US actress Barbara Bel Geddes, best known as Ewing family matriarch Miss Ellie in the legendary television soap opera Dallas, has died at the age of 82, funeral directors said Wednesday. "I can confirm that Miss Bel Geddes has died," an official at the Jordan-Fernald Funeral Home in Mount Desert, in the eastern US state of Maine, said on condition of anonymity.
"The family has asked that we do not give out any further details," the source added.
The San Francisco Chronicle however quoted Bel Geddes' second cousin, who lives in the west coast city, as saying the actress died of lung cancer. Oscar-nominated Bel Geddes became world famous through her role as the mother of Texas oil barons JR and Bobby Ewing -- played by Larry Hagman and Patrick Duffy -- in Dallas, which ran from 1978 to 1991.
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She won television's highest honor, an Emmy Award, for best actress in 1980 and was nominated in the same category in 1979 and 1981. She left the show for health reasons in 1985.
Hollywood star Forest Whitaker who is playing Idi Amin in the screen version of the acclaimed novel The Last King of Scotland, says the late Ugandan dictator was no saint, but was not the monster that has been portrayed in the West. Whitaker said his research for the role in the film had changed his perception of Amin, whose brutal rule over Uganda between 1971 and 1979 was punctuated by bizarre and often pyschopathic behavior, and the deaths of up to half a million people.
"I'm not trying to defend Amin ... the Amin I found was not a good man, but not the monster as presented," he said during a break on the set as filming for the movie wrapped up at the airport town of Entebbe outside Kampala on Lake Victoria.
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An independent film company is alleging that a big Hollywood studio has made a clone of its movie The Island -- a story about clones.
In the film, a young man, played by Ewan McGregor, goes on the run after discovering that he is part of a colony of clones being kept as spare parts for the rich and ailing.
In the older film, The Clonus Horror, released in 1979, a young man played by Timothy Donnelly goes on the run after discovering he is part of a colony of clones -- kept as spare parts for the rich and ailing.
PHOTO: AP
The Island cost Dreamworks and Warner Brothers US$125m to make; Clonus Associates' movie cost US$250,000. One film has been derided by critics and has turned into the box-office flop of the year in the US. The other was ignored by critics but has become a cult classic.
Now the two films are to meet in a New York court after the production company behind The Clonus filed a lawsuit against the producers of The Island alleging 90 instances in which the later film was identical to The Clonus Horror.
"I went to see it and my mouth fell open," said Myrl Schreibman, co-producer of The Clonus and now a film professor at the University of California. "It's our story unfolding. On one hand it was flattering but on the other hand you have to ask where's the ethic in film-making?"
North Korea is known for producing ballistic missiles and a nuclear weapons program. But cuddly cartoon characters?
Empress Chung will be the first major feature animated entirely in communist North Korea to enjoy a wide release in a capitalist country when it opens in South Korea today.
It opens in Pyongyang on Aug. 15, the day the Korean peninsula was liberated from Japanese colonial rule but also divided into North and South by the Allied forces.
It will mark the first time a film has opened jointly in North and South Korea, and filmmaker Nelson Shin is thrilled.
"We made it together. We will watch it together. I couldn't be happier," he said.
Empress Chung was produced and directed by Shin, who also runs AKOM Production Co, the South Korean animation studio that has been animating The Simpsons since that show premiered in 1989.
The Hollywood makers of The Simpsons turned to AKOM to tap into a network of highly skilled South Korean animators who could draw the show and cut down on costs because of their lower wages.
Jason Han says that the e-arrival card spat between South Korea and Taiwan shows that Seoul is signaling adherence to its “one-China” policy, while Taiwan’s response reflects a reciprocal approach. “Attempts to alter the diplomatic status quo often lead to tit-for-tat responses,” the analyst on international affairs tells the Taipei Times, adding that Taiwan may become more cautious in its dealings with South Korea going forward. Taipei has called on Seoul to correct its electronic entry system, which currently lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan),” warning that reciprocal measures may follow if the wording is not changed before March 31. As of yesterday,
The Portuguese never established a presence on Taiwan, but they must have traded with the indigenous people because later traders reported that the locals referred to parts of deer using Portuguese words. What goods might the Portuguese have offered their indigenous trade partners? Among them must have been slaves, for the Portuguese dealt slaves across Asia. Though we often speak of “Portuguese” ships, imagining them as picturesque vessels manned by pointy-bearded Iberians, in Asia Portuguese shipping between local destinations was crewed by Asian seamen, with a handful of white or Eurasian officers. “Even the great carracks of 1,000-2,000 tons which plied
It’s only half the size of its more famous counterpart in Taipei, but the Botanical Garden of the National Museum of Nature Science (NMNS, 國立自然科學博物館植物園) is surely one of urban Taiwan’s most inviting green spaces. Covering 4.5 hectares immediately northeast of the government-run museum in Taichung’s North District (北區), the garden features more than 700 plant species, many of which are labeled in Chinese but not in English. Since its establishment in 1999, the site’s managers have done their best to replicate a number of native ecosystems, dividing the site into eight areas. The name of the Coral Atoll Zone might
Nuclear power is getting a second look in Southeast Asia as countries prepare to meet surging energy demand as they vie for artificial intelligence-focused data centers. Several Southeast Asian nations are reviving mothballed nuclear plans and setting ambitious targets and nearly half of the region could, if they pursue those goals, have nuclear energy in the 2030s. Even countries without current plans have signaled their interest. Southeast Asia has never produced a single watt of nuclear energy, despite long-held atomic ambitions. But that may soon change as pressure mounts to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change, while meeting growing power needs. The
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