BBC announces plan to share archives
The BBC has launched a massive program to share its film, audio and document archives with other arts institutions in Britain, marking a new direction for the public broadcaster.
Alan Yentob, the BBC's creative director, announced Saturday the new initiative will provide archival access, historic materials and even technical assistance in collaboration with the Tate art gallery, the British Film Institute and the British Library.
"As an organization we have to make the most of the downturn by responding to it … the BBC has an obligation to share what we have got," he told the Guardian newspaper. Yentob said the corporation was also in talks with the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre.
"I see the BBC as a broker in these times," responded Yentob. "It is the next stage for us. We must make sure culture remains confident in this country."
Yentob's news also has the BBC signing a three-year agreement with the Arts Council of England, which will provide wider access to the arts and support young talent.
The broadcaster is also expanding its collaboration with the British Museum, which is already working with BBC Radio on a 100-part series titled A History of the World in One Hundred Objects, presented by the museum's director, Neil MacGregor.
Yentob's announcement comes only a day after British media had a field day listing the spending practices of BBC executives, including Yentob who was revealed to have spent £1,500 ( $2,700) on a staff Christmas dinner.
Other executives were also exposed, spending hundreds of pounds on sending flowers to talent, lunches with colleagues or actors and presenters, or sending cases of Champagne to television stars.
Report: Abdul's return to 'American Idol' doubtful
NEW YORK – Paula Abdul's new manager says she may not be returning to "American Idol."
According to a Los Angeles Times report, David Sonenberg says he doesn't have a proposal for a new contract for Abdul. He says it doesn't appear she'll be back.
Sonenberg began representing Abdul a few weeks ago.
Auditions for the ninth season of the highly rated Fox talent competition begin next month.
Abdul said recently she'd been invited to remain as an "American Idol" judge and was optimistic about negotiating a new contract.
Earlier this year, Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly called Abdul "an integral part of the show."
The other "American Idol" judges are Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and newcomer Kara DioGuardi.
'Angela's Ashes' author McCourt dies in NYC at 78
NEW YORK – Frank McCourt, the beloved raconteur and former public school teacher who enjoyed post-retirement fame as the author of "Angela's Ashes," the Pulitzer Prize-winning "epic of woe" about his impoverished Irish childhood, died Sunday of cancer.
McCourt, who was 78, had been gravely ill with meningitis and recently was treated for melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer and the cause of his death, said his publisher, Scribner. He died at a Manhattan hospice, his brother Malachy McCourt said.
Until his mid-60s, Frank McCourt was known primarily around New York as a creative writing teacher and as a local character — the kind who might turn up in a New York novel — singing songs and telling stories with his younger brother Malachy and otherwise joining the crowds at the White Horse Tavern and other literary hangouts.
But there was always a book or two being formed in his mind, and the world would learn his name, and story, in 1996, after a friend helped him get an agent and his then-unfinished manuscript was quickly signed by Scribner. With a first printing of just 25,000, "Angela's Ashes" was an instant favorite with critics and readers and perhaps the ultimate case of the non-celebrity memoir, the extraordinary life of an ordinary man.
"F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. I think I've proven him wrong," McCourt later explained. "And all because I refused to settle for a one-act existence, the 30 years I taught English in various New York City high schools."
The book has been published in 25 languages and 30 countries.
McCourt, a native of New York, was good company in the classroom and at the bar, but few had such a burden to unload. His parents were so poor that they returned to their native Ireland when he was little and settled in the slums of Limerick. Simply surviving his childhood was a tale; McCourt's father was an alcoholic who drank up the little money his family had. Three of McCourt's seven siblings died, and he nearly perished from typhoid fever.
"Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood," was McCourt's unforgettable opening. "People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty, the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests, bullying schoolmasters; the English and all the terrible things they did to us for 800 long years."
The book was a long Irish wake, "an epic of woe," McCourt called it, finding laughter and lyricism in life's very worst. Although some in Ireland complained that McCourt had revealed too much (and revealed a little too well), "Angela's Ashes" became a million seller, won the Pulitzer and was made into a movie of the same name, starring Emily Watson as the title character, McCourt's mother.
Author Peter Matthiessen, who became friendly with McCourt after "Angela's Ashes" came out, said he was "stunned" when he read it.
"I remember thinking, 'Where did this guy come from?" Matthiessen said. "His book was so good, and it came out of nowhere."
The white-haired, sad-eyed, always quotable McCourt, his Irish accent still thick despite decades in the U.S., became a regular at parties, readings, conferences and other gatherings, so much the eager late-life celebrity that he later compared himself to a "dancing clown, available to everybody." His friend and fellow memoirist Mary Karr once kidded him that her idea of a rare book was an unsigned copy of "Angela's Ashes."
McCourt told The Associated Press in 2005 he wasn't prepared for fame.
"After teaching, I was getting all this attention," he said. "They actually looked at me — people I had known for years — and they were friendly and they looked me in a different way. And I was thinking, `All those years I was a teacher, why didn't you look at me like that then?'"
But the part of it he liked best, he said, was hearing "from all those kids who were in my classes."
"At least they knew that when I talked about writing I wasn't just talking through my hat," he said.
Much of his teaching was spent in the English department at the elite Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, where he defied the advice of his colleagues and shared his personal stories with the class; he slapped a student with a magazine and took on another known to have a black belt in karate.
After "Angela's Ashes," McCourt continued his story, to strong but diminished sales and reviews, in "'Tis," which told of his return to New York in the 1940s, and in "Teacher Man." McCourt also wrote a children's story, "Angela and the Baby Jesus," released in 2007.
More than 10 million copies of his books have been sold in North America alone, said Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Inc.
"We have been privileged to publish his books, which have touched, and will continue to touch, millions of readers in myriad positive and meaningful ways," Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy said in a statement.
McCourt was married twice and had a daughter, Maggie McCourt, from his first marriage.
His brother Malachy McCourt is an actor, commentator and singer who wrote two memoirs and, in 2006, ran for New York governor as the Green Party candidate. At least one of his former students, Susan Gilman, became a writer.
McCourt will be cremated, his brother said. A memorial service is planned for September.
'Potter' conjures up $159.7 million in 5 days
LOS ANGELES – Harry Potter continues to work box-office alchemy, turning his latest movie adventure into an overnight blockbuster. The sixth installment, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," took in $79.5 million domestically over opening weekend and $159.7 million since debuting last Wednesday, according to estimates from distributor Warner Bros. on Sunday.
With some of the best reviews of any "Harry Potter" movie, "Half-Blood Prince" was off to the fastest overall start in franchise history.
The sixth movie about the young wizard came in $20 million ahead of the last movie, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which grossed $139.7 million in its first five days two years ago.
The new film had the second-highest start ever for a movie premiering on Wednesday, trailing the $200 million five-day opening for last month's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen."
"Half-Blood Prince" already has surpassed the $157.3 million "Order of the Phoenix" pulled in during its entire first week. By the end of its seventh day Tuesday, "Half-Blood Prince" will be in the $180 million range on its way to becoming the franchise's first $300 million domestic smash since the original movie, 2001's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," said Dan Fellman, Warner head of distribution.
The audience was a bit older for the new movie, with more elder teens turning out to see Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and pals Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) as they deal with adult concerns such as heartache, jealousy and romantic triangles.
Fans have grown up with the franchise, from young readers whose parents had to debate whether the early movies might be too intense for their children to see.
"When the first movie came out, they fought to go. The mother was like, well, should I take them, should I not take them?" Fellman said. "Now they're driving themselves to this and going to the midnight show."
Sacha Baron Cohen's mock documentary "Bruno" plummeted after its No. 1 debut the previous weekend. The Universal Pictures comedy fell to fourth-place with $8.4 million, down a whopping 73 percent from its $30.6 million opening.
Crowd-pleasing movies typically dip 50 percent or less in their second weekends. But "Bruno" has had mixed reviews and failed to earn the audience buzz that made a $128 million hit out of Baron Cohen's 2006 comedy "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
After 10 days in release, "Bruno" has climbed to $49.6 million and will finish far below $100 million domestically.
While "Harry Potter" had a healthy start, the overall box office plunged compared to the same weekend last year, when the Batman juggernaut "The Dark Knight" had its record opening weekend of $158.4 million.
The top-12 movies this weekend combined for less than that, taking in $153.9 million, down 39 percent from a year ago.
"We got kind of slaughtered even with the 'Potter' movie, but we knew that was going to happen," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "When one movie last year makes more than what the top-12 movies did this year, you're going to have a down weekend."
Fox Searchlight's romantic comedy "500 Days of Summer," starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, got off to a big start in limited release with $837,588 in 27 theaters. That amounted to an average of $31,022 a cinema, compared to $18,376 in 4,325 theaters for "Half-Blood Prince."
A hit with critics, "500 Days of Summer" expands gradually into wide release over the next few weekends.
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," $79.5 million.
2. "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," $17.7 million.
3. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," $13.8 million.
4. "Bruno," $8.4 million.
5. "The Hangover," $8.32 million.
6. "The Proposal," $8.3 million.
7. "Public Enemies," $7.6 million.
8. "Up," $3.1 million.
9. "My Sister's Keeper," $2.8 million.
10. "I Love You, Beth Cooper," $2.7 million.