(AP Photo/Gus Ruelas)
Billy Ray must be beside himself.
Mark McLeod a 53-year-old man decided that he was in love with 16-year-old singing star, Miley Cyrus and had decided she ought to become his wife.
McLeod showed up at a March book-signing for Miley. He declared his love to her in a video that was posted on the Internet. He claims that the singer communicates with him via secret messages in her photos and “Hannah Montana” television show.
In June McLeod was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct when he crashed the set of a Cyrus’ movie, “The Last Song,” that was filming in the Tybee Island area in the state of Georgia.
He told the police he and Miley were secretly engaged after “our eyes met at her concert and we both knew.”
He said “Nobody will ever be able to keep us apart.” McLeod claimed Miley’s father, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, had given his blessing for the marriage….CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE
Hollywood Vampires and D.C. Draculas
In Culture, entertainment, Movies & Entertainment, Uncategorized on July 20, 2009 at 9:09 pmJohnny Depp to Play Carol Channing?
In Celebrities, Culture, Movies on July 19, 2009 at 7:59 pmby James Hirsen
I’m not kidding.
Johnny Depp is making a play for the lead role in a movie biography of singer-actress Carol Channing.
Forty-six-year-old Depp was out promoting his latest flick, “Public Enemies,” when the subject of future role choices came up.
According to the U.K. Daily Mirror, the actor is ready to get in touch with his inner songstress.
“My dream role would be to play musical legend Carol Channing in a biopic of her life,” he explained.
“I love her, I really do. She’s amazing,” he added. “With all the digital technology available these days, I could probably pull it off.”
Jack Sparrow-turned-Dolly?
Well, he got the mascara thing right but he’s going to need some major hair highlighting help from Kojo.
Jackson, Lennon and Elvis
In Celebrities, Culture, Entertainment and Media on July 5, 2009 at 9:07 pmby James Hirsen
Media coverage of the death of Michael Jackson has reached a fever pitch with his memorial service that is scheduled to take place this week in Los Angeles.
Fans from all over the world have registered for the chance to receive tickets to attend the event, although only 11,000 people will actually be allowed into the Staples Center.
All three networks will broadcast live coverage of the service with their primetime attendant anchors present at the arena.
The cable news channels will feature wall-to-wall coverage of the event, too, and the memorial service will likely be the lead story on the evening news everywhere.
As we have all witnessed, numerous stories of significance involving foreign policy and domestic legislation have been shunted aside in favor of Jackson interviews, retrospectives and specials. This is part and parcel of what our celebrity loving country has come to expect.
Regrettably, the tragic scenario has played out a number of times before. A music icon dies suddenly and unexpectedly, and under a mysterious set of circumstances. Along with Jackson, two other legendary stars come to mind, and their passing had the same dramatic effect on the public and the culture.
It was a chilly December day when John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono finished a routine recording session. They had no idea how deep a darkness would soon fall.
The world at the time was consumed with things other than a former Beatle’s solo career. A new leader, Ronald Reagan, had just been elected President of the United States, with a full slate of issues ahead of him that included a faltering economy and enemies abroad.
As John and Yoko returned to their Manhattan apartment at the Dakota, a disturbed fan, Mark David Chapman, sent four hollow point bullets racing Lennon’s way. Police took the legendary musician to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The media behaved quite differently the day the Lennon music died. The New Media was not yet in force. Cable news programming was still in formation. Much of the public heard the word of Lennon’s death from Howard Cosell during a broadcast of “Monday Night Football.”
Still, news of the former Beatle’s passing spread fast. It was the lead story on all of the major networks and above the fold in newspapers around the world.
As the sad news traveled, crowds gathered outside the Dakota. Much like the throngs who mourned for Jackson in New York, London and L.A., Lennon fans sang songs and recited lyrics in his honor. Yoko Ono asked the mourners to return the next Sunday for a memorial for John. That Sunday, Central Park was overrun with over 100,000 people. A similar gathering took place in John’s hometown of Liverpool with 30,000 people in attendance.
Many radio stations played Lennon music exclusively for several days in a row.
Although John’s death was similar to Michael’s in terms of public reaction, media coverage and cultural impact, another pop music icon passed on under much more eerily parallel circumstances.
His career was fading. His performances had fallen far below expectations with the resultant criticism from the entertainment press. He appeared unhealthy, but he and his handlers decided it was time for a summer comeback tour.
Just like in Jackson’s case, the tour never happened. In August of 1977, Elvis Presley was found dead on the floor of his Graceland home by his fiancee, Ginger Alden.
His death was the lead story on all of the broadcast networks except for CBS, which made it second to a Panama Canal story, possibly because Walter Cronkite was away on vacation.
For years insiders at the CBS newsroom were said to have repeated the words “remember Elvis,” because the network felt as if it had been remiss in its coverage of the star.
The day the Elvis music died dominated the media cycle for weeks on end. Much like the death of Jackson, the cause of Elvis’s death would remain a mystery and consume massive amounts of media airtime.
Early reporting indicated that Presley died from a cardiac arrhythmia, which fit with the excess weight he was carrying. But an autopsy of the legendary singer showed large quantities of a host of drugs including Morphine, Demerol, Valium, Codeine and Quaaludes, some of which were also found in Jackson’s home.
The passing of Jackson, Lennon and Elvis invites the kind of speculation that, like their iconic images, goes on forever.
James Hirsen, J.D., M.A. in media psychology, is a media analyst, teacher of mass media and entertainment law at Biola University, and professor at Trinity Law School.
Lisa Marie Presley: Michael Jackson Feared Elvis-like Death
In Celebrities, Culture, Music on June 28, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Those close to Michael Jackson are searching their memory banks for clues to explain the tragic loss.
Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis, remembered a warning sign from years past that she had received, which in light of emerging information surrounding Jackson’s death is unsettling.
Lisa Marie, in a post on her MySpace page, revealed a conversation she had with Michael when she was married to him. She remembered how, during the discussion, the talk turned to the manner in which her father had died.
“I am afraid that I am going to end up like him, the way he did,” Michael confessed. The pop singer was alluding to the tragic death by overdose that Elvis suffered.
Lisa Marie blogged that she had immediately “tried to deter him from the idea at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that.”
According to Presley, she grew tired from “her quest to save him from certain self-destructive behavior.”
She added, “His family and his loved ones also wanted to save him from this as well but didn’t know how and this was 14 years ago. We all worried that this would be the outcome then.”
Farrah Fawcett, Angel in Waiting
In Celebrity News, Culture on June 26, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Farrah Fawcett, Angel in Waiting |
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It’s not a typical celebrity passing. In American pop culture terms, Farrah Fawcett was an icon. She burst onto the Hollywood scene with her sparkling smile, sweet nature and blonde windblown tresses that set hairstyle trends for a decade. Farrah’s image adorned magazine covers galore, but more importantly her poster was tacked onto teen lockers, shop halls and office walls. All-American places. All-American dream girl. She was cheerleader, prom queen, sorority sweetheart and pageant winner all rolled into one. And she graced her way right on up to full-fledged movie star. Farrah’s career, from “Charley’s Angels” to the reality genre, was a shining example of an actress who lithely coped with a changing media landscape. Amazingly, the role that defined her fame, that of glamorous detective Jill Monroe who took assignments from the mysterious Charley, only lasted a year. The TV show was such a hit Farrah became part of that unusual celebrity club of those stars known by their first names only. If you said Farrah, folks knew exactly who you were talking about. Like Betty Grable in an earlier era, Farrah became the pin-up girl of her generation. The photo of Farrah in a red bathing suit quickly became the biggest selling poster of all time with an unprecedented 12 million copies sold. Farrah proved she was more than just a pretty face when she took a part in an Off-Broadway play called “Extremities,” and she received critical acclaim. She then tackled a difficult subject in “The Burning Bed,” a TV-movie about an abused woman. It earned her an Emmy nomination. She starred in another complex made for TV film, “Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story.” And she garnered a second Emmy nomination for a miniseries “Small Sacrifices.” More critical praise for her acting came from her portrayal of a wayward wife to Robert Duvall’s character in “The Apostle.” When she appeared as herself in the 2005 reality show, “Chasing Farrah,” the public had a glimpse of the deep love she and Ryan O’Neil shared. The tender relationship supplied a sort of tonic to the public, which offset the disappointing failure of marriages that is so widespread from Hollywood to D.C. Looks like the Angel got her wings. |
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Stephen Colbert Out of the Conservative Closet?
In Culture, Politics, Television on April 19, 2009 at 9:35 pm
After a parody of the National Organization for Marriage’s “Gathering Storm” ad was featured on his show, a new theory emerged about cable satirist Stephen Colbert.
Could the Comedy Central star’s bits really contain right-of-center messages, making him a genuine closet conservative?
NOM released a statement to the press in which the group’s president, Maggie Gallagher, posited, “I’ve always thought Stephen Colbert was a double-agent, pretending to pretend to be a conservative, to pull one over on Hollywood. Now I’m sure.”
Colbert’s cable character, who is a loosely modeled caricature of Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, began the segment by showing the original NOM video in its entirety.
The comic shared that he “loved” the footage because it was “like watching The 700 Club and The Weather Channel at the same time.”
“Thank you Stephen for playing our ad in full on national television-for free. HRC eat your heart out. Plus we all had a great chuckle, too!” NOM Executive Director Brian Brown said.
Colbert pointed out that New York Governor David Paterson had introduced a bill to legalize gay marriage and cracked that he “thought Massachusetts would be a gay promised land, a ‘Gaysreal’ if you will, but then the same-sex chickens came home to gentrify their roost.”
He also snapped that gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed in New York because “it’s hard enough as it is to get a wedding announcement in the Times.”
James Hirsen is a N.Y. Times best selling author, commentator and news analyst
Tweeting with the Stars
In Celebrities, Culture, Entertainment and Media, law on April 5, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Lately Twitter has been getting a terrabyte’s worth of celebrity buzz.
After a tweeting addiction got pinned with the blame for John Mayer’s breakup with Jennifer Anniston, Mayer opined that posting on the micro blogging social network is “inherently silly and inherently dumb.”
He proceeded to put up a non-silly and fairly astute post on the subject of self-esteem.
“Living by the power of other people’s suggestion will slowly kill you. Genuine self esteem isn’t a roller coaster. It comes from within,” Mayer texted.
Look for esteem or something like it to end up in a new Mayer song.
Meanwhile Demi Moore’s Twitter wits may have helped save a life.
A distressed woman had sent the “Charlie’s Angels” star an ominous Twitter message that read: “Getting a knife, a big one that is sharp. Going to cut my arm down the whole arm so it doesn’t waste time.”
The alert actress and Ashton Kutcher spouse forwarded the terrible tweet to her 350,000 Twitter followers, adding this supplemental message: “Hope you are joking. Everyone I was very torn about responding or retweeting that woman’s post but felt uncomfortable just letting it go.”
Demi’s followers sprang into action and contacted the police who were able to find the woman and prevent the potential suicide.
“Thanks everyone for reaching out to the San Jose PD,” Moore later tweeted. “I am told they are aware and no need to call anymore. I do not know this woman…”
“It is my understanding that the situation was not a joke and that through the collective efforts here action was taken to provide help!” Moore added.
It just goes to show that social networks can be used for more than mere amusement.
They can be twitterly important and at times tweetastic.
BTY, I’m a twitterer, too, and if you’re so inclined please forward me your choicest news twips and H-tweets.
Twanks.
James Hirsen is a media analyst, teacher of mass media and entertainment law at Biola University and professor at Trinity Law School.
Barack Obama Raises the Dead
In Culture, entertainment, Music on January 5, 2009 at 8:42 amThe remaining members of legendary jam band “The Grateful Dead” were not getting along very well.
Fans of the group, who are known as “Deadheads,” were concerned that they would never again be able to sit cross-legged on a concert floor as their favorite San Fran group let loose with one of their trademark hour-long tunes.
But now, no doubt to the Deadheads’ delight, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzman, the original members of the Grateful Dead, have announced that they will do a tour in April 2009.
These days the group is simply known as “The Dead.” Interestingly, members haven’t toured together for four years.
Why the reconciliation? Barack Obama, of course.
The four rockers got together in October 2008 to perform at Penn State for an Obama fundraiser.
Three of the band members played an earlier Obama money generator in February 2008.
Hart told Rolling Stone that the Obama fest “broke the ice” and added, “We were able to let some of these skeletons in our closet just fall away.”
Elton John Slams Prop 8, Lauds Civil Unions
In celebrity, Culture, Politics on November 16, 2008 at 9:39 pmElton John and David Furnish may have had a ceremony to solidify their commitment, but John recently let the world know, “We’re not married. Let’s get that right. We have a civil partnership.”
John distanced himself from the protests that are taking place in cities across the U.S. “What is wrong with Proposition 8 is that they went for marriage,” he said.
John and Furnish came to the U.S. for the annual benefit for the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
“I don’t want to be married. I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership,” John advised.
“The word ‘marriage,’ I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships,” John added.
The dinner-fundraiser was hosted by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who hasn’t yet indicated whether he agrees with the legendary rocker or not.
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