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      ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 2, Episode 8 Recap: Fathers and Sons

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      Also: Where are Rebecca and Sam headed? And how should we feel about it?Season 2, Episode 8, ‘Man City’“Fathers and sons, so tricky,” Higgins tells Jamie, before continuing on with an irony the latter doesn’t catch: “They should really write songs about it.”Indeed! Also, perhaps, television shows?Here we are, at last, with the revelation about Ted that we have been waiting for: His father killed himself when Ted was 16 years old. We don’t yet know anything much beyond that.We’ve been building toward this moment all season. Episode 2 had so many references to fathers and sons (remember “The Prince of Tides”?) that some astute readers guessed this was where the show was headed all the way back then.Sure, we’ve had our distractions along the way, some of them marvelous — Roy doing his “Sleepless in Seattle” crosstown sprint; Roy and Phoebe doing their “Love Actually” door-to-door search for a dentist; Roy doing pretty much anything else.But the theme of fathers has been lurking beneath the show’s typical good cheer for a while now: Jamie’s dad. Nate’s dad. Sam’s dad (though in a quite different way). Even Rebecca’s dad, whom we did not actually meet, but who sounds like no Prince Charming.But let’s start from the beginning. On the phone with her own therapist, Sharon is offended at the idea that she’s behaving like Ted: “Me and Ted Lasso are nothing alike,” she complains. This feels like a deliberate inversion of last week, when Sharon was explaining to a reluctant Ted that their two jobs are actually quite similar.And then: blammo. Riding her bike to work as usual, Sharon is hit by a car. As the actress who plays Sharon, Sarah Niles, explained to me in an interview at the beginning of the season, one of her challenges was that when she got the role she didn’t yet know how to ride a bike. So, with the help of friends, she learned. And how do the writers reward her? They have her character run over by a car! Cruel? Ironic? You be the judge.Fortunately, the damage is not too extreme: a concussion, some stitches, and a brief period of confusion during which Sharon sent Ted some 32 voice messages, including one in which she sang the first act of “West Side Story.”But later on the phone, Sharon is serious: “I was scared today. Really scared.” Brushing away Ted’s usual chirpy banter, she tells him, “I don’t need a pep talk. Ted, I just wanted to tell you how I was feeling … And I’m glad I did.” Sharon can’t know it yet, but this is the moment of total honesty that Ted will later reciprocate.Stuck somewhere in there — fathers and sons! — is another call to Sam from his lovely father. Cerithium Oil (a fictionalized stand-in for Shell) is being forced to stop work in Nigeria, thanks to Sam’s taking a stand in Episode 3! Sam’s father congratulates Sam; Sam congratulates his father for inspiring him; Sam’s father congratulates Sam for rightly giving him credit.It honestly seems as though the two men might keep lobbing congratulations back and forth indefinitely. It’s an international call, though, so eventually they stop. But if Sam’s dad is supposed to be the show’s standard for good male parenting, well of course everyone else is going to come up short.Everyone, that is, except Roy Kent, who is effectively the surrogate dad to his niece, Phoebe. (Her biological father, like so many others on the show, is evidently not a good one.) Roy is called in for a meeting with Phoebe’s teacher, at which she informs him that Phoebe “has been swearing, a lot,” followed by an example too extravagantly obscene ever to be printed in this newspaper.The ensuing pantomime between the teacher and Roy — in which she tries to convey that Roy’s fondness for language as salty as the Dead Sea could be contributing to Phoebe’s overdeveloped vocabulary, and Roy only gradually comprehends the accusation — was one of my favorite moments of the episode.Roy and Phoebe’s later conversation in the car is a good one, too, with him explaining that people expect pro athletes like himself to curse all the time, but it is unacceptable in anyone who seeks to be a “veterinarian for wild animals.” I loved the closing of the scene, too, in which Roy agrees to play one game of “Princess and Dragon” with Phoebe, and then asks, a perfect beat later, “Can I be the dragon this time?”Sarah Niles learned how to ride a bicycle for “Ted Lasso.” And this is how the show repays her?Apple TV+And then, we go from good parenting to bad parenting, possibly the worst parenting. James Tartt, the execrable father of Jamie, is back on the scene for the two things he seems to do best: cadging free tickets to a big game, and berating/bullying/humiliating his son for — well, it hardly seems to matter what.The game in question is a semifinal of the FA Cup to be held in revered Wembley Stadium. (I enjoyed Ted’s confusion about the fact that professional soccer fields are not all the same size, and that the Wembley where he long ago saw Queen perform on TV was the “old Wembley,” not “this” Wembley.)The game is against the powerhouse Manchester City, the same team that knocked AFC Richmond into relegation 11 months ago. The outcome is a brutal, 5-0 blowout by Man City (even if, because of some error, we still see the scoreboard registering “4-0”).Cue Tartt the Elder, a rabid Man City fan, who barges into the AFC Richmond locker room to gloat and belittle as only a thug with too much drink in him can. This leads to two extraordinary moments.First, Jamie’s dad receives one of the most well-earned punches in television history, courtesy of his son, before Coach Beard escorts him out roughly.And then, after a stretch of silence so long and painful it feels like it may never end, Roy hugs Jamie, gently at first but with growing ferocity. In spite of himself, and in spite of their long history of enmity, Roy, in this one moment, is being precisely the father figure Jamie needs.First, Phoebe. Now, Jamie. By the start of Season 3, Roy Kent may be a surrogate father to all of us.And then, Ted’s anguished admission to Sharon about his own father’s suicide. I don’t think there’s a lot more to be said about this yet, though I’m sure there will be plenty to say in the future.So keeping in mind that this recap is running long — the episode itself was, at 45 minutes, the longest of the season so far — I’ll move on to the other principal story line.Though we learned about it two episodes ago, Rebecca and Sam have only now discovered that the Bantr flirtations they have been conducting are in fact with one another. Rebecca is understandably perturbed, especially when she learns Sam is just 21. (“All these messages, I was grooming you.”) But Sam takes it in stride.He pushes forward romantically — though gently, this is Sam we’re talking about — and she pushes back: about dinner (eventually, a yes), about a kiss (they share one), and about whether she will invite him in (a solid no). “I mean it,” she tells Sam. “I have to mean it.”This seems to me a perfect way to end the story line. An anonymous flirtation, a comic recognition at the restaurant, an enjoyable dinner, and a single kiss — all happy semi-romantic memories, but none that involve launching an improbable-bordering-on-impossible (and some would argue inappropriate) relationship.But one thing Hollywood has true difficulty comprehending is that a romantic relationship — even a genuine love affair — can go unconsummated, but still be worthwhile and moving. This was, I think, the central insight of “Once.”Is it wistful and bittersweet that the stars of the film, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, don’t end up together? Of course. But it’s not a tragedy. Just a road not taken, and for very compelling reasons. (The real-life romance between the stars, who by contrast did consummate their relationship, seems sadder to me than their onscreen one.)I wish this had been how the Rebecca-Sam quasi-romance had played out: in mutual recognition that there was a spark, but also that there were excellent reasons not to pursue it.But no. As usual in Hollywood — even “Ted Lasso”!—a relationship in which those involved don’t fall into the sack, preferably quickly, is hardly considered a relationship at all.So Rebecca, changing her mind after watching Sam interviewed on television, sends him a text. He texts back his address. But when she comes out her front door moments later, he’s already standing there!I mean, isn’t this a tad stalker-y? He didn’t know she was going to text him; in fact she had made exceptionally, repeatedly clear that she didn’t want to date him. So why’s he standing on her doorstep at night, not merely uninvited but specifically told to stay away?I mean, all he’s missing are the creepy, “Love Actually” poster boards. But perhaps there were no more left in London after Roy bought them up in Episode 4.Sam’s line that he gave Rebecca his address for “next time” also seems a bit presumptive/possessive/premature. What if she only wanted to do it once, if at all? And wanted it to be at his place, not hers, as suggested by her note? (She could have invited him over. She didn’t.)I’m sure there will be a variety of strong opinions about the Rebecca-Sam connection. And I think everyone — myself included! — should wait to see how it proceeds before coming to firm conclusions. But it may be that I exaggerated (ever so slightly?) the degree to which Sam’s father raised him to be a gentleman.Brett Goldstein and Elodie Blomfield in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Odds and EndsNate’s ongoing decline seems to have slowed, at least for the moment and at least relative to his extraordinary abuse of Colin and Will last week. But it’s clear that space has been developing between him and the other coaches. He repeatedly seems like the odd man out, whether it’s his enthusiasm to be a spokesman (in polar contrast to Roy and Beard) or his having to be lectured that other people’s life emergencies are not necessarily his business. Things aren’t as bad as they’ve been, but I’m pretty sure they will get worse again. (If you haven’t already, read this intriguing interview.)As Isaac gives Sam a haircut, the first act is set to Arturo Sandoval’s “La Virgen de la Macarena,” and the second to Mahalia Jackson’s “Down by the Riverside.” This kind of highly produced musical number, which I can’t recall seeing in the first season, has been a staple this season. (Success has its advantages.) My favorite example remains “She’s a Rainbow” from Episode 5.Doesn’t Colin ever catch a break? For two weeks, he was subjected to a torrent of abuse from Nate. Tonight, he almost asphyxiates. Why? Because Isaac, pondering whether to cut Sam’s hair, forgets to lift the barbell off his throat.“Ain’t no policy like a hospital policy, ’cause a hospital policy don’t stop” — Ted at his best/worst (but mostly best). If, like me, you were trying to remember the original line and where it came from, you’re in luck. This piece, which contains a hilarious number of variations on the theme over the years, will answer all your questions.Pop culture references tonight included Kyrie Irving, Liev Schreiber, and “Sling Blade” — though I strongly suspect there are others that I missed. Let me know in comments. Thanks to the several folks who confirmed that, yes, Holiday Inn does have a big U.K. presence.Thanks, too, to everyone who pointed out an oversight on my part last week that has smitten me to the core: the “Groundhog Day” reference implicit in any use of “I Got You, Babe.” No apology is sufficient, but I can offer in reparation this marvelous piece on the film by my friend James Parker.A quick personal anecdote related to this week’s Roy-Phoebe story line. Years ago, before I had children, I too had a spicy vocabulary. At one point, I was on a profane diatribe about something with my boss, who was a little older and already had kids. His eyes grew wide, and he pointed at me. He said, with a tone of revelation, “It’s you. It’s all you.”It turned out he had been swearing more in front of his children, and his wife had pointed it out. And he believed — and I have no reason to doubt — he was swearing more because he spent hours a day in the presence of my colorful verbiage. So be forewarned: You should not only be careful with your words around kids but, at least sometimes, around their parents, too. Swearing is apparently infectious, and you never know what vectors your potty-mouth might travel. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel: Herd Immunity Doesn’t Mean Taking Horse Medicine

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      “Vaxxed and waxed. He wants his mailmen smooth,” Kimmel joked of President Biden’s new vaccine requirements for federal employees on Thursday.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘The Variants Are Coming!’On Thursday, President Biden announced new vaccine requirements for federal employees and contractors, health care workers and those working at companies with more than 100 employees.“And, of course, a lot of people are upset about this,” Jimmy Kimmel said. “They don’t want to be told what to do — not even by the doctors who they will eventually rush to to beg for help when they get sick.”“Vaxxed and waxed. He wants his mailmen smooth.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“This really does feel like when your dad stops threatening and actually does turn the car around.” — JAMES CORDEN“But you know, there’s a reason pandemic movies end when the hero finds the cure for the disease. There’s no ‘Contagion’ sequel with Matt Damon running around trying to convince everyone to take the vaccine — they just take the vaccine. And thank God, by the way — he sucks. We don’t need more movies with him.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Vaccine mandates have a proud history in this country. During a smallpox outbreak in 1777, George Washington required his troops to be immunized. And who can forget the immortal words of Paul Revere: ‘One if by J.&J., two if by Pfizer. The variants are coming! The variants are coming!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“But, still, I don’t know, like a quarter of the country thinks herd immunity means they should be taking livestock medicine instead of the vaccination.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Biden said it’s time to stop horsing around — and then he was like, ‘No, seriously, stop taking horse medicine.’” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (She’s Back Edition)“The Biden administration yesterday removed 18 military academy board members that were appointed by Trump, including haunted Dollar Store Barbie doll Kellyanne Conway. Which, there’s a name I haven’t said in a while: Kellyanne Conway. I’m not gonna say it any more times. I’ve seen ‘Candyman.’ I know what might happen.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Why were there still any Trump holdovers anyway? That’s like moving into a rent-controlled apartment the last guy died in and keeping all the expired whitefish in the refrigerator.” — SETH MEYERS“And why was Kellyanne Conway on an Air Force advisory board? If she ever flew an F-16 or what she probably calls an F-17, I guess we would end up in a ravine, her standing on a tarmac in a parachute claiming it was a successful landing.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingStephen Colbert spoke with Steve Burns from “Blues Clues,” who went viral this week with a heartfelt video that addressed his abrupt departure from the beloved children’s show close to 20 years ago.Also, Check This OutSeth Meyers was among Kelly Clarkson’s guests during a string of New York episodes taped at Jazz at Lincoln Center.Weiss Eubanks/NBCAfter two years of her daytime show, much of that during a pandemic, Kelly Clarkson has hit her stride as a talk show host. More

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      Michael Constantine, Father in ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding,’ Dies at 94

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      He won an Emmy for his role on the TV series “Room 222” and played other many characters over the years before becoming known as the hit film’s patriarch.Michael Constantine, an Emmy-winning character actor known as the genially dyspeptic school principal on the popular TV series “Room 222” and, 30 years later, as the genially dyspeptic patriarch in the hit film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” died on Aug. 31 at his home in Reading, Pa. He was 94.His agent, Julia Buchwald, confirmed the death.Mr. Constantine, who began his career on the Broadway stage, was endowed with fierce eyebrows, a personal warmth that belied his perennial hangdog look, and the command of a Babel of foreign accents. Of Greek extraction, he was routinely cast by Hollywood to portray a welter of ethnicities.He played several Jewish characters, winning an Emmy in 1970 for the role of Seymour Kaufman, who presided with grumpy humanity over a fictional Los Angeles school on “Room 222.” Broadcast on ABC from 1969 to 1974, the show centered on an idealistic Black history teacher, played by Lloyd Haynes, who contended with a variety of issues, social and otherwise, at the racially diverse Walt Whitman High School.He also played Italians, on shows including “The Untouchables” and “Kojak”; Russians, as in the 1980s series “Airwolf”; a Gypsy, in the 1996 horror film “Thinner,” adapted from a Stephen King novel; and, on occasion, even a Greek or two.Mr. Constantine was possessed of a gravitas that often led to him being cast as lawyers or heavies. He played the title role, the night-court judge Matthew Sirota, on “Sirota’s Court,” a short-lived sitcom shown on NBC in the 1976-77 season.Mr. Constantine with Lloyd Haynes in the TV series “Room 222,” seen on ABC from 1969 to 1974. He won an Emmy for his portrayal of a principal who presided over a high school with grumpy humanity.ABCHe had guest roles on scores of other shows, including “Naked City,” “Perry Mason,” “Ironside,” “Gunsmoke” and “Hey, Landlord” in the 1960s, and “Remington Steele,” “Murder, She Wrote” and “Law & Order” in the ’80s and ’90s.On film, he appeared in “The Last Mile” (1959), a prison picture starring Mickey Rooney; “The Hustler” (1961), starring Paul Newman; the 1969 comedies “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” and “Don’t Drink the Water”; and “Voyage of the Damned” (1976).Mr. Constantine became known to an even wider, younger audience as Gus Portokalos, the combustible, tradition-bound father whose daughter is engaged to a patrician white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, in the hit 2002 comedy “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”An immigrant who made good as the owner of a Chicago diner, Gus is an ardent amateur etymologist who can trace any word to its putative Greek origin. (“Kimono,” he concludes after pondering the matter, surely comes from “cheimónas” — Greek for winter, since, he explains in his heavily accented English: “What do you wear in the wintertime to stay warm? A robe!”)Gus is also a fervent believer in the restorative power of Windex, applied directly to the skin, to heal a panoply of ailments, including rashes and boils.“He’s a man from a certain kind of background,” Mr. Constantine said of his character in a 2003 interview with The Indianapolis Star. “His saving grace is that he truly does love his daughter and want the best for her. He may not go about it in a very tactful way. So many people tell me, ‘My dad was just like that.’ And I thought, ‘And you don’t hate him?’”“My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which was written by its star, Nia Vardalos, and also starred Lainie Kazan as Gus’s wife and John Corbett as the man she marries, was a surprise international hit. It took in more than $360 million worldwide, becoming one of the highest-grossing romantic comedies of all time.Mr. Constantine reprised the role on television in “My Big Fat Greek Life,” a sitcom that appeared briefly on CBS in 2003, and on the big screen in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” in 2016.The son of Andromache (Fotiadou) and Theoharis Ioannides Efstratiou, Mr. Constantine was born in Reading on May 22, 1927. His parents were Greek immigrants, and his father was a steelworker.He settled on an acting career early, an idea reinforced after a youthful visit to a friend who was studying acting in New York.“I just knew I belonged there,” Mr. Constantine told Odyssey, an English-language magazine about Greek life, in 2011. “They could make fun of this hick from Pennsylvania, but I just belong here — this is me.”The young Mr. Constantine studied acting with Howard da Silva while supporting himself with odd jobs, among them night watchman and shooting-gallery barker. He became an understudy to Paul Muni in the role of the character modeled on the famed defense lawyer Clarence Darrow in “Inherit the Wind,” which opened on Broadway in 1955.In “Compulsion” — a 1957 Broadway dramatization of Meyer Levin’s novel about the Leopold and Loeb murder case — Mr. Constantine took over the role of another defense lawyer from Frank Conroy just before opening night. (Mr. Conroy withdrew after suffering a heart attack during previews.)“Michael Constantine gives an excellent performance,” Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times. “He avoids the sentimentality that the situations might easily evoke and plays with taste, deliberation, color and intelligence.”Mr. Constantine’s other Broadway credits include Anagnos, the director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, in the original cast of “The Miracle Worker” (1959), and Dogsborough in Bertolt Brecht’s antifascist satire “Arturo Ui” (1963).Mr. Constantine’s first marriage, to the actress Julianna McCarthy, ended in divorce, as did his second, to Kathleen Christopher. His survivors include two sisters, Patricia Gordon and Chris Dobbs. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.For all Mr. Constantine’s credits, for all his critical acclaim, it was for a single role — and for a single prop wielded in the course of that role — that he seems destined to be remembered.“I can’t tell you,” he said in a 2014 interview with his hometown paper, The Reading Eagle, “how many times I’ve autographed a Windex bottle.”Alyssa Lukpat More

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      ‘Muhammad Ali’ Docuseries From Ken Burns Is a Sweeping Portrait

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      A new four-part documentary series by Ken Burns paints a sweeping portrait of a man whose life intersected with many of modern America’s most profound changes.One day in the mid-1990s, Ken Burns had a cold while he was in Los Angeles to raise money for his next documentary. He ducked into a coffee shop for some hot tea, and after paying, one of the 20th century’s most ardent historians turned from the counter and locked eyes with perhaps its most towering icon. Muhammad Ali was sitting in a booth nearby. The two men stared at each other silently for longer than most strangers would — celebrities or not.“There’s was almost no movement on both of us except that kind of opening, that love that happens when you just feel unashamed and unembarrassed by the persistent gaze,” Burns said recently. “This wordless conversation; I have the script in my head, I heard his voice in my mind. But it was just without going over and shaking hands, of course, not asking for an autograph or anything like that.”By that point, Ali was in the clutches of Parkinson’s disease — hence the silence from a man who for many decades couldn’t stop talking: about his own beauty and skill, about how ugly and untalented his opponents were, about the injustice Black people across America had faced for hundreds of years.Nearly three decades later, Burns; his oldest daughter, Sarah; and her husband, David McMahon, have stitched together a sweeping portrait of Ali’s impact from more than 40 years of footage and photographs. “Muhammad Ali,” a four-part documentary series that premieres Sept. 19 on PBS, follows the arc of a man whose life intersected with many of modern America’s most profound changes — and who was also not as widely revered in his prime as he is now.David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker and author of “King of the World,” a 1998 biography of Ali, said “it was very clear that a lot of America found him dangerous, threatening to the way people were ‘supposed’ to behave — much less Black people.”“He won people over because he was right about the war,” Remnick continued. “He won people over because as an athlete, he proved himself over and over again to be not only beautiful to watch, but unbelievably courageous. So his athleticism and his superiority as an athlete couldn’t just couldn’t be denied, even when he lost.”In 1978, Ali beat Leon Spinks to win the heavyweight championship for the third time.Michael GaffneyThere has been no shortage of documentaries or biographies about Ali in the last few decades. For the filmmakers, the idea took root in 2014, when their friend Jonathan Eig was working on a book about Ali. (“Ali: A Life,” published in 2017.) Eig’s research led him to believe that a comprehensive film representation of Ali’s life had not been done before, and that the Burnses were the perfect team to do it.McMahon said it took only a few archival clips to convince them of the potential power of a wide-ranging Ali documentary. “There were so many possibilities to tie together all these threads that were kind of out there,” he said. “You’d see documentaries that had been about a single chapter in his life or a single fight, or books covering only a portion of his life.”The more the filmmakers dug into Ali’s life, Sarah Burns said, the more they realized “just how much there was to this story.”“Not just the boxing, obviously,” she said, “but his relationships with Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, his family life, his marriages, his draft resistance and his courage and being willing to go to jail for his convictions, and also his battle with Parkinson’s — you know, his later life, his post-boxing life.” That “really hadn’t,” she added, “been explored in as much detail.”The new series traces a path from the young Cassius Clay in Jim Crow-era Louisville to the complicated, at times self-contradictory adult who won the heavyweight title three times and faced down the U.S. government over his refusal to fight in Vietnam. The filmmakers show him as not only a dominant heavyweight during his peak fighting years but also a figure of no small impact on society. Here is “The Greatest” clowning with the Beatles; standing at a podium with Malcolm X; embracing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; calling another Black fighter an “Uncle Tom” for refusing to acknowledge his name change, as a leering Howard Cosell tells the cameras to “keep shooting” the ensuing scuffle; and finally declaring publicly — at risk to his career and endorsements — that he was a Muslim.Ali had relationships with many other prominent 20th century figures, including Malcolm X.ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Live NewsAli’s rise to stardom coincided with a period of intense cultural change in the United States, and his connection to the Civil Rights and antiwar movements is critical in distinguishing Ali the man from Ali the boxer, McMahon said — and in recognizing his impact on American audiences.“You can’t understand his refusal to be inducted into the U.S. Army without understanding his faith, without understanding the meaning of Elijah Muhammad in his life,” he said, referring to the mercurial and sometimes caustic leader of the Nation of Islam, with whom Ali had a close relationship. “We hadn’t really seen that explained. There were also perspectives that hadn’t been heard; we thought, ‘Who out there could tell us more about his faith?’”Eig, the biographer, shared a huge trove of contacts with the filmmakers, and they started their initial interviews in 2016, a week after Ali died. Dozens of writers, friends and boxing ambassadors participated: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Holmes, Jesse Jackson, the novelist Walter Mosley, the ESPN writer Howard Bryant, the boxing promoter Don King. Over the next several years, the filmmakers unearthed more than 15,000 photographs and dug up footage that had not been seen publicly. A production company that had shot the “Thrilla in Manila,” Ali’s third and final bout with Joe Frazier, in the Philippines, had folded before the film could be used. Their footage was buried in a Pennsylvania archive.“This woman pulled these boxes out and said, ‘They say “Ali” on them — I don’t know what they are,’” McMahon said. “This is Technicolor, it’s 16-millimeter, shot from the apron [of the ring] — it just pops. And you see the fight in ways that had never been seen before.”Ali’s relationship with Frazier, who as a young fighter had been one of Ali’s fans, is one of the thornier aspects of the documentary. Ali’s treatment of him before their fights was quite cruel, employing some of the language of “racist white people,” as one commentator in the series says, to denigrate Frazier (who never forgave him). It’s part of the complex picture of Ali that the series provides: a people’s champion who could be petty; a devout Muslim who was a serial philanderer; an idealist who made a lot of people angry with his refusal to conform to public expectations.Bryant, the ESPN writer, said he didn’t think “people understand why this story is so heroic and so important and so unique.”“We just seem to think that every person out there, if they protest something, if they say something, if they face some sort of sanction, we put them in the same category as Muhammad Ali or Jackie Robinson,” he continued. “And it’s just such nonsense.”“Name me another athlete where the full weight of the United States government came down on one person. I’m not talking about the N.F.L. saying you can’t play when you’re already a millionaire. Colin Kaepernick obviously sacrificed and lost some things. It’s not the same thing. It’s not even close.”For two of Ali’s daughters, Rasheda Ali (from his second marriage, to Khalilah Ali, born Belinda Boyd) and Hana Ali (from his third, to Veronica Porche), the new documentary is an honest look at the father they knew mainly while he was under the weight of Parkinson’s. The film opens with a shot of him sitting with his oldest child, Maryum, encouraging her to look out the window so he can steal a bite of her food. The footage brought Rasheda to tears.Belinda Boyd became Ali’s second wife and changed her name to Khalilah Ali. Thomas Hoepker/Magnum Photos“I’ve never seen the family footage — and even the photos!” Rasheda said. “I was like, ‘Wow, where did you get that?’”“He was always making jokes and he was fun,” she added. “That’s the Muhammad Ali people don’t really see regularly.”Hana, who said that anyone other than the Burns would have been making “just another documentary about my father,” also noted that the more intimate footage helped fill in some of the nuances about him.“It’s so hard when you live a life like my father’s, where you’re so accessible, and so photographed, and his story’s been told so many times,” Hana said. “Honestly, I’ve seen so many documentaries about our father, and even just watching the beginning of this one, already, it was just different — it felt more personable.”The series comes to a close as Ali has become, as Ken Burns described it, “the most beloved person on the planet.” The footage of his trembling surprise appearance at the 1996 Olympics, in Atlanta, is a crucial piece of Ali’s lasting image and mythology. But as Burns put it, “mythology is a mask.”Bryant, who argued that Ali changed the relationship between athletes and fans, was more direct about the boxer’s evolving public image in those later years.Ali in Manhattan in 1968. Despite his popularity as a boxer, Ali angered many people with his refusal to conform to public expectations.Anthony Camerano/Associated Press“People hated his guts, and white people didn’t love him until he couldn’t talk,” Bryant said. “There were people — Black and white — who still called him Cassius Clay; there were people who still did not want to give him his due. And there were people who still held a lot against him.”“Then he couldn’t talk, and suddenly he belonged to everybody,” he said.Ken Burns suggested that this public redemption was akin to “a funeral where people are talking really nicely about other people.”“And you go, ‘Why can’t we do this in the rest of our lives?’” he said. “The funeral isn’t for the person who’s dead — the funeral is for the people who are left behind, and we’re always modeling the best, most human behavior. And yet, we don’t seem to be able to bring it to our own lives.”He quoted one of the journalists in the documentary, Dave Kindred, who said that in death, Ali “can’t hurt us anymore; he can’t make us mad anymore.”“He could no longer anger us, he could no longer make it difficult for us, to force us back on our own feelings, our own beliefs, our own prejudices, Burns said. Then there’s this room to forgive and perhaps exalt.”“It’s a long process with him,” he added. “And it’s so interesting that a great deal of that positive progress is from defeat.” More

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      How a TV Ad Enticed Broadway Crowds Right After 9/11

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      Rudy Giuliani was meant to appear; Elaine Stritch arrived just in time. Recalling the “I Love New York” spot that helped dispel the fear in Times Square.Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Broadway suspended performances for just two days, reopening on Sept. 13, 2001. But audiences were hesitant to return, and many shows performed to near-empty houses for weeks.To encourage attendance, the theater’s brightest stars — many in costume — gathered in a mostly deserted Times Square on Sept. 28 to perform the John Kander and Fred Ebb song “New York, New York.” (A studio recording session was held the day before to capture audio).Book ended by two of Broadway’s best-known voices, Bernadette Peters and Nathan Lane, the performance had the Phantom rubbing shoulders with the Beast, while “Lion King” puppets bobbed overhead. Brian Stokes Mitchell and Brooke Shields were there; so were the preteen urchins from “Les Miserables.”The footage was used for a 30-second commercial that ran on major television networks, as well as in movie theaters across the country. The goal of the ad, according to its director, Glenn Weiss: “I want people to not be afraid to come and see a show.”The week of the attacks, Broadway altogether grossed an anemic $185,490. After the commercial’s release, ticket sales steadily increased, and for the week of Nov. 11, shows brought in $470,845.Twenty years later, as Broadway braces for another nervous reopening, there are striking parallels to that morning in late September. Indeed, on Aug. 30, the industry set in motion its own post-pandemic marketing campaign, including a clip-filled video entitled “This is Broadway,” narrated by Oprah Winfrey.Here, those who were in front of the camera and behind the scenes for the 2001 ad reflect on the experience. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.JAN SVENDSEN FRIEDLANDER, then-marketing director of the Broadway League On the 12th, I did go to work. I went to the League offices and all these members — producers and theater owners and general managers — started coming. No one knew what to do. And then midday, the mayor’s office called and they said, “You’ve got to get Broadway reopened.” So we agreed to reopen on Thursday the 13th.Jan Svendsen Friedlander, the former marketing director of the Broadway League, with a poster signed by many of the participants in the Broadway-boosting 2001 commercial.Rozette Rago for The New York TimesRozette Rago for The New York TimesNATHAN LANE, performer Everybody was shaken by what happened. And people were concerned it might happen again. “The Producers” had opened and played through summer and then it was the fall. We went back on a Thursday, all because of [then Mayor] Rudy Giuliani — this is before he was a raging [expletive]. It felt wrong to be going back so quickly. And yet we were trying to do something positive.DREW HODGES, founder, SpotCo advertising agency Something like five days later we were back in the office and trying to figure out what to do. We had this idea of doing a TV commercial, getting everybody into Times Square. Barry Weissler, the “Chicago” producer, he was a friend. We went to him and said, “We have this idea, help us rock and roll it forward and get it to more powerful people.” And I believe he said, “I was thinking the same thing.”BARRY WEISSLER, producer We knew we wanted to sing “New York, New York.” What else? It was an idea that grew out of my meeting with Jed [Bernstein, former Broadway League president], saying we should bring the entire Broadway community together in one place to celebrate humanity — the tragedy aside, 9/11 aside. Let’s celebrate Broadway, humanity and life.BERNADETTE PETERS, performer Of course, New York was afraid. We were concerned: Is it going to happen again? But we just had to be brave and let people know that it was time to take back New York.JERRY MITCHELL, choreographer Drew Hodges called me and said, “We’re getting ready to do a commercial. We’re filming in Times Square. I’m going to get all the actors before their matinee. Will you choreograph it?” I said, “Absolutely, what do you need?” He sent me the song, and I had 12 dancers, I think, with me. I choreographed a little something for them that night. And the next morning, we met at the Booth Theater [functioning as a green room]. I went onstage, and there was the Broadway community, in costume, sitting in the audience.CHRIS BONEAU, publicist [Producers] were told, “We need two people to do this, and it has to be Nathan and Matthew [Broderick].” Or: “It can be three costumed characters, and these are the ones who we would like to get.” You got to hand it to the people who wrangled the whole thing. I mean, there were so many people behind the scenes who were doing every single thing they could to get this moment right, because you only had one shot at it.HODGES We were standing in Shubert Alley, waiting to go into the Booth while the shows filed in. And we heard this jangling sound, and we couldn’t figure out what it was. And it got louder and louder. And then around the corner came all the Rockettes. And they were in costume, in formation in one line, tap dancing, literally, across an empty Times Square.Faces in the crowd, from left: Tony Roberts, Peters, Betty Buckley, Joel Grey, Dick Cavett, Stritch and Cady Huffman.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJOEL GREY, performer Everybody you ever knew in the theater all of a sudden was there, shiny and bright and ready to take on the world. Theater people believe in dreams, so we were all dreamers saying, “Everything is going to be all right.” We all needed to tell a story.MITCHELL I was standing onstage [at the Booth] and said, “This is the choreography; everybody stand up.” I think I played the tape three times. And then as each group went to their place, I put an assistant with them. They took them out to the platform and started reviewing it. Then I went out front, and I climbed the George M. [Cohan] statue, and I was standing on the statue yelling at everybody over a megaphone.PETER GALLAGHER, performer I remember Jerry, he couldn’t have been a more embracing and vibrant life spirit. And, frankly, it was just really reassuring to see everybody — just to see a lot of people you had known or worked with.HODGES The last line is, and Nathan says it in the spot, “Come to New York and let’s go on with the show.” But it was supposed to be Giuliani.FRIEDLANDER We kept hearing, “He’s coming, he’s coming. Don’t let anybody go, he wants to be in it.” So while we were waiting, a lot of the restaurants in Times Square came running out, and they were handing [out] cases of water and croissants and pastries and sandwiches and drinks.GLENN WEISS, director Fire trucks were heading right past us. And literally every cast from every Broadway show stopped, turned and applauded. The people who get applause were giving applause, and it was for our first responders. That vision will stick with me forever.PETERS We had our passion and our power and our love for New York and what it represents. Everyone was there. Of course Elaine Stritch, my dear friend, she just made it at the last minute, because she always would run just a little late.HARVEY FIERSTEIN, performer We were told to wear anything we wanted except white. That was emphasized a bunch of times. So we were ready to shoot and a cab pulls up through the police line and out steps Stritch, all in white. And then of course, everybody’s already in place, so the only place she can possibly stand is dead center — in white.LANE She thought, I think because of the success of “The Producers,” I would be in the front row and that if she stood next to me, she would definitely be on camera. She said, “Oh, no, no, no, I’ll be right here next to Nathan.” That I remember was very amusing. And very typical of her.Nathan Lane recalled how Elaine Stritch jostled for a prime position at the shoot.Jesse Dittmar for The New York TimesWEISSLER A few performers, when we placed them, insisted on pushing through to the front. I’m not going to name names. So take a look at who’s in front. She was a dear friend.HODGES We had to plan where everybody stood, and it was a grid of 40 shows. So people like Susan Lucci and Alan Alda [both had previously been on Broadway] were in the front, as they did not have a show to stand with. And of course, they were recognizable.FRIEDLANDER The concept was always to start really small with Bernadette. Bernadette symbolizes Broadway. And then the idea was just to go wider and wider and wider, so that you see Times Square, and you see that there was life there.PETERS Although I started it and I’m the first voice, it’s all of us. That’s what was important. The feeling of the love between us made us all stronger.HODGES Every single person did it for not a penny, which is kind of miraculous.FRIEDLANDER Seth Popper [the League’s director of labor relations] was my counterpart; he managed to get all the unions to give us concessions, so that we could actually shoot this spot. In the real world, if we had tried to pay for that spot, it would have been millions of dollars.GREY It was impossible to not want to be a part of it, to be somehow part of the solution. God, who would believe that there even was a solution?GALLAGHER Fortunately, none of us are accustomed to certainty in any aspect of our lives. And so it’s the kind of pluck: We don’t stop performing in a show just because it doesn’t work, or it’s going to close. You don’t stop because there’s a threat. You just keep going. More

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      As a Daytime Host, Kelly Clarkson Has No Fear of Being Vocal

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      Kelly Clarkson had just come striding through an aisle of the Appel Room one afternoon in late August, accompanied by Kristin Chenoweth and a troupe of dancers as they sang the final bars of the uplifting Imagine Dragons ballad “On Top of the World.”In the minutes between catching their breath and performing the number for a second time — part of an elaborate musical sequence that will open the third season of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” — the host called out from her stage here at Jazz at Lincoln Center and offered a tongue-in-cheek apology to Chenoweth and the ensemble if she had missed any steps in this earlier take of the routine.“I was freaking out,” Clarkson said. “You do not want your entrance to depend on me.”Though she has already been many things in her career — the winner of the inaugural season of “American Idol”; a best-selling, Grammy Award-winning pop and country musician; a coach and adviser on “The Voice” — Clarkson will gladly admit she is still a novice when it comes to starring in her own syndicated daytime talk show.Throughout a day spent taping segments for her show’s premiere week, which begins on Monday, the spirited, self-deprecating Clarkson had been telling her studio audience she felt rusty after coming back from a scheduled filming break of about three months. But there was not much time for her to get back up to speed and, as she has gotten used to, she would have to figure things out on her feet.Seth Meyers was among the guests during a string of New York episodes taped at Jazz at Lincoln Center.Weiss Eubanks/NBCAt a moment like this, much is expected of “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” a blend of celebrity interviews, games and slice-of-life segments informed by the 39-year-old host’s pop-cultural sensibilities. The program is coming off its first Daytime Emmy win for best entertainment talk show, a category in which Clarkson has vied with established competitors like Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest (the longtime “Idol” host) and newcomers to the field like Drew Barrymore.NBCUniversal, which produces “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” has renewed the series through the 2022-2023 season and has said it will give Clarkson’s program the slot now held by “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” when its veteran host steps down next spring after 19 years.These decisions provide added incentive for Clarkson while significantly raising the stakes: At a time when her show is still finding its footing — and has yet to have anything resembling a normal season — she is already being groomed as DeGeneres’s heir.This coming season of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was supposed to be the one where she and her colleagues would show off the full potential of the program, unencumbered by growing pains or pandemic restrictions; by opening it in New York, they hoped to spotlight a city, a host and a TV series that were fully restored and back to business as usual.The recent resurgence of the coronavirus has put a cloud over much of that. But as Clarkson prepared to forge ahead in New York — before returning to the show’s home in Los Angeles for another week’s worth of season-premiere programming — she said she had gotten accustomed to the uncertainty that has so far epitomized her talk-show experience.“It’s kind of been like that from the get-go,” Clarkson said. “From Season 1, we’ve had to reinvent it. We’ve never had, really, a moment with our show where it’s like everything’s going to plan.”A few days before shooting her season premiere, Clarkson was speaking in a video interview from Los Angeles, comfortably dressed down with her hair held back in a ponytail while her dog Henry played at her feet. “I appreciate that I can do this in sweats and no bra,” she said with delight.That relentless candor has a lot to do with how Clarkson got this gig — it’s a quality that her fans and advocates find relatable. But it also gave her the freedom to nearly turn down the show. Thinking back to the period a few years ago when she was being sought as a host, she said: “Everybody was like, Oh man, you would be great at doing a talk show — except for me, I wasn’t one of those everybodies. I’m just like, Where do I fit in there? Why would I? No one will watch that.”She added, “I’m very honest with myself.”Alex Duda, the showrunner and an executive producer of “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” said that she was among those early recruiters who were impressed by Clarkson’s energetic, unpredictable appearances on “The Voice.”Duda, who previously produced daytime talk shows for Steve Harvey and Tyra Banks, said that Clarkson was also distinguished by her formative “American Idol” victory in 2002, a process in which millions of viewers witnessed and participated in her ascent to fame.Clarkson was initially unconvinced that she should host a talk show. “I’m just like, Where do I fit in there? Why would I? No one will watch that,” she said.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“We chose her,” Duda said. “She connects with us in a way that nobody does because we helped with that. People are rooting for her in a different way.”Clarkson, who was 20 when she won, said she had also come to realize how “Idol” had unexpectedly prepared her for a future in daytime television.“We were on TV all the time,” she said wearily. “Doing random things — being interviewed, interviewing other people, doing skits.” To this day, she said, she never worries about having something to say when a camera is pointed at her: “I don’t really feel pressure from that. That can be scary for other people sometimes, like, Oh God, what’s she going to say?”With a blueprint that allowed her to perform a new cover song in every episode (or Kellyoke, in the show’s parlance), and a guest list that enabled her to share a stage with musical heroes like Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire and Garth Brooks, Clarkson embarked on the first season of her program in September 2019.In March 2020, in-studio production of the show was halted by the pandemic. But Clarkson, who had left Los Angeles with her two young children to hunker down in a cabin in Montana, continued to produce new segments for the program that she recorded on an iPhone.Clarkson said she had found the experience as invigorating as it was frustrating. “We were in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “The dryer broke. We’re going to the bathroom in the woods at some point. I’m 5’3” and a half, dude. I’m in snow up to my thighs. And I’m like, well, I have a camera.”She added: “I’m trying to be America’s cheerleader. And I never completely broke down about it, but I definitely laughed hysterically at several moments.”In its second season, “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was able to return to its Los Angeles studio with pandemic protocols in place: Panel discussions were socially distanced, and audience members could participate only virtually, appearing as heads and torsos on flat screens. (A limited studio audience will be allowed to return in Season 3.)These circumstances were not ideal for a fledgling program still trying to find its footing. “You’re trying to build on momentum,” Duda said. “For us, it was difficult being a show about connection when you can’t connect physically. We haven’t been able to realize our mission.”Jason Halbert, who is the show’s musical director and has worked with Clarkson for almost 20 years, said that he has seen her thrive in fluctuating settings, as a musician and as a host.When he is touring with Clarkson, Halbert said, “There’s a new text every morning of a great new idea she has.”“I wake up in Vegas and she’s like: ‘You know what? I want a harp player for my show today. I want a kids’ choir.’ I love those challenges.”When Chris Martin appeared on the show, Clarkson brought out her son, Remington, and daughter, River Rose, so that they could hear Martin perform.Weiss Eubanks/NBCHalbert said he had experienced a similar volatility on the talk show. “Scripts are being written, reviewed, at 11:00, 11:30, midnight the night before,” he said. “There’s rewrites, there’s a new surprise or a new guest. My morning starts with about three or four requests, every single day, of some new music that has to be created. There’s nothing routine about it at all.”But over their years together, Halbert said he had seen Clarkson go from a plucky neophyte to a star, a mother and a leader. “Her voice has grown, her stage presence — everything about her has grown,” he said.By the end of last spring, “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was drawing an average daily audience of about 1.3 million viewers, frequently putting it ahead of “Ellen” and other competitors like “The Rachael Ray Show,” though it doesn’t surpass category leaders like “Dr. Phil” or “Live With Kelly and Ryan.”Despite the obvious indicators that Clarkson is being positioned to step in as successor to DeGeneres (whose show is produced by Warner Bros.), no one is quite ready to talk about this explicitly while DeGeneres is still on the air.Tracie Wilson, the executive vice president of NBCUniversal’s syndication studios, praised DeGeneres for her lengthy, innovative tenure. “Nineteen years — what a milestone, that’s incredible,” Wilson said.Even so, Wilson said that the coming season of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was an important opportunity to reintroduce the show to viewers.“We are treating Season 3 like a launch,” she said. “We’re putting everything behind it. Because we’re still an infant of a show and we have so much more to do. We’ve had so many stops and starts with the pandemic.”Clarkson — who has featured DeGeneres as a guest on her show and appeared several times on “Ellen” — played down comparisons between them. “No one can take over for Ellen. It’s an iconic show,” she said.She argued that her efforts as a talk-show host shouldn’t be measured against those of her illustrious predecessors, any more than she should be gauged as a singer in comparison to the vocalists who inspired her.“I’m never going to be Whitney Houston — I’m never going to be Cyndi Lauper, Reba or Trisha or Mariah,” she said. “I’m going to be me. I think that’s fine. There’s room for everyone at the table.”Clarkson credits her time on “American Idol” with making her comfortable on-camera. “I don’t really feel pressure from that,” she said.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesClarkson — who is simultaneously preparing a new Christmas album for release later this year — said there was still value in trying to produce positive, uplifting entertainment. It is a goal that hasn’t been deterred by the many months of coverage that her continuing divorce from her onetime manager Brandon Blackstock has yielded for celebrity sites like TMZ and Us Weekly.Clarkson said she was generally unaware of how she is portrayed in the tabloids, given that her own internet usage is limited mostly to Friday night sessions of “Zillow porn” and that these sites were off her radar, even if they had generated large readerships.“It’s supply and demand,” she said. “People demand it, so they supply it, unfortunately. I’m not mad at it. But I don’t have to subscribe to it.”Clarkson spent much of an afternoon taping in New York trading enthusiastic repartee with Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay and a personal fave she was meeting for the first time. She swooned over his accent and contributed vocals as he played her an acoustic-guitar cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).”During a question-and-answer segment, Martin sheepishly said he was nervous. “I’ve never been interviewed by someone who’s a better singer than me,” he explained.Clarkson threw up her hands and pretended to walk off the stage. “I’ve achieved greatness,” she said triumphantly.Later, Clarkson brought out her 7-year-old daughter, River Rose, and 5-year-old son, Remington, so that they could hear Martin play a solo performance of the Coldplay song “Green Eyes.”Martin had gotten only a few bars in when Remy motioned to his mother and said, loud enough for the audience to hear: “I need to go to the bathroom.”It was one of those unscripted moments that Clarkson lives for, and she seized it. As her son trotted off the stage, the delighted host told the crowd that she never seems to have this problem herself.“I always go right before my show starts,” she said. “Because I’m panicked about it.” More

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      Michael Constantine, Dad in ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding,’ Dies at 94

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      He won an Emmy for his role in the TV series “Room 222” and played many characters over the years before becoming known as the hit film’s patriarch.Michael Constantine, an Emmy-winning character actor known as the genially dyspeptic school principal on the popular TV series “Room 222” and, 30 years later, as the genially dyspeptic patriarch in the hit film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” died on Aug. 31 at his home in Reading, Pa. He was 94.His death was from natural causes, his agent, Julia Buchwald, said.Mr. Constantine, who began his career on the Broadway stage, was endowed with fierce eyebrows, a personal warmth that belied his perennial hangdog look, and the command of a babel of foreign accents. Of Greek American extraction, he was routinely cast by Hollywood to portray a welter of ethnicities.Over time, Mr. Constantine played several Jewish characters, winning an Emmy in 1970 for the role of Seymour Kaufman, who presided with grumpy humanity over Walt Whitman High School on “Room 222,” broadcast on ABC from 1969 to 1974.He also played Italians, on shows including “The Untouchables” and “Kojak”; Russians, as on the 1980s series “Airwolf”; a Gypsy in the 1996 horror film “Thinner,” adapted from Stephen King’s novel; and, on occasion, even a Greek or two.Mr. Constantine, possessed of a gravitas that often led to him being cast as lawyers or heavies, starred as the night-court judge Matthew Sirota on “Sirota’s Court,” a short-lived sitcom shown on NBC in the 1976-77 season.Michael Constantine, right, with Lloyd Hanes in the TV series Room 222, which ran from 1969 to 1974ABCHe had guest roles on scores of other shows, including “Naked City,” “Perry Mason,” “Ironside,” “Gunsmoke” and “Hey, Landlord” in the 1960s, and “Remington Steele,” “Murder, She Wrote” and “Law & Order” in the ’80s and ’90s.On film, he appeared in “The Last Mile” (1959), a prison picture starring Mickey Rooney; “The Hustler” (1961), starring Paul Newman; “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” (1969); “Don’t Drink the Water” (1969); and “Voyage of the Damned” (1976).Mr. Constantine became known to an even wider, younger audience as Gus Portokalos, the combustible, tradition-bound father whose daughter is engaged to a patrician white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in the 2002 comedy “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”An immigrant who made good as the owner of a Chicago diner, Gus is an ardent amateur etymologist who can trace any word to its putative Greek origin. (“Kimono,” he concludes after pondering the matter, surely comes from “cheimónas” — Greek for winter, since, he explains in his heavily accented English: “What do you wear in the wintertime to stay warm? A robe!”)Gus is also a fervent believer in the restorative power of Windex, applied directly to the skin, to heal a panoply of ailments like rashes and boils.“He’s a man from a certain kind of background,” Mr. Constantine said of his character in a 2003 interview with The Indianapolis Star. “His saving grace is that he truly does love his daughter and want the best for her. He may not go about it in a very tactful way. So many people tell me, ‘My dad was just like that.’ And I thought, ‘And you don’t hate him?’”“My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which also starred Lainie Kazan as Gus’s wife and Nia Vardalos and John Corbett as the young couple, was a surprise international hit. The film took in more than $360 million worldwide, becoming one of the highest-grossing romantic comedies of all time.Mr. Constantine reprised the role on television in “My Big Fat Greek Life,” a sitcom that appeared briefly on CBS in 2003, and on the big screen in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” in 2016.The son of Theoharis Ioannides, a steelworker, and Andromache Foteadou, Mr. Constantine was born Constantine Ioannides in Reading, Pa., on May 22, 1927. (The family name is sometimes Romanized Joanides.)He settled early on an acting career, an idea reinforced after a youthful visit to a friend who was studying acting in New York.“I just knew I belonged there,” Mr. Constantine told Odyssey, an English-language magazine about Greek life, in 2011. “They could make fun of this hick from Pennsylvania, but I just belong here — this is me.”The young Mr. Constantine studied acting with Howard da Silva, supporting himself with odd jobs, among them night watchman and shooting-gallery barker. He became an understudy to Paul Muni playing the character modeled on the famed defense lawyer Clarence Darrow in “Inherit the Wind,” which opened on Broadway in 1955.In “Compulsion” — a 1957 Broadway dramatization of Meyer Levin’s novel about the Leopold and Loeb murder case — Mr. Constantine took over the role of the defense lawyer from Frank Conroy just before opening night. (Mr. Conroy withdrew after suffering a heart attack during previews.)“Michael Constantine gives an excellent performance as the prototype of Clarence Darrow,” Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times. “He avoids the sentimentality that the situations might easily evoke and plays with taste, deliberation, color and intelligence.”Mr. Constantine’s other Broadway credits include Anagnos, the director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind in the original cast of “The Miracle Worker” (1959), and Dogsborough in Bertolt Brecht’s antifascist satire “Arturo Ui” (1963).Mr. Constantine’s first marriage, to the actress Julianna McCarthy, ended in divorce, as did his second, to Kathleen Christopher. His survivors include two sisters: Patricia Gordon and Chris Dobbs, his agent said. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.For all Mr. Constantine’s credits, for all his critical acclaim, it was for a single role — and for a single prop wielded in the course of that role — that he seems destined to be remembered.“I can’t tell you,” he said in a 2014 interview with his hometown paper, The Reading Eagle, “how many times I’ve autographed a Windex bottle.”Alyssa Lukpat More

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      First Host of ‘Blue’s Clues’ Returns, Striking a Chord With Grown-Ups

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      Steve Burns, who had a complicated relationship with the popular children’s show he hosted for six years, addressed his viewers almost two decades after his “kind of abrupt” departure.One day in 2002, Steve Burns packed up a bulging backpack and suitcase, said farewell to a speckled blue dog and a room of cartoon furniture, and disappeared into a two-dimensional school bus.An era of the children’s television series “Blue’s Clues” was suddenly over, leaving countless young viewers bereft of a genial host who encouraged them through their TVs for six formative years.Aside from occasional appearances in spinoffs, Mr. Burns was largely absent from “Blue’s Clues.” His sudden departure became a source of intrigue and rumor as dedicated fans grew up, found one another and wondered — often online — what actually happened to him.On Tuesday, in a Twitter video posted by Nick Jr., a Nickelodeon channel for young children, Mr. Burns returned. Donning the same striped lime-green rugby shirt he used to wear, he addressed his now adult viewers in character.Speaking about his departure almost two decades ago, he said, “I realize that was kind of abrupt. I just kind of got up and went to college. And that was really challenging, by the way, but great because I got to use my mind and take a step at a time, and now I literally am doing many of the things that I wanted to do.”Then, in the positive tone that defined his character, Mr. Burns urged viewers to reflect on their own paths: “And then look at you, and look at all you have done and all you have accomplished in all that time. And it’s just — it’s just so amazing.”His reappearance struck a chord among many viewers, raising feelings of nostalgia and childhood comfort, especially juxtaposed with global crises like the coronavirus pandemic and extreme weather linked to climate change. In less than 24 hours, the video had been watched nearly 20 million times.Mr. Burns at the premiere of “Blue’s Big Musical Movie” in Los Angeles in 2000.SGranitz/WireImageMr. Burns acknowledged some of the challenges that his former viewers might have faced.“We started out with clues, and now, it’s what? Student loans and jobs and families?” he said. “And some of it has been kind of hard, you know? I know you know.”He added that he wanted to thank viewers, saying their support continued to help him. “I guess I just wanted to say, after all these years, I never forgot you. Ever,” he said.Mr. Burns, now a producer and musician, could not immediately be reached for comment. But in the years since he left the show, he has spoken about his complicated relationship with fans and the program, which he hosted in his 20s. He has said that he felt conflicted about the imaginary relationship millions of young viewers believed they had with him.“Kids thought I was their friend for real,” he said in a 2010 live performance for The Moth, a storytelling organization.“I started to think, I’m saying these wonderful things to kids, I’m saying: ‘You are so smart, and you can do anything you want to do.’ But I couldn’t help thinking, you know, is that true?” Mr. Burns continued.As “Blue’s Clues” grew in popularity, reaching more than 14 million viewers each week at one point during his tenure, Mr. Burns also began experiencing what he described as an identity crisis.“I was starting to really seriously think, as great as this is, they might have the wrong guy here, maybe this should be a teacher or a child development specialist or something,” he said.His departure from the show led to some wild speculation among fans. Mr. Burns’s Instagram handle, @steveburnsalive, appears to cheekily refute rumors of his death. He said in a HuffPost interview that as creators of the show moved on to other projects, he felt that “it was simply time to go,” and joked to Nickelodeon that he “refused to lose my hair on a kid’s TV show.”But as Mr. Burns revived his “Blue’s Clues” persona on Tuesday, many fans on social media said that his message struck just the right tone, managing to transport them back to a time of childhood innocence while acknowledging the realities of adulthood and its challenges.The video was a particularly poignant reminder of the past for Chuck Gaffney, a 37-year-old computer programmer and voice actor in Rocky Point, N.Y., who said he had been grieving the recent deaths of his younger brother and cousin. The show had been a favorite pastime for many of his seven younger siblings.“Time might have moved on but our hearts have not. Seeing messages like this — that there are people there for you — is comforting,” he said in an interview. “We ought to remember being there for each other.”Mr. Gaffney said he planned to introduce the show to his 2-year-old daughter.“Blue’s Clues” ended in 2006, but the show was rebooted in 2019 as “Blue’s Clues & You!” It is hosted by Joshua Dela Cruz, the franchise’s first Asian American host. A new season is set to air in October. More