Custer, a food stylist for companies like Kraft, General Mills, and Bacardi, was "able to shape the unwieldy, the drab and the formless into a crisp and dazzling best seller." She even wrote the book on food styling - and her tool kit was famed, and feared, far and wide. - The New York Times
Then the actor - a mega-star in the world market - decided to take up martial arts. "I just needed to learn to transfer the energy, because a lot of times in dance it’s very inward and contained. Action is more about how you deliver that energy, pushing it forward."- The Guardian (UK)
"By translating literature about same-sex love from 15 Indian languages composed over more than 2,000 years," the anthology he co-edited "challenged the modern homophobic idea that homosexuality was a foreign import. Homosexuality wasn't a foreign import. Homophobia was." - The Washington Post
"He was known outside Greece for the remarkable scope of his talent — a catalogue of more than 1,000 songs, film scores, symphonies, operas and other works — but he also was widely viewed in his homeland as the conscience of political resistance." - The Washington Post
The Lithuanian-born, Polish-raised singer, known as an especially reliable artist with a beautiful lyric soprano, had an unusually wide repertoire, from Bach to Mozart to Verdi and Puccini to Wagner and Strauss to Gounod, with a particular feeling for Chopin's songs. - Gramophone
He attracted national attention in the 1970s for his waggish style hosting NBC’s Weekend, where he was joined by the equally irreverent Linda Ellerbee. They later co-anchored NBC News Overnight, an admired but little-watched show that lasted only 17 months in 1982-83. - The New York Times (AP)
Newlove wrote hundreds of articles, essays, and stories; novels; and several books of advice for writers as well. Once sober, he called his former muse "Drunkspeare." - The New York Times
Grant was the first in so many categories. First woman to write the book, lyrics, and music to a Broadway musical. One of the first Black actors with a long-running character on a soap opera. And when she couldn't win - see 1986's flop Phillis, about Phillis Wheatley - she bounced back. - The New York Times
Asner won played Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show; his career continued into the 2000s, including Up and Elf, and even the 2019 Dead to Me. He also worked hard for unions (including the Screen Actors Guild), animal rights, and farmworkers. - The New York Times
What's it like to hover in the consciousness of a nation? Actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II on the joys and the costs: "I’ve been learning bills and debt and burying family members — life and death, heartbreak, location, relocation. ... I’m also missing the birth of babies and weddings." - The New York Times
Oates wrote highly praised biographies, especially one of Abraham Lincoln, before other scholars accused him of plagiarism, and the American Historical Association conducted a year-long review of his work. - Washington Post
Spencer Elden claims that the band exploited him with what he now calls child pornography — but he's been exploiting that image of his infant self for some time. His actual grudge appears to be over an art show. - Artnet
“Plastic in those days was ugly, and it was cheap. But Alan and (designers) the Vignellis had made something that was beautiful, and it could be abused. You could put it in the dishwasher. You could drop it. And it lasted forever." - The New York Times
