Posts Tagged ‘Oprah Winfrey’

Everyone seems to think the character played by Maya Rudolph on NBC’s new sitcom Up All Night is based on Oprah Winfrey. Everyone, that is, except Rudolph and her SNL pal Emily Spivey, who created the show.

In a playful article headlined “Ava, Oprah. Oprah, Ava,” Chicago Tribune reporter Christopher Borrelli begs to differ. Evidently, Rudolph is tired of the comparisons, because her transcribed answer to his re-stated Question #2 is anything but sitcom-funny:

“Maybe you misunderstood me–completely, actually. I’ll start over. I thought I was being clear… I don’t see her on the same plane [as Oprah]. She is someone more self-consumed. Someone who is trying a new career path. She had one pop hit in the ’90s, and she is not Oprah at all…”

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Next week, a must-read for Hollywood aficionados arrives in bookstores: Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan. Written by brothers-in-law Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, the Geffen Books release details the incredible transition made by Milchan from international arms dealer to prolific, Oscar nominated movie producer.

Going into the project, the authors realized their subject would take about as kindly to the book as Oprah Winfrey did to Kitty Kelley‘s recent bio. So they opted for the strategy of writing the book in full, secretly, and then alerting Milchan. Once the book was completed in 2009, it did not take long for the pair to hook up with their subject. Per an essay by the authors on FoxNews.com:

Milchan requested a series of meetings over the matter, which ended up involving many cigarettes, herbal teas, shots of tequila, and Stella beer. We met his wife Amanda and his new child Shimon (named after Shimon Peres), his butler John, and other friends and family in the casual setting of his Malibu home, the former residence of acclaimed director John Frankenheimer, and the house where Robert Kennedy stayed the night before his assassination at the Ambassador Hotel the following morning.

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We learn from our sister blog SportsNewser that the Lifetime network rejected a reality series about tennis star Serena Williams‘ double life as a nail salon pro. What?

One of the biggest names in sports has chosen a side career in a pink collar industry dominated by struggling immigrants. This is reality television GOLD. Serena gave Oprah Winfrey a pedicure, for crissakes. Nothing that mind boggling will ever happen on The Bachelorette.

Needless to say, we would’ve tuned in.

Surprisingly, Williams really is a professional manicurist. Last year she quietly enrolled in beauty school to become a certified nail technician, prompting sports fans the world over to scratch their heads. Since then she’s gained a new kind of fan for her “Glam Slam” nail polish collections, created in partnership with O.P.I.

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Here at FishbowlLA, we can no longer get too excited or angry about matters Oscar-related. The show is a colossal disappointment each and every year, the acceptance speeches are honed for months on end via other telecasts, and in today’s fractious world the whole thing seems less important than ever. But we are clearly in the Hollywood media minority.

In the wake of this week’s announcement that Oprah Winfrey will receive the prestigious Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award on November 21, LA Times media critic Patrick Goldstein, Oscar show spoiler Nikki Finke, and many more are hitting the Kodak Theatre roof. Meanwhile, AP LA reporter Sandy Cohen has since checked in with Oprah (no comment by press time) and Academy president Tom Sherak:

“Oprah has given and given and given,” Sherak said, adding that she has contributed more than $500 million of her own money to charitable causes. “She’s a member of the academy, she was nominated for an Academy Award and she has produced movies. This is not about personality. This is about a person who has come from the depths, risen to the heights and given back. That’s a perfect example of why this award was created.”

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Sometime today, Nevada prison inmate O.J. Simpson will likely get wind of Oprah Winfrey‘s remarks at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association convention in Chicago. As part of her renewed commitment to kick start OWN from, mostly, LA, Oprah predicted that some way, somehow, she is going to land the O.J. confession interview.

Would O.J. consent to such a sit-down, which Oprah insisted would only happen if Orenthal James agreed beforehand to come clean on-air about the Brentwood crime of the century? Hard to tell, but it’s a hell of a Vegas wager.

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Can you imagine what the Christmas tips in Montecito might be for newspaper delivery boys and girls? That vaunted teen profession may generally be going the way of the fax cover page, but at least in the privileged Santa Barbara hood of Oprah Winfrey, Rob Lowe, Dennis Miller, and many other celebs, the newspaper business is still good.

On June 10th, the Montecito Journal will be joined by a second free weekly newspaper, the Montecito Messenger. Heading up the mid-June competitor is a pretty interesting trio—The Daily Sound owner Jeremy Gordon, documentary filmmaker Sam Tyler, and former Journal reporter Judy Forman. Per a report in the Santa Barbara Independent:

Tyler — who directed Citizen McCaw , which chronicled the meltdown of the [Santa Barbara] News-Press — explained the new paper would be more politically mainstream and less conservative than the Journal, that it would provide home delivery, and that Messenger editors would not comment critically, as the Journal sometimes does, about its own letters to the editor.

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It seems rather strange that the latest Russell Crowe movie Three Days Later is only just now opening in Australia, two months after its U.S. bow and roll out in dozens of international territories.

To mark the occasion, Sydney Morning Herald reporter Greg Truman rounds up the North American media bashing the actor suffered in connection with the poor-performing Lionsgate thriller ($21 million domestic). There’s the insinuation in a Toronto newspaper that Crowe drove writer-director Paul Haggis back to chain smoking; a cantankerous New York City press conference during which Crowe dismissed one question with the reply, “Oh dude, c’mon.” And there’s the LA Times piece that unfavorably compared Crowe to the likes of Johnny Depp.

Don’t they get it? It’s Russell; our Russ. Actor, chameleon, action guy, footy lover, phone thrower, charitable fella, thoughtful father, Aussie bloke…

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In journalism class, the topic of how to write a great “lede” is endlessly discussed, analyzed and rehearsed. Today, Memphis Commercial Appeal reporter John Beifuss shares a shining example of this art form in connection with rumblings of a new Hollywood project about the life of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Writes Beifuss:

Judging from Hollywood’s success rate, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of brotherhood and racial equality might be achieved before the first definitive King biopic gets to the screen.

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What’s this? Tweeting a plug for your network, giving a shout out to the stars you’ve made while complaining about the gridlock traffic on the 101?! Yes, mark the time and date: Oprah Winfrey, a legend unprecedented even among media phenoms – has gone Hollywood.

Billboards for Oprah Winfrey‘s new TV network are all over LA and now, the city is returning the favor. Of the ten finalists culled from 15,000 online and offline applicants for Your OWN Show, exactly half are from the LA area.

Leading the local pack is KTLA reporter Elizabeth Espinosa (pictured). As older sister to a brother with a learning disability, she wants to put together a program that can help other families dealing with similar household dynamics.

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