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Tag: Sitcoms

  • Catherine O’Hara’s Friends and Collaborators Pay Tribute

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    The friends, former collaborators, and countless admirers of Catherine O’Hara are paying public tribute to her after her death on January 30 following a brief illness. The comic actress was an Emmy Award winner and a beloved entertainer across generations. Hollywood and beyond mourned her 50-year career, including her co-stars from Home Alone, her fellow nominees from her recent project The Studio, and longtime collaborators from what ended up being her final project, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

    Below, find all the celebrity tributes to the legendary Catherine O’Hara.

    Schitt’s Creek co-creator Dan Levy spoke on behalf of him and his father Eugene Levy on Instagram. “What a gift to have gotten to dance in the warm glow of Catherine O’Hara’s brilliance for all those years,” he wrote. “Having spent over fifty years collaborating with my Dad, Catherine was extended family before she ever played my family. It’s hard to imagine a world without her in it. I will cherish every funny memory I was fortunate enough to make with her.” Busy Philipps commented on his post “sending you and your family and her family so much love.”

    The comedians remembered the “sweetest angel” when they raised a toast in her honor during their comedy show in Austin, Texas on Friday night. “I met her when she was 18 years of age, and all these years later, she’s been the greatest, most brilliant, kindest, sweetest angel that any of us worked with,” Short said. “God bless her.” The two raised their glasses as the audience cheered.

    Burton, who directed O’Hara in both Beetlejuice films, shared a photo of them together, alongside the cast of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. He wrote, “Catherine, I love you . This picture shows how much light you gave to all of us. You were a special part of my life and after life.”

    Martin Scorsese directed Catherine O’Hara in After Hours, a “one bad night” comedy that has achieved cult status over the years. “To lose Catherine O’Hara… it feels impossible to me, and to millions of others as well, I’m sure,” the director said in a statement obtained by IndieWire. His daughter, Francesca, posted a screenshot of their FaceTime when she presumably shared the news. “For me, and for most of my friends, it’s SCTV: all I have to do is think about one of the characters she created, like Lola Heatherton or Dusty Towne, and I’m laughing. Catherine was a true comic genius, a true artist, and a wonderful human being. I was blessed to be able to work with her on After Hours, and I’m going to miss her presence and her artistry. We all are.”

    Balaban, who co-starred with O’Hara in many a Christopher Guest film, said he was “devastated” by her passing and praised the actress for her “gift of loopiness,” something he ascribed to being Canadian. “Catherine O’Hara had an extraordinary kindness that so many Canadians seem to have,” he told Page Six. “She also had the gift of loopiness that so many Canadian comic actors have, too — Eugene Levy, Marty Short, John Candy, for example.” Balaban suspects that the Canadian loopiness and kindness both come from “having to wear a woolen hat with earflaps for too many months of the year.”

    “Catherine was as smart as a person can be, but never showy,” he added. “And effortlessly creative with material. She had great generosity, which she would often use to bolster another actor’s performance…And you have to love a person who, after they beat you at a big, big hand of poker, apologizes.”

    In an Instagram post, Keaton said he and O’Hara “go back before the first Beetlejuice.” He also shared his condolences with O’Hara’s husband, Bo Welch. “She’s been my pretend wife, my pretend nemesis and my real life, true friend,” he wrote. “This one hurts. Man am I gonna miss her.”

    Baldwin, who co-starred with O’Hara in Beetlejuice, called the actor “one of the greatest comic talents in the movie business” in a statement to Page Six. “She had a quality that was all her own and my sympathy goes out to Bo and their family,” he said. His wife, Dancing With the Stars contestant Hilaria Baldwin, posted a TikTok of Baldwin and O’Hara on the set of the 1988 film.

    McKean worked with O’Hara going all the way back to SCTV — a troupe that has already lost John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Tony Rosato, and Harold Ramis. “Only one Catherine O’Hara, and now none. Heartbreaking,” he wrote on Twitter. “Catherine’s knowledge of humanity was always at the center of her comedy, no matter how absurd the character or loopy the material. She could play heartless because she was warm, brainless because she was brilliant, careless because she truly cared. Everyone loved her and everyone learned from her. This is a deep loss.”

    She was nominated for an Emmy for her work on Seth Rogen’s award-winning series The Studio for playing his former boss, studio executive Patty Leigh. “I told O’Hara when I first met her I thought she was the funniest person I’d ever had the pleasure of watching on screen,” Rogen wrote in a tribute on Instagram. “Home Alone was the movie that made me want to make movies. Getting to work with her was a true honour.” Variety reports that season two of the series had just started filming.

    Macaulay Culkin starred as O’Hara’s son Kevin McCallister in the Home Alone films. He mourned O’Hara on Instagram with side-by-side photos of them together when he was a child, then again as an adult. “Mama,” he wrote. “I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you.” In the comments, he added, “I’m mad about this…”

    Actor-director Ron Howard directed O’Hara in the 1994 film The Paper and wrote on X that “This is shattering news.”

    Pedro Pascal and Catherine O’Hara acted together in the second season of HBO’s The Last of Us. “Eternally grateful,” Pascal wrote on Instagram. “There is less light in my world, this lucky world that had you, will keep you, always.”

    O’Hara worked with Theroux on the 2024 film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. He posted a photo of her on-set chair from that production.

    Amy Sedaris and O’Hara both voiced characters in the 2005 movie Chicken Little, but Sedaris’s admiration went beyond that. “Catherine O’Hara was such an inspiration to me,” Sedaris wrote alongside a clip of O’Hara in Waiting for Guffman on Instagram. “I was obsessed with her and SCTV.”

    Actor Paul Walter Hauser (Black Bird) talked about loving O’Hara during press for his 2025 film The Naked Gun, then posted a tribute when she died. “She was my Meryl Streep,” he wrote in his post. “I could watch her in anything. Didn’t matter how good or bad the film or show was. I wanted to see what she would do.”

    Rita Wilson and O’Hara never worked together, though they did come up in Hollywood at similar times and knew each other. Wilson paid tribute to O’Hara on Instagram. “A woman who was authentic and truthful in all she did,” Wilson called O’Hara in her post. “You saw it in her work, if you knew her you saw it in her life, and you saw it in her family.”

    Comedian Kevin Nealon and Catherine O’Hara crossed paths multiple times. In 1991, she hosted Saturday Night Live while he was still in the cast. He wrote about her on X. “From the chaos and heart of Home Alone to the unforgettable precision of Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek, she created characters we’ll rewatch again and again,” he wrote.

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    Jason P. Frank

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  • Tonight on ‘Abbott Elementary,’ Schwarber’s 4-home run game is enshrined in show’s ‘cinematic universe’

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    The stars aligned in August when the cast of “Abbott Elementary” went to Citizens Bank Park to film scenes for the show during a Phillies game. Kyle Schwarber blasted four home runs that night – becoming just the 21st player to do so in MLB history – on the way to a 19-4 win over the Atlanta Braves.

    Fans of the Emmy-winning ABC sitcom, now in its fifth season, can see how Quinta Brunson and company incorporated the surreal experience into tonight’s episode, which airs at 8:30 p.m.

    MORE: M. Night Shyamalan is making a TV show about the Magic 8 Ball

    The plan to film at Citizens Bank Park on Aug. 28 was set in motion by MLB Studios, which had reached out to Warner Brothers and the Phillies for permission to bring film crews to the ballpark. Schwarber had already been scheduled to make a cameo, but no one could have guessed that he was on the verge of a career night at the plate.

    “The baseball gods were smiling on us,” Nick Trotta, MLB’s vice president of global media programming and licensing, told MLB.com. “After the second homer, I joked with the writer, ‘This has to be part of the episode, because he’s gonna hit a third one.’ And then he hits a third one and a fourth one. So while the show is completely fictional, Kyle Schwarber’s historic four-homer game is now part of Abbott’s cinematic universe.”

    Abbott Phillies GameProvided Image/Disney/MLB

    ‘Abbott Elementary’ stars Quinta Brunson, Matthew Law, Lisa Ann Walter and Tyler James Williams are shown with fans in the stands at Citizens Bank Park during the Phillies game against the Atlanta Braves on Aug. 28, 2025.

    During the game, the main cast of “Abbott” was seated in Section 114 and shown on the Jumbotron. Signs posted outside that section notified fans that they might appear on camera during the filming.

    “During the game is where we caught some real extra bonus energy. Seeing our cast feed off what’s happening on the field, seeing Kyle Schwarber hit four home runs … oh my God, that was crazy,” Einhorn told MLB.com. “You can’t script that type of energy, and it really came across on the screen.”

    The premise of Wednesday’s episode is that the Abbott Elementary staff go to the Phillies game for Teacher Appreciation Night. The episode will include in-game footage of Schwarber’s home runs and Phillies public address announcer Dan Baker pumping up the crowd.

    Ralph Abbott PhilliesRalph Abbott PhilliesProvided Image/Disney/MLB

    ‘Abbott Elementary’ star Sheryl Lee Ralph is shown above at the Phillies game on Aug. 29, when the ABC sitcom filmed scenes at Citizens Bank Park.

    Einhorn recalled encouraging Schwarber to be himself on camera and not worry about acting. He said the show was striving to capture an authentic ballpark experience that differs from many other film projects set at professional sporting events but often shot at alternate athletic facilities.

    When the game ended, the “Abbott” cast took the field to film an apparent scene with Schwarber and get some photos with the Phillie Phanatic.

    Brunson, the star and showrunner, gushed about the experience in an Instagram post after the game and called it “one of our most incredible shoots.”

    The Phillies season came to a disappointing end last week with an extra-inning loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLDS. But for Phillies fans and Schwarber, who’s entering free agency this offseason, tonight’s episode of “Abbott” will always be a testament to the energy at Citizens Bank Park.

    “Quinta and the team definitely brought me some luck that night,” Schwarber told MLB.com.

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    Michael Tanenbaum

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  • ‘Abbott Elementary’ returns for Season 3 next week. Here’s what to know

    ‘Abbott Elementary’ returns for Season 3 next week. Here’s what to know

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    It’s back to school for fans of “Abbott Elementary” as the ABC sitcom returns next week.

    The series, which was created by and stars West Philadelphia-native Quinta Brunson, returns Wednesday, Feb. 7 with a special, hour-long Season 3 premiere. A new trailer shows what the staff of the titular Philly public school have been up to since viewers last saw them in the spring, and it’s clear that changes have been afoot.

    To commemorate the mockumentary’s return to TV, the “Abbott Elementary” team is launching a “Lunch Break” tour to donate meals and supplies to underserved schools across the country. The tour, which features a giant “lunch box vehicle,” will make a stop in Philadelphia on Friday, Feb. 2. No further information has been released about where the Philly stop will be.

    With just one week before “Abbott Elementary” returns, here’s what to know about Season 3:

    Who’s in the Season 3 cast?

    There will be some new faces this season. “Abbott Elementary” is welcoming actors Josh Segarra, Kimia Behpoornia and Benjamin Norris to recurring roles. The trio will portray “good-natured Philadelphia school district representatives who aim to bring fresh perspectives to their roles as school ambassadors,” Deadline reported.

    Segarra — known for roles in “The Other Two,” “Scream VI” and “She-Hulk” — will play a character named Manny, Behpoornia (“Hacks”) will play Emily and Norris (“Never Have I Ever”) will play Simon.

    Lisa Ann Walter, the recent “Celebrity Jeopardy!” champion who plays sassy second-grade teacher Melissa on the show, told Entertainment Tonight “so many great characters” will be in the third season. 

    Segarra, Behpoornia and Norris join a beloved returning cast that includes Brunson, who also produces and writes the show, as plucky second-grade teacher Janine Teagues. The fictional public school’s other quirky staff members are played by Walter, Tyler James Williams, Janelle James, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Chris Perfetti and William Stanford Davis. The show has featured cameos by acclaimed actors like Ayo Edebiri, Leslie Odom Jr. and Taraji P. Henson.

    What can we expect from Season 3?

    The new season is sure to set itself apart from previous installments, for multiple reasons. 

    Rather than beginning the season at the start of the school year, as the show did previously, the series will pick up in the middle of the school year to reflect its February premiere. The show experienced monthslong delays due to last year’s dual Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes. For this reason, the season will also be shorter than Season 2, containing just 14 episodes compared to 22. 

    “Our season will still be on the school calendar. Last year, we started airing in September, when school started. We’re not doing that this year,” Brunson told Deadline in October. “It’s not like coming back to a family show where you can pop in on that family on any sitcom-y thing. It’s really like, what’s going on in the school?”

    The hour-long premiere will center on a district-wide career day planned by Janine, who is anxious for it to be a success. The first episode also will show Ava (James) trying out a new approach to her role as principal, according to ABC. The first episode contains some surprises, according to Walter.

    “I will tell you this, the premiere episode of Season 3 is so chock full of new, exciting stuff,” Walter told Entertainment Tonight. “I can’t even, we’re not allowed to say it obviously. But all I can say is stay tuned. It’s a lot.”

    One such surprise seems to be the formerly lax Ava’s newfound rigidity as leader of the school, following an Ivy league stint over the break.

    “I went to Harvard this summer,” Ava says during the trailer. “I’ve learned what it truly takes to do the job of a principal.”

    ABC also teased details of the second episode, which airs Wednesday, Feb. 14. The Valentine’s Day episode handles the revelation that Janine’s ex Tariq (Zack Fox) is dating the mother of one of the school’s students, while Gregory (Williams) hesitantly deals with his newfound status as the “cool teacher.”

    Where did we leave off?

    When viewers last saw the “Abbott” crew, they were on a school field trip at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. The Season 2 finale marked the first time the show, which is set in Philly, was actually filmed in the city. 

    During that fateful night at the museum, Janine and Gregory finally had a tense chat about their feelings for each other. The pair, who have been pushing the boundaries between friendship and flirtation since the show began, shared a highly anticipated kiss earlier that season. But things were complicated because Janine was dating Gregory’s friend at the time. 

    The coworkers walked away from the Franklin Institute as just friends, with Janine hoping to focus on herself and Gregory looking for new beginnings. One of the most pressing concerns on fans’ minds is how the pair’s will-they-won’t-they relationship will resolve, but Season 3 is sure to give their slow burn more time to either simmer or fizzle.

    In the Season 3 trailer, Gregory and Janine refer to their friendship as “good” and “fine,” which appears to be a polite way of saying things are awkward.

    The latest accolades

    At the Emmys earlier this month, “Abbott Elementary” added to its long list of awards. Brunson won outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for her performance in the second season. It was Brunson’s second Emmy, having previously won for writing the pilot episode of “Abbott Elementary.” On Instagram, Brunson shared a larger-than-life congratulatory bouquet sent to the “Abbott” set by Oprah Winfrey, who Brunson portrayed in a 2022 Weird Al Yankovic biopic.

    When and where to watch

    Fans can catch up on Seasons 1 and 2 of “Abbott Elementary” on Hulu before the new season premieres Wednesday, Feb. 7 at 9 p.m. on ABC. Watch the trailer below:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-61kVCFplfI



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    Franki Rudnesky

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  • Kirstie Alley, Emmy-winning ‘Cheers’ star, dies at 71

    Kirstie Alley, Emmy-winning ‘Cheers’ star, dies at 71

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    LOS ANGELES — Kirstie Alley, a two-time Emmy winner whose roles on the TV megahit “Cheers” and in the “Look Who’s Talking” films made her one of the biggest stars in American comedy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, died Monday. She was 71.

    Alley died of cancer that was only recently discovered, her children True and Lillie Parker said in a post on Twitter. Alley’s manager Donovan Daughtry confirmed the death in an email to The Associated Press.

    “As iconic as she was on screen, she was an even more amazing mother and grandmother,” her children’s statement said.

    She starred opposite Ted Danson as Rebecca Howe on “Cheers,” the beloved NBC sitcom about a Boston bar, from 1987 to 1993. She joined the show at the height of its popularity after the departure of original star Shelley Long.

    Alley would win an Emmy for best lead actress in a comedy series for the role in 1991.

    “I only thank God I didn’t have to wait as long as Ted,” Alley said in her acceptance, gently ribbing Danson, who had finally won an Emmy for his “Cheers” role as Sam Malone in his eighth nomination the previous year.

    She would take a second Emmy for best lead actress in a miniseries or television movie in 1993 for playing the title role in the CBS TV movie “David’s Mother.”

    She had her own sitcom on the network, “Veronica’s Closet,” from 1997 to 2000.

    In the 1989 comedy “Look Who’s Talking,” which gave her a major career boost, she played the mother of a baby who’s inner thoughts were voiced by Bruce Willis. She would also appear in a 1990 sequel “Look Who’s Talking Too,” and another in 1993, “Look Who’s Talking Now.”

    John Travolta, her co-star in the trilogy, paid her tribute in an Instagram post.

    “Kirstie was one of the most special relationships I’ve ever had,” Travolta said, along with a photo of Alley. “I love you Kirstie. I know we will see each other again.”

    She would play a fictionalized version of herself in the 2005 Showtime series “Fat Actress,” a show that drew comedy from her public and media treatment over her weight gain and loss.

    She dealt with the same subject matter in the 2010 A&E reality series “Kirstie Alley’s Big Life,” which chronicled her attempt to lose weight and launch a weight-loss program while working as a single mother in an unconventional household that included pet lemurs.

    Alley said she agreed to do the show in part because of the misinformation about her that had become a tabloid staple.

    “Anything bad you can say about me, they say,” Alley told the AP at the time. “I’ve never collapsed, fainted, passed out. Basically, anything they’ve said, I never. The only true thing is I got fat.”

    In recent years she appeared on several other reality shows, including a second-place finish on “Dancing With the Stars” in 2011. She appeared on the competition series “The Masked Singer” wearing a baby mammoth costume earlier this year.

    She appeared in the Ryan Murphy black comedy series “Scream Queens” on Fox in 2015 and 2016.

    One of her co-stars on the show, Jamie Lee Curtis, said on Instagram Monday that Alley was “a great comic foil” on the show and “a beautiful mama bear in her very real life.”

    Alley’s “Cheers” co-star Kelsey Grammer said in a statement that “I always believed grief for a public figure is a private matter, but I will say I loved her.”

    Another “Cheers” co-star, Rhea Pearlman, recounted how she and Alley became friends almost instantly after she joined the show. She said Alley organized large Easter and Halloween parties and invited everyone. “She wanted everyone to feel included. She loved her children deeply. I’ve never met anyone remotely like her. I feel so thankful to have known her.”

    A native of Wichita, Kansas, Alley attended Kansas State University before dropping out and moving to Los Angeles.

    Like Travolta, she would become a longtime member of the Church of Scientology.

    Her first television appearances were as a game show contestant, on “The Match Game” in 1979 and “Password” in 1980.

    She made her film debut in 1982’s “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.”

    Other film roles included 1987’s “Summer School,” 1995’s “Village of the Damned” and 1999’s “Drop Dead Gorgeous.”

    Alley was married to her high school sweetheart from 1970 to 1977, and to actor Parker Stevenson from 1983 until 1997.

    She told the AP in 2010 if she married again, “I’d leave the guy within 24 hours because I’m sure he’d tell me not to do something.”

    ———

    Rancilio reported from Detroit. Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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  • Robert Clary, last of the ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ stars, dies at 96

    Robert Clary, last of the ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ stars, dies at 96

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    LOS ANGELES — Robert Clary, a French-born survivor of Nazi concentration camps during World War II who played a feisty prisoner of war in the improbable 1960s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes,” has died. He was 96.

    Clary died Wednesday of natural causes at his home in the Los Angeles area, niece Brenda Hancock said Thursday.

    “He never let those horrors defeat him,” Hancock said of Clary’s wartime experience as a youth. “He never let them take the joy out of his life. He tried to spread that joy to others through his singing and his dancing and his painting.”

    When he recounted his life to students, he told them, “Don’t ever hate,” Hancock said. “He didn’t let hate overcome the beauty in this world.”

    “Hogan’s Heroes,” in which Allied soldiers in a POW camp bested their clownish German army captors with espionage schemes, played the war strictly for laughs during its 1965-71 run. The 5-foot-1 Clary sported a beret and a sardonic smile as Cpl. Louis LeBeau.

    Clary was the last surviving original star of the sitcom that included Bob Crane, Richard Dawson, Larry Hovis and Ivan Dixon as the prisoners. Werner Klemperer and John Banner, who played their captors, both were European Jews who fled Nazi persecution before the war.

    Clary began his career as a nightclub singer and appeared on stage in musicals including “Irma La Douce” and “Cabaret.” After “Hogan’s Heroes,” Clary’s TV work included the soap operas “The Young and the Restless,” “Days of Our Lives” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.”

    He considered musical theater the highlight of his career. “I loved to go to the theater at quarter of 8, put the stage makeup on and entertain,” he said in a 2014 interview.

    He remained publicly silent about his wartime experience until 1980 when, Clary said, he was provoked to speak out by those who denied or diminished the orchestrated effort by Nazi Germany to exterminate Jews.

    A documentary about Clary’s childhood and years of horror at Nazi hands, “Robert Clary, A5714: A Memoir of Liberation,” was released in 1985. The forearms of concentration camp prisoners were tattooed with identification numbers, with A5714 to be Clary’s lifelong mark.

    “They write books and articles in magazines denying the Holocaust, making a mockery of the 6 million Jews — including a million and a half children — who died in the gas chambers and ovens,” he told The Associated Press in a 1985 interview.

    Twelve of his immediate family members, his parents and 10 siblings, were killed under the Nazis, Clary wrote in a biography posted on his website.

    In 1997, he was among dozens of Holocaust survivors whose portraits and stories were included in “The Triumphant Spirit,” a book by photographer Nick Del Calzo.

    “I beg the next generation not to do what people have done for centuries — hate others because of their skin, shape of their eyes, or religious preference,” Clary said in an interview at the time.

    Retired from acting, Clary remained busy with his family, friends and his painting. His memoir, “From the Holocaust to Hogan’s Heroes: The Autobiography of Robert Clary,” was published in 2001.

    “One Of The Lucky Ones,” a biography of one of Clary’s older sisters, Nicole Holland, was written by Hancock, her daughter. Holland, who worked with the French Resistance against Germany, survived the war, as did another sister. Hancock’s second book, “Talent Luck Courage,” recounts Clary and Holland’s lives and their impact.

    Clary was born Robert Widerman in Paris in March 1926, the youngest of 14 children in the Jewish family. He was 16 when he and most of his family were taken by the Nazis.

    In the documentary, Clary recalled a happy childhood until he and his family was forced from their Paris apartment and put into a crowded cattle car that carried them to concentration camps.

    “Nobody knew where we were going,” Clary said. “We were not human beings anymore.”

    After 31 months in captivity in several concentration camps, he was liberated from the Buchenwald death camp by American troops. His youth and ability to work kept him alive, Clary said.

    Returning to Paris and reunited with his two sisters, Clary worked as a singer and recorded songs that became popular in America.

    After coming to the United States in 1949, he moved from club dates and recording to Broadway musicals, including “New Faces of 1952,” and then to movies. He appeared in films including 1952’s “Thief of Damascus,” “A New Kind of Love” in 1963 and “The Hindenburg” in 1975.

    In recent years, Clary recorded jazz versions of songs by Ira Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim and other greats, said his nephew Brian Gari, a songwriter who worked on the CDs with Clary.

    Clary was proud of the results, Gari said, and thrilled by a complimentary letter he received from Sondheim. “He hung that on the kitchen wall,” Gari said.

    Clary didn’t feel uneasy about the comedy on “Hogan’s Heroes” despite the tragedy of his family’s devastating war experience.

    “It was completely different. I know they (POWs) had a terrible life, but compared to concentration camps and gas chambers it was like a holiday.”

    Clary married Natalie Cantor, the daughter of singer-actor Eddie Cantor, in 1965. She died in 1997.

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  • Robert Clary, last of the ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ stars, dies at 96

    Robert Clary, last of the ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ stars, dies at 96

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Clary, a French-born survivor of Nazi concentration camps during World War II who played a feisty prisoner of war in the improbable 1960s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes,” has died. He was 96.

    Clary died Wednesday of natural causes at his home in the Los Angeles area, niece Brenda Hancock said Thursday.

    “He never let those horrors defeat him,” Hancock said of Clary’s wartime experience as a youth. “He never let them take the joy out of his life. He tried to spread that joy to others through his singing and his dancing and his painting.”

    When he recounted his life to students, he told them, “Don’t ever hate,” Hancock said. “He didn’t let hate overcome the beauty in this world.”

    “Hogan’s Heroes,” in which Allied soldiers in a POW camp bested their clownish German army captors with espionage schemes, played the war strictly for laughs during its 1965-71 run. The 5-foot-1 Clary sported a beret and a sardonic smile as Cpl. Louis LeBeau.

    Clary was the last surviving original star of the sitcom that included Bob Crane, Richard Dawson, Larry Hovis and Ivan Dixon as the prisoners. Werner Klemperer and John Banner, who played their captors, both were European Jews who fled Nazi persecution before the war.

    Clary began his career as a nightclub singer and appeared on stage in musicals including “Irma La Douce” and “Cabaret.” After “Hogan’s Heroes,” Clary’s TV work included the soap operas “The Young and the Restless,” “Days of Our Lives” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.”

    He considered musical theater the highlight of his career. “I loved to go to the theater at quarter of 8, put the stage makeup on and entertain,” he said in a 2014 interview.

    He remained publicly silent about his wartime experience until 1980 when, Clary said, he was provoked to speak out by those who denied or diminished the orchestrated effort by Nazi Germany to exterminate Jews.

    A documentary about Clary’s childhood and years of horror at Nazi hands, “Robert Clary, A5714: A Memoir of Liberation,” was released in 1985. The forearms of concentration camp prisoners were tattooed with identification numbers, with A5714 to be Clary’s lifelong mark.

    “They write books and articles in magazines denying the Holocaust, making a mockery of the 6 million Jews — including a million and a half children — who died in the gas chambers and ovens,” he told The Associated Press in a 1985 interview.

    Twelve of his immediate family members, his parents and 10 siblings, were killed under the Nazis, Clary wrote in a biography posted on his website.

    In 1997, he was among dozens of Holocaust survivors whose portraits and stories were included in “The Triumphant Spirit,” a book by photographer Nick Del Calzo.

    “I beg the next generation not to do what people have done for centuries — hate others because of their skin, shape of their eyes, or religious preference,” Clary said in an interview at the time.

    Retired from acting, Clary remained busy with his family, friends and his painting. His memoir, “From the Holocaust to Hogan’s Heroes: The Autobiography of Robert Clary,” was published in 2001.

    “One Of The Lucky Ones,” a biography of one of Clary’s older sisters, Nicole Holland, was written by Hancock, her daughter. Holland, who worked with the French Resistance against Germany, survived the war, as did another sister. Hancock’s second book, “Talent Luck Courage,” recounts Clary and Holland’s lives and their impact.

    Clary was born Robert Widerman in Paris in March 1926, the youngest of 14 children in the Jewish family. He was 16 when he and most of his family were taken by the Nazis.

    In the documentary, Clary recalled a happy childhood until he and his family was forced from their Paris apartment and put into a crowded cattle car that carried them to concentration camps.

    “Nobody knew where we were going,” Clary said. “We were not human beings anymore.”

    After 31 months in captivity in several concentration camps, he was liberated from the Buchenwald death camp by American troops. His youth and ability to work kept him alive, Clary said.

    Returning to Paris and reunited with his two sisters, Clary worked as a singer and recorded songs that became popular in America.

    After coming to the United States in 1949, he moved from club dates and recording to Broadway musicals, including “New Faces of 1952,” and then to movies. He appeared in films including 1952’s “Thief of Damascus,” “A New Kind of Love” in 1963 and “The Hindenburg” in 1975.

    In recent years, Clary recorded jazz versions of songs by Ira Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim and other greats, said his nephew Brian Gari, a songwriter who worked on the CDs with Clary.

    Clary was proud of the results, Gari said, and thrilled by a complimentary letter he received from Sondheim. “He hung that on the kitchen wall,” Gari said.

    Clary didn’t feel uneasy about the comedy on “Hogan’s Heroes” despite the tragedy of his family’s devastating war experience.

    “It was completely different. I know they (POWs) had a terrible life, but compared to concentration camps and gas chambers it was like a holiday.”

    Clary married Natalie Cantor, the daughter of singer-actor Eddie Cantor, in 1965. She died in 1997.

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  • TV role helps Mayan Lopez heal relationship with dad George

    TV role helps Mayan Lopez heal relationship with dad George

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    Mayan Lopez’s co-star in her new NBC sitcom “ Lopez vs Lopez ” happens to be her real-life dad, George Lopez.

    The two play a father and daughter who are repairing their relationship after years of not getting along. As is the Lopez way, art imitates life: George’s previous TV roles in “The George Lopez Show” and “Lopez” were also based on his real life. After divorcing her mother, Ann, in 2012, Mayan Lopez says she felt resentment toward her dad and the two didn’t have much contact until they reconnected during the pandemic.

    “Two years ago my dad and I weren’t really talking, but family became something that was really important when the whole world was up in flames,” she said. “As you grow older, you start to see your parents as people.”

    Mayan Lopez recognizes her dad didn’t always know how to relate to her because he was abandoned by his own parents and raised by his maternal grandmother, whom he did not get along with. “He didn’t always know how to relate to me. I get to kind of have that (perspective) now.”

    The genesis of “Lopez vs Lopez” came about when TV producer Debby Wolfe stumbled upon Mayan’s TikTok account.

    “Someone was talking about my dad, the past things that have happened, you know that my dad was unfaithful, about my parents’ divorce, and it was getting a lot of likes. And I was like, ‘You know what? I want to say something about it because some of the facts aren’t right.’ And I thought, ‘What will get people’s attention?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, let me just twerk upside down (against) a wall. Why not? I’m a comedian. I’ll go for the joke.’”

    Wolfe saw that, plus Mayan’s other content, including videos with her dad and even posts of both her parents together, bickering like they were still married and thought, “This is a show.”

    The opportunity was a dream come true for Mayan who studied sketch comedy and improv and also trained at Second City. She’s also respectful of her dad’s talent and showbiz experience.

    “I have a world-class comedian to be able to learn from,” she said. “I take his advice and his knowledge and I have my own things that I bring to the table. He even says we make each other better because he’s like, ‘Oh, there’s another one of me.’ We bounce off of each other and collaborate on set. We’ll write things and even improvise as we’re performing. It’s been great to work with him in that way.”

    Mom is also around too and “so proud.”

    “We perform in front of a live audience and my mom’s there every week,” said Lopez. “She was there for ‘The George Lopez Show’ that was based on (dad’s) life. And now we have another show. It’s kind of the Lopez way of doing things, making our life art so that people can enjoy and also be able to be a representation of the Latin community.”

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  • Leslie Jordan, versatile Emmy-winning actor, dies at 67

    Leslie Jordan, versatile Emmy-winning actor, dies at 67

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    LOS ANGELES — Leslie Jordan, the actor whose wry Southern drawl and versatility made him a comedy and drama standout on TV series including “Will & Grace” and “American Horror Story,” has died. The Emmy-winner, whose videos turned him into a social media star during the pandemic, was 67.

    “The world is definitely a much darker place today without the love and light of Leslie Jordan. Not only was he a mega talent and joy to work with, but he provided an emotional sanctuary to the nation at one of its most difficult times,” a representative for Jordan said in a statement Monday. “Knowing that he has left the world at the height of both his professional and personal life is the only solace one can have today.”

    The native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who won an on outstanding guest actor Emmy in 2005 for his role as Beverly Leslie in “Will & Grace,” had a recurring role on the Mayim Bialik comedy “Call me Kat” and co-starred on the sitcom “The Cool Kids.”

    Jordan’s other eclectic credits include “Hearts Afire,” “Boston Legal,” “Fantasy Island” and “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.” He played various roles on the “American Horror Story” franchise series.

    Jordan died Monday in a single car crash in Hollywood, according to reports by celebrity website TMZ and the Los Angeles Times, citing unnamed law enforcement sources.

    Jordan earned an unexpected new following in 2021 when he spent time during the pandemic lockdown near family in his hometown. He broke the sameness by posting daily videos of himself on Instagram.

    Many of Jordan’s videos included him asking “How ya’ll doin?” and some included stories about Hollywood or his childhood growing up with identical twin sisters and their “mama,” as he called her. Other times he did silly bits like complete an indoor obstacle course.

    “Someone called from California and said, ’Oh, honey, you’ve gone viral.’ And I said, ’No, no, I don’t have COVID. I’m just in Tennessee,” said Jordan. Celebrities including Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Alba and Anderson Cooper, along with brands such as Reebok and Lululemon, would post comments.

    Soon he became fixated with the number of views and followers he had, because there wasn’t much else going on. By the time of his death, he amassed 5.8 million followers on Instagram and another 2.3 million on TikTok.

    “For a while there, it was like obsessive. And I thought, ’This is ridiculous. Stop, stop, stop.′ You know, it almost became, ’If it doesn’t happen on Instagram, it didn’t happen.’ And I thought, ‘You’re 65, first of all. You’re not some teenage girl.’”

    The spotlight led to new opportunities. Earlier this month he released a gospel album called “Company’s Comin’” featuring Dolly Parton, Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Eddie Vedder and Tanya Tucker. He wrote a new book, “How Y’all Doing?: Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived.”

    It was Jordan’s second book, following his 2008 memoir, “My Trip Down the Red Carpet.”

    “That sort of dealt with all the angst and growing up gay in the Baptist Church and la, la, la, la, la. And this one, I just wanted to tell stories,” he told The Associated Press in a 2021 interview. Among the anecdotes: working with Lady Gaga on “American Horror Story”; how meeting Carrie Fisher led to Debbie Reynolds calling his mother and the Shetland pony he got as a child named Midnight.

    In a 2014 interview with Philadelphia magazine, Jordan was asked how he related to his role in the 2013 film “Southern Baptist Sissies,” which explores growing up gay while being raised in a conservative Baptist church.

    “I really wanted to be a really good Christian, like some of the boys in the movie. I was baptized 14 times,” Jordan said. “Every time the preacher would say, ‘Come forward, sinners!,’ I’d say ‘Oooh, I was out in the woods with that boy, I better go forward.’ My mother thought I was being dramatic. She’d say, ‘Leslie, you’re already saved,’ and I’d say, ’Well, I don’t think it took.”

    Jordan said he considered himself a storyteller by nature.

    “It’s very Southern. If I was to be taught a lesson or something when I was a kid, I was told a story,” he told AP.

    —-

    Mark Kennedy and Alicia Rancilio in New York contributed to this report.

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