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What Led Josephine Baker To Become A Spy And A French War Hero?

It wasn't only loyalty to France for having accepted her and taken her to heart.  She had some personal experience with Nazism. - Literary Hub

Janeane Garofalo, True To The Gen-X Ethos, Never Sold Out

A trailblazer for years, "Garofalo didn’t just help shift the comedy scene away from clubs. Her style represented a sea change from the polished, tight and desperately relatable bits ready-made to translate into a sitcom or a late-night appearance." - The New York Times

Meryl Streep’s One Weird Trick

You can never unsee this, so only click if you dare. - The New York Times

The Charming Actor Whose Star Power Has Grown Along With India’s

Why is Shah Rukh Khan so celebrated as he marks 30 years in the Hindi film industry? "He shows us a glimpse of a prosperous, plural and humane region - one that can laugh at itself without the inflamed nostrils of pious outrage." And he's the poster child for growth. - BBC

Beloved Conductor Bramwell Tovey Dead At 69

Artistic leader of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, BBC Concert Orchestra, and, as of the coming season, the Sarasota Orchestra, Tovey spent widely admired tenures at the Winnipeg and Vancouver Symphonies and was a regular visitor to the top American orchestras, known especially for his rapport with audiences. - CBC

Kevin Spacey Pleads Not Guilty To Sexual Assault In London; Trial Date Set

"(The actor) appeared at the U.K.'s historic Old Bailey criminal court on Thursday morning, where he pleaded not guilty to all five counts of sexual assault. His U.K. trial will begin on June 6, 2023, and is expected to last for three to four weeks." - Variety

Meow Wolf Co-Founder Matt King Has Died At 37

"King was an instrumental figure behind a company that The New York Times Magazine once described as 'the Disney of the experience economy.' … During the group's early years, King played an instrumental role in coming up with some of the surreal environments the company would become renowned for." - Artnet

Margaret Keane, Whose Paintings Were Claimed To By Her Husband To Be His, Has Died At 94

"Her husband Walter Keane fraudulently took artistic credit, while she painted for 16 hours a day to satisfy demand for the work, originally presented publicly as a joint effort, and always signed simply 'Keane.'" - The Guardian (UK)

Edouard Louis, His Mother, And The “Archaeology Of The Destruction Of A Smile”

Not long ago, the 29-year-old French memoirist (The End of Eddy) found an old snapshot of his mother at age 20 with a bright, hopeful smile.  He always remembered her as tough and grim, and he decided to find out what happened to that smiling young woman. - The Guardian

Susie Steiner Helped Reinvent The Crime Novel Even As She Went Blind

The author, who died at 51, only had time to produce three books in her series, but her agent says, "I’ve lost track of ... the number of publishers, scouts and film companies who’ve used her name to describe a genre of writing they want." - The New York Times

James Caan: An Appreciation

For instance: "He was unforgettably perfect — carnal, wild, exciting. Caan may not be the actor you first think of in relation to The Godfather, with its astonishment of legends, but the film is impossible to imagine without his volatile, kinetic performance." - The New York Times

Harvey Dinnerstein, Who Sketched The Civil Rights Movement, Has Died At 94

When Dinnerstein was 27, "he traveled to Alabama with fellow artist Burton Silverman, a high school classmate, to chronicle the bus boycott in Montgomery." And they chronicled the living heck out of it, including prayer meetings and a trial of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - Washington Post

Roy Moore Loses His Lawsuit Against Sacha Baron Cohen Over The “Pedophile Detector” In “Who Is America?”

Moore, the notorious judge and Senate candidate from Alabama, sued Cohen for $95 million, alleging he was deceived and defamed in the latter's 2018 mockumentary TV series.  A US Court of Appeals panel ruled that the series was obviously satire and held Moore to the release he signed. - The Guardian

Actor James Caan Dead At 82

"(He) memorably displayed his tough-guy screen presence as the trigger-happy Mafioso Sonny Corleone in The Godfather (among many other roles) but also proved, beyond his macho exterior, a versatile performer of wry expressiveness and unexpected vulnerability." - MSN (The Washington Post)

Clint Eastwood Wins $2 Million In Lawsuit Against Defendants Who Used His Name And Likeness To Promote CBD

"The verdict is the second in favor of the actor in a pair of suits against CBD manufacturers and marketers that fabricated news articles and manipulated search results to make it appear that the actor endorsed their products." - The Hollywood Reporter

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