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      Zack Norman, Actor Who Juggled Multiple Professions, Dies at 83

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      Best known for movies like “Romancing the Stone,” he also made a mark as a producer, a real estate developer and the butt of a Generation X-friendly television gag.Zack Norman, who made his mark as an actor in films like “Romancing the Stone” and “Cadillac Man” and with appearances on television shows like “The A-Team” and “The Nanny” — and who, as a producer, also became known for a star-crossed movie that became a running punchline on the show “Mystery Science Theater 3000” — died on April 28 in Burbank, Calif. He was 83.The cause of his death, at a hospital, was bilateral pneumonia related to the coronavirus, his daughter Lori Zuker Briller said.While best known for scene-stealing appearances as a supporting player, Mr. Norman was always more than a character actor. He was also a painter, a real estate developer and an art collector who in the 1980s mingled with the likes of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.Mr. Norman had a memorably menacing turn alongside Danny DeVito in the hit 1984 movie “Romancing the Stone.”20th Century Fox/Everett CollectionStarting in the early 1970s, Mr. Norman tallied nearly 40 movie and television acting credits. He had a memorably menacing turn as Danny DeVito’s crocodile-tending antiquities-smuggler sidekick in “Romancing the Stone,” Robert Zemeckis’s 1984 adventure comedy starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas.He was abundantly familiar to fans of the indie director Henry Jaglom, appearing in many of Mr. Jaglom’s films, including “Sitting Ducks” (1980), a comedy in which he was one of two dimwitted hoods who steal from a gambling syndicate, and “Hollywood Dreams” (2006), in which he played a kindly film producer who looks after a fame-obsessed starlet (Tanna Frederick).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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      “The Interview”: Ted Sarandos’s Plan to Get You to Binge Even More Netflix

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      If you’re anything like me, you probably spent some large portion of this week sitting on your couch watching Netflix. I love rom-coms — my latest obsession is a Turkish series called “Thank You, Next” — and the more rom-coms I watch, the more of them Netflix feeds to me. Maybe you’ve had this experience with sports documentaries, or thrillers, or biopics. It’s something we’ve all gotten used to. Which means, as I’m pressing play on whatever comes up next, I’m not really thinking about the people who are deciding what I’m consuming. And that’s why I wanted to talk to Ted Sarandos.Listen to the Conversation With Ted SarandosNetflix won the streaming battle, but the war for your attention isn’t over.Sarandos, 59, has been at Netflix for 24 years, nearly as long as Reed Hastings, one of the company’s two founders. He is now co-chief executive and is in charge of Netflix’s creative output. He oversaw the company’s early expansion into streaming and pioneered the binge watch. Under him, Netflix developed that powerful algorithm that knows just what to serve up next. He was also the guy who greenlit Netflix’s early original productions, like “House of Cards,” making Netflix into a studio, not just a platform. And he has led the company as it has ventured into reality TV, prestige film and live entertainment — including a just-announced deal to broadcast some of the N.F.L.’s Christmas Day games.Sarandos seems to be very good at giving us more of what we want. And after a crackdown on password-sharing (which Sarandos tells me is still in progress), his company has come out on top in the crowded streaming wars (if you set aside YouTube, which Sarandos does not). That doesn’t mean everything is rosy all the time now — the company has had several rounds of layoffs in the past few years — but Sarandos, along with his co-chief executive, Greg Peters, has put Netflix in a dominant position. Has this been good for us? Or for culture? When we talked recently, with viral clips of Netflix’s Tom Brady roast flying all over the internet, I asked him.You have an unusual background for a Hollywood or tech C.E.O. I would agree with that assessment. My parents had four kids in their 20s. So these were kids raising kids really. Our house was always chaos. And my only escape from that chaos was that little box. I watched a lot of television. Most of my upbringing, we never had all the utilities on at the same time. So the gas would be cut off, and then the phone would be cut off, and the electric, but never all simultaneously. But for some reason we had a VCR. And total happenstance, the second video store in the state of Arizona opened up two blocks from my house.Do you remember the first thing you ever checked out in the video store? Yeah, it was a filmed version of the Willie Nelson Fourth of July picnic. [Laughs.] More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘Ren Faire’

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      The long-running medical show wraps up its 20th season. HBO airs a new documentary series about a renaissance fair in Texas.For those who still enjoy a cable subscription, here is a selection of cable and network TV shows, movies and specials that broadcast this week, May 27- June 2. Details and times are subject to change.MondayBELOW DECK 9 p.m. on Bravo. The first season with Fraser Olender as chief stew and Captain Kerry Titheradge at the helm is wrapping up. This season has been pretty status quo with faulty chefs, boatmances and irritating guests. (Remember when Jill Zarin wanted a doorbell installed on the boat?) Thankfully, you don’t have to wait too long for more yacht shenanigans — “Below Deck Mediterranean,” with Aesha Scott as chief stew and Captain Sandy Yawn, returns on June 3.TuesdayVANDERPUMP RULES REUNION 8 p.m. on Bravo. The previous two parts of this reunion have dealt with James Kennedy’s dog Graham and a secret kiss between Scheana Shay and Tom Schwartz, but this third part will likely bring more drama. A year on from Scandoval, this season’s finale ended with Ariana Madix walking off from filming after Tom Sandoval tried to approach her. During the reunion, the cast will watch and rehash these final minutes. It won’t be pretty, but it will make good television.WednesdayStacy Spikes, left, and Hamet Watt on “Moviepass, Moviecrash.”San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers, via Getty Images, via HBOMOVIEPASS, MOVIECRASH (2024) 9 p.m. on HBO. In 2011, Stacy Spikes founded Moviepass, a website that allowed subscribers to purchase up to a movie ticket a day for a monthly fee — a great deal for movie lovers and a seemingly successful business model. In 2017, the company was bought, but the new owners filed for bankruptcy in 2020. This documentary outlines its rise and fall.ThursdayGREY’S ANATOMY 9 p.m. on ABC. When this TV show started airing in 2005, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston had just filed for divorce, and Mariah Carey was about to release “We Belong Together.” Now it’s wrapping up Season 20, and though the star Ellen Pompeo will no longer be a series regular, she will remain involved when it returns for Season 21.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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      Harry Hamlin Got Into Gardening Because of ‘The Martian’

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      “If he can do it on Mars,” said the actor, now starring in the cooking show “In the Kitchen With Harry Hamlin,” “I can do it in my backyard.”The actor Harry Hamlin pronounces “Bolognese” the way Italians do, with the final “e” enunciated. His niece, the chef Renee Guilbault, says it like an American, with that last syllable ending in an “s.”But potato, potahto. With “In the Kitchen With Harry Hamlin,” their five-part cooking series on AMC+ and IFC, they find a happy meeting place — including on the subject of the aforementioned pasta sauce, which ignited a squabble on the reality series “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” back when his wife, the actress Lisa Rinna, was one of its cast members.“Everywhere I go, people say two things to me: ‘Oh God, I love your wife’ and ‘Where can I get your sauce?’” said Hamlin, 72, who also stars in “Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches,” on a video call. He also discussed space travel, the High Sierras and his grandfather’s Canadian gin-drinking hide-out. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Weekly Acting ClassesI’ve been in class my whole career. I chose this profession because it’s impossible to perfect. You can’t become an expert. OK, someone like Meryl Streep, she’s an expert. But I’m going to be a perpetual student. And I learn stuff every week because I’m sort of a character actor stuck in a leading man’s body.2Clean EnergyIt’s the holy grail. It’s how human beings will get their energy for the next 100,000 years, provided that we survive that long.3Hiking the High SierrasIf you’re alone, the animals aren’t afraid of you. The deer come up to you, and the bears don’t run away from you, which can be a problem. So it is quite an amazing experience to trek solo. I go up to 12,000 feet and get to places where even mountain goats would have a hard time getting.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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      10 Artists on Living and Creating Through Grief

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      Sigrid Nunez, authorConor Oberst, musicianBridget Everett, performerBen Kweller, musicianJesmyn Ward, authorJustin Hardiman, photographerJulie Otsuka, authorLila Avilés, filmmakerRichard E. Grant, actorLuke Lorentzen, filmmakerWhen Jesmyn Ward was writing her 2013 book, “Men We Reaped,” she could feel the presence of her brother, who had been killed years earlier by a drunk driver. She still talks to him, as well as to her partner, who died in 2020.“This may just be wishful thinking, but talking to them and being open to feeling them answer, that enables me to live in spite of their loss,” she told me.While filming the HBO series “Somebody Somewhere,” Bridget Everett, playing a woman mourning the loss of her sister, was grieving the loss of her own. Working on the show was a way to still live with her, in a way, she said: “There’s something that’s less scary about sharing time with my sister when it’s through art or through making the show or through a song.”One of the many things you learn after losing a loved one is that there are a lot of us grieving out there. Some people are not just living with loss but also trying to create or experience something meaningful, to counter the blunt force of the ache.We talked to 10 artists across music, writing, photography, film and comedy about the ways their work, in the wake of personal loss, has deepened their understanding of what it means to grieve and to create.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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      ‘Doctor Who’ Episode 4 Recap: Now You See Her

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      A strong episode focuses on Ruby, the Doctor’s companion, and the mysterious older woman who starts following her from a distance.Season 1, Episode 4: ‘73 Yards’Let’s get the easy bit out of the way. “73 Yards” is not just the best episode of the season so far, but also the strongest story “Doctor Who” has produced in years — despite the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) hardly featuring.That’s not to say the decade-spanning story’s success depends on Gatwa’s absence. Yes, Episode 4 gives Millie Gibson space to break out of her companion role for the first time, and she gives a nuanced performance well beyond her 19 years.But it’s Russell T Davies’s ambitious, unpredictable script that will ensure a place for “73 Yards” in the Whoniverse history books. The episode constantly wrong-foots viewers, plays with folk stories and horror tropes, and finds a genuinely terrifying villain in a nuclear-warmongering politician.“We are in Wales. Spectacular!” shouts the Doctor as the TARDIS materializes on a craggy cliff face. For international viewers, it’s a swift introduction to a nation that has long been associated with “Doctor Who”: Davies is Welsh, and the show is a former BBC Wales production.In a seemingly throwaway comment, the Doctor mentions a future prime minister, a Welshman named Roger ap Gwilliam, who will lead Britain to “the brink of nuclear war” in the 2040s. “Sorry, spoilers,” he says, shooting Ruby a smile.The Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, and Ruby start the episode on a cliff in Wales.Bad Wolf/BBC StudiosWe 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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      ‘Zarqa’ Is a Madcap Canadian Comedy

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      This new YouTube sitcom from the creator of “Little Mosque on the Prairie” follows a divorced Muslim mother trying to pull one over on her ex.The Canadian sitcom “Little Mosque on the Prairie” premiered in 2007 and centered on a small Muslim community in a fictional Saskatchewan town. It ran for 91 episodes over six seasons, eventually showing around the world (it is streaming on Freevee, the Roku Channel and Tubi). Now its creator, Zarqa Nawaz, has a new short-form comedy with a narrower focus but a similar cartoony vibe.“Zarqa,” created by and starring Nawaz, is on YouTube and follows a divorced Muslim mother in Regina, Saskatchewan. In the opening moments of the show, she learns on social media that her ex-husband is marrying a younger woman — a white yoga instructor. Zarqa panics and posts that she is dating a white brain surgeon, which she is not, and the shenanigans are afoot.She begins a contrived romance with a pasty neurosurgeon, Brian (Rob van Meenen), though neither of them can tell if they’re actually interested in each other or just in pulling one over on everyone else. Zarqa wants to show off at her ex’s wedding, and Brian gets a rush from freaking out his tightly-wound, racist parents. Adding to the rom-com of it all, Zarqa is surprised and delighted to learn an old college flame (Rizwan Manji) has been appointed as the new imam at her mosque — and wouldn’t you know, her ex (Anand Rajaram) might be having cold feet.“Zarqa” has a madcap urgency to it, partly because the episodes are barely 10 minutes long and partly because of Zarqa, who is brusque and driven and tends to stir up drama. Her grown son recoils from some of her antics but reminds himself, “We don’t say ‘crazy’ anymore.” Her parents lament that she is “a double D: divorced and difficult.”Both “Zarqa” and “Little Mosque on the Prairie” have an exaggerated sitcom style; most characters repeat one behavior and express one idea, which sometimes can make both series feel a little like kids shows with grown-ups in them. On “Mosque,” the central theme was the perceived differences — and lo, the similarities — between Muslims and non-Muslims. On “Zarqa,” the focus is on race. “I sell white people brown-people things,” Zarqa tells Brian.The jokes and observations in “Zarqa” are pretty mild, but the story is fun, and it is told with endearing warmth and energy. So far all six episodes of Season 1 and some of Season 2 are on the CBC’s YouTube channel, with the rest arriving shortly. More