Benson’s path to success was fraught with challenges. Early in SCR’s history, Benson experienced literal starvation for his art, competing with seagulls for morsels of dumpster food near the beach. He survived esophageal and prostate cancer, clinical depression, and the shattering grief of his first wife’s suicide. - CultureOC
"(He) was both observer and narrator during a more than seven-decade career that included books and memoirs, more than 20 years with a coveted back-page column in Time, and, later, time as a contributing writer to outlets such as The Wall Street Journal." - The Washington Post (MSN)
Ashley Benefield, whose marriage to Doug Benefield disintegrated after the ballet company they attempted to launch fell apart, was acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter for shooting him during an altercation at her home in Florida in 2020. - CBS News
"I contain that sort of empathetic people-pleasing person who I'm playing on the radio. ... But I'm a person under weekly deadlines, and I get freaked out and tired and irritable and don't want to talk to people and get annoyed. And I curse a lot in real life." - NPR
Attending the London opening of the musical The Devil Wears Prada (for which he composed the score), the 77-year-old said that an infection earlier this year had left him with only limited vision in one eye. - AP
Caserta and Joplin bonded over a pair of jeans. “The two became fast friends, occasional lovers and then dope-shooting comrades, even as their fortunes rose.” - The New York Times
Lindsey was “a onetime Mississippi Delta tugboat captain who became a campus preacher and improbably vaulted to fame and riches by writing that the world would soon end with natural catastrophes and ruinous wars.” - The New York Times
Even her teachers called her that instead of her name. But Auli’i Cravalho now says, "I’m looking forward to directing, to producing, to starting a production company. ... But I have so much growth to do before then. I grew up without a television.” - The New York Times
Says the daughter of actress Ingrid Bergman and filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, "Of course it opens the door, because people are curious to see you. But I don’t know that it was an advantage. The judgment is much more severe, and you don’t have time to grow." - The Guardian
"With his childhood friends Jerry and David Zucker, Abrahams formed the filmmaking trio, called Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, and popularized the spoof genre of the 1980s" with Kentucky Fried Movie, the Naked Gun series, Ruthless People, and, most indelibly, Airplane! - Variety
Murakami’s approach to consciousness is less representational than literal, with many of his characters literally being transported to a realm created by (or wholly inside of) their minds. - Esquire
"(He) was a celebrated wordsmith, a leading voice in literature in Afrikaans — an offshoot of Dutch that was developed by white settlers (in South Africa) — and a fierce critic of apartheid that was imposed against the country’s Black majority between 1948 and 1990." - AP
Aside from the many, many collaborations with playwright Pinter, “her influence on BBC design work, ‘a slightly crazy mix of boarding-school perfectionism and free-spirited iconoclasm,' was baked in.” - The Guardian (UK)
