Notícias

Disney’s TV special for Epcot Center's opening may have looked great, but behind the scenes, it was a nightmare!

Looking back at television in the early 1980s is an interesting experience. Cable TV was in its infancy, VCRs were barely used, and the overall tone was more conservative in many ways. It was also pretty old school as networks relied on tried and true stuff like the old variety show aspects and musical specials.

Disney had used that well for years as their TV specials were always unique, mixing in original songs with some fun stars. By the 1980s, they were working with Smith-Hemion, which is well known for some award-winning variety specials featuring stars such as Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, Elvis, Bette Middler, and more. They could be silly and cheesy yet fun to watch. The company was also behind the now-infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.

One of...

Richard Leibner, the prominent talent agent who transformed the TV news business by guiding the careers of such renowned broadcast journalists as Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, Mike Wallace, Andy Rooney and Norah O’Donnell, has died. He was 85.

Leibner died Tuesday at his home in New York, UTA vice chairman Jay Sures announced. The agent started out in the 1960s at New York-based N.S. Bienstock, which was acquired in 2014 by UTA.

Leibner also signed and represented the likes of Morley Safer, Ed Bradley, Bob Simon, Steve Kroft, Bill Whitaker, Chuck Scarborough, Paula Zahn, Brian Stelter, Daniel Schorr and Fareed Zakaria before he retired in December 2021 after 58 years in the business.

“Decades ago, he made it his personal mission to see that big name news stars should be treated and compensated like traditional movie and television stars,” Sures told staffers in a memo obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

Born in Brooklyn,...

SAG-AFTRA’s unclaimed residuals fund has grown to roughly $76 million – up 60% from $48 million six years ago. According to the union, the fund now contains 124,000 separate accounts for members and others, living and dead, that it can’t locate. That’s up from 96,000 accounts in 2016.

“The funds may be unclaimed for a variety of reasons including a bad address or as a result of mail returned for other reasons; unresolved estate issues, or the funds may be in trust for an inactive or dissolved loan out corporation,” a spokesperson for the union said. “Most often, residuals may be waiting for a recipient or their agent to formalize a change of address or submit the appropriate paperwork to claim the funds. The union uses a number of tools to locate and get money to those individuals due unclaimed residuals including mail, email and telephone outreach to last known address and telephone number,...

TV viewers know “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt will deliver the latest headlines in the national news cycle. Over the past few nights, however, he’s been offering something else: empathy.

Over four recent nights, Holt has served up short essays aimed at putting the nation’s recent chaos – a mix of an unavoidable pandemic, a faltering economy, and protests over racial injustice – into new perspective. Simply put, he is telling viewers that they are not alone in a moment of national instability.

“It is the season of our despair. A new pandemic we can’t control – coronavirus. And an old epidemic we can’t control either – an aching legacy of racial inequality,” Holt said during Friday’s “Nightly” broadcast. “How much more can we take?” On Monday, he spoke of “An anguished and weary America asking, when will this all end? When will the protests end? When will...

Veteran news executive Bill Small, who served as the Washington bureau chief of CBS News and president of NBC News, died on Sunday following a brief illness unrelated to the coronavirus, CBS News announced. He was 93.

Small led CBS News’ political coverage from 1962-1974, covering such major events as Watergate, Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement. He pulled together a team of reporters from within CBS that included Dan Rather, Marvin Kalb, Dan Schorr, Harry Reasoner and Eric Sevareid, and made new hires including Bob Schieffer, Ed Bradley, Bernard Shaw, Bernard Kalb and Bill Moyers.

He also, CBS noted, championed a number of women in his time as Washington bureau chief, hiring Diane Sawyer, Connie Chung, Lesley Stahl, Martha Teichner, Rita Braver and Susan Spencer.

“Bill Small was a hero to journalism,” CBS News president Susan Zirinsky said in a statement. “He hired me as a 20-year-old college student to...

Veteran news executive Bill Small passed away on Sunday after a brief illness unrelated to the coronavirus. The former CBS News Washington Bureau Chief, NBC News President, United Press International President and Chairman of the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, was 93.

Small served as CBS’ Washington Bureau Chief from 1962 to 1974 and formed a team of journalists that would go on to dominate political coverage throughout the era of the Vietnam War and Watergate. The roster he recruited from within CBS included Marvin Kalb, Dan Rather, Harry Reasoner, Dan Schorr and Eric Sevareid. New hires at the time, CBS said, included Bob Schieffer, Ed Bradley, Bernard Shaw, Bernard Kalb and Bill Moyers. CBS also noted Small championed the hiring of women including Lesley Stahl, Diane Sawyer, Connie Chung, Susan Zirinsky, Martha Teichner, Rita Braver and Susan Spencer.

“Bill Small was a hero to journalism,” said CBS News president Zirinsky in a statement.

Bill Small, the former Washington bureau chief for CBS News and president of NBC News, died Sunday in a New York hospital after a brief illness unrelated to the coronavirus, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced. He was 93.

Small led CBS' news operations in the nation's capital from 1962-74. He recruited Eric Sevareid, Marvin Kalb, Daniel Schorr, Harry Reasoner and Dan Rather from within the division and gave many producers and reporters their first commercial network news positions; those included Bob Schieffer, Ed Bradley, Bernard Shaw, Bill Moyers, Bernard Kalb and Tom Bettag.

Meanwhile, Diane ...

George Schweitzer remembers the time he had to break the news to CBS founder William S. Paley that the Tiffany Network had struck a promotional deal … with the not-so-Tiffany department store chain Kmart.

“I was scared to death,” says Schweitzer, the CBS marketing head who officially retires on April 15. “He was the chairman emeritus at that time, but he was still coming to the office and was a spiritual and superhero presence. I told him, ‘I value and appreciate the Tiffany Network, but in order to get more viewers, we’re doing this exciting new promotion with a retailer, Kmart.’ And he kind of looked at me quizzically like, gosh, obviously he’s never been to Kmart!”

But Paley gave his blessing — “and I ran out of there as fast as I could. Because he was a businessman and a showman, he got it.”

During his 48 years at CBS,...

Perry Wolff, a longtime CBS News producer, writer and director who won 17 News & Documentary Emmys but probably is best known for a now-classic documentary in which Jackie Kennedy provided a tour of the newly restored White House, died February 17 in Portland, Or. He was 97.

His death was confirmed to The New York Times by his son, the writer John Trevor Wolff. (Watch a clip of the Kennedy film below).

Wolff’s métier was the television documentary and news special. Here’s a partial list of his Emmy- and/or Peabody Award-winning films, listed on Wolff’s website and blog and mostly from the 1960s-’70s golden age of TV news documentaries: A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy, The Italians, The Great American Novel, Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed, The Japanese, The American Revolution, The Selling of the Pentagon, Conversations with Eric Sevareid, Inside Hollywood: The Movie Business,...

Marion Goldin, the 60 Minutes producer who partnered with journalist Mike Wallace on a 15-year stretch of award-winning reports beginning in the Watergate era, died June 15 at her home in Palm Springs, California. She was 76. News of her death was first reported last night by The New York Times. Born September 5, 1940, in Brooklyn, Goldin graduated from Barnard College and earned a master's degree from Harvard before becoming an assistant to CBS’s Eric Sevareid, according…...

Chicago – The character actor has always been a fixture in Hollywood culture, and there are few as unique as James Cromwell. He’s had many memorable roles in films like “Babe,” “L.A. Confidential” and within the “Star Trek” legacy. Currently, he portrays Clifton in the Oscar-nominated “The Artist.”

Cromwell was born of Hollywood royalty. His father was director John Cromwell (”Of Human Bondage,” “Since You Went Away”) and his mother was notable 1930s film actress Kay Johnson. He grew up in New York City, and studied acting at the Carnegie Mellon school in Pittsburgh. After years of stage work, he broke into TV in the mid-1970s, with a noteworthy role in “All in the Family,” as the talked-about-yet-never-seen character of Stretch Cunningham (see story below). This started a series of supporting parts in films and TV throughout the next couple of decades.

James Cromwell as Clifton in ‘The Artist...

Edwin Newman, who served NBC News for 32 years and was one of the most respected journalists in broadcast news, has died, the network announced Wednesday. He was 91.

Newman died peacefully of pneumonia Aug. 13 in Oxford, England, his lawyer Rupert Mead told Reuters. His wife and daughter wanted to wait before announcing his death to come to terms with the loss, Mead said.

Newman was regarded as a master journalist -- a newsman, a commentator and an esteemed critic. He received the George Foster Peabody Award in 1966 for "wit and depth of understanding" for his radio news broadcasts.

Beginning in 1961 and until his retirement in 1984, Newman was an indefatigable force in network news. In addition to his commentary, he narrated numerous documentary specials for NBC -- at one point, he acknowledged that he had, perhaps, made more TV docs than anyone. He also moderated two presidential debates: Ford vs. Carter in 1976 and Reagan vs.

NEW YORK -- Ernest Leiser, a pioneering foreign correspondent and producer for CBS News in the 1950s who helped expand the unit's documentary and news coverage in the 1960s, has died. He was 81. Leiser died Nov. 26 in his sleep of an apparent heart attack. He joined CBS News in 1953 as a correspondent for the science series Adventure and then became a part of the network's elite corps of foreign correspondents, which included Eric Sevareid and Charles Collingwood. Mainly, he reported from Europe, where the ruling Communists in Hungary jailed him briefly while he was covering the 1956 revolt. But Leiser gained most of his notoriety working behind the scenes. He started out co-producing such broadcasts as Eyewitness to History and coverage of the John F. Kennedy-Richard Nixon presidential campaign in 1960. Later, he made his mark helping to produce CBS News' continuous coverage of Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The network named him director of news in 1964 and then executive producer of CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite, where he helped the show pass NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report in the ratings.