Month: January 2023

Actor Cindy Williams, best known for her role in the 70s-80s TV sitcom “Laverne & Shirley”, has died at age 75.

Williams children said in a statement released by family spokesperson Liza Cranis that she died peacefully Wednesday at her home in Los Angeles after a short illness: “The passing of our kind, hilarious mother, Cindy Williams, has brought us insurmountable sadness that could never truly be expressed. Knowing and loving her has been our joy and privilege. She was one of a kind, beautiful, generous and possessed a brilliant sense of humor and a glittering spirit that everyone loved.”

Williams starred as Shirley Feeney opposite Penny Marshall (who played Laverne DeFazio) in the popular sitcom “Laverne & Shirley”. “Laverne & Shirley,” a spinoff of “Happy Days,” starred Williams and Marshall as roommates who work in a Milwaukee bottling plant. The show ran from 1976-1983. Williams also appeared in the 1973 film “American Graffiti” and the 1974 film “The Conversation.”

Henry Winkler, who played The Fonz in “Happy Days,” shared: “Cindy has been my friend and professional colleague since I met her on the set of ‘Happy Days’ in 1975. Not once have I ever been in her presence when she wasn’t gracious, thoughtful and kind. Cindy’s talent was limitless. There was not a genre she could not conquer. I am so glad I knew her.”

Williams is survived by her two children, Emily and Zak. In their statement, her children said that their mother was devoted to rescuing animals and her faith, and that she wanted the world to laugh: “May that laughter continue in everyone, because she would want that .. Thank you for loving our Mom, she loved you too.”

Editorial credit: Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

Lisa Loring, the actress who first portrayed Wednesday Addams on the TV show ‘The Addams Family,’ has died at age 64.  Loring’s daughter Vanessa Foumberg confirmed the news in a statement to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, sharing that she died of a stroke. Foumberg said: “She went peacefully with both her daughters holding her hands.”

Loring’s friend Laurie Jacobson posted on Facebook that Loring was a smoker who suffered from high blood pressure: “She had been on life support for 3 days. Yesterday, her family made the difficult decision to remove it and she passed last night. She is embedded in the tapestry that is pop culture and in our hearts always as Wednesday Addams.”

Loring began her career as a child model and was first cast in the TV show ‘Dr. Kildare’  She portrayed Wednesday from the ages of 6 to 8 during two-seasons of the original TV show in the 1960s.  Loring appeared on the sitcom The Pruitts of Southampton with Phyllis Diller and appeared on shows including Fantasy Island, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. and Barnaby Jones. Loring also played Cricket Montgomery on the soap opera As the World Turns from 1980 – 1983.

Loring is survived by her two daughters, Vanessa and Marianne, and her grandchildren, Emiliana and Charles.

Editorial credit: Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

Actor Annie Wersching, best known for playing FBI agent Renee Walker in the series “24” and voicing Tess in the video game “The Last of Us,” has died at age 45. Wersching’s publicist told The Associated Press that she passed away Sunday morning in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer.

“The Last of Us” creator Neil Druckmann wrote on Twitter that “We just lost a beautiful artist and human being. My heart is shattered. Thoughts are with her loved ones.” Actor Abigail Spencer, who appeared with Wersching on the sci-fi series “Timeless,” tweeted, “We love you Annie Wersching. You will be deeply missed.”

Wersching appeared on dozens of television shows over the course of her two-decade career including “Star Trek: Enterprise,” and recurring roles in “24,” “Bosch,” “The Vampire Diaries,” Marvel’s “Runaways,” “The Rookie” and, most recently, the second season of “Star Trek: Picard” as the Borg Queen. She also provided the voice and motion capture performance for Tess for the popular video game “The Last of Us.”

Wershing was diagnosed with cancer in 2020, according to Deadline, and continued working. She’s survived by her husband, actor Stephen Full, and three sons. A GoFundMe page was set up Sunday to support the family.

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In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, former late-night talk show host Jay Leno said he broke multiple bones in a motorcycle accident — just months after suffering severe burns to his face. Leno said on Jan. 17 he was knocked off his bike, suffering a broken collarbone, two broken ribs and two cracked kneecaps.

Leno is gearing up for his Las Vegas residency on the Encore Theater stage at Wynn Las Vegas in March. He explained that he had been testing out a 1940 Indian motorcycle when he noticed the smell of leaking gasoline.  Said Leno: “So I turned down a side street and cut through a parking lot, and unbeknownst to me, some guy had a wire strung across the parking lot but with no flag hanging from it … So, you know, I didn’t see it until it was too late. It just clothesline me and, boom, knocked me off the bike.”

Leno said he didn’t initially go public about the accident due to all the publicity he had received following the November 2002 incident where he suffered severe burns on his face and body while working on a 1907 White Steam Car in his Los Angeles garage last fall. After a gasoline fire erupted, Leno was brought to Grossman Burn Center for treatment where he underwent a skin grafting procedure and several other surgeries during his 10-day hospital stay.

Editorial credit: Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

Michaela Coel, Penélope Cruz, Roger Federer, Dua Lipa and Anna Wintour will co-chair the 2023 Met Gala, which benefits the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. Honorary chairs of the gala include Tom Ford and head of Instagram Adam Mosseri.

This year’s exhibition will celebrate the opening of “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” featuring about 150 pieces spanning Lagerfeld’s start in the business in the 1950s to his final collection in 2019.  According to an announcement, “guests will be invited to pay homage to Lagerfeld’s affinity for aesthetics and theory of art by embodying the ‘line of beauty’ through the appreciation and execution of the ‘straight line’ and the ‘serpentine line,’ which delineate, respectively, Lagerfeld’s modernist and historicist tendencies .. Along with the straight and serpentine lines, the exhibition will conclude with the ‘satirical line,’ in effort to highlight Lagerfeld’s ‘ironic, playful, and whimsical predilections expressed through visual puns that reflect the designer’s razor-sharp wit.’

The 2023 Met Gala will resume its annual tradition of taking place on the first Monday in May (this year on May 1, 2023). Date changes had been made for the last two years due to the pandemic.

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Warner Bros. Pictures has shared the trailer for the DC superhero film ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods,’ featuring Zachary Levi, Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu. The film is a sequel to the 2019 film ‘Shazam!’ which follows Billy Batson (aka Shazam), a teenager who transforms into an adult superhero (Levi) after saying the name “Shazam.”

According to a film synopsis from Warner Bros. Discovery, ‘when the Daughters of Atlas, a vengeful trio of ancient gods, arrive on Earth, the kids are thrust into a battle for their superpowers, their lives and the fate of their world.’  The trailer shows Shazam (Levi) taking on Hespera (Mirren) and Kalypso (Liu), daughters of Atlas. Adam Brody, Rachel Zegler, Ian Chen, Faithe Herman and Djimon Hounsou also star.

Shazm! Fury of the Gods, written by Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan and directed by David F. Sandberg, opens in theaters March 17. Take a look at the trailer – here.

Editorial credit: Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com