Broadway To Vegas

Copyright: January 3, 2016
By: Laura Deni
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THE GIN GAME STARRING JAMES EARL JONES AND CICELY TYSON IS A WINNER

Tony Award winners James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson in The Gin Game. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Hurry, you only have until January 10 to be enthralled by James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson in the emotional stirring revival of D.L. Coburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Gin Game, at the Golden Theatre, effectively directed by Leonard Foglia.

Jones and Tyson (who recently received a Kennedy Center Honor) portray Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorney, two residents at a retirement home. The beleaguered occupants pass the time on the porch playing gin rummy. They physically may be playing cards, a cover for playing the game of life with nuance and strategy both covert and straightforward.

The play is ageless, but it's the performances by the two actors that determine if watching others with physical aches and emotional wounds - some self-afflicted - play cards, deceive and confess to each other and ruminate - is worth your time. In the case of Jones and Tyson, the urge is to offer to shuffle the deck, bring them lemonade and encourage another round of play.

The raw, beaten down by life set by Riccardo Hernandez is an old age home - modest and part ramshackle as are their lives - yet giving a glimpse that once their existence had a fresh coat of paint and all of the nails were in place.

Lighting designers Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer offer sunset lighting to bathe those in the twilight of their lives; not in gloom, but rather in a hint of perhaps peace and serenity elsewhere.

Weller and Fonsia have little left except bad memories, bittersweet resentment and wisdom carved by a rusty knife from the hard wood of life. They have no future; just a rest stop until they stop.

Fonsia's prowess at playing gin rummy, after indicating she didn't know the game, shows her cunning street smarts - the traits that have enabled her to survive. Weller doesn't take well to being beaten hand after hand. He retaliates with a conversational battle aiming to expose Fonsia's weaknesses, to belittle and humiliate. Weller discovers that Fonsia is a fierce opponent. Each has met their match and, in so doing, expose their underbellies.

They jab and bellow. The retorts range from tepid to scathing.

Both were each divorced ages ago, and are estranged from their adult children. Friends have died or no longer occasionally visit. They await their own death bathed in the undergarments of loneliness covered by bravado, insults, and resignation.

While there is occasional standing, a dance step or two, a card table flung over in anger, this is a play of mostly sitting on the porch playing cards. The actors aren't helped along by fancy choreography, magnificent costumes or elaborate props.

Sound designer David Van Tieghem wisely keeps the sound balanced because in this play, it's all in the voice; spoken words conveying the emotional spectrum either relished or tolerated by individuals who have managed to survive into old age. Both Jones and Tyson have a way of delivering words which become three dimensional. Phrases which not merely resonant but remain with the listener. Jones can accomplish more with his incredible baritone voice that most actors can with all of their body parts. Acting only with one's voice is a skill not ever actor has conquered. Jones and Tyson are masters. The play's conclusion is heart-breaking.

That doesn't mean the play is a downer. Yes, it is about life; being old, alone and lonely. But, The Gin Game is also about coping with the cards life has dealt. As this play demonstrates, to survive into old age requires surliness, humor and some interesting profanity










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ART AND ABOUT

DREAM WORKS ANIMATION: THE EXHIBITION From the studio that brought you the animated classics Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda comes an exhibition exclusive to Te Papa in New Zealand – a behind-the-scenes celebration of 20 years of DreamWorks Animation.

Featuring over 400 items, including rare concept drawings, models, interviews, and original artworks. Adults and kids can get creative with real animation tools, and soar above the clouds in the immersive Dragon Flight experience from How to Train Your Dragon.

Lose yourself in the extraordinary worlds created by DreamWorks’ award-winning artists, and travel with your favorite characters from first sketch through to final creation.

Visitors can step into three main galleries: Character, Story and World, to witness what it takes to create and bring to life such enchanting stories. This 20-year retrospective is a comprehensive look at the entire back catalogue of 31 DreamWorks Animation feature films, from the studio’s first theatrically released film Antz (1998) to recent releases, How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) and Home (2015).

From endearing ogres to delightful dragons, the Character section unveils the evolution of DreamWorks’ most beloved characters. Movie buffs will have unprecedented access to the DreamWorks archive as they watch characters including Shrek, Po from Kung Fu Panda and the gang from Madagascar come to life before their eyes.

Forty-seven exquisitely carved maquettes and in-depth video interviews with the production teams illustrate the exacting thought and detail poured into each character through the development process.

A massive digital storyboard anchors the Story gallery. Visitors will be drawn in as they watch filmmaker Conrad Vernon perform, step-by-step, his gripping pitch for the infamous ‘Interrogating Gingy’ scene in Shrek.

The World section focuses on the collaborative creation of the vivid, magical worlds evident in all DreamWorks films. Fans will see the work of directors, production designers and concept artists in this gallery, the largest section of the exhibition.

The gallery also houses the exhibition’s highlight Dragon Flight: A Dragon’s Eye View of Berk. This spectacular, 180-degree projection offers visitors a never-before seen vision of Berk, the Viking township from How to Train Your Dragon. Dragon Flight takes visitors on an exhilarating panoramic dragon ride on the back of Toothless, as the Isle of Berk builds around them.

Through Monday, March 28, 2016 at the Te Papa in Wellington, New Zealand.

MEDIEVAL MAYHEM takes place at Windsor Castle in England every Saturday in January. Go back in time to the Middle Ages where all members of the family will be able to dress-up in an array of replica medieval costumes and armour.

HIGH SPIRITS: THE COMIC ART OF THOMAS ROWLANDSON

Probably acquired by George III, a hand-coloured print of two people talking. The man on the left has a protruding belly and teeth and the woman on the right is thin with her body bent in such a serpentine manner as to accommodate the expanse of the man. The joke here is one of discrepancies: the figures are different in both appearance and social status. This is typical of Rowlandson’s love of humour which lies in the appearance of individual figures rather than in a situation. The maxim quoted at the foot of the print is by Fulke Greville, an Elizabethan courtier. Inscribed in the plate: Pubd Novr. 20, 1802 by R. Ackermann N 101 Strand / Rowlandson inv

Portly squires and young dandies, Jane Austenesque heroines and their chaperones, dashing young officers and corrupt politicians. Just some of the subjects of the keenly observant satires by English caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827).

High Spirits brings together a collection of comic works by Rowlandson and examines life at the turn of the 19th century through the caricaturist's sharp eye and appreciation of humour in everyday life.

"On the death of his aunt, Rowlandson inherited £7,000 with which he plunged into the dissipations of the town and was known to sit at the gaming-table for 36 hours at a stretch."

In time poverty overtook him; and the friendship and examples of James Gillray and Henry William Bunbury seem to have suggested caricature as a means of earning a living.

His drawing of Vauxhall, shown in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1784 was a success.

Rowlandson was largely employed by Rudolph Ackermann, the art publisher, who in 1809 - issued in his Poetical Magazine The Schoolmaster's Tour - a series of plates with illustrative verses by Dr. William Combe. They were the most popular of the artist's works. Again engraved by Rowlandson himself in 1812, and issued under the title of the Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of the Picturesque, they had attained a fifth edition by 1813, and were followed in 1820 by Dr Syntax in Search of Consolation, and in 1821 by the Third Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of a Wife.

He also produced a body of erotic prints and woodcuts.

High Spirits is on exhibition at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace to Sunday, February 14, 2016.

CREATIVE VISION VERSUS CREATIVE DIFFERENCES - TONYA PINKINS LEAVES SHOW

Michael Potts & Tonya Pinkins in Mother Courage and Her Children. Photo: Joan Marcus

If we all saw entertainment through the same lens, we'd be bored and stagnated. Inspiration, vision and interpretation serve as the tracks for creativity.

Backstage horror stories in television, movies and the stage are rampant - from actors trying to upstage each other to love scenes performed by soap opera actors who hate each other.

I was in the audience of I Hate Hamlet at the Walter Kerr Theatre in 1991 when two of the actors got into a real fight on stage. Celeste Holm, who was appearing as Lillian Troy, was perhaps in her dressing room. She raced on stage in her stocking feet to break up the fight.

Decades ago a film actress, who would go on to win a Tony Award, was on location filming a movie. A monthly magazine geared towards women was writing a feature article about the experience and included information that the actress and a highly placed film official weren't getting along - at all. Things got so stressful that the printed story included that nightly the actress would retreat into her living quarters and chant. In the morning she would emerge and inquire; "Is he dead, yet?"

"Creative differences" are routinely cited for personnel changes.

Case in point is the troubled remounting of Mother Courage and Her Children, Bertolt Brecht’s 1939 epic play about how many need the horrors of war for their survival. The show, in previews, has postponed its official opening after Tony Award-winning actress Tonya Pinkins suddenly announced she was leave the Classic Stage Company’s revival, asserting that her part been “neutered,” ”subordinate” and molded through “the filter of the white gaze.”

The play is about a woman who runs a canteen-on-wheels during the Thirty Years’ War, which spanned 1618-1648. She is dependent on the bloodshed around her in order to keep her business flush and support her family. As her values erode, she is robbed of everything she truly cares about.

In the Classic Stage Company revival, directed by Brian Kulick, who is the artistic director of the company, the play’s setting was changed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the script was cut.

Both sides are irritated, defensive and passionate about their own position.

“My Mother Courage was left speechless, powerless, history-less and even cart-less,” Pinkins said in a statement.

“Why, in 2015, in the arts, is there a need to control the creative expression of a black woman?” she wrote. “Am I a dog or a slave to be misled so as to be controlled in my artistic expression?”

In a statement released, Kulick responded that he had “great respect” for Pinkins both as a theater artist and activist and, “I am so sorry that over the course of this production our views on Mother Courage diverged.”

“One goes into a theater production with suspicions and hunches and a play slowly reveals what it might want to be. Tonya and I seemed to have started with the same basic impulse but reached two different vantage points,” he wrote.

Some publications were asked to print the lengthy, complete, unedited statements of both parties who are extremely sensitive that any reader would misinterpret their position. Some complied. Others did not.

Like any fight, those directly involved are more interested in the hidden events and nuances than onlookers. In the case of a play, the ticket buyer wants to know who is going to be the star, when does the play officially open and if there are any changes in ticket pricing. That's the public focus.

All successful theatrical professions have the ability to become high strung and emphatic. If they didn't have the facet in their psychic they wouldn't be successful.

It's not the first time creative differences have led to cast changes and this won't be the last. What elevated this vision-difference head-butt to above the fold press coverage is that this off-Broadway cast change involved a Tony award winning actress, a respected theatrical company and its artistic director using his control to revision.

Sometimes one can see the other vision and sometimes one can't. That doesn't mean that either party is wrong. They are viewing one script through two different sets of eyes and inspiration.

Hopefully when the dust settles, those involved with Mother Courage and Her Children, won't become ardent enemies. The world is a very small theatrical stage.

While Pinkins was in the production the official description stated: "The indomitable Mother Courage (Pinkins) follows one luckless army after another across a war-torn world in her canteen wagon. She’ll do anything to hold onto her money-making wagon, even if it means the loss of her children, in this timeless tale of war and big business updated to the modern-day conflagration in the Congo."

The production began previews December 9. Pinkins said she was contractually obligated to play the part through January 3 but “My Mother Courage is too big for CSC’s definition. So it is best that they find someone to ‘fit in,’ because I cannot.”

The theater company said “the company will continue the production with replacement casting to be announced.”

The cast also includes Joshua Boone, Curtiss Cook Jr., Kevin Mambo, Jacob Ming-Trent, Geoffrey Owens, Michael Potts, Deandre Sevon, Mirirai Sithole and Zenzi Williams.

Set Design: Tony Straiges. Costume Design: Toni-Leslie James. Lighting Design: Justin Townsend. Sound Design: Matt Stine.

Featuring original music by Tony winner Duncan Sheik, the show is scheduled to play a limited engagement through January 24, 2016.

SPREADING THE WORD

92Y’S LYRICS & LYRICISTS presents A Funny Thing Happened: Songs from the road to Broadway.

Kathleen Marshall: Artistic Director, Writer, Stage Director, Host David Chase, Music Director David Eggers, Associate Director.

The curtain rises on a hotel room out of town, and songwriters in the midst of a desperate, all-night creative frenzy to save a faltering show. Lyrics & Lyricists™ 2016 season opens with real-life theatrical drama as three-time Tony-winner Kathleen Marshall returns to 92Y with the nail-biting stories behind the 11th-hour songs that saved the day and became Broadway classics.

Joining her to sing such numbers as "Comedy Tonight" (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum), "You're Just in Love" (Call Me Madam) and "Before I Gaze at You Again" (Camelot) are vocalists Darius de Haas, Ann Harada, Greg Hildreth, Elena Shaddow and Betsy Wolfe.

For A Funny Thing Happened: Songs from the Road to Broadway, Kathleen digs up some unknown before-and-after versions of these hits, as well as songs that were cut out of town, such as “The Man I Love” (cut from two Gershwin shows) and “Ten Percent” (cut from Chicago).

“I love the romantic idea of composers and lyricists writing a last-minute song in a hotel room or a theatre lobby out of town - the pressure of creating on the fly, with the clock ticking and adrenaline pumping,” comments Kathleen Marshall. “Many of those songs not only made a huge impact on the show, but became standards as well. We will explore some of the wonderful and surprising stories behind classic Broadway songs."

January 9-11 at the 92Y in New York City.

MICHAEL FLATLEY the Chicago born, American step-dancer icon of Irish descent, has been named a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations or his humanitarian efforts.

His Broadway show Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games wraps up a successful engagement tonight, January 3, at the Lyric Theatre on The Great White Way, An American tour follows.

A special performance of his Broadway mounting was hosted on December 19 by UN officials and socialite Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.

He announced the event on his Twitter account. The site also mentioned that Sir Cliff Richard attended the show on December 26.

CHRIS BROWN accused of punching a woman in the face after she took his picture with her cell phone while in his hotel suite at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas early morning Saturday. Alleged victim Liziane Gutierrez told TMZ she had snuck her cellphone past Brown's security guards. Police are investigating.

OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY

THE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW better known as CES is setting up shop in Las Vegas. CES 2016 has capped attendance at 155,000 because the convention has outgrown currently available convention space In the future that will change as the old Riviera Hotel is imploded to make room for more conventioneers. 3,600 exhibitors are expected at the convention which takes place January 6-9/. The trade convention is closed to the public.

GET WELL TO . . .

CHITA RIVERA who recently received a Kennedy Center Honors, suffered a pelvic stress fracture over the Christmas holiday.

Recovery time has required the two-time Tony winner to postpone her January engagement at the Café Carlyle in New York City from January 12-23 to April 19-30.



ON NEW YEAR'S EVE IN LAS VEGAS Ronald Bauman, 69, and Dumitru Alexeev, 35, who have been together five years, became the 5,000th same set couple to receive a marriage license from Clark County (Las Vegas) Nevada.

Clark County began issuing same sex marriage licenses in October 2014.

The surprised couple from Arizona received a 5,000th framed certificate from Clark County, an entire wedding package, which included a wedding at a chapel, a night's stay in a hotel-casino suite, dinner, attraction tickets, tuxedo rentals, and even a bottle of champagne courtesy of Clark County.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S 2016 HONORS LIST For a list of those receiving honors with a special relationship to the entertainment industry - click here.



SANCTUARY written and performed by Susanne Sulby.

Directed by Stephen Stahl.

Using heart-wrenching emails from soldiers in Iraq along with TV news footage and Rumi & WW I poetry, the play "will intrigue theatre audiences with a poignant and touching look on the impact of war on women over the centuries. The multi-character play features a suburban housewife, a TV news reporter (inspired by CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour), and a P.O.W. in Kosovo - among other characters."

Scenery designed by Peter Tupitza, lights designed by Ryan J. O'Gara along with projections designed by Olivia Sebesky.

The production was favorably received at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Capital Fringe (Washington DC) earlier this season, opening Thursday, January 7, 2015 at Off-Broadway's Lion Theatre, New York City.

THE SPINNING WHEEL a world premiere multimedia performance, along with an interactive gallery exhibition, by hip hop theater artist and musician Baba Israel.

Created in collaboration with UK based director Leo Kay and musician Yako 440.

The Spinning Wheel remixes and reinterprets the 50-year legacy of Israel’s late father, steve ben israel (1938–2012), a political activist and member of The Living Theatre, an iconic, avant-garde theater group. Through spoken word, video, and live music, Baba Israel not only animates the radical, countercultural impulses of New York City during the 1960s and ‘70s, but also, lovingly pays tribute to his father.

steve ben israel was a New York jazz musician, poet, stand-up comic, political activist and core member of The Living Theatre. Israel practiced what he called performance life and found his inspiration by bringing his politics and comedy into the streets, subways, and protests of New York. One of his stand out ‘performance life’ moments came when he escaped 1970’s Brazil dressed as a woman and improvised his way through airport security to return to New York. Back home, he worked to organize the release of other members of The Living Theatre who were still jailed in Brazil. His was a life committed to liberation.

The creative team also includes dramaturg Talvin Wilks and video artist Richard Ramchurn.

Performances will take place January 8–16 at BRIC House in Brooklyn, NY.

In conjunction with the January 8–16 performances, The Spinning Wheel will include a related exhibition of original posters, poetry and photography by steve ben israel, prints by renowned political activist and artist Eric Drooker, original stencil work and collage by Yako 440, and original posters and photographic prints from steve ben israel’s time with the Living Theatre in the 1960s and ‘70s. The exhibit features an interactive installation created by video artist Richard Ramchurn that uses wireless brain scanners to allow the visitor to subconsciously manipulate video content and take an intimate, one-of-a-kind journey through the archive material used in the creation of The Spinning Wheel performances, all while sitting inside a replica of steve ben israel’s den. The exhibition is curated by Baba Israel and Yako 440 and runs January 9–29, with an opening reception taking place January 8 from 6-8pm. Three large murals inspired by the poems of steve ben israel and created by artists Viajero, Cern and Yako 440 have been commissioned for the hallways of BRIC House and will use a combination of graffiti techniques and other materials.

OUR MOTHER'S BRIEF AFFAIR a new play by Tony Award winner Richard Greenberg.

Directed by MTC’s award-winning artistic director Lynne Meadow.

Starring Tony and two-time Golden Globe Award winner Linda Lavin, joined by Kate Arrington, Greg Keller, and John Procaccino.

On the verge of death for the umpteenth time, Anna (Linda Lavin) makes a shocking confession to her grown children: an affair from her past that just might have resonance beyond the family. But how much of what she says is true? While her children try to separate fact from fiction, Anna fights for a legacy she can be proud of. "With razor-sharp wit and extraordinary insight, Our Mother’s Brief Affair considers the sweeping, surprising impact of indiscretions both large and small."

The creative team for the production features Santo Loquasto (scenic design), Tom Broecker (costume design), Peter Kaczorowski (lighting design), and Fitz Patton (sound design).

Our Mother’s Brief Affair marks the 11th collaboration between Greenberg and Manhattan Theatre Club. In previews with the official opening slated for Wednesday, January 20 at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in New York City.

THOM PAIN (BASED ON NOTHING) Written by Will Eno.

Directed by OBIE Award winner Oliver Butler.

Featuring Rainn Wilson.

The play concerns the life of a tragic and funny character named Thom, who has been described as, “just like you, except worse. He is trying to save his life, to save your life - in that order. In his quest for salvation, he'll stop at nothing, be distracted by nothing, except maybe a piece of lint, or the woman in the second row.”

The play has been translated into over a dozen languages, and since 2005 has been produced regularly around the U.S. and the world. The play was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, which was won by Doubt, A Parable by John Patrick Shanley.

January 8 - February 14, 2016 at the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater, Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.

WHO'S WHERE

WILLIE NELSON performs Tuesday, January 5, at the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix, AZ. On Wednesday he'll be singing his hits at the City National Grove in Anaheim, CA. Friday's gig is at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. Saturday's show is at the Caliente Casino Resort Spa in Rancho Mirage, CA.

MADONNA opens a two nighter on Wednesday, January 6 at the Palacio De Los Deportes in Mexico City. Next Sunday, January 10, she entertains at he AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas.

CHICAGO is on stage Saturday, January 9, at the Grand Cube in Osaka, Japan.

JOHN PIZZARELLI stars at the Del E. Webb Center for the Performing Arts in Wickenburg, AZ tonight, Sunday, January 3, 2016. On Thursday he can be enjoyed at the John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts in Eugene, OR. Saturday he is on stage at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, CA.

FINAL OVATION

ELLSWORTH KELLY considered one of the greatest American artists of the past century, died at his home in Spencertown, N.Y., on December 27, 2015. He was 92.

For seven decades, Kelly created pure, strong shapes and colors, immersive and brilliant. His vivid geometric blocks, in sculpture and paintings, are displayed at modern art museums from Paris to Houston to Boston to Berlin.

He started his artistic career in France as a member of the elite U.S. Army 603rd Engineers Camouflage Battalion, composed of artistic geniuses, including Bill Blass. Their job was to fool the Germans into thinking there were more Allied forces than there actually were and to mislead the Axis forces about the direction and disposition of Allied troops. They accomplished that by building convincing stage props such as fake tanks and trucks and other elements of subterfuge. With no safety backup - or even admission that the Ghost soldiers even existed - they were sitting ducks. Their heroic efforts were made into a PBS Special The Ghost Army.

Kelly always credited his exposure to military camouflage during the time he served as part of his basic art training.

Kelly used the G.I. Bill to study from 1946 to 1947 at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he took advantage of the museum's collections, and then at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Kelly moved to New York in 1954. When he died, he was considered as a universally recognized master of contemporary art. He influenced minimalism and pop art with his bold, spare paintings, drawings and sculptures, which are in virtually every major museum of modern art.

In 2014, Kelly organized a show of Matisse drawings at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in South Hadley, Massachusetts. In 2015, he curated "Monet/Kelly" at the Clark Art Institute.

Kelly is survived by his husband, photographer Jack Shear.

HASKELL WEXLER a two time Academy Award winning cinematographer, film producer and director, died December 27, 2015 at his home in Santa Monica, CA. He was 93.

Known for his signature use of contrasts and shadows, Wexler received the last Oscar that would be given for black-and-white cinematography, for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). He won again a decade later for Bound for Glory (1976), a biography of the folk singer Woody Guthrie (whom Mr. Wexler had met during World War II, when both served in the merchant marine). He had five Oscar nominations in all, over a career that began more than auspiciously: His first genuine credit was on an Oscar-nominated 1953 documentary short, The Living City.

Wexler was judged to be one of film history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the International Cinematographers Guild.

In 1993, Wexler won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers, the first active cameraman to be awarded. In 1996 he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the first cinematographer in 35 years to be so honored. In 2004, Wexler was the subject of a documentary, Tell Them Who You Are, directed by his son, Mark Wexler. Six of the films he worked on have been preserved by the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant": Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (inducted in 2013), Days of Heaven (2007), Medium Cool (2003), In the Heat of the Night (2002) American Graffiti (1995), and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1993).

He was married three times and fathered three children.

IAN FRASER "LEMMY" KILMISTER founder and frontman bassist for the British group Motohead died Monday, December 28, 2015, at his home sitting in front of a video game with his family.. He had turned 70 on Christmas.

He had discovered two days earlier that he had “an extremely aggressive form of cancer” the band’s U.K. official Facebook page announced.

A heavy metal icon for six decades, as a songwriter he wrote hits for Ozzy Osbourne and the Ramones.

The Motorhead founder claimed to have slept with more than 1,000 women -- a figure put at 2,000 in some reports. He never married and said he wasn’t sure how many children he had.

Lemmy was famous as a collector of rock and Nazi memorabilia. He claimed to drink a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey every day since he turned 30, but gave up the hard stuff in 2013.

Motorhead dates were postponed in late 2013 because of Lemmy’s health problems. He had been diagnosed with diabetes but later said the condition was under control. Lemmy was fitted with a pacemaker in 2013 and suffered from a hematoma in 2014.

Neil Portnow President/CEO of The Recording Academy issued the following statement: "Grammy winner Lemmy Kilmister was a remarkable frontman and bona fide heavy metal icon. A founding member of the legendary group Motörhead, Lemmy’s raw, powerful vocals, paired with his innovative bass playing and songwriting skills, made him one of the most prominent figures in rock and roll. His magnetic stage presence and willingness to break barriers propelled the metal genre to new heights, influencing countless fellow musicians in the process. We have lost a truly dynamic member of the music community and our sincerest condolences go out to Lemmy’s family, friends, collaborators and all who have been impacted by his work."

WAYNE ROGERS actor who gained world wide fame portraying Trapper John on the 1970s TV show M.A.S.H. and went to an acclaimed career in finance, died Thursday, December 31, 2015 in Los Angeles from complications from pneumonia.. He was 82.
As a money manager he was a regular panel member on the Fox News Channel stock investment television program Cashin' In, as a result of having built a career as an investor, investment strategist and advisor, and money manager.

In August 2006, Rogers was elected to the board of directors of Vishay Intertechnology, Inc., a Fortune 1000 manufacturer of semiconductors and electronic components. He was also the head of Wayne Rogers & Co., a stock trading investment corporation.

Rogers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005.

Rogers' first wife was Mitzi McWhorter. They married in 1960 and divorced in 1983, producing two children from the relationship. . Rogers was married to his second wife, Amy Hirsh, from 1988 until his death. His two children from his marriage to McWhorter are Laura Rogers and William (Bill) Rogers IV. Both reside in California. Wayne's grandchildren include Laura's children: Xander and Daniel Bienstock, and Bill's children: William V and Anaïs.

NATALIE COLE the chart topping singer and daughter of the late singer Nat "King" Cole died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, due to congestive heart failure, on Thursday night, December 31, 2015. She was 65 and had struggled with a number of health issues.

Winner of 9 Grammy Awards she canceled numerous concert appearances over the last three months after a recurrence of hepatitis C linked to her earlier drug abuse.

In 2009, she received a kidney from an anonymous donor after hepatitis C forced her into dialysis. Cole became a spokesperson for the University Kidney Research Organization, a group dedicated to eradicating kidney disease.

She appeared in June 2014 at the Apollo Theater’s 80th birthday celebration

Cole was married three times. She married Marvin Yancy, songwriter, producer and former member of the 1970s R&B group The Independents on July 31, 1976. She had a son, Robert Adam "Robbie" Yancy who is a musician who toured with her. . Cole and Yancy divorced in 1980. Yancy died of a heart attack in 1985, aged 34. In 1989, Cole married record producer and former drummer for the band Rufus, Andre Fischer; they were divorced in 1995. In 2001, Cole married bishop Kenneth Dupree; they divorced in 2004.

She is survived by her son Robert Adam Yancy and her sisters Timolin and Casey Cole.

Neil Portnow President/CEO of The Recording Academy issued the following statement:

e "We are very saddened to learn of the passing of one of music’s most celebrated and iconic women, Natalie Cole. A nine-time Grammy winner and MusiCares Person of the Year honoree in 1993, Natalie followed her legendary father into the music business with magnificent hits like Inseparable, This Will Be and Unforgettable, achieving multiplatinum, worldwide success in her own right. We’ve lost a wonderful, highly cherished artist and our heartfelt condolences go out to Natalie’s family, friends, her many collaborators, as well as to all who have been entertained by her exceptional talent."

Next Column: January 10, 2016
Copyright: January 3, 2016 All Rights Reserved. Reviews, Interviews, Commentary, Photographs or Graphics from any Broadway To Vegas (TM) columns may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, utilized as leads, or used in any manner without permission, compensation and/or credit.
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Laura Deni

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