Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts
Jodie Foster marries girlfriend Alexandra Hedison
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| Jodie Foster, recipient of the Cecil B. Demille Award, during the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards. (AP Photo/NBC, Paul Drinkwater) |
Well, she’s not single anymore.
Actress Jodie Foster married her girlfriend, photographer Alexandra Hedison over the weekend, according to various news reports.
Foster acknowledged her sexuality in a large scale announcement for the first time in a 2013 Golden Globes acceptance speech for the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award. She nervously built up to her big reveal: “I am, uh, single.” It was a wink and a nod to the fact that her sexuality was something of an open secret in Hollywood, if you could even call it that. She hadn’t actively tried to conceal it, but she didn’t flaunt it, either. Said Foster:
Jodie Foster, Annie Philbin and Alexandra Hedison attend Hammer Museum 11th Annual Gala In The Garden at the Hammer Museum. (Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Hammer Museum)
I’m here being all confessional, and I guess I have a sudden urge to say something I’ve never really been able to air in public, a declaration that I’m a little nervous about but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now — hi Jennifer — but I’m just going to put it out there, right, loud and proud. I’m going to need your support on this. I am, uh, single. Yes, I am. I am single. No, I’m kidding. I mean, I’m not really kidding, but I’m kind of kidding. I mean, thank you for the enthusiasm. Can I get a wolf whistle or something? I hope that you’re not disappointed that there won’t be a big coming out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the stone age, those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and co-workers and then gradually, proudly, to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now apparently, I’m told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance, and a prime-time reality show. And you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child.
True to form, Foster, 51, declined to make a public statement about her nuptials. Her publicist would only confirm that the couple, who have been dating since last summer, had gotten married, E! reported. Hedison previously dated Ellen DeGeneres. They broke up in 2004.
Foster, who has been in show business for 48 years, has witnessed from the inside the transformation of a business where homosexuality was — and, in some cases, still is — something to be shushed and hidden away to the point of covering it up with fake marriages. Before she was a successful daytime television and Oscar host, DeGeneres was a cautionary tale. Leading the life of an openly gay actor, especially one headlining Hollywood blockbusters, meant you disclosed details about your personal life with friends and family, but didn’t necessarily show up at your premieres smooching your significant other.
Of course, that was also before TMZ. Now, 44 years after the Stonewall Riots, society expects its celebrities to be a little more forthcoming, a la Ellen Page, who recently came out in a speech at an LGBT youth conference in Las Vegas.
Foster’s move was similar to that of Good Morning America host Robin Roberts, who didn’t so much come out as publicly acknowledge her longtime partner, Amber Laign, in a Facebook post about her battle with cancer last year. Roberts didn’t actively conceal her orientation, either. She just didn’t shout about it.
But within the gay community, there has always been debate about how muchdisclosure is the “right” amount. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was criticized for years as being closeted, despite the fact that the highly recognizable anchor was spotted at New York gay bars and frequently photographed with his boyfriend, Ben Maisani, withwhom he owns a converted Manhattan firehouse. It was still a big deal when he formally came out in 2012. Cooper told Andrew Sullivan, “It’s become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something – something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true.”
In her speech, Foster also recognized Cydney Bernard, her former partner of 20 years, and their children together. The two ended their 20-year relationship in 2008.
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Craig Zadan and Neil Meron Return to Produce 2015 Oscars
The Academy has tapped Craig Zadan and Neil Meron as producers for the upcoming 2015 Academy Awards. Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced Zadan and Meron's return on Monday, April 21, a week after revealing key dates for the 87th annual awards show.
"We couldn't be more thrilled to have Craig and Neil back to produce the Oscars again in 2015," Isaacs said in a statement. "Their showmanship has elevated the show to new heights and we are excited to keep the momentum going."
This will be the third time Zadan and Meron in charge of the biggest celebration in Hollywood movie industry. The duo produced this year's Oscars hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and last year's edition hosted by Seth MacFarlane.
Academy CEO Dawn Hudson added, "This year's show reached viewers of all ages and set social media records, proving that Craig and Neil are masters at tapping into the zeitgeist and capturing the hearts of movie fans around the world."
Zadan and Meron also reacted to their appointment for the honorable duty, stating, "We're proud of the show's success over the last two years and are eager to embark on another entertaining show to honor this year's motion pictures."
The 87th Academy Awards is set to take place February 22, 2015 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and will be broadcast live on ABC. Host for the show is yet to be announced.
Source:
www.aceshowbiz.com
"We couldn't be more thrilled to have Craig and Neil back to produce the Oscars again in 2015," Isaacs said in a statement. "Their showmanship has elevated the show to new heights and we are excited to keep the momentum going."
This will be the third time Zadan and Meron in charge of the biggest celebration in Hollywood movie industry. The duo produced this year's Oscars hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and last year's edition hosted by Seth MacFarlane.
Academy CEO Dawn Hudson added, "This year's show reached viewers of all ages and set social media records, proving that Craig and Neil are masters at tapping into the zeitgeist and capturing the hearts of movie fans around the world."
Zadan and Meron also reacted to their appointment for the honorable duty, stating, "We're proud of the show's success over the last two years and are eager to embark on another entertaining show to honor this year's motion pictures."
The 87th Academy Awards is set to take place February 22, 2015 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and will be broadcast live on ABC. Host for the show is yet to be announced.
Source:
www.aceshowbiz.com
Hollywood heavyweights put climate change manifesto on TV
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| Director James Cameron is interviewed in Manhattan Beach, California April 8, 2014.
(Reuters) - As temperatures continue to rise and habitats come under threat, a group of Hollywood heavyweights is seeking to bring the spotlight back on climate change with a new documentary.
"Years of Living Dangerously," a nine-part documentary beginning Sunday on CBS Corp's premium cable network Showtime, chronicles the human impact on the global climate and the consequences for humans of climate change.
From the disappearing forests of Indonesia to the increasing frequency of California's wildfires and the crippling Texas drought, the documentary wants to put the focus back on an issue that has lost visibility since the days of the 2006 Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."
"This is such a critical time," said James Cameron, best known as director of blockbuster films "Titanic" and "Avatar" and an executive producer on "Years of Living Dangerously."
"The devastation to the planet that we'll be experiencing in the next century is really, I think, pretty unfathomable for most people, and I think that what the series can do is to bring it home and make it real, make it real in people terms."
To do that, Cameron appealed to well-known Hollywood actors to act as correspondents, including Harrison Ford, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Jessica Alba, Michael C. Hall and Arnold Schwarzenegger, also an executive producer on the documentary.
In the first episode, "Praying for Rain," Cheadle travels to Plainview, Texas, where residents face economic hardship due to the severe drought in the region that forced the closure last year of the meat-packing plant owned by Cargill Inc, the town's chief employer.
Cheadle meets a former employee who has fallen on hard times since Cargill's closure and believes the drought is "biblical."
But Cheadle also finds the scientist Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian and professor at Texas Tech University, who has made it her mission to explain to people the science behind the drought - notably that warmer temperatures are making droughts more severe, affecting jobs, food and health.
A combination of legislative gridlock in the United States and economic malaise in the wake of the 2008 recession have pushed climate change policies, aimed at stemming greenhouse gas production, onto the back burner.
The latest report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in March said the effects of warming are being felt everywhere, fuelling potential food shortages, natural disasters and raising the risk of wars.
Cameron believes that progress can only come from legislative change.
"I think the U.S. is trailing the pack. I think the U.S., instead of showing the kind of moral leadership that it should, is being shamed by almost every other country in the world that's actually taking action," the director said.
"If we're going to have change in this country, it's got to come from the grassroots up. It's got to be the average citizen realizing that their lives and well-being are in jeopardy."
FAME FOSTERS ACCESS
Bringing Hollywood voices to the issue has its advantages, as Ford shows in the first two episodes of "Years of Living Dangerously." The "Indiana Jones" actor travelled to Indonesia to see the impact of deforestation, and demanded answers from both the forestry minister and Indonesian president in meetings that attracted international coverage.
"If people are watching people whom they associate with escapist fiction, laying bare some sobering facts, it may lend a resonance they wouldn't otherwise have," said Hall, who travelled to Bangladesh, a nation threatened by the rising sea levels.
As one of Hollywood's most successful directors, the 59-year-old Cameron and has used his medium to get people thinking about the impact of climate change. His 2009 sci-fi 3D epic "Avatar," about an alien species who come under threat when humans mine precious minerals from their planet, was a prime example.
With "Avatar" sequels planned in 2016 and 2017, Cameron said the films will be "about our connection to nature and our connection to each other."
Joining the documentary's celebrities are the scientists, a group of nine advisors who aid the stars in making the scientific case about climate change.
But the documentary also acknowledges the climate change sceptics, from the Texans who believe droughts are brought on by the hand of God, to the scientists who believe global warming is part of the planet's natural process.
Even the experts can be sceptical. An author for the U.N.'s IPCC report in March pulled out of the writing team saying the report was "alarmist" about the threat of climate change.
But Cameron makes clear he is sceptical of the sceptics.
"I think it's important to analyze each of the sceptics' arguments very carefully and when you analyze them, they fall apart; they fall apart in the light of science."
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uk.reuters.com
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