Category: 5. Entertainment

Recording star Connie Francis says she is on the mend after a recent trip to the hospital to address some “extreme pain.”

The “Stupid Cupid” and “Lipstick on Your Collar” singer, who rose to fame in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, informed fans on Facebook that she is receiving care after undergoing tests and exams. “Thank you all for your kind thoughts, words and prayers,” she wrote Wednesday.

Earlier Wednesday, the 87-year-old “Pretty Little Baby” singer wrote on Facebook that she went to the hospital to learn more about the cause of her pain, which she said prompted her to call off an upcoming Fourth of July performance, her latest cancellation in recent weeks. Francis’ posts this week did not disclose much information about her condition, but a previous Facebook update provided some insight.

A week prior to her hospitalization, Francis announced on Facebook that she had been dealing with “pelvic pain on the right side” and underwent tests to determine “that this is due to a fracture.”

“It looks like I may have to rely on my wheelchair a little longer than anticipated,” she wrote, adding that she had to pull out of a then-upcoming performance.

Francis gave followers more information about her health in March, telling them in another Facebook post that she uses a wheelchair to avoid putting “undue pressure on a troublesome painful hip” and that she was awaiting stem cell therapy at the time.

Francis has spoken openly about her personal afflictions over the course of her career. She told the Village Voice in 2011 that she had been committed to several mental institutions in the ‘80s. She said she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after she was misdiagnosed with other mental health conditions, including bipolar disorder, ADD and ADHD.

The singer, also known for “Where the Boys Are” and “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool,” recently had her music go viral on TikTok as users use her “Pretty Little Baby” for videos.

“I’m still astounded by the popularity of ‘Pretty Little Baby,’” she said last week, thanking the A-listers who have used her hit in their social media videos.

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It takes a little over an hour for “Nobu” to marinate long enough to approach a point of complexity, not exactly bitter but no longer cloyingly sweet. Nobu Matsuhisa, the celebrated sushi master, is running quality-control checks in one of his restaurants. A poor chef is sweating the test so badly, he won’t need soy sauce soon enough. His dish keeps being sent back: Chop the chives finer. Why is this pile of raw crudo smaller? Why did you paint a line of salt instead of a dot? The scene goes on, excruciatingly. A few minutes later, Robert De Niro — an early investor and co-founder — dominates a private board meeting with concerns about too-rapid growth. It’s not quite the ominous Waingro showdowns of “Heat” but in the ballpark.

Fastidiousness, precision and a kind of reputational exclusivity are at the heart of Matsuhisa’s enterprise. These are hard things to make a documentary about. But it’s also why Nobu needed to come to Beverly Hills for his concept take root — not just any Los Angeles but the ’80s-era boomtown of power lunches and spend-to-impress dining. Spago’s Wolfgang Puck makes an appearance in director Matt Tyrnauer’s half-interesting film, fawning over his longtime friend sitting next to him but not quite articulating the essence of their revolution: high-end branding. You wish more time was spent on that conceptual idea, enabled by celebrities throwing around money on food they barely ate.

The kind of doc that “Nobu” more often resembles (as do most foodie-targeted profiles) is a gentle chronology of a humble genius and everyday guy who just happens to fly private. Matsuhisa bows to euphoric local fishmongers, does a lot of hugs and selfies with his staff, visits his roots in Japan and Peru. There are family interviews and a detour to Alaska, where, years before he had a 300-person nightly waitlist, an early restaurant of his caught fire — in the bad literal way (Tyrnauer cuts to the Anchorage newspaper headline). These false starts are somehow exhausting, lacking in suspense. He contemplated suicide, then came to California.

The food sails by: wedges of black cod with miso, delicate plates of thinly sliced fish adorned with tweezer-manipulated herbs. All of it is crazy-making and delicious. Still, apart from former Los Angeles Times food editor Ruth Reichl, who witnessed the rise of Nobu as it happened, there are few on-camera voices who speak directly to Matsuhisa’s gifts and experimentation with form. 2011’s “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” does a better job of delivering the intimate discipline of cutting and shaping. More testimony to the experience of eating at Nobu would have helped this feel less like a commercial.

“Nobu” is a film oddly unconcerned with the communal experience of dining. We hear about the way his sushi workstations are elevated (a “stage,” Matsuhisa calls them) and that’s central to the performance going on here, also the remove. Something clicks when the film heads to Nobu Malibu and visits the table of supermodel Cindy Crawford, whose “Cindy rice,” a dish he invented for her, adorns the menu. There’s a deep mutual gratitude between them that goes back years. An appreciation of the finer things? No doubt. Game recognizing game? Definitely.

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, will no longer be able to enter Australia after releasing a song that praises Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Tony Burke, Australia’s home affairs minister, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Wednesday that the country had canceled his visa in early May, around the time “Heil Hitler” was released.

Ye has visited the country frequently since marrying Bianca Censori, who is from Melbourne.

“If someone argued that antisemitism was rational, I would not let them come here,” Burke said. “[Ye] has been coming to Australia for a long time … and he’s made a lot of offensive comments.”

The song proved to be the final strike for Ye. First shared in a social media post on X, “Heil Hitler” as been widely denounced for its racial epithets and antisemitism. It was also subsequently banned on most streaming platforms.

In the song, Ye sampled an infamous speech made by Hitler in 1935 at Krupp Factory, two years after he was appointed chancellor of the Nazi party.

Its music video, released May 8, shows a group of individuals dressed in animal skins reciting the song’s lyrics.

Ye’s behavior has long been controversial, but his antisemitism in recent years has put former colleagues in an awkward position.

John Legend, whose 2013 effort “Love in the Future” was executive produced by Ye, had a clear response in a recent interview.

“It never affects me personally, but just the whole story is sad. Like, seeing this guy praise Hitler, seeing this guy be this force of hate and just vitriol and nastiness,” Legend said during an appearance on New York’s Hot 97 radio show. “All the things he’s done to make the world more beautiful and interesting, for him to be this now, it’s sad. It’s just sad.”

He clarified that during his time on Ye’s G.O.O.D. Music label between 2004 and 2016, he never saw evidence that the rapper was “obsessed with Hitler.”

Legend added that despite Ye’s recent behavior, he has no regrets over their past collaborations: “I’m so glad we did what we did together.”

On Episode One of Season Three of Homemade Live, Chef Joel Gamoran visits with legendary chef and TV host, Lidia Bastianich. Building on the versatility of turkey, Chef Gamoran makes a B&B cocktail that features turkey broth.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

● 1 cup turkey broth (homemade or low-sodium for best flavor)
● 3 ounces bourbon
● 2 dashes Worcestershire sauce (choose a rich, flavorful brand)
● 2 dashes vinegar-based hot sauce
● ½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
● 1 pinch cayenne pepper (optional, for spice)
● Wheels of lemon, fresh ginger, or pickled vegetables for garnish, as desired

TO PREPARE

STEP ONE. Warm the turkey broth in a small saucepan over low heat until just warm to the touch.

STEP TWO. Add 1½ oz bourbon to each mug and top with with Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, celery salt, lemon juice, and cayenne (if using).

STEP THREE. Add ½ cup of warm broth to the mug and stir.  Garnish as you wish.

This latest move follows the Union Ministry of Home Affairs’ recommendation to block 16 Pakistan-based YouTube channels after the recent act of terrorism in Pahalgam.

The Ministry alleged that these channels spread communally sensitive and provocative content as well as false information that targets India, its security agencies and armed forces. Besides the YouTube channels, social media profiles of numerous public figures from Pakistan, including actors Saba Qamar, Mahira Khan, Ahad Raza Mir, Yumna Zaidi, Danish Taimoor, Fawad Khan, Hania Aamir, and Mawra Hocane remain geo-blocked in India.

Moreover, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has told Indian OTT platforms, digital intermediaries, and media streaming services to stop distributing web series, songs, podcasts, films, and other media content hailing from Pakistan. The Ministry’s advisory mentioned national security as the primary concern. 

For a couple of decades, Ellen Jovin co-ran a communication company with her husband to help executives better express themselves. Then, in 2018, outside a subway station in New York, she set up a folding table and put up a sign, and the grammar table was born.

Reviews compared it to Lucy’s therapy stall in “The Peanuts” or the “Ask Ann Landers” advice column. Jovin then took the table on the road, setting it up in 50 states, and eventually writing the book “Rebel With a Clause,” answering questions she’d heard on the road, from “What’s the Oxford comma?” to the debate over split infinitives.

Now, Jovin’s husband, Brandt Johnson, has made a documentary about that road trip. It’s called “Rebel With a Clause.”

Here & Now‘s Robin Young has spoken to Jovin throughout the years and sat down with both her and Johnson at a screening of the documentary for the Boston Film Festival.

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Robin Young produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Young also produced it for the web.

This segment aired on July 3, 2025.

Michael Madsen, the rough-and-tumble actor best known for his work in the Quentin Tarantino films Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2, The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, died Thursday morning. He was 67.

Madsen was found unresponsive by deputies responding to a 911 call at his Malibu home and pronounced dead at 8:25 a.m., a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.

Liz Rodriguez, his rep at EMR Media Entertainment, told THR “we understand Michael had a cardiac arrest.”

Madsen’s official bio notes that he “balanced intensity with introspection … whether delivering chilling dialogue or quietly capturing a moment behind the camera, his commitment to storytelling remained constant. He brought both edge and soul to every role, and his enduring influence on American cinema is undeniable.”

His big screen body of work included WarGames (1983), The Natural (1984), The Doors (1991), Thelma & Louise (1991), Free Willy (1993), Species (1995), Donnie Brasco (1997), Die Another Day (2002), Sin City (2005) and Scary Movie 4 (2006).

He has 346 acting credits in IMDb in a career that began in the 1980s.

“Fame is a two-edged sword,” he told THR’s Scott Roxborough in 2018. “There are a lot of blessings but also a lot of heavy things that come with it. I think it has a lot to do with the characters I’ve played. I think I’ve been more believable than I should have been. I think people really fear me. They see me and go: ‘Holy shit, there’s that guy!’

“But I’m not that guy. I’m just an actor. I’m a father, I’ve got seven children. I’m married, I’ve been married 20 years. When I’m not making a movie, I’m home, in pajamas, watching The Rifleman on TV, hopefully with my 12-year-old making me a cheeseburger. I sure as hell had my rabble-rousing days, but sooner or later you have to get over that and move on.”

He appeared in dozens of films in the past five years alone, many of which were forgettable.

“Well, sometimes people forget that sometimes you have to pay the mortgage, sometimes you have to put your kids through school,” he said. “You can’t always pick the greatest script. And you pick a project you probably shouldn’t be involved in and then you have to live with it all your life.”

One of three kids, Madsen was born in Chicago on Sept. 25, 1957. His father, Calvin, was a firefighter with the Chicago Fire Department, and his mother, Elaine, was an author turned filmmaker who won an Emmy in 1983 for producing the documentary Better Than It Has to Be, about the history of movie-making in the Windy City. His folks divorced when he was 11.

Inspired by Robert Mitchum in the war movie Heaven Knows Mr. Allison (1957), Madsen began his career at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, where he learned from John Malkovich and appeared in Of Mice and Men as Carlson, the ranch hand who kills an innocent dog.

After moving to Los Angeles and working as a mechanic at a gas station in Beverly Hills, he appeared in two episodes of NBC’s St. Elsewhere in 1982, then played a cop in WarGames, directed by John Badham.

In Tarantino’s directorial debut film, Reservoir Dogs (1992), Madsen landed the role of the ultra-cruel Mr. Blonde. He said he really wanted to play Mr. Pink because he had more lines with the veteran Harvey Keitel, but Steve Buscemi got that part. It was Mr. Blonde or nothing, Tarantino told him.

“I had never met Quentin before,” he told The Independent in a 2016 interview. “I walked in the room at the 20th Century Fox lot and he was standing there with his arms folded, Harvey sitting on the couch in bare feet.” He did get to cut off a cop’s ear in the movie, however.

For Tarantino’s follow-up, Pulp Fiction (1994), Madsen declined the role of Vincent Vega, which went to John Travolta in what would be an Oscar-nominated turn. Madsen instead starred as the mobster Sonny Black in the crime film Donnie Brasco, directed by Mike Newell.

In the martial arts action films Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and 2, released in 2003 and 2004, Madsen portrayed the assassin Budd (code name Sidewinder) and strip club bouncer who is an early target of the avenging Bride (Uma Thurman).

He then was the quiet cowpoke Joe Gage in The Hateful Eight (2015) and Sheriff Hackett on Bounty Law, the fictional 1960s TV show at the center of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

Survivors include his younger sister, Oscar-nominated actress Virginia Madsen. One of his children with wife DeAnna Madsen, Hudson, died by suicide in 2022.

Madsen also was a published poet and accomplished photographer, and he has a book, Tears For My Father: Outlaw Thoughts and Poems, due out next year.

Writes Tarantino in the foreword: “For me, the real journey that Michael the writer is exploring is what it means to be a man in a world where the notions of manhood that some of us grew up with are barely remembered. But then if everybody embarked on the hero’s journey, everybody would be a hero, wouldn’t they?”

Hilary Lewis contributed to this report.

F1: The Movie may have just released, but it seems like it won’t be the last time Brad Pitt stars in a sports movie.

Pitt was a guest on a Wednesday episode of the New Heights podcast, hosted by Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce and former Philadelphia Eagles’ center Jason Kelce. During their conversation, Jason asked the Oscar winner if he wants to do another sports film after watching his “very cinematic” film, F1.

The actor responded, “I love a sports movie when they work … It’s the greatest. I look back at Gene Hackman and Hoosiers and [Robert] Redford and The Natural, there’s even something more. Sports for me, even one game is an entire lifetime.”

While speaking to the Kelce brothers, who have both won Super Bowl championships, he continued, “We watch you guys, we watch your fate. We watch how you deal with adversity, how you fight through it and it’s really an amazing metaphor for a lifetime.”

Before F1, one of Pitt’s most loved projects was in 2011’s Moneyball, which The Hollywood Reporter included in its list of the best baseball movies of all time. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including a nom for Pitt in the best actor category.

“When we get it right in these sports movies and I felt like we really got it right in Moneyball in a lovely, beautiful way to add to that lexicon,” he said. “I think this one does too on a really big level because the racing is probably the most visceral racing experience you’ll ever have. But like all great sports movies, when they’re great, there’s also a story there. You’re moved by it. And were funny as fuck. So, we got that to deliver it, but this kind of spiritual ending to it all, I’m really proud about.”

Elsewhere in the podcast, Pitt explained that he enjoys watching what the new generation of actors is doing. “I like to see what they are up against and the way they negotiate and work their way through it. They enjoy it more. We were more uptight and it had to be about acting and ‘You didn’t sell out, you didn’t sell out.’ But now it’s like, ‘We can be artists in many different arenas, so let’s do it and let’s enjoy it.’”

However, he concluded by sharing some advice. “But they also get caught up in you ‘have to have a franchise’ or ‘have to have a superhero.’ But I keep saying, ‘Don’t! Don’t! One day they’ll die.’”

Hollywood actor Michael Madsen died in his California home on Thursday morning, US media reported. He was 67.

He was found unresponsive by authorities responding to a 911 call at his Malibu home and pronounced dead at 08:25 local time (BST), according to The Hollywood Reporter.

He is believed to have died of cardiac arrest, according to a representative.

Madsen was a prolific actor, best known for his roles in the Quentin Tarantino movies Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill: Vol. 2, The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

In one of the seminal movies of the 1990s, Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, he played psychotic thief Mr Blonde, who shocked audiences in a scene where he cut off a policeman’s ear.

During a career spanning four decades, Madsen also took on a number of tv roles.

In both tv and film, he often portrayed the law enforcers like sheriffs and detectives, as well as the law breakers, such as a washed-out hitman in the Kill Bill franchise.

In recent years, he lent his voices to video games, including Grand Theft Auto III and the Dishonored series.

Michael Madsen was born in Chicago in September 1957. His father was a Navy veteran of World War Two who later became a firefighter, and his mother was a filmmaker.

He was the brother of Virginia Madsen, who is known for several movies including Sideways, for which she was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe.

He was married three times, and is survived by four children, including actor Christian Madsen.

Madsen divorced his wife of 28 years, DeAnna, in 2024, over the death of their son Hudson, according to People magazine.

The actor Michael Madsen has died aged 67 at his home in Malibu, according to authorities and his representatives. No foul play is suspected, the sheriff’s department confirmed, after deputies responded to the Los Angeles county home following a call to the emergency services on Thursday morning.

He was pronounced dead at 8.25am. In an email, Madsen’s manager, Ron Smith, confirmed his client had died from cardiac arrest.

A statement from Smith and another manager, Susan Ferris, along with publicist Liz Rodriguez said:

“In the last two years Michael Madsen has been doing some incredible work with independent film including upcoming feature films Resurrection Road, Concessions and Cookbook for Southern Housewives, and was really looking forward to this next chapter in his life.

“Michael was also preparing to release a new book called Tears for My Father: Outlaw Thoughts and Poems, currently being edited. Michael Madsen was one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors, who will be missed by many.”

Over a four-decade career, Madsen had won acclaim for his portrayals of often enigmatic and frequently wise-cracking tough guys in films including Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Reservoir Dogs, Thelma & Louise and Donnie Brasco.

He also features in later Tarantino films including The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Other credits amongst the 346 listed in IMDb include The Doors, Free Willy, Species, Die Another Day, Sin City and Scary Movie 4.

Madsen began his career in Chicago as part of the Steppenwolf Theatre company as as apprentice to John Malkovich before debuting on the big screen in 1983 sci-fi WarGames.

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter in 2018, Madsen spoke about his industry typecasting, calling fame “a two-edged sword. here are a lot of blessings but also a lot of heavy things that come with it. I think it has a lot to do with the characters I’ve played. I think I’ve been more believable than I should have been. I think people really fear me. They see me and go: ‘Holy shit, there’s that guy!’

“But I’m not that guy. I’m just an actor. I’m a father, I’ve got seven children. I’m married, I’ve been married 20 years. When I’m not making a movie, I’m home, in pyjamas, watching The Rifleman on TV, hopefully with my 12-year-old making me a cheeseburger. I sure as hell had my rabble-rousing days, but sooner or later you have to get over that and move on.”

The brother of the actor Virginia Madsen, he was married three times and had six children, one of whom pre-deceases him.

More to follow …