" long career began in serious drama but who became one of America's most reliable and familiar comic actors, first in the movies and later on television. … Sandy-haired, conventionally if imperfectly handsome, with a grin that could be charming or smug and a brow that could knit with sincerity or a lack of it, Mr. Segal walked a...
That choice phrase from a 20th-century critic was about the effigy installed above Shakespeare's grave in Stratford-upon-Avon. The general presumption had been that the painted limestone statue had been made after the writer's death and was not necessarily modeled on the actual man. Now one scholar's research indicates that the piece was done by a professional tomb-maker who almost...
Mr. Cooper’s adventurousness went hand in hand with scrupulous musicianship and articulate technique. He was a sensitive partner in chamber works, as in his recording, with Mr. Ma, of Bach’s sonatas for viola da gamba (played on the cello) and harpsichord. - The New York Times
Already known and admired in his native Poland, he came to the English-speaking world's attention when The New Yorker published his "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. - Yahoo! (AP)
Josh Kosman: "When a composer pleads for a more sympathetic view of Levine because of his advocacy for new music, or when an opera buff clings to Levine’s recordings of the standard repertoire, that’s a tell. It says that wrongs inflicted on others don’t merit a full moral standing, at least not when weighed against the benefits to oneself....
Darrow was "best known as Manolito Montoya in the hit Western The High Chaparral," but he was also "an activist who worked to expand the roles offered to Latinos on screen. In 1972, Darrow, Ricardo Montalban, Carmen Zapata and Edith Diaz founded the Screen Actors Guild Ethnic Minority Committee. Darrow was also a vice president of Nostros, the organization...
Cepillín, whose non-performing name was Ricardo González Gutiérrez, was a Mexican clown with a half-century-long career. He "hosted TV shows broadcast from Mexico, sold millions of copies of his albums of children’s songs, and later drew millions of viewers to his videos on TikTok and YouTube. And he toured Mexico and the United States with circus companies including his...
Carus believed that children should read - and see - high-quality short stories, poetry, and art. In 1982, she said in an interview, "So many people talk down to children, but you have to respect their intelligence. ... Parents give them the best clothes, the best food, the best toys, when what they should be giving them is food...
Until his death, Levine was perhaps the music world’s most staggering living testament to the dangers of genius-worship culture. That culture nourished his ascent and enabled his alleged serial sexual abuse of young men, whom he had the power to make or break. - Boston Globe
The record label was reeling in 1970: its cash cow, The Beatles, had disbanded, and it lost $8 million that year. Parent company EMI put Menon in charge the next year and he turned it all around: in 1973 Capitol released Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, and the label spent the decade issuing hit after hit...
Justin Davidson: "Levine made innumerable comebacks, and though he ended his career in bitterness and disgrace, he also avoided the punishment he deserved. The Met investigated allegations of sexual harassment and fired him … and then paid him millions to settle a lawsuit. His health would likely have prevented him from conducting much longer anyway." - New York Magazine
Constant bullying at school (he was the headmaster's son, and he paid for it); repeated adolescent suicide attempts; Benzedrine and Nembutal and lots (and lots) of alcohol (and opium if he was in the right country for it). Both under and above it all, bipolar disorder, which Greene "saw … as key to his personality and his work." -...
Levine had been in precarious health for more than a decade, canceling many of his performances after 2008 and undergoing spinal surgery. Even when conducting from a wheelchair, he remained a vigorous and indefatigable presence in American cultural life far beyond the rarefied opera world — widely considered the country’s most influential conductor since Leonard Bernstein. But accusations of...
As students, Fulford and Gould would argue about music. Fulford was acquiring a taste for jazz and other forms of popular music, which Gould dismissed. Having to argue with someone as informed and quirkily opinionated as Gould forced Fulford into becoming an ad hoc critic, thus beginning a second career on top of journalism. - The Nation
He started drawing for the magazine 65 years ago. “Hitting the century mark in age, it’s a nice number” for the brain to consider, Jaffee said with a warm laugh Thursday from his New York home — even if some body parts don’t “seem to appreciate it.” - Washington Post
