Question: When David Hajdu's book Lush Life, about Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington's composing partner, was published I remember hearing talk of a biopic. Is there any word on this project?Answer: There is, but it's not encouraging. David Hajdu's 1996 Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn, which chronicled Strayhorn's complicated life as an openly gay African-American jazz musician (who penned such standards as "Take the A Train") was optioned by Universal Pictures. Director Irwin Winkler tried to develop it as a film with a Jay Cocks screenplay and with Will Smith and De
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In the time that it took for this web page to load in your browser, a child in Africa died of extreme poverty. And in the time that it took us TV Guide guys, Damian Holbrook and Joseph Hudak, to make it through the Live 8 concert held in our Philadelphia hometown last Saturday, millions of us learned that this grim statistic not only had a face, but also — thanks to a stable of musicians — a distinctive rhythm. Hopefully, the G8 leaders confabbing in Scotland heard it. We sure did, so here's our exclusive mash-up, straight from the street.7:00 am/ET The City of Brotherly Love's wakeup call to the world comes mighty early. And sounds oddly like... "soft pretzels!" Ahh, god bless street vendors.10:00 The walk down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Museum of Art begins. Can we say "carnival midway"? It's a little early for fried fish and turkey legs, but water's only $3! Wow, it's getting hot out. Joe?10:40 No doubt, Damian. I half ex
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She may be Mrs. Will Smith, but Jada Pinkett-Smith isn't content to sit back and spend the Fresh Prince's I, Robot millions. That's because her late granny, who was a social worker, taught her to be an independent woman.
"My grandmother told me, 'Jada educate yourself. Never depend on your looks. You're not a bad-looking girl, but that's not gonna get you through this world. You have to be intelligent, and you have to stand on integrity, ethics and morals,'" the Collateral costar recalls. "But it was less what she said than my observing how she lived her life. She was a strong woman who didn't have to work, but she did because she felt women always have to be economically independent.
"That is what I still do, too," Pinkett-Smith laughs, "even though many people would say, 'Why do you still work?' I need to do that for myself."
In her career, she's taken it upon herself to act as a role model, which is why you don't see he
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Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones may not be done kicking alien butt just yet: Columbia Pictures is itching to re-team the duo for a third Men In Black flick, TV Guide Online has learned. "The studio wants one," confirms Walter Parkes, the producer behind the 1997 blockbuster and last summer's sequel. "We're trying to figure out the auspices of it and what to do to freshen that franchise up a little bit."
Translation: Despite grossing a respectable $190 million stateside, MIB II was a dud creatively — a fact even Parkes won't deny. "It was a heartbreaking thing," he sighs of the follow-up, which scored its biggest laughs courtesy of a talking pug named Frank. "There were many disagreements among the
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