech drew applause from the audience and was in stark contrast to the Tony Awards on Sunday night, where Mr. Trump was barely mentioned — an unexpected turn for a ceremony that often features more political commentary from its winners and presenters.Doechii, who over the last year has experienced a meteoric rise to the top of hip-hop, in February became the third woman to win a Grammy for best rap album, for “Alligator Bites Never Heal.” More

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      in Music

      Jimmy Buffett’s Widow Sues in Battle Over $275 Million Estate

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      Jane Buffett wants a court to replace her co-trustee, claiming that he mistreated her and neglected to provide key financial information.A vicious legal battle has erupted over Jimmy Buffett’s $275 million estate, with his widow and his accountant filing lawsuits this week seeking to remove each other as co-trustees of a trust containing the “Margaritaville” singer’s sprawling holdings.The widow, Jane Buffett, is angry with the way her husband’s estate has been managed since his death nearly two years ago and has filed a petition seeking to oust her co-trustee, the accountant Richard Mozenter. She complains that the marital trust set up by the singer — who built a musical empire off his laid-back, beach-bum persona and infectious, often self-deprecating country-rock and calypso-inflected songs — is producing far too little income.Mrs. Buffett asked a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday to appoint an independent third party to replace Mr. Mozenter. Her petition accused Mr. Mozenter of failing to provide her with basic information about the trust’s assets and finances, keeping her “in the dark with regard to the state of her own finances.” The complaint also said that Mr. Mozenter had “belittled, disrespected and condescended to Mrs. Buffett.”“As a result, the majority of Mrs. Buffett’s net worth is controlled by someone she does not trust, and to whom the trust for her benefit must pay enormous fees — more than $1.7 million in 2024 to him and his firm — no matter how badly he treats her,” the petition said.Mr. Mozenter filed his own lawsuit in Palm Beach County, Fla., this week, asking the court to remove Ms. Buffett as co-trustee. His suit said that he was a “trusted financial adviser” to Mr. Buffett for more than 30 years and that he was also the singer’s business manager.He claimed that during their partnership, Mr. Buffett expressed concerns about his wife’s ability to manage and control his assets after his death. The singer was careful to set up the trust “in a manner that precluded Jane from having actual control” over it, the lawsuit said. “Other than serving as a noncontrolling trustee, Jane has no ability to manage the trust,” the filing said. “This fact has made Jane very angry.”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 Faced a Sexual Assault Allegation in 2015

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      No charges were filed because of what the authorities said was insufficient evidence. The singer has been accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing four women, which he denies.A 2015 sexual assault allegation against the Motown singer Smokey Robinson was presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, but no charges were filed because of insufficient evidence, the office said on Friday.In a brief statement in response to inquiries from The New York Times, the district attorney’s office said that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had brought it the allegation in 2015. It did not provide further details, citing a criminal investigation that the sheriff’s office opened into Mr. Robinson this month.News of a previous allegation comes weeks after four anonymous women filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Robinson of sexually abusing them repeatedly over many years while they worked for him as housekeepers.Three of the four women worked for the Robinson family in 2015, according to their court papers, but their lawyers, John Harris and Herbert Hayden, said on Friday that none of their clients made the 2015 allegation.Mr. Harris and Mr. Hayden said in a statement that the decision by the district attorney’s office to not file charges that year “underscores the significant challenges victims face when reporting incidents of sexual assault, particularly when the alleged perpetrator is a powerful and well-known figure.”Lawyers for Mr. Robinson have denied the allegations against him and filed a cross-complaint on Wednesday suing the women and their lawyers for defamation. One of those lawyers, Christopher Frost, said on Friday that he and his team were “pleased” that “the L.A. district attorney has confirmed there was no basis to file charges a decade ago.”“One unfortunate aspect of celebrity is that it is not uncommon to be the target of spurious and unsubstantiated allegations,” the statement continued.A spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Department confirmed it had handled a 2015 allegation in the manner described by the district attorney’s office but did not provide additional details. More

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      in Movies

      As George Lucas’s ‘Starship’ Museum Nears Landing, He Takes the Controls

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      After years of delays, the mammoth Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is finally approaching completion in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.Despite its looming presence, though, the museum being built by George Lucas, creator of the “Star Wars” franchise, has long seemed to lack the sort of defining mission that would protect it from being dismissed as a vanity project.What is a museum of narrative art? And why is Lucas building one?Even now — 15 years since Lucas first proposed a museum, and eight years after ground was broken in Los Angeles — many questions remain about an ambitious but somewhat amorphous project that is now slated to be completed next year.There has also been turbulence as the museum nears its final approach. In recent weeks the museum has parted ways with its director and chief executive of the past five years and eliminated 15 full-time positions and seven part-time employees, including much of the education department. Lucas is now back in the director’s chair, installing himself as the head of “content direction” and naming Jim Gianopulos, a former movie studio executive and Lucas Museum trustee, as interim chief executive.The filmmaker George Lucas has appointed himself head of “content direction” at the museum he is creating in Los Angeles. Laurent Koffel/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesIts former director, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, had been hired five years ago from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her outsider’s eye and knowledge of the museum world had been expected to broaden the raison d’être for the institution so that it would do more than serve as a monument to things that Lucas has collected or produced. But as of April 1, Jackson-Dumont departed in a move that was framed as a resignation.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

      With ‘Dead Outlaw,’ the ‘Coroner to the Stars’ Is Getting One Last Act

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      For much of his early career, Thomas Noguchi spent his days as a civil servant toiling away in the basement of a building in downtown Los Angeles.But even in a city filled with larger-than-life celebrities, Noguchi, a Japanese immigrant, managed to become a household name. Because over a span of 15 years as the chief medical examiner of Los Angeles County, he inspected the bodies of Marilyn Monroe, Robert F. Kennedy, Sharon Tate and many others to determine how they died. He was, as many around town called him, the “coroner to the stars.” And as such, he became something of a notorious star himself, delivering news that, he contends, people sometimes did not want to hear.“The public might not be ready, but I felt I had the responsibility to inform the public,” Noguchi, now 98, said in an interview at his home this month. “They might not accept it. But they actually heard it from the right source.”Now, more than four decades after he was demoted from his administrative post amid accusations of mismanagement, he is getting one last brush with fame. A fictionalized version of Noguchi pops up in several scenes in the Tony-nominated musical “Dead Outlaw,” and a new documentary about him, “Coroner to the Stars,” is making the rounds of the festival circuit. There’s even a new book.Thom Sesma singing the number “Up to the Stars” as Dr. Thomas Noguchi in “Dead Outlaw,” the Broadway musical about a long-lived corpse.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“With what I would find out from death investigations, the public and news people would be very interested in knowing what I feel,” he said.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

      Los Angeles Mayor Seeks to Lure Filming Back by Cutting Red Tape

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      With film and TV production in Los Angeles down by roughly one-third in recent years, Mayor Karen Bass took steps to make it easier to shoot at top locations.Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles said Tuesday that she was taking steps to make filming in the city easier as local, state and federal officials have grown concerned about the exodus of film and television production to other states and nations.The mayor issued an executive directive to streamline city processes, lower the costs of filming in the city and make it easier for productions to shoot at well-known city-owned locations like the Griffith Observatory. The mayor also reaffirmed her support for a massive funding increase for the state’s film tax credit program.“We are going to fight now,” Ms. Bass said at a news conference on Tuesday morning. “While we push for the tax credits to be passed in Sacramento, we need to do what we can today to impact building in Los Angeles.”Though the specific changes detailed in the directive are somewhat technical, the move by Ms. Bass represents a signal of her support for the film industry at a time it faces something of a existential crisis. Filming in the region is down roughly a third in recent years, lured away by massive subsidies in other states and other countries, which often offer cheaper labor. The exodus has left tens of thousands of middle-class union workers without jobs.At the news conference inside SAG-AFTRA’s headquarters, Ms. Bass — flanked by more than a dozen members of the film and television industry — also reiterated her support for a proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom of California to dramatically increase the size of the state’s tax credit program for film and television to $750 million annually from $330 million.Lawmakers in Sacramento are expected to finalize the state budget next month. Mr. Newsom’s plan appears to have wide support, but exactly how much money lawmakers will ultimately allot to Hollywood at a time the state faces a $12 billion deficit is unclear.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

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Trump Called for Movie Tariffs After a Meeting With Jon Voight

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      The president’s call for tariffs caused confusion in Hollywood, which has seen a steep drop-off in local film and television production.President Trump’s call to impose steep tariffs on movies “produced in Foreign Lands” came after he met at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend with the actor Jon Voight, whom he named a “special ambassador” to Hollywood this year.The president’s social media post on Sunday that called for a 100 percent tariff on films produced outside the United States caused confusion in Hollywood, which has lost a great deal of local film and television production to states and nations that offer rich tax credits and cheaper labor. While few in the industry said that they understood Mr. Trump’s proposal, some worried that tariffs could cause more harm than good and called instead for federal help in the form of tax credits.Mr. Voight and Steven Paul, his longtime manager, met with Mr. Trump over the weekend and shared their plans to increase domestic film production, according to a statement from SP Media Group, Mr. Paul’s firm. They suggested federal tax incentives, changes to the tax code, co-production treaties with other nations and infrastructure subsidies, the statement said.The proposal also included “tariffs in certain limited circumstances,” the statement said, adding that it was under review.Mr. Voight made the rounds of Hollywood last week, meeting with the Motion Picture Association, Hollywood’s top lobbying group; various unions; and the state representatives who are pushing bills to increase state tax credits for the film and television industries. State Senator Ben Allen, a Democrat whose district includes Hollywood, met with the actor to discuss how to increase production in the state, a representative said.Mr. Voight emerged from those meetings with two one-page documents drafted by the M.P.A. One letter encourages lawmakers in Washington to adopt a manufacturing and production incentive to encourage more domestic employment. The other asks Congress to extend a section of the tax code that expires at the end of 2025 and allows certain film and television expenses to be deducted in the year they are incurred.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