Veteran comic Phyllis Diller injuries head, neck after falling out of bed
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Comedian Phyllis Diller injured her head and neck falling out of bed at her Brentwood, Calif., mansion, her manager said Thursday.
"She has a big bruise on her forehead," Milt Suchin said. "I think she blacked out...She just awoke and a housekeeper came in and found her on the floor." Diller, 87, was in hospital after the accident early Monday, Suchin said. She was having diagnostic tests, including tests on a pacemaker that was inserted in 1999.
Diller recently released a book about her life called Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse.
Weezer's Weird World
Rivers Cuomo hasn't had sex in two years, and boy, is he ready to rock
By VANESSA GRIGORIADIS
A couple of days ago, Rivers Cuomo was helping his parents out with an epic spring cleaning at their house in suburban Connecticut -- "I was the motivational coach," he says. "My role was to ask, 'Do you really need this third can of hair spray?' " -- when it was decided that it would be better not to do the European promotional tour for Weezer's new album, Make Believe, the band's first record in three years. That meant two weeks free before they started rehearsals for the Make Believe tour. That meant Cuomo could do some more vipassana, a strict style of meditation developed by the Buddha and passed down by Burmese monks.
"There was nothing else for me to do," explains Cuomo.
Nothing is exactly what one does on a vipassana retreat: ten days of twelve hours of silent meditation beginning at 4 a.m., with small breaks for food but none for conversing. Most people wouldn't enjoy this, but Cuomo, 34, is not most people. Life to him seems to be a gigantic behavorial experiment, a large part of why Weezer have put out only five albums in thirteen years, despite their Prince-like vault of hundreds of songs. Cuomo had been to ten retreats in less than two years -- following precepts like sleeping on the floor and fasting after noon -- and he was ready for another. In fact, he completed one in northern Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago. That one was twenty days long, and he spent it in a closet. "It was great!" he says.
So instead of asking the band to head to the East Coast for the Rolling Stone photo shoot and interview before leaving for Europe, Cuomo decided to fly to California for a retreat in Yosemite, and if it was possible to accommodate the magazine in Los Angeles, great, but if not, he wasn't missing his retreat. "How many people would love to be on the cover, and then you've got Rivers saying, 'I can only do it on this one day, and if you can't fit it in, it won't work'?" says Weezer guitarist Brian Bell, 36. "On one hand, I'm like, 'Jesus, how could you do that to us? We've worked hard for twelve years and we finally make the cover, and you screw it up with one sentence.' Then there's another part of me that's like, 'That guy has balls!' Even if it is really selfish."
These are the kinds of things that happen, though, when you're living the moment, which is Cuomo's new mantra -- untethered from miserable thoughts about the past and future and free at last from the greedy ego, Cuomo is currently in communion with his deep, true self. This self needs to be free, and, accordingly, Cuomo has been careful not to make any pacts about future Weezer recordings; he has also only agreed to support this album until the end of this year. "We were going to call this record Either Way I'm Fine," says drummer Pat Wilson, 36. " 'Cause Rivers kept saying that when we had to decide about things." Serenity is important to Cuomo. The shoot at the Playboy Mansion for the video for their first single, "Beverly Hills," posed a threat. "There were 150 fans around, and when we played we heard that sound, that deafening sound that you get onstage," says Wilson. "I could see Dude telling himself, 'Hold on, hold on, don't get too excited!' "
Dude, as in the chill stoner hero played by Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski, is the band nickname for Cuomo, though Cuomo and the Dude could not be more different. Cuomo is not chill. He has budgeted one hour for our initial interview, and when we sit down at a cocktail table in the plum-colored foyer of a Hollywood recording studio, he pushes the alarm on his tan-and-black digital watch. It is eighty-five degrees out, and he is wearing a sweater and has set a black parka on the couch. "I don't really notice where I am," he says. "I don't differentiate all that much. I don't look around much." Talking to Cuomo is like talking to a newscaster. He's altogether pleasant but stiff as a board. No emotion registers on his face, at least not until he hears something that interests him, at which point he curls his lips into something resembling a smile, widens his brown eyes from saucers to soup bowls and exclaims, "Wow!" "Great!" or "Holy cow!" The most interesting topic, of course, is meditation.
"At first I was vehemently opposed," says Cuomo. Rick Rubin, who produced Make Believe in off-and-on sessions that lasted more than a year, suggested meditation. "I sent him a very anxious page, saying, 'Rick, no. I cannot get into meditation because it will rob me of the angst that's necessary to being an artist.' And he said, 'OK, don't worry about it, forget it.' I think because he put no pressure on me, I began to get intrigued. Then I did a Tibetan-Buddhist meditation retreat. That wasn't intense enough for me. I knew I wanted something extreme."
Says Rubin, "I'm often associated, or in some cases blamed, for Rivers' meditation practice. It's worked for him -- you might see him smile or laugh now, and before you would never see that. I never suggested the particular style of meditation he's doing. Whatever Rivers is interested in, he dives in a thousand percent. He takes thing to radical extremes."
Radical extremes are what Cuomo has made his life from, and in the context of his history, the Either Way I'm Fine era isn't all that outrageous. It even makes some sense given his childhood, which was spent on ashrams -- first at the Zen Center in upstate New York and, after his father left the family when he was five (he eventually settled in Germany for a while as a suffragan bishop in a Pentecostal church), at "Woodstock guru" Swami Satchidananda's Yogaville commune in Connecticut. Everyone was a vegetarian, and no one raised his voice or cursed. Cuomo didn't like it much. He declared himself a metalhead at eleven and started playing Kiss covers with the neighborhood kids. "I was only interested in Slayer and Metallica then," says Cuomo. "I still love that music, but now I have so much appreciation for what my parents' generation did for opening up our country to Eastern philosophy and raising me like that. I feel so lucky."
Some of Cuomo's phases make a little less sense, though. Like when he followed the blockbuster success of Weezer's first album, Weezer, also known as the Blue Album, which went platinum in 1995, by getting his right leg broken: The leg was forty-four millimeters shorter than his left, and in order to make them equal, a metal cage was affixed to his right thigh; every day he'd tighten some screws on it to pull the leg a little longer. Or when, shortly thereafter, he shelved rock stardom to pursue an undergraduate degree at Harvard, studying there from 1995 to 1997, when Weezer's second album, Pinkerton, was released (he resumed his studies last fall and now has one semester left). When that record proved less critically and commercially successful than the Blue Album, Cuomo went back into his shell. Living in a Culver City apartment building under a Los Angeles freeway, he put fiberglass insulation over the windows and hung black sheets over the insulation. Then he painted all the walls black, disconnected his phone and spent a lot of time with his pet gecko.
Punishing himself has always seemed like a good bet to Cuomo, and you only have to look at his perpetually hunched shoulders and balled-up palms to realize that the assignations he keeps with himself are brutal. He gets off on deprivation. Cuomo doesn't own a car, even though he lives mostly in L.A. ("I don't have a parking space," he says, by way of explanation). He rarely listens to music. But one song he cued up recently was Kiss' "Goin' Blind": "Little lady, can't you see/You're so young and so much different than I/I'm ninety-three, you're sixteen/ Can't you see I'm goin' blind?"
"I'm so moved by those lyrics," says Cuomo. "I can't believe they came up with that."
As far as his lyrics are concerned, Cuomo has long protested that Weezer's songs are not funny or ironic or anything other than a reflection of his own anguished state. Most of the songs on the current album are about things that happened to him. "Pardon Me" was written after he attended a meditation course in which the teacher told him to repeat over in his mind "I seek pardon from all those who have harmed me in action, speech or thought." "Freak Me Out" is about a spider, says Bell. "Beverly Hills" is about, well, how Cuomo feels about Beverly Hills. "I could live in Beverly Hills, sure," he says, meaning he could afford it easily. "But I couldn't belong there."
(Excerpted from RS 973, May 5, 2005)
Olin Returns from Dead on 'Alias'
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) Scarcely an episode of "Alias" has passed this season without Sydney (Jennifer Garner) or one of her colleagues remarking on the death of her mother, Irina Derevko.
Hey, even double-secret CIA agents can be wrong.
ABC confirmed Thursday (April 21) that Lena Olin, who played Irina during the show's second season and had since resisted creator J.J. Abrams' entreaties to return, will guest-star in the show's final two episodes this season. They're scheduled to air at 10 p.m. ET Wednesday, May 18 (the second of two episodes that night) and May 25 (following the two-hour "Lost" finale).
Reports of Olin's return have been bubbling for several weeks, but ABC is also offering a few details about how her character will be worked into the show's story. After finding out she's alive, Sydney, Jack (Victor Garber) and Nadia (Mia Maestro) will track Irina down and enlist her help in stopping a catastrophe brought on by followers of the mysterious Rambaldi.
Unanswered for now is the question of just how Irina is still alive. Viewers have repeatedly been told that Jack, her former husband, killed her to prevent a hit on their daughter Sydney's life; that would mean she either survived Jack's assassination attempt, or he's not telling all he knows.
'Superman Returns'
A first look at Superman Returns due in theaters in June 2006 shows that the skin-tight costume stretches over only the actor's muscles and frame, without the augmented armored pecs or abs of recent movie superheroes.
Director Bryan Singer famously changed the fluorescent spandex suits of the X-Men into dark, leather-like uniforms for those movies both of them smashes that sold more than $364 million in tickets. But on Superman Returns, he says, he wanted "something classic."
Tinkering too much with a hero's suit can aggravate traditionalist comic fans, who grumbled that Jennifer Garner's Elektra wasn't wearing her midriff-baring red suit in Daredevil or that Batman's armor had nipples in Batman Forever. They aren't likely to have much to carp about with Superman Returns.
Instead of reinventing the character's appearance, Singer via e-mail from Australia, where he's shooting the film says he wanted to remain faithful to the previous incarnations of Superman, from the Max Fleischer cartoons of the 1940s to the black-and-white George Reeves TV show to the Christopher Reeve movies of the 1970s and '80s.
Singer decided to keep the cape, the blue body suit, the red tights even the V-cut opening of Superman's boots.
But Superman Returns makes a few subtle changes to the suit:
The character's S insignia is slightly smaller and higher on his chest, and instead of being painted on, it's more of a three-dimensional plate.
The insignia is added to Superman's belt buckle.
Costume designer Louise Mingenbach preserved the blue, red and yellow motif, but the shades are slightly darker than the bright primary colors of the comics. Superman's yellow belt is more golden, and his cape is a deep scarlet.
The key to filling it out, however, depends entirely on the physique of Routh, 25, the Iowa native who was briefly on the soap opera One Life to Live in 2001. Singer says the Superman costume wasn't complete without Routh.
"I always had the general idea of the suit. However, when the conceptual art was evolving around the same time that I cast Brandon, I privately had paintings rendered with Brandon's face, which certainly brought it to life."
Superman's body is the key to his power, Singer says.
"With X-Men, although they had extraordinary powers, they also had physical weaknesses," he says. "The suits were for protection as well as costume. Superman is the Man of Steel. Bullets bounce off him, not his suit."
What does the movie's costume say about this Superman's personality?
"He's not afraid," Singer says.
Springsteen Bares Songwriting Soul on VH1
RED BANK, N.J. - Bruce Springsteen prefers to let his songs do the talking. When those songs include "Thunder Road," "Nebraska" and "The Rising," it's hard to disagree with his approach.
But for one night, before an intimate New Jersey audience, the Boss delved into his 30-year back catalog to offer a brief window into his songwriting. The oft-reticent Springsteen opened up during a taping for VH1's "Storytellers," detailing influences both obvious and obscure.
There's Roy Orbison's dark romanticism ... and actor Robert Mitchum's blood-chilling preacher in "The Night of the Hunter." Smokey Robinson's soulful voice ... and director John Ford's classic Western "The Searchers." The born in the U.S.A. rock of John Fogerty ... and the pulp fiction of Jim Thompson.
Who knew that a line from "Blinded By the Light," off Springsteen's 1973 debut album, referred to his Little League team? Or that he considers a lyric from the brilliant "Thunder Road" to be "probably the hokiest ... I ever wrote"?
Springsteen spills all this and more during "Storytellers," airing at 10 p.m. EDT on Saturday. The show was recorded at the tiny Two River Theater near Springsteen's Garden State home, an intimate venue with just nine rows of seats.
Springsteen brought along a loose-leaf binder filled with handwritten notes done at his kitchen table.
"I read 'em this morning, and I sounded kind of full of myself," Springsteen deadpanned. "I don't need notes for that."
Over the course of the evening, Springsteen was funny, glib, self-deprecating, chatty and occasionally revealing. His story of Spring-zophrenia how the "holier-than-thou" Bruce, the blue-collar patron saint of the downtrodden, must co-exist with the guy who enjoys a few drinks in roadside strip joints was worthy of an HBO comedy special.
The tale ended with Springsteen meeting a pair of horrified fans in the strip club parking lot. He quickly explained how the disparate Bruces co-exist, then informed the fans that they were addressing an apparition rather than the real Springsteen.
"Bruce does not even know I'm missing," he assured them. "He is at home right now, doing good deeds."
Springsteen also referenced his "Blinded By the Light" lyric about a "silicone sister with her manager's mister."
"Possibly the first mention of female breast enhancement in pop music," he said with mock pride. "So I was ahead of my time."
The stage patter gave way to some magnificent musical moments. Over the course of the show, the songs evolved and changed as Springsteen accompanied himself with just a guitar, a harmonica and a piano.
"The Rising," the Sept. 11-derived arena-rock anthem, becomes a gospel/folk song; Springsteen's impassioned version was done with his eyes closed tight as he leaned into the microphone during the chorus.
"Waiting on A Sunny Day," one of his more pop-oriented songs, took on a new patina in its stripped down presentation exactly Springsteen's point in including it.
"I usually want to throw these right in the trash," he confessed of his pop efforts. But there was another confession to come: Springsteen sometimes imagines Smokey Robinson singing his more radio-friendly songs. And then he launched into an impression of Smokey singing "Waiting on a Sunny Day."
Springsteen clearly put much thought into the song selections, spanning the course of his career: "Nebraska" was included as an example of his narrative style, while "Brilliant Disguise" represented his songs about "issues of identity and love."
The solo Springsteen performance for television was a long time in coming. In 1992, he signed on for a taping of "MTV Unplugged," but did just a single song alone before bringing a band onstage for the rest of the show.
Before the taping began, Springsteen expressed reservations at delving into the secrets of songwriting.
"Talking about music is like talking about sex," he said. "Can you describe it? Are you supposed to?"
KATE BECKINSALE AND DAVID HASSELHOFF? HOW CAN YOU NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE?
Kate Beckinsale and David Hasselhoff are in negotiations to star with Adam Sandler in "Click" for Columbia and Revolution Studios.
Production will begin in mid-June.
Beckinsale would play the female lead opposite Sandler. Hasselhoff would play Sandler's boss.
Frank Coraci ("The Waterboy") is directing the pic, about a workaholic architect who finds a universal remote that allows him to fast-forward and rewind to different parts of his life. Complications arise when the remote starts to overrule his choices.
Script was written by Mark O'Keefe and Steven Wayne Koren ("Bruce Almighty"), with revisions by Tim Herlihy.
Adam Sandler's Happy Madison shingle is producing along with Neal Moritz's Original Film. Sandler, his Happy Madison partner Jack Giarraputo and Moritz are producing.
Todd Garner is overseeing the pic for Revolution. Doug Belgrad is shepherding for Col.
Beckinsale was last seen in "The Aviator" as Ava Gardner. She'll next topline Screen Gems' "Underworld: Evolution."
Hasselhoff was recently seen on the bigscreen in "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" and voiced himself in "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie."
Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner Said Engaged
NEW YORK - Call it Bennifer: Part Deux. Nine months after they started dating, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner are engaged, People and Star magazines are reporting.
Citing a "close friend" of Affleck's, People says the "Pearl Harbor" actor has been privately spreading the news. A friend of Garner's told the magazine in February that she expected Affleck to propose.
Affleck's publicist, Ken Sunshine, would not comment on the reports. A call to Garner's rep was not returned.
As you may have heard, Affleck got engaged to Jennifer Lopez in 2002, but they called it off in January 2004. As opposed to the ridiculous amount of publicity Affleck got with J.Lo, he and Garner have stayed on the down low.
They met while shooting the action flick "Daredevil," but didn't begin dating until 2004. Their lone public appearance together has been a trip to the 2004 World Series in Boston.
The marriage would be Garner's second. The 33-year-old "Alias" star was divorced from actor Scott Foley in March 2004.
Jack Black Hits the Mat in Wrestling Pic
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Jack Black has signed on to star in a new film co-written with longtime collaborator Mike White and Jared Hess, the latter of whom wrote and directed the 2004 hit comedy "Napoleon Dynamite."
The as-yet-untitled movie will be co-produced by Black and White's Black & White Productions in tandem with Nickelodeon Movies, with distribution by Paramount Pictures.
Inspired by a true story, the film will star Black as a Mexican priest who lives a double life as a masked wrestler to raise funds for an orphanage in financial need. "I can't think of two people I'd rather party with than Mike White and Jared Hess," Black says. "I can't wait to get down to Mexico."
Black and White previously have teamed behind the scenes and on-camera for "School of Rock" and "Orange County." Black recently wrapped work on the Peter Jackson-directed remake of "King Kong," and is expected shortly to begin shooting the film "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny," the first feature for musical act Tenacious D, Black's spoof-metal project with Kyle Gass.
In related news, Black and White will co-produce a film with Warner Bros. Pictures based on the upcoming memoir "Yes Man," penned by British author Danny Wallace