5 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(02/07/07 5:34pm)
LOS ANGELES -- A production company that made the action film "Sahara" reneged on a deal to give best-selling author Clive Cussler creative control of the movie based on his book, his attorney said Friday.\nAttorney Bert Fields told jurors at the outset of the trial of dueling lawsuits between Cussler and Crusader Entertainment that the agreement was breached when vital story lines were eliminated and Cussler's script suggestions were ignored.\nCussler and Crusader Entertainment, a company owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz, are each seeking millions of dollars in damages.\n"It was supposed to be Mr. Cussler who decided what would be cut out," Fields said. "They made this movie even if he didn't approve of all these changes."\nThe 2005 film, starring Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz, was envisioned as the springboard for a lucrative franchise like the "Indiana Jones" or "James Bond" series, based on Cussler's character Dirk Pitt.\nThe movie grossed $68 million in the United States, but Fields said the production cost about $160 million.\nAttorneys for Crusader Entertainment have portrayed Cussler as uncooperative and meddlesome, and claimed he misled the moviemakers by saying his books had sold 100 million copies. They claim he sold less than half that number.\nAlan Rader, an attorney representing the company, said in his opening statement that Cussler was granted rights of approval that were replaced with a less authoritative consultation role when a director was hired.\n"He doesn't get final say," Rader said. "Every single complaint Mr. Cussler has made about changes to the screenplay happened after the director was hired."\nThe trial, expected to last nine weeks, could provide an inside look at behind-the-scenes dealing in Hollywood.\nOn one side is Cussler, who has written 32 books.\nOn the other is Anschutz, one of the richest men in the United States, who co-owns the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and owns Anschutz Entertainment Group, which operates Los Angeles' Staples Center. He also owns several Major League Soccer teams, including the Los Angeles Galaxy.\nBoth sides agree a deal was reached that gave Cussler certain consultation and approval rights for "Sahara."\nFields told jurors his client initially sought $40 million for the movie rights to some of his books, and a compromise was later reached that gave Cussler the ability to approve the screenplay for "Sahara" and consultation rights for a second movie that was never made.\nCussler's rights to the first film "stay intact without limit and just go on and on," Fields said.\nNumerous screenwriters were brought in to polish the script. Some versions were approved by Cussler but Fields estimates about 50 "fundamental" changes were made that strayed from the book and doomed the film.\n"They tore the heart out of the story," Fields said. "The picture died, lost all of this money because they gutted it."\nCalled the "Grandmaster of Adventure," Cussler, 75, has written numerous novels featuring Pitt. Cussler's book "Raise the Titanic!" was made for the big screen in 1980 but didn't do well at the box office.
(03/27/06 6:53am)
LOS ANGELES - Singer Buck Owens, the flashy rhinestone cowboy who shaped the sound of country music with hits like "Act Naturally" and brought the genre to TV on the long-running "Hee Haw," died Saturday at the age of 76.\nOwens died at his home in Bakersfield, Calif., said family spokesman Jim Shaw. The cause of death was not immediately known. Owens had undergone throat cancer surgery in 1993 and was hospitalized with pneumonia in 1997.\nHis career was one of the most phenomenal in country music, with a string of more than 20 No. 1 records, most released from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.\nThey were recorded with a honky-tonk twang that came to be known throughout California as the "Bakersfield Sound," named for the town 100 miles north of Los Angeles that Owens called home.\n"I think the reason he was so well-known and respected by a younger generation of country musicians was because he was an innovator and rebel," said Shaw, who played the keyboard in Owens' band, the Buckaroos. "He did it out of the Nashville establishment. He had a raw edge."\nOwens, elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, was modest when describing his aspirations.\n"I'd like to be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs and had a hell of a time," he said in 1992.\nAn indefatigable performer, Owens played a red, white and blue guitar with fireball fervor. He and the Buckaroos wore flashy rhinestone suits in an era when flash was as important to country music as fiddles.\n"When people start looking back on his career, they are going to be surprised by the number of things he did first," said guitarist Roy Clark, who worked with Owens on "Hee Haw." "He left a great legacy in country music."\nAmong his biggest hits were "Together Again" (also recorded by Emmylou Harris), "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail," "Love's Gonna Live Here," "My Heart Skips a Beat" and "Waitin' in Your Welfare Line."\nOwens was also the answer to this music trivia question: What country star had a hit song that was later done by the Beatles?\n"Those guys were phenomenal," Owens once said.\nRingo Starr recorded "Act Naturally" twice, singing lead on the Beatles' 1965 version and recording it as a duet with Owens in 1989. The song, by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison, tells of a poor soul who foresees a movie career playing "a man who's sad and lonely, and all I gotta do is act naturally. ... Might win an Oscar, you can never tell."\nIn addition to music, Owens had a highly visible TV career as co-host of "Hee Haw" from 1969 to 1986. With Clark, he led viewers through a potpourri of country music and hayseed humor.\n"It's an honest show," Owens told The Associated Press in 1995. "There's no social message -- no crusade. It's fun and simple."\nOwens himself could be rebellious, choosing among other things to label what he did "American music" rather than country.\n"I took a little heat," he once said. "People asked me, 'Isn't country music good enough for you?'"\nHe also criticized the syrupy arrangements of some country singers, saying "assembly-line, robot music turns me off."\nAfter his string of hits, Owens stayed away from the recording scene for a decade, returning in 1988 to record another No. 1 record, "Streets of Bakersfield," with Dwight Yoakam.\nYoakam said he saw Owens just days before his death.\n"Even though he seemed in a somewhat fragile physical state, he was emotionally exuberant and still living life in a forward motion, discussing a variety of plans for his future," Yoakam said in a statement. "I will cherish, forever, the musical moments he graciously shared with me during his life. I will be eternally grateful for his fatherly chastisements, encouragement and, ultimately, his friendship and love."\nHe spent much of his time away from music concentrating on his business interests, which included a Bakersfield TV station and radio stations in Bakersfield and Phoenix.\n"I never wanted to hang around like the punch-drunk fighter," he told The Associated Press in 1992.\nHe had moved to Bakersfield in 1951, hoping to find work in the thriving juke joints of what in the years before suburban sprawl was a truck-stop town on Highway 99, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area.\n"We played rhumbas and tangos and sambas, and we played Bob Wills music, lots of Bob Wills music," he said, referring to the bandleader who was the king of Western swing.\n"And lots of rock 'n' roll," he added.\nOwens started recording in the mid-1950s, but gained little success until 1963 with "Act Naturally," his first No. 1 single.\nAlvis Edgar Owens Jr. was born in 1929 outside Sherman, Texas, the son of a sharecropper. With opportunities scarce during the Depression, the family moved to Arizona when he was 8.\nHe dropped out of school at age 13 to haul produce and harvest crops, and by 16 he was playing music in taverns.\nHe once told an audience, "When I was a little bitty kid, I used to dream about playing the guitar and singing like some of those great people that we had the old, thick records of."\nOwens' first wife, Bonnie Owens, sometimes performed with him and went on to become a leading backup singer after their divorce in 1955. She had occasional solo hits in the '60s, as well as successful duets with her second husband, Merle Haggard.\nOne of her two sons with Owens also became a singer, using the name Buddy Alan. He had a Top 10 hit in 1968, "Let the World Keep on a-Turnin'," and recorded a number of duets with his father.\nIn addition to Buddy, Owens is survived by two other sons, Michael and John.
(01/06/06 3:42am)
LOS ANGELES -- First music. Now movies.\nJon Stewart, who worked the Grammys in 2001 and 2002, was tapped Thursday to host the 2006 Oscars.\n"As a performer, I'm truly honored to be hosting the show," Stewart said, then joked: "Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can't help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal."\nThe 43-year-old star of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" follows a long line of standup comedians who have hosted the Oscars. Over the years, Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Whoopi Goldberg and Crystal have held down the podium.\n"I love a comic who can deal with the unexpected and has the ability to run the room," said Gil Cates, the producer of this year's Academy Awards, airing March 5 on ABC. "The speed of mind and fearlessness of a comic really adds to the show."\nSpeculation swirled about a replacement for last year's host, Chris Rock, who said he would not be coming back. Frequently mentioned candidates included Goldberg, Steve Martin and late-night hosts Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien.\nRock drew younger viewers, but his barbs skewering Jude Law, Tobey Maguire and others alienated some academy members. Rock is currently producing and narrating "Everybody Hates Chris," a UPN sitcom based on his life.\nWhile Rock has been known to offend some people, Stewart also can stir the pot with his own caustic brand of humor. Stewart and his team of comedy writers often poke fun at mainstream politics and current events.\nHis efforts have obviously struck a chord. "The Daily Show" has earned seven Emmys and a Peabody award, while Stewart has won the 2005 Thurber Prize for American Humor for his book, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction."\nCates said he wasn't worried about hiring Rock and doesn't believe that Stewart will have any problems.\n"Jon knows the difference of being irreverent without being impolite," Cates said. "This is not a political show. I think he understands that."\nOne requirement to be the show's host is an appreciation for movies, Cates said. Although Stewart is mostly known for his TV show, he has appeared in several movies, including "The Faculty," "Death to Smoochy" and "Big Daddy."\n"He's a very, very popular entertainer with a mind that is quick, and you need that on a show like this," said Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.\nHowever, Stewart didn't enjoy his time spent on the other side of the red carpet. He once worked as a celebrity reporter covering the Oscars and said being cooped up with other journalists was like being in a zoo. In an interview with The Associated Press in 2000, he called the job "the granddaddy of humiliation"
(03/30/05 4:24am)
LOS ANGELES -- Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., who became a legal superstar after helping clear O.J. Simpson during a sensational murder trial in which he uttered the famous quote, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," died Tuesday. He was 67.\nCochran died of a brain tumor at his home in Los Angeles, his family said.\n"Certainly, Johnnie's career will be noted as one marked by 'celebrity' cases and clientele," his family said in a statement. "But he and his family were most proud of the work he did on behalf of those in the community."\nFor Cochran, Simpson's acquittal was the crowning achievement in a career notable for victories, often in cases with racial themes. He was a black man known for championing the causes of black defendants. Some of them, like Simpson, were famous, but more often than not they were unknowns.\n"The clients I've cared about the most are the No-Js, the ones who nobody knows," said Cochran.\nCochran was born Oct. 2, 1937, in Shreveport, La., the great-grandson of slaves, grandson of a sharecropper and son of an insurance salesman. He came to Los Angeles with his family in 1949, and in the 1950s, he became one of two dozen black students integrated into Los Angeles High School.\nHe came to idolize Thurgood Marshall, the attorney who persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw school segregation in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and who eventually would become the Supreme Court's first black justice.\nAfter graduating from UCLA, Cochran earned a law degree from Loyola University. He spent two years in the Los Angeles city attorney's office before establishing his own practice.\nCochran built his firm into a personal injury giant with more than 100 lawyers and offices around the country.\nAfter Simpson, Cochran stepped out of the criminal trial arena, concentrating instead on civil matters. For a time, he represented high-profile athletes and music stars in contract matters.\nHe remained a beloved figure in the black community, admired as a lawyer who was relentless in his pursuit of justice and as a philanthropist who helped fund a UCLA scholarship, a low-income housing complex and a New Jersey legal academy, among other charitable endeavors.
(09/12/01 4:36am)
LOS ANGELES -- Terrorist attacks involving four jetliners bound for California brought the state to a near standstill Tuesday, closing government buildings, offices, airports and even Disneyland.\nThe Navy was on high alert, restricting access to eight of its bases along California's coast and one in Fallon, Nev.\nThree of the airplanes were bound for Los Angeles International Airport and the fourth was en route to San Francisco International Airport. Both airports were evacuated and closed.\nBomb-sniffing dogs patrolled airport hallways in San Francisco and a counseling center was set up for relatives. \n"They brought America to our knees and it scares the hell out of me," said traveler Beth Tabler of San Diego, waiting for a flight at Lindbergh Field.\nCourts were closed Tuesday and Gov. Gray Davis declared a state of emergency that allows suspects charged with a felony to be jailed as long as seven days before a probable cause hearing, said Barry Goode, the governor's legal affairs adviser.\nDavis also ordered state buildings to be evacuated and set up a makeshift command post at a California Highway Patrol training academy. Twenty-four CHP helicopters were monitoring bridges, aqueducts and the state's two nuclear power plants.\nSan Francisco closed its City Hall and tightened security at the Golden Gate Bridge and other landmarks.\nCalifornia Highway Patrol Commissioner D.O. "Spike" Helmick said authorities had received threats "but none of them have been verified so we are not aware of any real threat to our people."\nHelmick wouldn't elaborate on the threats but CHP spokesman Tom Marshall said most were "in the crank category."\nAmong the major tourist attractions closed were Knott's Berry Farm in Orange County and Los Angeles' Library Tower, at 1,017 feet the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.\n"I was like, 'Get me out of here,"' said Angela Nalu, reporting for her first day at an office in the Library Tower. "There was so much tension in the room. Everybody was trying to do their work and get out."\nThe Second Annual Latin Grammy Awards, scheduled for Tuesday night in Los Angeles, were postponed along with the 53rd annual Primetime Emmy Awards scheduled for Sunday.\nFlights were to resume out of San Francisco on Wednesday, but officials warned travelers to expect high security and long delays. It wasn't clear when flights would resume at other major airports.\nCoast Guard vessels escorted ships entering California ports and inspectors checked cargo before allowing entry into Long Beach and Los Angeles, which handle about 35 percent of the cargo coming into America.\nAt the San Ysidro port of entry east of San Diego -- the world's busiest land border crossing -- the border was open but traffic was backed up into Tijuana, Mexico, while federal agents searched each northbound vehicle.