Elizabeth Taylor persuaded the Writers Guild of America not to picket the Paramount Pictures lot on Dec. 1, when the actress and AIDS activist is slated to give a benefit performance of Love Letters with James Earl Jones.
Taylor said she would not cross picket lines but asked the union for a "one night dispensation" so she and her guests could enter the studio with a clear conscience.
"The Writers Guild of America has shown great humanity, empathy and courage by allowing our little evening to move forward," Taylor said.
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She also expressed support for the striking writers.
"I beseech those in power to treat members of the Writers Guild of America with fairness and decency," she said
Because no agreement has been reached in the 15-day strike, movie studios are postponing high-profile feature productions Shantaram, with Johnny Depp and Nine, which was to star Penelope Cruz and Sophia Loren.
PHOTO: EPA
That makes at least four feature films derailed by the strike.
Writers and studios are scheduled to resume contract talks on Monday, but for now, the union's 12,000 members remain on picket lines.
On Wednesday, New York judge Helen Freedman ordered a theater owner to reopen Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical despite the stagehands' strike, saying, "I think that one Grinch in this city is enough."
James Sanna, the producer of The Grinch is not a member of the league, and a union spokesman said the stagehands wanted the show to go on so he could avoid financial ruin.
Children who are part of the cast filled the front row of the courtroom and shrieked with joy as she announced her ruling.
"We got our miracle on 44th Street," the producer said.
Fernando Fernan Gomez, a prolific Spanish actor, director and writer, died of cardio-respiratory failure Wednesday, a Madrid hospital said. He was 86.
Fernan Gomez appeared in more than 200 films, directed another 20 and wrote novels, plays and poetry. He was also a member of the Spanish Royal Academy, the official watchdog of the Spanish language.
His first play to obtain major critical success was Las Bicicletas Son Para el Verano (Bicycles Are for the Summer). He won international acclaim for his role in Belle Epoque in which he played father to four pretty daughters. The movie won nine Spanish Goya Awards and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.
Jackie Chan (成龍) says he's in talks with Brett Ratner, the director of the Rush Hour series, to set up a movie company that specializes in Hollywood productions shot on-location in China.
"The whole idea of this company is for China and America to cooperate so I can make American films in China and Brett can act as my consultant, giving me advice and deciding whether or not the film would be suitable for the American market," he wrote in his blog.
Solon So, (蘇志游) senior vice president of Chan's company, JC Group, said the two partners haven't agreed on any specific projects.
Chan recently finished shooting The Forbidden Kingdom in China, his first on-screen collaboration with Jet Li (李連杰).
Almost 70 years after The Wizard of Oz premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, a few of the film's Munchkins made a grand entrance there to receive the Hollywood Walk of Fame's 2,352nd star earlier this week.
Seven of the surviving little people who played the inhabitants of Munchkinland in the classic 1939 movie arrived for the ceremony in a horse-drawn carriage and trailed by a marching band. A yellow carpet led them to the stage.
"We love you, you have touched our hearts," former Munchkin Mickey Carroll, 88, told the crowd.
Carroll was joined by former Munchkins Ruth Duccini, Jerry Maren, Margaret Pellegrini, Meinhardt Raabe, Karl Slover and Clarence Swensen.
Carroll was one of more than a hundred people who were recruited for Oz. They made US$125 a week while filming, followed by decades of recognition, Carroll said by phone before the ceremony.
"I'm not a Munchkin, I'm an entertainer," Carroll noted. "But the movie is great because we all grew up with it. ... It never dies."
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located