Posts Tagged ‘Helga Esteb’

For Episode 2 of By the Way: In Conversation with Jeff Garlin, the talented actor-writer-host cues up the conversation he had with Lena Dunham at Largo right after the 2012 Prime Time Emmy Awards. (He’s up to eight episodes now, the latest being Conan O’Brien.)

It was during that crazy awards weekend crush that Garlin met Dunham for the first time in person. And it was also, at a Friday night bash catered by the restaurant Animal, that his guest found herself gorging on some cliched fried chicken:

“I was so happy, and then I had this thought where, ‘So here I am at this party, fulfilling everyone’s expectations of what they’d see me doing at a party, just f*cking eating everything!’ I was so bummed.”

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Three weeks into PMC’s relaunch of Variety, two articles of note have involved actors from opposite ends of the film-TV spectrum.

For Issue No. 1 (April 2), Steve Challogan visited a massive $25 million residential property in Holmby Hills flip-renovated by Jeremy Renner and business partner Kristoffer Winters. Actually, make that just Winters. It’s only at the very end of the piece that readers are clearly told that “Renner, it should be noted, doesn’t have a financial stake in this property, but was present during the remodeling when he wasn’t busy shooting the latest Bourne movie.” Nevertheless, the piece is a great glimpse past the usually forbidding hedges of westside mega-manses.

In this week’s April 16 issue, TV critic Brian Lowry takes stock of the resurgent guest star careers of familiar faces like former Simon & Simon star Gerald McRaney:

McRaney describes himself as “sort of a gypsy at heart” who is having the time of his life flitting from playing a Warren Buffett-like billionaire to a drunken ex-cop to a seedy criminal. When asked about down time between roles, he says, “I consider anything after two weeks not to be a vacation, but unemployment.”

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[Editor's Note: The following, never-before-published interview (Part 1 here) was conducted via telephone on December 23, 1993 by the late Jim Mitteager. The tape, part of a much larger collection bequeathed to Hollywood private eye Paul Barresi, was only recently discovered and graciously provided to FishbowlLA. Our thanks to Barresi for allowing us to share this great bit of nostalgia with our readers, on the anniversary of Clark's April 18, 2012 death.]

Mitteager: Has MTV impacted in a negative way on talent? There’s a lot of packaging that’s going on now that involves skills other than the ability to sing and write good songs. Is it impacting on new talent as opposed to the old days?

Clark: I wouldn’t blame it all on MTV. I’d blame it on the consolidation of the music business, between five or six nationally owned companies. You’ve got all of these big debts that they’ve got to pay. They’ve got them on a timetable, and that includes videos and personal appearances and promotions and all of that. So some new guy, it makes it very difficult to get launched. That’s the whole thing about what’s wrong with the business these days. It’s tough to break through.

Mitteager:  What would be your best advice to an aspiring artist out there that is in that pickle right now, that have no representation and has some talent?

Clark: I would try to get to one of the cities where people find talent, LA, New York, Nashville, Seattle… Get out there and showcase yourself.

Mitteager: I want to rack your brain about people that got there start on Bandstand, or with you in general and have now become award winners on the American Music Awards.

Clark: New Edition, they debuted on Bandstand.

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If you Google the name of retired Hollywood actress Arlene Dahl, the primary search result is a wonderful 1985 article by People magazine reporter John Stark. Today, FishbowlLA is thrilled to be able to add to this strand by means of a “lost” interview done with Dahl ahead of her July 1984 marriage to Marc Rosen.

Separated in age by 18 years, the two tied the knot several decades after the coupling of Mae West and Chester Rybinski/Paul Novak, and years ahead of two other more famous older-woman-younger man Hollywood unions: Susan Sarandon-Tim Robbins and Demi Moore-Ashton Kutcher. Unlike those last two pairings, Dahl and Rosen are still together today, in spite of an age difference greater than that of Moore-Kutcher (15 1/2 years) or Sarandon-Robbins (12 years).

In the lost, pre sixth-wedding conversation, Dahl explains why she has been married so many times and candidly shares her concerns about the Rosen age difference. Her union was sealed long before the term “cougar” was coined by a Canadian dating site in 1999 and further popularized in a 2001 book by Valerie Gibson. But if the Internet had been around back then, you can be sure bloggers would have made liberal use of the term. From the lost interview:

“I was raised in the Midwest and I’ve done everything according to form. I’ve been a very old-fashioned girl. I don’t have romance until I get married. And I always [until now] marry an older man.”

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Before Argo, both in real life and at the 84th Annual Academy Awards, there was Searching for Sugar Man. The winner of the Documentary Feature prize is just about the most entertaining in-search-of doc since Michael Moore was in his GM, George W.-tracking prime.

Rolling Stone associate editor Andy Greene delightfully keeps the vibe going with today’s “10 Things You Didn’t Know…” feature. God love Sixto Rodriguez, a guy who opted not to attend the Oscars and then nonchalantly skipped his moment of Academy triumph from afar:

“I was asleep when it won, but my daughter Sandra called to tell me,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t have TV service anyway.”

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Score one for Nikki Finke‘s tireless TV editor. It is Nellie Andreeva who arrived first this morning to the news of Barbara Walters‘ TV retirement plans, although she initially confused many with the suggestion it would be May of this year. From her updated item:

I’ve learned a plan has been put in place for Walters to announce her retirement, eyed for May 2014. Fitting for Walters’ status as the grand dame of TV journalism and a signature face of ABC News, I hear she would be given a big sendoff with retrospectives and other special content in the weeks leading to her retirement that would celebrate her 52-year broadcast career.

The breaking news on Deadline sent other outlets and media journalists into overdrive. Some, like The Daily Beast and the New York Daily News, were happy to give Deadline the link-back love, credit. Many others preferred instead to frame the developing story via the new-sources, we-separately-confirmed drill.

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The word of the day is “etiolated.” Put to excellent use by Brooks Barnes in his New York Times snapshot of the resurgent Hollywood Reporter:

As recently as 2010, The Reporter would have had a hard time persuading its own etiolated staff to gather for a party, much less marquee stars. The trade newspaper, founded in 1930, was bleeding from layoffs, vanishing advertisers and ferociously competitive entertainment industry blogs. It had become what moviedom dreads most: a has-been.

Indeed, there was no Spago mojo coursing through that sickly, weakened staff. It was a gang that Snoop Dogg, the DJ at the February 4 event from which Barnes leads, might have deemed distinctly lacking in  ”shizzle.”

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Last night, Judd Apatow blew the lid off the artifice of the Hollywood Film Awards, cracking wise after an in-kind intro from friend and collaborator Seth Rogen. He was at the Beverly Hilton to accept the Hollywood Comedy Award.

Today, it was announced that Apatow will guest edit Vanity Fair’s first-ever Comedy Issue (January 2013). Makes you wonder what the writer-director has planned for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Via Twitter, Apatow revealed he was in the middle today of that very VF task with Sarah Silverman. From the vanityfair.com announcement:

“I proposed the idea of editing a comedy issue. I didn’t think Graydon Carter would say yes, and then I didn’t think it would be that much work. And then I found out I don’t get paid,” said Apatow. “I’m a gigantic fan of Vanity Fair and having the opportunity to collaborate on an issue that focuses on comedy has been fantastic.”

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For the briefest of moments last week, the New York Post had Bonnie Fuller in the running for the position of Variety EIC. A wacky rumor that was quickly quashed by Jay Penske during his October 10 town hall meeting with trade staffers.

A week later, it’s back to hyperbole-as-usual for Fuller at her PMC sister site hollywoodlife.com. In her latest “Bonnie Says!” piece, she writes:

Many media outlets and critics trash the VERY real love that Rob and K-Stew have… Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are one of the greatest Hollywood couples ever.

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Not only is this no surprise to director Benh Zeitlin (pictured). But in the wake of today’s confirmation that Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Beasts of the Southern Wild is out of the 2012 SAG Awards running, he tells THR awards columnist Scott Feinberg that he wouldn’t have it any other way:

“Against all logic and planning, two incredible first-time actors won the lead roles in Beasts,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter via e-mail. “I’m positive they both have long and amazing acting careers in front of them.” (In other words, SAG can expect to get two new members thanks to Beasts.)

As Feinberg notes, there is a scenario for Zeitlin and Fox Searchlight to retroactively bring the movie into compliance with SAG’s Low Budget Feature Agreement. But unless the distributor can call in some major international favors, that’s unlikely, especially in time for the guild’s nominations deadline.

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