When William Stanford Davis auditioned for Friends, he says, "I thought I knocked it out of the park. But when I called my agent … he told me that the casting department thought my audition was so terrible, I should go back to being a telemarketer." - Time
“So many years I haven’t done ballet. And then suddenly Jennifer comes and tries to bring everything up. To me, it was like a shock.” - The New York Times
"The shaggy-haired, high-voltage maestro who served as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for almost 30 years, … was widely considered the first Asian conductor to win world renown leading a (symphony) orchestra." - The Washington Post (MSN)
Alejandro Triana Prevez, 30, has confessed to stabbing Sikkema to death in his Rio apartment, but Prevez's attorney has called the murder a "crime of command," alleging that Sikkema's estranged husband had befriended and groomed Prevez. Brazilian police, however, believe for now that the motive was robbery. - ARTnews
“I think what people are interested in is passion,” Mr. Woolfe said. “Even if you didn’t understand every word, my goal is for you to be drawn into my pieces because you can tell that I really care about what I’m writing about.” - The New York Times
"The film gave me an exposure that I could not have imagined, and I had to catch up with my own fame when the floodgates opened to do countless operas," she later said. After a 25-year singing career, she found happiness as a special-ed teacher in Kentucky. - The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Vittorio Sgarbi has stepped down amid a rising tide of controversies. He is currently being investigated over allegations that he laundered stolen art. Last week, he shocked the nation by verbally attacking two journalists who raised the matter. … He is also accused … of accepting lucrative fees to appear at cultural events." - Artnet
Rachmaninoff, who was in the prime of his enormous career, was so impressed with her that he offered to teach Ruth Slenczynska at his apartment in Paris. Nine decades later, she is believed to be his only living student. - Washington Post
The artist, who died at 67 after nearly five decades of illustration and creation for D&D and other games, was so influential that “her name has become a verb — 'Jaquaysing the dungeon' means creating a scenario with myriad paths.” - The New York Times
Rogoff, who died last week at 92, was "able to capture in vivid, richly metaphoric language the unique brilliance of a stage performance. Rogoff understood that the actor was on the front lines. … He appreciated that the actor is where literature and the stage meet." - Los Angeles Times
What other conclusion can be drawn from (HBO) Max’s decision to cancel Rap Sh!t? But: "Rae is ... bidding on land in her stomping grounds of South L.A. on which to build a production studio. Cancel some shows? Fine. She’ll make more." - Washington Post
Gustafson won an Oscar last year for the stop-motion animation he and Del Toro co-directed. He "upheld a tradition of craftsmanship at a time when CGI, or computer-generated imagery, was sweeping the animation industry with its relative ease of production." - Oregon ArtsWatch
"After taking up art as a teenager at boarding school in the 1940s, Ms. Mackler spent a lifetime supporting herself with low-level office jobs while dedicating her nights and weekends to painting” - but exploded on the art scene when she switched to sculpture. - The New York Times
"(She was) a prodigious and peripatetic author who published best-selling books about the actresses Vivien Leigh and Katharine Hepburn as well as 14 other celebrity biographies, eight novels, three children’s books, two memoirs and one autobiography." - The New York Times
We are drawing a new musical map. Looking back, the 20th no longer seems the century of Stravinsky. Prokofiev once eclipsed Shostakovich—but no longer. And Sergei Rachmaninoff stands apart from the turmoil that enveloped him, a pillar of implacable poise and sovereign humanity. - The American Scholar
