More stories

  • in

    What Does Shane Gillis Want (to Get Away With)?

    How do you profit from a sudden windfall of attention?That’s what’s confronting the man-children of “Tires,” the Netflix sitcom from the comedian Shane Gillis, at the beginning of its recently released second season. The question digs at them both onscreen and behind the cameras.The show’s first season, which aired last year, felt like a tentative demo — a lo-fi experiment in bawdy, blue-collar yuksmanship. Season 2 is crisper and slicker. The clothes fit better. The lighting is sharper. And the auto repair shop at the show’s center is thriving, or something like it. The spoils of success are trickling in.Gillis, a frisky bear of a man who deftly tangles with the absurdities of contemporary culture and politics, is one of the standout comedic talents of the past few years. His humor is playful and plugged in, and delivered approachably. But he has at times deployed offense, or the appearance of it, in ways that have rendered him still something of an outsider from the mainstream, despite his huge popularity.“Tires,” an episodic sitcom on a major streaming platform, is first and foremost an opportunity to bridge that divide. Can the edgelord comedy that’s defined the nü-bro movement of the past few years come out and play?That remains to be seen. “Tires” is too inert to be offensive — curiously (purposely?) stakesless and edgeless for one of the few performers capable of making comedic hay of the current paroxysms around ideological purity (on all sides). Itchier provocations can be found in one Michael Scott monologue on a random episode of “The Office,” or truer right-leaning red meat on any of Tim Allen’s sitcoms.Gillis, left, stars in “Tires” as a mechanic at a Pennsylvania car repair garage.NetflixWe 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

  • in

    Gunilla Knutson, Star of ‘Take It Off’ Shaving Cream Ads, Dies at 84

    A model who was crowned Miss Sweden in 1961, she became best known for commercials that one observer said “replaced the ‘hard sell’ with the ‘sex sell.’”A blond Swedish model named Gunilla Knutson holds a can of shaving cream to her cheek and gazes deeply into the camera. “Nothing takes it off like Noxzema medicated shave,” she says.In a 60-second commercial from 1966 that rings with double entendre, the jazzy instrumental “The Stripper” plays as a man shaves his face in rhythmic strokes timed to the bump-and-grind of the music. When the camera returns to a tight close-up of Ms. Knutson (pronounced KUH-noots-son), she utters seven of the most famous words from that era of advertising.“Take it off,” she says, before pausing slightly. “Take it all off.”In another ad from the campaign, Ms. Knutson strips the rind from a lime, licks her thumb slowly and hums “The Stripper.”“Men,” she says. “Noxzema shave cream now comes in lime, too. So take it off.”Ms. Knutson, for whom the Noxzema campaign represented the peak of her fame, died on Feb. 3 in Ystad, Sweden, where she was born and where she had lived since leaving Manhattan a few years ago. She was 84. Her death was not widely reported at the time.Her son, Andreas von Scheele, said she died in a hospital after dealing with multiple medical issues. He and her husband, Per von Scheele, are her only immediate survivors.Gunilla Karin Maria Knutson was born on Nov. 14, 1940, to Einar and Sonja Knutson, who divorced when she was young.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

  • in

    Anne Burrell Memorial Service Attended by Food Network Stars

    The Food Network chef, who died Tuesday at 55, was remembered in a star-studded service that sent her off with a singalong.As friends, relatives and colleagues filed into a memorial service for the Food Network host Anne Burrell in Manhattan on Friday afternoon, they noticed that somebody had placed on each chair a sheet of Billy Joel’s lyrics to “Only the Good Die Young.”At the end of the event, they learned why. Ms. Burrell’s husband, Stuart Claxton, urged them to “give her a big send-off” in a karaoke-style singalong joined by Food Network executives and hosts including Scott Conant, Amanda Freitag, Marc Forgione and Geoffrey Zakarian.“We’ve got one shot at this, so let’s make it count,” Mr. Claxton said as the opening lines flashed on two large screens on either side of the closed coffin in the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on the Upper East Side.The city’s medical examiner has not yet determined a cause of death for Ms. Burrell, who was found unresponsive in the shower at her Brooklyn home on Tuesday morning. According to an internal document viewed by The New York Times, Ms. Burrell, who was 55, was “surrounded by approximately (100) assorted pills.” Emergency medical workers who responded to a 911 call pronounced her dead at the scene.But any clouds of mystery were determinedly kept at bay during the service, which was a celebration of a woman who, by all accounts, rarely passed up an occasion to celebrate. She had spent the night before she died performing at an improv club in Brooklyn.Her manager, Scott Feldman, recalled that Ms. Burrell invariably introduced him as “my dad” when he went out with her in the evenings.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

  • in

    Anne Burrell’s Death Is Under Investigation as a Possible Drug Overdose

    The city’s medical examiner has not determined a cause, but an internal police document says the TV chef was found surrounded by pills.The New York City Police Department is investigating the death of Anne Burrell, the popular Food Network star who was found dead in her Brooklyn home on Tuesday morning, as a possible drug overdose, according to an internal document viewed by The New York Times.The document said Ms. Burrell, who was 55, had been “discovered in the shower unconscious and unresponsive surrounded by approximately (100) assorted pills.” Emergency medical workers who responded to a 911 call pronounced her dead at the scene.A spokeswoman for the city medical examiner’s office said Friday that an autopsy had been completed, but that any findings on the cause and manner of Ms. Burrell’s death were still pending.Ms. Burrell was an accomplished Italian chef who began her television career as a sous-chef to the celebrity chef Mario Batali on the Food Network show “Iron Chef America.” She was best known for hosting “Worst Cooks in America,” which has run for 28 seasons.With her plume of platinum-blond hair, signature mismatched socks and a way of teaching that included a big helping of unvarnished truth, she became a mainstay for the network, appearing as a guest or judge on several other shows and even once riding on the network’s float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.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

  • in

    Terry Louise Fisher, a Creator of ‘L.A. Law,’ Dies at 79

    She channeled her experiences — and frustrations — as a Los Angeles prosecutor into an award-winning career as a television writer and producer.Terry Louise Fisher, who channeled her experience as a Los Angeles prosecutor into an Emmy Award-winning television career as a writer and producer for “Cagney & Lacey,” the groundbreaking female-oriented police procedural, and a creator, with Steven Bochco, of the sleek drama “L.A. Law,” died on June 10 in Laguna Hills, Calif. She was 79.Her death was confirmed in a social media post by Mark Zev Hochberg, a family member. He did not cite a cause.Ms. Fisher was best known for her work on shows about cops and lawyers, and she certainly knew the terrain. Before turning her attention to the small screen, she worked as a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles for two and a half years.She quickly grew disillusioned with a revolving-door criminal justice system that seemed to her to boil down to a jousting match between opposing lawyers, with little regard for guilt or innocence.In a 1986 interview with The San Francisco Examiner, she recalled being handed an almost certain victory in an otherwise weak case involving a knife killing because of an oversight by the defense: “I felt really challenged, and my adrenaline was pumping. I realized I could win this case. And I slept on it. I went, ‘My God, has winning become more important than justice?’”Her unflinching view of the system informed her tenure in television. In 1983, she began writing for “Cagney & Lacey,” bringing depth and realism to a CBS series that shook up the traditional knuckles-and-nightsticks cop-show genre by focusing on two female New York City police detectives, Christine Cagney (Sharon Gless) and Mary Beth Lacey (Tyne Daly).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

  • in

    Jimmy Kimmel Isn’t Shocked by Trump’s Silence on Juneteenth

    Kimmel imagined the Trump base’s reaction had the president acknowledged the holiday: “We’re the ones who stopped enslaving — they should have a holiday for us!”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.Another Day at the OfficeOn Thursday, the United States celebrated Juneteenth, four years after it became a federal holiday honoring the end of slavery. But President Trump didn’t acknowledge it, except by complaining on Truth Social that there were too many “non-working holidays.”Jimmy Kimmel joked that while it might be “hard to believe, from a president who has done more for Blacks than Abraham Lincoln, Trump is not a fan” of Juneteenth.“I don’t know, to me, it seems like a holiday that celebrates the end of slavery is one we should all be for.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“If Trump were to acknowledge Juneteenth, he would risk upsetting his not-at-all-racist-and-how-dare-you-say-we-are base. They’re like, ‘We’re the ones who stopped enslaving — they should have a holiday for us!’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“But then, a miracle happened. Trump did post about Juneteenth. He wrote, ‘Too many non-working holidays in America. Soon, we’ll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year.’ Says the guy who just had a birthday parade for himself. Says the guy who has been in office for 150 days and has golfed 37 times that we know of.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Two Weeks Edition)“I saw that today the White House said Trump will make a decision on the U.S. involvement in Iran within the next two weeks. All good. No rush. Just take your time.” — JIMMY FALLON“It’s always two weeks. For a guy whose catchphrase was ‘You’re fired,’ no one has ever given more two weeks’ notice than Donald J. Trump.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“If Trump thinks about this decision for two weeks, it’ll beat his previous thinking record by two weeks.” — JIMMY FALLON“Trump understands that starting a war in the Middle East is a lot like quitting your sales job at Best Buy. It’s just polite.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingThe comedian and actor Mike Birbiglia talked about an intriguing offer he’d gotten for a film role on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”Also, Check This OutUnraveling family mysteries for her documentary left Mariska Hargitay at peace: “It’s like a miracle to me to feel this way. I never thought I could.”Kobe Wagstaff for The New York TimesThe “Law & Order: SVU” star Mariska Hargitay’s documentary “My Mom Jayne” offers a candid portrayal of her family history and the mother she hardly knew, Jayne Mansfield. More

  • in

    ‘And Just Like That …’ Season 3, Episode 4 Recap: Guilty

    Aidan says he invited Carrie to stay with him longer in Virginia because he felt guilty. But is that really true?Season 3, Episode 4: ‘Apples to Apples’Is it time for all of us to face the very real possibility that Aidan is a narcissist?For the second time in their yearslong love affair, Aidan has lured Carrie to the countryside. In “Sex and the City” Season 4, Aidan finds a backwoods cabin in the unfortunately named Suffern, N.Y., and all but forces Carrie to spend weekends up there with him and a domestic terrorist squirrel.This time, though, Carrie is in Virginia with Aidan, not so much against her will. In last week’s episode, Carrie eagerly showed up down south to deliver Aidan a key to “their” (insert eye-roll emoji) Gramercy palace, and then Aidan asked her to stay.Why, exactly, does he do that? Carrie asks Aidan that very question toward the end of this episode. There is only one correct answer, and it goes something like: “Because you’re the love of my life. I miss you, and I wish we could be together all the time, and I just wanted to feel that for at least a few days.”But Aidan tells Carrie nothing of the sort. He says simply, “I felt guilty because you came all the way down here, and if I couldn’t ask you to stay, what does that say about us?”Here is what I think: I think that response solidifies for viewers that Aidan is a deeply selfish, stubborn, manipulative jerk who is dead-set on making everyone close to him bend to his will.For starters, Aidan has successfully maneuvered his way into getting what he wants out of Carrie in this most recent iteration of their relationship. In “And Just Like That …” Season 2, he refused to set foot in Carrie’s house — a melodramatic boundary rooted in old cheating wounds Carrie had apologized for time and again. But then Carrie went and sold it and bought the Gramercy townhouse that he all but refuses, essentially, to set foot in today.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

  • in

    ‘America’s Sweethearts’ Is a Compelling Sports Series

    Season 2 of this docuseries about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders is an intense look at found families and all the healing and trouble that come with them.Season 2 of the documentary series “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders,” on Netflix, is a bit less rah-rah than Season 1 — still full of tears, high kicks and sisterhood but also more attuned to the pain of it all, the sorrow and struggle of cobbling together one’s self-worth.One of this season’s leads is Jada, a five-year veteran of the team and among its best dancers and most thoughtful leaders. She lays out the season’s theme at the beginning: “Everyone’s going to say, ‘Well, they’re just cheerleaders,’” she says. “Well, we’re really good cheerleaders.”Her grin begins to spread. “Show us that you appreciate us,” she adds.Are the members of the team appreciated? Not with money, they’re not, and part of this season’s most invigorating arc is the cheerleaders’ quest for better pay. Season 1 brought additional fame and adulation to the team, and it also drew attention to the exploitation of the enterprise. As Kylie, another team veteran, explains: “The world was kind of telling us, ‘Girls, fight for more.’ And we’re like, ‘OK!’”As the women practice the grueling signature routine, we hear the opening strains of the AC/DC song “Thunderstruck,” over and over. But the true refrain of the season is the fretting about being in one’s own head. It’s the catchall term for all distress and self-recrimination, the explanation for any lack of confidence or lapse in perfection. Yes, performers can overthink things, especially in prolonged auditions, and rumination and anxiety are enemies to the wide smiles and sexy winks the Dallas cheerleaders’ routines require. The job is to make it look easy.But there’s an interesting tension. Your head is where the good ideas are, too — ideas like: “Hey, a lot of people are making a lot of money off my work; why doesn’t any of that go to me?” Or: “Even people who I believe have my best interests at heart can disappoint and hurt me.”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