Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for fighting racist white rule, became South Africa#39;s first black president in 1994 and served one five-year term. He later retired from public life to live in his village of Qunu, and last made a public appearance when his country hosted the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament. “FILE -In this June 17, 2010 file photo, former South African President, Nelson Mandela leaves the chapel after attending the funeral of his great-granddaughter Zenani Mande
Jill Zarin was fired from The Real Housewives of New York City last year. And it’s safe to say the reality star took the news hard. Very hard. “It felt like my funeral,” Zarin told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live last night. “I was heartbroken.” Among the many other topics covered by Zarin in the interview: Her fights with Bethenny Frankel were staged for ratings. Her feelings on newbies Aviva Drescher, Carole Radziwill and Heather Thomson. Her take on whether she can be replaced on the series: “You can’t replace me! You can try, but you know you can’t replace me.” Watch the embarrassing interview in its entirety now: Jill Zarin on Watch What Happens Live
Friday’s release of the R&B musical remake Sparkle marks a bittersweet triumph for the late Whitney Houston , whose death in February preempted what many, including producing partner and friend Debra Martin Chase, insist would have been Houston’s comeback. Co-stars Jordin Sparks , Mike Epps, Tika Sumpter, and Carmen Ejogo remembered the iconic Grammy-winning singer, actress, and executive producer as a “vibrant” and “open” force on set who was gearing up to bounce back from her recent personal troubles. Jordin Sparks, who stars as the talented but self-conscious youngest daughter of Houston’s strict churchgoing Emma, first met her idol at Clive Davis’s annual Grammy party but was too shy to speak with her at length until they arrived on the Detroit set of Sparkle . “She was so down to earth, she just wanted to sit with us and talk with us and get to know us,” remembered Sparks. “She could’ve just been like, ‘I’m gonna do my scenes and go back to my trailer,’ and that wasn’t how she was. She’d be sitting, watching. Of course she was executive producing as well but she didn’t really have to be there. [She’d ask] us if we needed anything and if we were okay. And it was amazing to be able to go through that because, you know the supernova, diva, THE voice… and she’s just going, ‘So, what’s your favorite thing?'” In May, three months after Houston’s death, Sparks was asked to sing Houston’s iconic “I Will Always Love You” at the Billboard Awards. “She was always very encouraging, which I really took away from when I had to sing her song,” said Sparks. “It was the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. But I just heard her in the back of my head going, ‘You got this, you got this, you’re good,’ because that’s how she was on set.” Mike Epps met Houston and Bobby Brown on the set of a music video years ago before facing off on-screen against her as Satin, the slick comedian who dates her eldest daughter. “She was off the hook,” Epps enthused. “She was really really vibrant. She was just full of life and really alive. She was just happy to be there. Every chance I got I’d ask her about Dionne Warwick because it’s just amazing to me that she’s part of that family. My mother was a big fan of Dionne Warwick. [Houston] was telling me about Stevie Wonder and she had me die laughing. She’d say ‘Ya know, Stevie, he was drunk as a motherfucker.’ I’d ask her, ‘How does he get drunk? He can’t even see.’ And she’d say, ‘He’s having a better time than anybody!” “When she first saw me on the set, she said, ‘Let me get a picture with you!’ That threw me off. I was like, ‘You want a picture with me ?’ She said, ‘My daughter, Bobbi Christina, told me ‘You don’t know everybody, mama,’ and I said to her, ‘Shit, I know everybody in the business!'” Producing partner Debra Martin Chase shared a company (Brownhouse Production) with Houston and produced her previous screen outing, The Preacher’s Wife . She remembered Houston as a friend and artist full of ideas — the suggestion of a Sparkle remake was Houston’s, Chase revealed — who was on the cusp of mounting a career comeback. “[Houston] would call me periodically with interesting ideas and one day she called and said, ‘What about Sparkle ?’ She loved this movie so much. It was the happiest I have ever seen her on a movie. She loved the cast, she loved [director Salim Akil], she loved Detroit… she was just passionate about everything.” Even as she finished her work on Sparkle , Houston was enthusiastic to get started on their next collaboration. “It’s funny — when she was leaving, she was walking off set that last night and I was walking her out, she said, “I’ve got our next idea! We should do David and Bathsheba ! I’ve got an idea for it!” said Chase. “I just laughed and said, ‘Girl, go get on your airplane!'” “She was back. Before that she wasn’t in the space… but this brought her back. She’s fabulous in the movie, she felt good, and she knew she gave her best performance,” Chase shared with a smile. “I’m just happy it’s the last image that people will have of her.” Tika Sumpter plays the confident aspiring doctor Dolores, Houston’s middle daughter in the film. She recalled Houston’s maternal side on set, which transcended her performance. “Growing up, my sisters and I would look at her album covers,” marveled Sumpter, who says her tearful farewell scene in the film opposite Houston is her favorite memory from set. “In those moments she was just so vulnerable and so open as an actor. So giving, and there, and very present. She had such a great presence for me — I felt like I wanted to take in everything I could from her. She was just a nurturing body… vulnerable and open and loving. And that’s what I loved about her.” Playing the role of the sultry Sister, a talented singer who spirals out of control as the girls finds greater fame, Carmen Ejogo felt a powerful connection to her onscreen mother. “I feel like [Houston] came into the movie knowing there was something to prove on her part to some degree, and there was a humility on her part as a result,” reflected Ejogo. “That meant at times I forgot how massive she was. She was the first concert I went to see! That’s something that you realize after the fact, and you’re like, whoa — this is remarkable . I feel like we had a really lucky moment with her because as her sister-in-law said at her funeral, it was one of the best times of her life and it was so evident every day.” For Ejogo, filming her final scene with Houston brought Houston’s real life past and the troubles of her own onscreen character in uncanny parallel. “[There is] an artist called Marina Abramović — she’s somebody who literally sits across from you and is entirely naked — and I felt like I had that moment with Whitney in the last scene of the film, where she and I are mirroring each other.” “It felt like this art-meets-life kind of moment because Whitney in real life is very much embodied in Sister as a character, which is something she was very aware and open about,” Ejogo continued. “It felt like a very pure, naked moment between two actors, but also two people that were connecting on a really deep level. And that was the last scene she filmed in the whole movie. After that it was time to wrap for her and that was a really emotional moment because I really saw, in that moment, that she had had a really positive experience that was just coming to an end.” Stay tuned for more on Sparkle , which opens Friday, and watch below as the cast talk more Sparkle and Whitney Houston at the film’s New York premiere with Beyond the Trailer’s Grace Randolph. Watch it on YouTube. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Family and friends gathered at the Wieuca Road Baptist Church for 11-year-old’s funeral service Friday (July 27). By Rob Markman, with reporting by FLX Ryan Glover walks behind the casket after the funeral of Kile Glover at the Wieuca Road Baptist Church in Atlanta on Friday Photo: Butch Dill/ Getty Images
Bad news, Charlie Kaufman fans: While some cast members had been hopeful in recent months that Frank or Francis would move ahead, Elizabeth Banks (doing the press rounds for People Like Us ) spilled news to the contrary. “I honestly don’t know where that film is at,” she told AICN. “We were supposed to make it sooner, but it’s been pushed. I think they’re waiting for everybody’s lives to come back together…I don’t really know anything about it.” Speaking with Moviefone, she elaborated that things “fell apart” before the Hollywood satire/musical could move forward into production: “We didn’t get to shoot that movie. It was ready to go, and, as many movies do, it fell apart at the last minute.” UPDATE: Over at The Playlist , the filmmaker’s reps say that the project’s not completely dead — it has just been “postponed.” [ AICN , Moviefone ]
While official confirmation has yet to be reported, columnist Liz Smith eulogizes friend and filmmaker Nora Ephron , writer and director of films including Sleepless in Seattle , You’ve Got Mail , and 2009’s Julie & Julia . “People who never dreamed she was ill, are crestfallen. Amazed. Stunned,” Smith writes. “I won’t say, “Rest in peace, Nora” – I will just ask “What the hell will we do without you?” UPDATE: Sources clarify that Ephron is alive, but “gravely ill.” Meanwhile, advice columnist Margo Howard, who also writes for the online publication The Women on the Web , where Smith’s remembrance appeared today, Tweeted the news citing Smith as her source: Well, to those of you who can't find the news of Nora Ephron's death, the funeral is Thursday – and maybe that's the way she wanted it.— Margo Howard (@Margoandhow) June 26, 2012 Contradicting the odd announcements, the New York Times contacted Ephron’s publisher, Knopf, who said she has not died : Nora Ephron's publisher, Knopf, tells the NYT that she is still alive.— Julie Bosman (@juliebosman) June 26, 2012 UPDATE: Newsweek/Daily Beast reporter MariaElena Fernandez chimed in through the confusion, adding that Ephron, who is battling cancer, is alive but near death. Nora Ephron news is not a hoax but she has not passed away. She is not expected to make it through tonight. This is the truth.— MariaElena Fernandez (@writerchica) June 26, 2012 UPDATE: TMZ cites family members who say Ephron is “gravely ill,” while Roger Friedman has been told that she’s in a New York hospital suffering from “a rare form of leukemia.” Developing… [ WOW ]
*sigh* WTF?! 2 Killed 2 Wounded Outside Of Atlanta Funeral Gunfire erupted in a church parking lot as a funeral wrapped up Thursday in an Atlanta suburb, leaving two people dead and another two wounded. Police have not made any arrests in the shooting at Victory for the World Baptist Church in Stone Mountain, said DeKalb County police spokeswoman Mekka Parish. Kenneth Samuel, the senior pastor at the church, said the 1 p.m. funeral was for 19-year-old Ryan Guider. Guider was killed May 26, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Samuel said the shooting happened just after the hour-long service. “Shots rang out and the police locked down the church,” Samuel said. “I was shocked to hear what happened. I had just finished my eulogy and tried to do the best I could to speak to the many teens about valuing life.” Parish said the identities of the two killed and two injured have not been released. Samuel said a few hundred were attendance for the funeral. He said more than half the people who attended the service had started to empty into the parking lot before the shooting occurred. “Very tragic,” Samuel said. “Ryan was a good kid and his family did not have time to grieve him in a proper manner. Now, something like this happens. Very tragic.” What the hell is wrong with these ninjas?! What kind of low-life mickiefickies shoot and kill at church, much less a funeral?? Image via Tumblr Source
Donna Summer’s funeral in Tennessee has brought together musical legends from across the world, including famed record producer David Foster. In addition to Summer, he worked with Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees and many other big name acts from the 1970s to the present day. Giorgio Moroder is also present at the funeral, having produced several disco hits with Summer, including “Love to Love You Baby” and “I Feel Love.” Donna Summer died last week at the age of 63. The late singer’s entire family is also at the ceremony, a private event taking place in Nashville (private, though up to 1,000 people are attending). The Queen of Disco will be greatly missed. [Photo: WENN.com]
John Doe Number One, whose accusations of sexual assault against John Travolta made major headlines before his case fell apart and he dropped the lawsuit , apparently isn’t throwing in the legal towel
