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By 1973, singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson had starred in a handful of feature film roles, playing outlaw Billy the Kid in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, which also co-starred Bob Dylan. That same year, just after her 14th birthday, Marie Osmond, of the performing Osmond clan, launched her recording career, becoming the youngest female act to hit Number One on the country chart with her song “Paper Roses.”

Although their career (and, indeed, personal) trajectories couldn’t be more divergent, the paths of Kristofferson — who died Saturday at 88 — and Osmond, along with her teen-idol brother Donny,...

Love it or hate it, "Sanford and Son" is one of the most groundbreaking American sitcoms of all time. The NBC series about a widowed get-rich-quick schemer (Redd Foxx) living in Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood with his adult son (Demond Wilson) was an undeniable hit during its run. It ushered in a Golden Age of Black family sitcoms thanks to dynamic performances, frank dialogue written from a working-class Black perspective, and its often uproarious scripts. It was such a ratings juggernaut that it's often credited for killing off its much more sanitized competition, "The Brady Bunch."

"It was a groundbreaking series," Eric Deggans wrote in a series retrospective for the official Emmys website, noting that "Before 'Good Times' and 'The Jeffersons' would make TV history with powerful stories focused on Black families, 'Sanford and Son' would explore the prickly relationship between a middle-aged Black man and his son.

It’s the summer of “Blaxploitation, Baby!,” the latest festival hosted by Film Forum.

The indie theater announced the upcoming festival which will take place August 16 through August 22. The program celebrates the early ‘70s genre of Black cinema, and features films wth iconic movie stars Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree, Ron O’Neal, Tamara Dobson, Jim Brown, Vonetta McGee, Fred Williamson, Isaac Hayes, and more.

“Blaxploitation, Baby!” is dedicated to author and pioneering film historian Donald Bogle, who collaborated on Film Forum’s first Blaxploitation festival in 1995. Bogle credited Melvin Van Peebles’ filmography for helping to establish the genre. “Blaxploitation, Baby!” additionally ranges from works from directors such as Ossie Davis, Gordon Parks, and Gordon Parks Jr.

As well as the screenings, the festival will include the sales of critic and historian Odie Henderson’s “Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation” and Donald Bogle’s acclaimed TCM book “Hollywood Black” at concessions.

Jamie Foxx was born Eric Marlon Bishop on December 13, 1967. He changed his name when he began his career in stand-up comedy and chose “Foxx” to honor one of his comedic idols, Redd Foxx. He picked the first name “Jamie” because he noticed that female comics were usually given earlier times on open mic nights and he thought the androgynous name of Jamie might get him onstage earlier in the evening.

Foxx’s love of comedy began early. By third grade he was already doing stand up for his elementary school classes. His popularity was such that if the class behaved properly the teacher would reward them by letting young Jamie tell them jokes. He moved to Los Angeles when he grew up and began appearing on the comedy circuit until he was cast on the television sketch show “In Living Color” alongside other newcomers such as David Alan Grier and Jim Carrey.

Norman Lear, the television pioneer who changed the face of small screen comedy with shows like All in the Family, Sanford & Son and The Jeffersons, has passed away. At 101, he was one of the longest-living icons of American television.

Norman Lear is undoubtedly one of the most important figures not just in shaping television but pop culture as a whole. It’s one thing to have heard of his biggest shows, but to have them consistently ranked as some of the best in the medium – as is the case with the aforementioned All in the Family, Sanford & Son and The Jeffersons – shows just the kind of mark he left on audiences. And who can forget their memorable theme songs?

As a developer, producer and writer, Norman Lear was never afraid to face hot-button issues that most others would never dare to. With All in the Family, which premiered in 1971, Lear brought ideas of racism,...

After making it known in September that he’s interested in acquiring ABC from Disney for a price tag of $10 billion, Byron Allen assures Variety he still has his eyes set on ABC and promises he’s ready play ball when Disney is ready to sell.

“I think ABC’s a real possibility. They say they’re not ready,” Allen said at the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery’s Visionary Ball on Wednesday night. “When they’re ready I’m going to chase it down like a lion chases down a gazelle.”

Allen’s original bid was targeted at ABC, eight local TV stations and Disney-owned cable networks FX and National Geographic Channel. But, he’s since considered downsizing the ask.

“The one thing that needs to be in the shopping cart to keep my interest is ABC and the ABC owned-and-operated stations — and I wouldn’t mind if they threw...

Eddie Murphy has always been open about the respect he has for late comic Richard Pryor. But Murphy’s admiration for Pryor might’ve grown even more after Pryor defended him against two other comic legends.

Richard Pryor told these comic veterans to apologize to Eddie Murphy for their behavior Eddie Murphy | Matt Winkelmeyer/FilmMagic

Murphy and Pryor even met a couple of times. One of the fondest memories the Nutty Professor star had of Pryor was when the comic came to his defense. Back in his much younger days, Murphy was on the cusp of his career breakthrough. He recalled doing standup at The Comedy Store in the 80s, sharing the same building with comedians Paul Mooney and John Witherspoon.

“I was like first-year SNL and I was killing, and I was like, ‘They’re giving me the light?’ I was only up for 10 minutes,’” Murphy said on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Eddie Murphy had the opportunity to work alongside comedy legend Richard Pryor in Harlem Nights. But circumstances made the collaboration not as fun as Murphy thought it was looking back.

Eddie Murphy revealed what it was like working with Richard Pryor Eddie Murphy | Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Richard Pryor played a huge role in Eddie Murphy’s comedy career. The late actor was a major reason why Murphy wanted to be a comic in the first place.

“I have a really funny, funny family. But when I realized I wanted to be a comedian was seeing Richard Pryor. ‘Oh, that’s what I want to be,’” Murphy once said according to Vulture.

Murphy would later pick up where Pryor left off, becoming one of the biggest comics of all time. The comedian eventually starred alongside his idol Richard Pryor and several other comedy legends.

Harlem Nights was a 1989 feature about a...

Actor Jamie Foxx collaborated with Heat director Michael Mann for the film Miami Vice. The stylish feature would include a scene that required Foxx to be physically close with his love interest. But Foxx took creative liberties with the shot, which threw Mann into a panic.

Michael Mann couldn’t finish shooting Jamie Foxx’s love scene in ‘Miami Vice’ Jamie Foxx | Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Foxx considered his love scene in Miami Vice to be a memorable experience. But it wasn’t so just because of Harris. Although Harris would be with Foxx to initiate the scene, Harris’ body-double would later be called in to complete the take. Foxx was as impressed with the body double’s physique as he was her professionalism.

“Her body was whoa,” Foxx once told The Sydney Morning Herald. “Whoever picked her was right on. She had never done it before. So, they were setting up the shot,...

Richard Pryor did more than reinvent comedy, he changed culture, and not only in America. The five-time Grammy Award-winner, actor, writer, director, and standup icon underwent a series of self-discoveries which he revealed to audiences from the inside out long before co-writing Blazing Saddles, and conquering every aspect of showbiz. He did it without compromise. Listeners can study the growing genius of his most transformative years, 1968 through 1973, on newly remastered vinyl reissues of Pryor’s early live albums released through Stand Up! Records along with Omnivore Records and Pryor’s production company Indigo. Richard Pryor (1968), ‘Craps’ (After Hours) (1971), and the vinyl debut of Live At The Comedy Store, 1973, along with the bonus material, shows the artist’s evolution into a revolutionary force.

As the recordings will attest, Richard Pryor is his own theater troupe. Even without the visuals, we can visualize him inhabiting each and every character. He plays them with love,...

For this month’s installment of “TV Terrors” we revisit the animated series “The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy,” which aired from 2001 through 2007 on Cartoon Network.

Billy, Mandy, and Grim were first introduced in Maxwell Atoms’ “Grim & Evil,” a series where they shared the bill with “Evil Con Carne.” The latter followed the adventures of Hector Con Carne, a wealthy playboy whose body is destroyed in a tremendous explosion. His only surviving organs are his brain and stomach, which have been placed in jars and attached to a circus bear named Boskov. He’s aided by the evil henchman Skarr.

“Grim & Evil” only lasted 30 episodes, but the titular pint-sized hell-raisers went on to star in their own successful spin-off: “The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.” The series stars a (somewhat) moronic young boy named Billy (Peter Horvitz) and his devious megalomaniacal friend Mandy (the legendary Grey Delisle...

If J.B Smoove had it his way, he’d cast himself as the lead in a biopic about the late comedian Dick Gregory. “In another world, another life, if I was 20 years younger, I would love to play that man,” says the Emmy-winning actor and stand-up comic. “He really had an amazing, fascinating life.”

Smoove (né Jerry Brooks) did a deep dive on Gregory’s life when he narrated the six-part Audible Originals podcast Funny My Way, uncovering the lives of six Black comedy legends: Gregory, Flip Wilson, Paul Mooney, Moms Mabley, Rudy Ray Moore and Redd Foxx. His performance has earned the Curb Your Enthusiasm star an Ambie nomination for best podcast host.

When Conan O’Brien — whose podcast production juggernaut, Team Coco, developed the show — approached him with the idea, the veteran comedian was intrigued primarily as a fan of the series’ legendary subjects. “It’s like what Mike Tyson...

Comedian and Impractical Jokers guest Eric André and supermodel Emily Ratajkowski went Instagram official for Valentine’s Day. Marking the day of romance and love, André shared intimate shots of himself and his rumored new girlfriend. And though clothes were scattered about, the stars were almost entirely in the buff in the suggestive pictures.

Not every follower was sure why they saw as much of the seeming new couple as they did, but the snaps left many assuming they are officially a thing. And if not, at least the comments are hilarious.

Eric André and Emily Ratajkowski | Gotham/Gc Images Eric André and Emily Ratajkowski’s relationship history

After four years of marriage to film producer Sebastian Bear-McClard, Ratajkowski filed for divorce in September 2022. And she revealed on her High Low podcast that she turned to apps for the first time as a newly single bisexual mom (via Glamour). “I was like,...

There's random, and then there is stumbling across Richard Pryor bartending in the "Star Wars" universe. If you spend enough time searching "Star Wars" on YouTube, that's exactly what you'll uncover. Unfortunately, we only get a brief glimpse of the colorful Mos Eisley Cantina in "Star Wars: A New Hope," because once Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi affirm that "you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy," they meet up with Han Solo and get down to business in a dark corner of the tavern.

However, we have Richard Pryor to thank for imagining what it might be like if we had stuck around a while at the Mos Eisley Cantina. A long-forgotten skit on the short-lived NBC variety show dubbed "The Richard Pryor Show" hilariously imagines life as an employee at the "Star Wars Bar."

The sketch is classic Pryor, where he vigorously argues with...

The cliche holds that when a movie star attains a certain degree of success, they get bored or convinced of their own brilliance and say, "What I'd really like to do is direct."

Name a big-screen megastar from the last 75 years of filmmaking, and it's likely they followed through on this impulse. Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Costner, Denzel Washington... these men didn't become icons the world over because they lacked ambition. Once they racked up a few box office hits and maybe an Academy Award nomination or two, they surveyed the Hollywood landscape and saw many more worlds to conquer. Sometimes it goes poorly (Nicholson's "The Two Jakes"), sometimes it's a draw, and sometimes it's an Oscar jackpot (Redford's "Ordinary People" and Costner's "Dances with Wolves").

For Eddie Murphy, if we're going strictly by the finished product, his one and only directorial effort...

When the Houston Astros and the New York Yankees take the field for Game One of the American League Championship Series tonight, Johnnie B. Baker Jr. — affectionately known as “Dusty” because, as a child, he loved to play in the alluvial dirt of Riverside, California — will be there. As the Astros’ manager places that first, fresh toothpick in his mouth and sets foot on the lightly moisturized dirt of Minute Maid Park, we’ll all have the great honor of watching the man who many say co-invented the high five continue his long,...

Over three decades after famously alluding to Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s groundbreaking art film Un Chien Andalou on the raucous opening track to 1989’s Doolittle, Pixies have returned to their roots with the surrealist new single, “Dregs Of The Wine.”

Anchored by a rhythmic bass riff reminiscent of the band’s early output, “Dregs Of The Wine” marks the first writing credit for longtime guitarist Joey Santiago. “I guess I was in kind of a zombie state, just playing,” he said in a release, discussing how the song came to be.

In 2017, Donald Glover made history by bagging Best Comedy Directing and Best Comedy Actor Emmys for “Atlanta” and thus became the respective first and second Black artist to conquer those categories. Having just picked up his third acting Emmy bid for the FX show, he follows Redd Foxx (“Sanford and Son”), Robert Guillaume (“Benson”), Don Cheadle (“House of Lies”) and Anthony Anderson (“Black-ish”) as the fifth Black leading man to earn as many TV academy notices for a single comedy series.

Glover has chosen “Sinterklaas is Coming to Town” as the episode that best represents his work in the third season of “Atlanta.” The installment focuses on Glover’s Earn Marks as he struggles to manage a European concert tour for his cousin, Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles (Brian Tyree Henry). After bailing the rapper out of an Amsterdam jail, Marks becomes increasingly aware of the city’s racially insensitive holiday...

Exclusive: J.B. Smoove is to pay homage to six Black comedians in a comedy docuseries podcast for Audible.

The audio service has ordered Funny My Way, hosted by the Curb Your Enthusiasm star.

The series will profile Paul Mooney, Flip Wilson, Rudy Ray Moore, Moms Mabley, Dick Gregory, and Redd Foxx, who have broken barriers in the entertainment industry. It will shine a light on everyday struggles in the Black community, and these iconic comedians’ fight for equality while being their authentic, raw selves. It will also give listeners an impactful look into comedy history – one that goes far beyond the punch lines.

Funny My Way, which launched on the platform on August 4, comes from Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco and Ayr Media.

Exec producers include Matt Powers, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs and Willie Navarre for Team Coco, Aliza Rosen for Ayr Media and Toni Judkins.

It is the latest...

Rap regions have been blurring their boundaries like never before in recent years. Goldenboy Countup, who hails from DeLand, just north of Orlando, Florida, sounds like a Michigan artist with a country drawl — a bit like Gucci Mane’s, but with more of a whisper. On “Air Fryer,” Goldenboy leans on the run-on sentences and dirtbag lyrics that have made Michigan one of the premier regions in all of hip-hop.

Goldenboy is a bit more unconventional than his counterparts to the north; he’s also less into the basketball references Michigan rappers seem to love.

It’s been half a century since Johnny Carson hosted the 24th Emmy ceremony on CBS on May 14, 1972. It was a year in which now-classic comedies battled it out and records were set, PBS had its first strong showing, Oscar-winning actresses were rivals and daytime-themed Emmys were awarded for the first time. Read on for our Emmys flashback 50 years ago to 1972.

Norman Lear‘s groundbreaking sitcom “All in the Family” had won Best Comedy Series for its freshman season in 1971; it held onto that title for its second year, and would win again in 1973 and 1978. The biggest competition for this award was another groundbreaking comedy that had premiered the year before, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which would eventually claim victory in 1975, 1976 and 1977. The remaining nominees were “The Odd Couple,” also in its second season, and “Sanford and Son,” for its freshman outing. “All in the Family” and “Mtm” would...

Almost three months after the Oscars, Will Smith’s on-stage slap of Chris Rock continues to spark a discussion.

Asked what the Oscar smack means for the future safety of comedians during a panel Thursday at Tribeca Festival, Alonzo Bodden said he isn’t worried.

“I’m not going to get slapped on stage,” he said. “That (Will Smith slap) is the ultimate outlier situation. At the comedy clubs, we are still talking and still doing comedy, so nobody is going to a club and worried about that happening.”

Meanwhile, comedian-host-director W. Kamau Bell claimed a Black Carrot Top could never exist.

“You can be a white comedian and never talk about what’s going on in the world,” Bell told the audience. “But it’s pretty hard to be a Black comedian and never talk about what’s going on in the world without the crowd being like ‘Where’s this dude from?...

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There aren’t too many things that terrify Maya Rudolph. The list is basically black widow spiders, stand-up comedy and walking into a roomful of people she doesn’t already know and having to introduce herself.

The first on that list could actually kill her, and the latter two require her to be herself, which is “just so naked and vulnerable,” she says as she forks into a Goop Kitchen salad on an overcast afternoon this spring. It’s fitting, then, that Rudolph has devoted so much of her existence to becoming other people: a collection of divas on Saturday Night Live, the briefly incontinent bride in Bridesmaids, a hormone monstress on Big Mouth and, soon, a billionaire divorcée on the Apple TV+ comedy Loot.

The wigs, the voices, they’re all armor, she acknowledges. “Deep down, it’s probably all those years...

Over 70 episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience were quietly removed from Spotify Friday, adding yet another development in the ongoing debate over whether the streaming giant is responsible for monitoring misinformation and harmful content posted to its platform.

Among the episodes removed include interviews with Amy Schumer, Marc Maron, Bill Burr, Andy Dick, Tool frontman Maynard J. Keenan and Iliza Shlesinger.

It’s unclear why the episodes in question were pulled, and representatives for Rogan and Spotify did not respond to Rolling Stone‘s requests for comments. However, eagle-eyed fans...

Sanford and Son, the first mainstream, primetime sitcom in television history with an almost-all Black cast, debuted on NBC on Jan. 14, 1972. Created by Norman Lear, and starring legendary “blue” comedian Redd Foxx as an African American bigot, it was seen as a direct answer to CBS’ All in the Family. But the Bunker family series was a social satire which took its laughs seriously. The Sanfords presented pure comedy, any lessons it taught were intentionally coincidental. The most controversial part of the show, when it first aired, was its lead actor.

Foxx was already an underground comedy legend when Cleavon Little, best known for his role as Sheriff Bart in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles, suggested him for the lead in the mid-season replacement. Little wasn’t available, but worked with Foxx on Ossie Davis’s 1970 neo-noir film Cotton Comes to Harlem. Before Foxx played the junk dealer stuck with the bale of genuine Mississippi cotton,...

Consider this a holiday gift for fans of vintage TV shows, as the below classics all arrived on streaming this month. The Jeffersons You’re already humming the joyous theme song, aren’t you? Thanks to his successful dry-cleaning business, fiery George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley), spirited wife Weezy (Isabel Sanford), and hip son Lionel (Mike Evans and Damon Evans) moved on up from Queens to New York’s Upper East Side on CBS’s 1975–85 spinoff of All in the Family. Like its predecessor, the sitcom seamlessly blended humor with groundbreaking issues, like interracial romance. Seasons 1–11 available Sanford and Son (Credit: Everett Collection) Sanford and Son Widower Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx) may have worked as a junk dealer, but this sitcom was comedy gold. Episodes of the 1972–77 series — NBC’s answer to issue-charged All in the Family, also from producer Norman Lear — centered around Fred’s clashes with levelheaded son Lamont...

Entertainment mogul Byron Allen’s résumé lists Fairfax High and USC as the Los Angeles educational institutions of his formative years. Not to diminish their importance, when you hear Allen describing his youthful days when his single mother “couldn’t afford daycare” and plopped young Byron down at NBC where she worked, it’s quickly obvious that Allen had the world’s greatest showbiz teachers in the halls of a network television production center. The list of mentors Allen encountered and learned from at an early age includes Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Freddie Prinze, Flip Wilson, Redd Foxx, George Burns and Dean Martin.

“As a kid,” recalls Allen, “I was able to watch how television was made and I thought, ‘What a wonderful way to go through life, making people laugh and making television for the world.’ I had that epiphany when I was a very, very young kid. ‘This...

Michaela Coel, Norman Lear and Steve McQueen were among the special achievement honorees at the third annual Aafca TV Honors on Saturday.

The event, presented by the African American Film Critics Association, was held virtually, with Emmy-nominee Yvette Nicole Brown hosting the award show.

Honorees including Wanda Sykes, Naomi Ackie and Omar Sy beamed in from home to accept their honors. The awards were presented by more than two dozen Aafca members, including Aafca president Gil Robertson, who highlighted what made each project impactful and each artist exceptional.

Breakout Creative Award recipient Coel mentioned the virtual nature of the ceremony in her speech, saying she looked forward to the day when she’s able to attend the ceremony in person and commune with the other Black artists who’ve inspired her.

“I made a story, which was filmed all the way across the pond, on my European continent, could be...

The African American Film Critics Association has scrapped its planned in-person ceremony for the 3rd annual Aafca TV Honors, and will instead now take place as a virtual event. The shift was made in light of the recent rise in Covid-19 cases in both Southern California and around the country due to the delta strain of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Aafca also announced on Monday that it would recognize legendary TV producer Norman Lear with the org’s Aafca TV Honors Legend Award. The virtual ceremony takes place on Saturday, Aug. 21 at 4 p.m. Pt. Yvette Nicole Brown will host the now-online affair, which had been previously slated for the California Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey, with a 50 percent audience capacity.

“Norman Lear’s work has made such a tremendous impact that creators still feed off of it till this day,” said Aafca co-founder and president Gil Robertson. “This award recognizes Mr.

2021 has been a prolific year for actor and comedian Lil Rel Howery. After the success of films like “Judas and the Black Messiah” and “Fatherhood” with Kevin Hart, plus starring opposite Ryan Reynolds in the upcoming “Free Guy,” Howery is launching a new audio-only comedy album, titled “Lil Rel – Humbly Vulnerable: I Said What I Said.”

The album will debut exclusively on Pandora on Aug. 17 and launch on all streaming platforms on Aug. 24.

“I did an audio-only stand-up special because I wanted to pay homage to the greats that came before me and also no visual distractions, [so] you have to truly hear me,” Howery tells Variety.

With the new special, recorded in March, Howery professes to get back to his Chicago stand-up roots with a set that is reminiscent of his comedy heroes, including Moms Mabley, Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor.

The new album is co-produced with the Aziza Work Group,...

Television pioneer Norman Lear will be honored with the Legend Award by the African American Film Critics Association as part of its Special Achievement Honoree class during its annual TV Honors celebration.

The group celebrates Lear’s diverse and inclusive legacy which includes a vast library of TV hits spanning decades: Maude, All in the Family, One Day at a Time, Good Times, The Jeffersons, and Sanford and Son.

“As I reflect on the past 99 years of life, I think of all of the those who are responsible for helping me make it this far,” Lear said in a statement. “From the Tuskegee Airmen who flew by my side in WWII to the brilliant actors, writers, producers, and creators who made me laugh in places I didn’t know existed throughout my career.

“I’ve said it many times before – laughter adds time to your life. And being fortunate enough...

At the start of “The One and Only Dick Gregory,” Chris Rock hails the standup/activist as “one of the greatest political comedians who ever lived” and the following two hours prove the point. The first-rate doc, written and directed by Andre Gaines, is a reminder to anyone familiar with Gregory of the breadth and prescience of his work; to the uninitiated, it will be an eye-opener.

A title card identifies Gregory as “Public citizen #1, comedian, activist, health pioneer.” Aside from looking at his varied career, Gaines’ doc offers a time capsule of the tumultuous years in which he lived (1932-2017), offering a few shocks at how much of the national anguish has remained unchanged.

The film grabs the audience within the first two minutes and doesn’t let go. The opener mixes archival footage and audio clips of Gregory with testimonials from Rock and others, including Harry Belafonte and Wanda Sykes.

For their first outings as television creators, Ethan Hawke and Little Marvin held nothing back.

Hawke acquired the rights to James McBride’s novel “The Good Lord Bird” for the Showtime adaptation. He also wrote scripts, executive produced and starred as abolitionist John Brown, approaching history with a witty bent. Meanwhile, Little Marvin blended classic horror genre elements with the all-too-real terror of otherness and racism when a Black family moves into a predominantly white neighborhood in “Them” for Amazon Prime Video

Both men dabbled in the past for these limited series, with “The Good Lord Bird” set in the 1850s and “Them” set a century later, in the 1950s. But it was their very modern mindsets about the subject matter, as well as the importance of teamwork with their casts and production crews, that helped inspire such passionate responses to the projects.

Here, they talk about what kind of art inspires them,...

Lifetime and A&e are heading into the Rhythm Nation with a four-hour documentary about the life and music of Janet Jackson.

The A+E Networks brands will simulcast Janet across two nights in 2022.

It comes as Lifetime has struck a two-picture deal with Reba McEntire and A&e is launching documentary series Right to Offend: The Black Comedy Revolution and Secret Origins of Hip Hop.

Janet (w/t), coming on the back of the 40th anniversary of Janet Jackson’s debut album, will follow take a look at her musical success as well as her tumultuous private life. Workerbee, the British production company owned by Banijay, has been filming with Jackson over three years and has been granted exclusive access to archival footage and Janet’s never before seen home videos.

It comes as her dad, Joe Jackson, a pivotal figure in the Jackson dynasty, died in 2018, and will detail her...

Spoiler Alert: Do not read if you have not yet watched the series finale of “The Good Lord Bird” on Showtime.

John Brown’s (Ethan Hawke) journey may have come to a violent end, but his mission will live on in the young man he inspired, Henry aka Onion (Joshua Caleb Johnson).

The series finale of Showtime’s “The Good Lord Bird,” the seven-part adaptation of James McBride’s 2013 novel of the same name that looked at abolitionist John Brown’s movement through the eyes of a young Black boy who John Brown first mistakenly thought was a girl, ended with Henry riding off on his own after John Brown had been killed. That image, coupled with John Brown’s final words of America being a “beautiful” country were filled with both weight and hope for Hawke, who also executive produced the series.

“I find it incredibly moving,” Hawke tells...

Exclusive: They say you can’t take on City Hall, but someone forgot to tell Sir Lady Java.

Now Pose star Hailie Sahar and Genius: Aretha director Anthony Hemingway have teamed to bring the onetime performer and long-time LGBTQ activist’s story to life on the big screen.

As you can see in the video below that Emmy winner Hemingway has put together, Good Trouble alum Sahar is slated to play the famed female impersonator – and Sir Lady Java very much approves:

Called a “trailblazer” and “a cultural icon” by Hemingway in the video, Sir Lady Java was a frequent presence on the Los Angeles nightclub circuit back in the 1960s. In that time of discrimination, she shared the stage with Sammy Davis Jr, Redd Foxx, Lena Horne, Richard Pryor and James Brown until the LAPD decided to shut her down in 1967 with what was known as “Rule Number...

Norm Crosby, the Borscht Belt comedian who was known for his frequent malapropisms, died Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 93.

His wife told the Hollywood Reporter he died of heart failure. Crosby was a frequent talkshow guest, first appearing on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” in 1964 and going on to guest more than 50 times.

His specialty was malaprops — words that sound correct but are completely wrong.

“He might describe a major league ballclub struggling with controversy as ‘riddled with distinction.’ When he goes to a tailor, it’s because his pants need ‘an altercation,’ When people can’t read or write, you get a problem with ‘illegitimacy.,'” the Los Angeles Times wrote about him.

His many other talkshow appearances included “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” and “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” A guest star on several series, his appearances included “Roseanne,” “The Love Boat,...

In the next installment of “Zoom Where It Happens”, Cedric the Entertainer, Wayne Brady, Lala Milan and Dwyane Wade will do a live, virtual table read of the classic trailblazing sitcom Sanford and Son which aired on NBC for 6 seasons from 1972 to 1977. The live table read will be directed by Sanaa Lathan and is set for October 13 (that’s today!) at 6pm Pst.

The “Zoom Where It Happens” series showcases script reads of throwback sitcoms, with all-Black casts for a civic cause. This week’s episode will spotlight and support Pulso, a non-profit media start-up with a growing subscriber base of nearly 1 million Hispanic and Latinx people across the United States.

Created by Black women in Hollywood, including Ava DuVernay, Kerry Washington, Issa Rae, Tessa Thompson, Rashida Jones, Regina King and Channing Dungey, “Zoom Where It Happens,” produces a weekly live event, featuring a script read of a throwback sitcom,...

Four days after Naya Rivera’s body was found in Lake Piru, her family, friends and fans are still reeling from the sudden loss. When Rivera took the fateful July 8 boat trip with her young son, she was preparing to go into production on Starz’s Step Up, a new, reimagined installment of the series inspired by the popular dance movie franchise, which had aired on YouTube for two seasons. It was going to reunite her with her Step Up TV family, including creator/executive producer Holly Sorensen, who has been shepherding the writing of new scripts, EP Adam Shankman and the cast.

In a touching tribute, Sorenson provides an intimate look at Rivera as a person — a leader, a mentor and a supermom — by sharing several stories from the actress’ time on Step Up: High Water. Sorenson talks about Rivera’s casting on the show, about her ultimate professionalism on-set and deep compassion off-camera,...

Tony Sokol Dec 13, 2019

Danny Aiello recorded big band music and was a favorite of directors Spike Lee and Woody Allen

Veteran film actor Danny Aiello, best known for his roles in Do The Right Thing, and Moonstruck, died at the age of 86, according to Variety. Aiello was being treated for a sudden illness at a medical facility in New Jersey.

Aiello's work as the jilted lover in Norman Jewison's hit comedy Moonstruck supported Cher's Best Actress and Olympia Dukakis's Best Supporting Actress Oscar wins. Aiello was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Sal, the pizza joint owner, in Spike Lee's 1989 film Do the Right Thing. Lee first offered the role to Robert De Niro.

Daniel Louis Aiello Jr. was born June 20, 1933, in Manhattan. Aiello's family moved to the South Bronx when he was seven after his father deserted his wife, who lost her eyesight,...

Here’s the latest flick in the multiplex’s recent love affair with show biz of the last century. Well, really the last third of it. Sure there are lots of flicks set in the present day, but maybe filmmakers are more than a tad nostalgic for what they believe was a simpler time. At least the execs want to go back to those pre-internet days when they didn’t have to sweat about the newest releases “beaming’ into homes just as they hit the theatres. And that gives this new flick an ironic twist since it comes from the online streaming giant Netflix. Plus it fits right into the slot between two big movies of the past four months. Tarantino’s Tinseltown fantasy Once Upon A Time …In Hollywood was set in 1969, and the recent hit Joker takes place in 1981(established toward its big finale). So here comes the...

Sam Bobrick, the creator of NBC’s Saved By The Bell whose writing career stretched back to Captain Kangaroo, The Flintstones, classic episodes of The Andy Griffith Show and included the Broadway play Norman, Is That You?, died Friday, Oct. 11, at Northridge Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles following a stroke. He was 87.

His death was announced by his daughter Stephanie Bobrick in a Facebook post. “Our dearly beloved Sam Bobrick, extraordinary playwright, husband, father, grandfather, pug father, brother, uncle, friend, mentor, and all around outstanding person passed away peacefully today, October 11, 2019, surrounded by family and friends. He was as hilarious as he was kind and will be missed by all who knew him.”

In a remembrance on the Medium website, Bobrick’s friend, producer and actor Adam Carl, wrote that Bobrick recently suffered a massive stroke.

Bobrick’s death comes less than a month after NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming...

In Dolemite Is My Name, Eddie Murphy lets fly with all the comic and dramatic ammo in his acting arsenal. No more lobbing softballs in such family-friendly blockbusters as Dr. Dolittle and Daddy Day Care. Murphy, 58, is raw again, reason enough to be delirious. Dolemite gives Murphy his best and juiciest role since his Oscar-nominated turn in 2006’s Dreamgirls (he should have won that sucker, but that’s another story). In Dolemite Is My Name, Murphy plays real-life club comic Rudy Ray Moore, whose mouth was bigger than his talent.

As its title character might put it, “Dolemite Is My Name” is a total motherf—kin’ blast. It tells the story — all true, all outrageous — of one of the most successful blaxploitation films of the ’70s, the insanely over-the-top and borderline inept “Dolemite” (1975), and of how that movie came to be. And it turns the story into a celebration of the effrontery of African-American showbiz. One definition of soul, given the history of racism in this country, is that it’s about the art of making more out of less. Soul food grew out of the fact that slaves were given the lowliest cuts of meat; they took those leftover slabs and turned them into America’s greatest homegrown cuisine. Rudy Ray Moore, played by Eddie Murphy with a motormouth brashness that won’t quit (and a twinkle of sweetness behind it), is dealing with his own version of slim...

Nathaniel Taylor, the actor best known for playing smooth-talking sidekick Rollo Lawson on 1970s sitcom Sanford and Son, died Feb. 27 at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center after suffering a heart attack. He was 80.

His death was announced on social media by his friend, the music promoter Alonzo Williams. According to Williams, the actor was hospitalized on Feb. 23 after suffering a heart attack.

Although Taylor had a few small guest roles on television in the early ’70s – credited as Jita Hadi on The Bold Ones and The Bill Cosby Show – it was his recurring role on the 1972-77 Sanford and Son that brought lasting fame among the show’s still-considerable fan base. His Rollo, a streetwise character typically dressed in the snazziest of hip clothes, was the best friend of Demond Wilson’s Lamont Sanford and forever the target of often-justified scorn and mistrust of Redd Foxx’s Fred Sanford.

Nathaniel Taylor, the actor who played Rollo Lawson on the 1970s sitcom “Sanford and Son,” died Feb. 27 at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center after suffering a heart attack. He was 80.

As part of the recurring cast on “Sanford and Son,” Taylor appeared in 32 episodes from 1972 through 1977. Taylor’s character, Rollo Lawson, was Lamont Sanford’s best friend and often a target of Fred Sanford’s ire, who believed Rollo was a criminal since he had spent time in jail. Taylor went on to have a role as part of the main cast in season one of the short-lived “Sanford and Son” spinoff “Sanford,” which aired from March 1980 to June 1981.

Taylor also appeared in “Sanford and Son” star Redd Foxx’s eponymous sitcom, “The Redd Foxx Show,” as the first version of Jim-Jam. The series was canceled after 12 episodes due to low ratings.

In addition to his work in the “Sanford” universe,...

Jamie Foxx was born Eric Marlon Bishop on December 13, 1967. He changed his name when he began his career in stand-up comedy and chose “Foxx” to honor one of his comedic idols, Redd Foxx. He picked the first name “Jamie” because he noticed that female comics were usually given earlier times on open mic nights and he thought the androgynous name of Jamie might get him onstage earlier in the evening.

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Foxx’s love of comedy began early. By third grade he was already doing stand up for his elementary school classes. His popularity was such that if the class behaved properly the teacher would reward them by letting young Jamie tell them jokes. He moved to Los Angeles when he grew up and began appearing on the comedy circuit until he was cast on the television sketch show “In Living Color...

For Johnny Galecki, also known as physicist Leonard Hofstadter on “The Big Bang Theory,” the end of an era is in sight; CBS recently announced that after a dozen years, season 12 will be the last for the 10-time Emmy-winning show, which has spurred household catchphrases and the TV spinoff “Young Sheldon.” Along with Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar, Galecki helped the nerd comedy climb to the top of the ratings.

Galecki drew his first mention in Variety in 1987 when he was cast in the NBC pilot “Kowalski Loves Ya,” later named “Time Out for Dad,” starring football legend Dick Butkus. Since then, he has scored a Golden Globe nomination, as well as Emmy and Critics Choice nominations for his work on “The Big Bang Theory,” and rumors are swirling as to whether he’ll reprise his role as David Healy in the upcoming “Roseanne” spinoff, “The Conners.

TV legend Norman Lear celebrated his 96th birthday this week at a star-studded event sponsored by Aarp. Gold Derby was on-hand at the Sunset Tower Hotel and snagged red carpet interviews with Lear and the stars of some of his most popular television shows: Adrienne Barbeau (“Maude”), Marla Gibbs (“The Jeffersons”), and Jimmie Walker (“Good Times”). Scroll down and click on any name below to be taken to their full interview.

The event, hosted by Wendie Malick, was part of Aarp’s inaugural TV for Grownups Honors. Egot recipient Rita Moreno, who stars in the Netflix reboot of Lear’s “One Day at a Time,” presented the legendary producer with the award. And also in attendance were John Amos, who played Walker’s father in Lear’s “Good Times,” Ed Begley Jr., Frances Fisher, Robert Forster, Michael McKean, Bob Saget and many more.

See 2018 Emmy slugfest: Why Best Comedy Series...

Cedric the Entertainer is a man who wears many hats, both literally and figuratively.

Born Cedric Antonio Kyles, he launched his career in standup comedy more than 30 years ago, while still working a day job as a claims adjuster at State Farm Insurance in St. Louis. Since then he’s parlayed his brand of straightforward, crowd-pleasing comedy into such successes as the record-breaking “Kings of Comedy Tour,” acting in films including “Barbershop” and such shows as TV Land’s “The Soul Man” and TBS hit “The Last O.G.” Along the way, he’s proven he can tackle hosting (“Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”), Broadway (“American Buffalo”) and voice work (“Disney’s Planes” and the “Madagascar” series). He’ll be recognized for his achievements with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the live theater/live performance category at a ceremony on July 19.

And then there are the actual hats.