Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
Argentine judge charges five people over death Liam Payne
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina | An Argentine judge confirmed charges against five people in connection with the death of Liam Payne, a former member of musical group One Direction, and ordered preventive prison for two of them for having supplied him with drugs.
A judicial officer confirmed Monday the judge’s decision and said that one of the two people ordered to be put under preventive prison — a form of pre-trial detention — was an employee of the hotel in Buenos Aires where Payne stayed until he died after falling from the balcony of his room in October.
The officer said the other person was a waiter Payne met in a restaurant. The officer, who requested not to be identified as a condition to talk about the ruling, said that both face charges for supplying drugs and they need to present themselves before the judge.
The judge also charged three other people with manslaughter, including a businessman who was with Payne in Argentina and two managers of the hotel. The official said that they were not ordered to be held under preventive prison.
In November, prosecutors filed initial charges against three people, but they didn’t reveal their names.
Payne fell from his room’s balcony on the third floor of his hotel in the upscale neighborhood of Palermo in the Argentine capital. His autopsy said he died from multiple injuries and external bleeding.
Prosecutors also said that Payne’s toxicological exams showed that his body had “traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescribed antidepressant” in the moments before his death.
Payne’s autopsy showed his injuries were caused neither by self-harm nor by physical intervention of others. The document also said that he did not have the reflex of protecting himself in the fall, which suggests he might have been unconscious.
Prosecutors in Argentina also ruled out the possibility that Payne died by suicide.
One Direction was among the most successful boy bands of recent times. It announced an indefinite hiatus in 2016 and Payne — like his former bandmates Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson — pursued a solo career.
Linda Lavin, Tony-winning Broadway actor, dies at 87
NEW YORK | Linda Lavin, a Tony Award-winning stage actor who became a working class icon as a paper-hat wearing waitress on the TV sitcom “Alice,” has died. She was 87.
Lavin died in Los Angeles on Sunday of complications from recently discovered lung cancer, her representative, Bill Veloric, told The Associated Press in an email.
A success on Broadway, Lavin tried her luck in Hollywood in the mid-1970s. She was chosen to star in a new CBS sitcom based on “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” the Martin Scorsese-directed film that won Ellen Burstyn an Oscar for playing the title waitress.
The title was shortened to “Alice” and Lavin became a role model for working moms as Alice Hyatt, a widowed mother with a 12-year-old son working in a roadside diner outside Phoenix. The show, with Lavin singing the theme song “There’s a New Girl in Town,” ran from 1976 to 1985.
The show turned “Kiss my grits” into a catchphrase and co-starred Polly Holliday as waitress Flo and Vic Tayback as the gruff owner and head chef of Mel’s Diner.
The series bounced around the CBS schedule during its first two seasons but became a hit leading into “All in the Family” on Sunday nights in October 1977. It was among primetime’s top 10 series in four of the next five seasons. Variety magazine listed it among the all-time best workplace comedies.
Lavin soon went on to win a Tony for best actress in a play for Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound” in 1987, which also garnered her Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Helen Hayes awards.
“She was a tremendous performer with a generous heart,” the union Actors Equity said on X. The group in 2023 honored her with the Richard Seff Award — given to veteran performers in supporting roles — for her work in Noah Diaz’s “You Will Get Sick.”
She was working as recently as this month promoting a new Netflix series in which she appears, “No Good Deed,” and filming a forthcoming Hulu series, “Mid-Century Modern,” according to Deadline, which first reported her death. She also appeared in 2024 as a guest star in “Elsbeth,” the spinoff of “The Good Wife.”
Lavin grew up in Portland, Maine, and moved to New York City after graduating from the College of William and Mary. She sang in nightclubs and in ensembles of shows.
Iconic producer and director Hal Prince gave Lavin her first big break while directing the Broadway musical “It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman.” She went on to earn a Tony nomination in Simon’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” in 1969 before winning 18 years later for another Simon play, “Broadway Bound.”
In the mid 1970s, Lavin moved to Los Angeles. She had a recurring role on “Barney Miller” and in 1976 was chosen to star in a new CBS sitcom based on Ellen Burstyn’s Oscar-winning waitress comedy-drama, “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”
Back on Broadway, Lavin later starred in Paul Rudnick’s comedy “The New Century,” had a concert show called “Songs & Confessions of a One-Time Waitress” and earned a Tony nomination in Donald Margulies’ “Collected Stories.”
“A star in every medium, but pure theatrical genius. Blissfully funny, deeply emotional, and audiences adored her. She never disappointed: I worked with her, and just watching her rehearse and build a performance was an education and the greatest joy,” Rudnick wrote on X.
Michael Kuchwara of the AP gave Lavin a rave in “Collected Stories,” writing that she “gives one of those complete, nuanced performances, capturing the woman’s intellectual vigor, her wry sense of humor and her increasing physical frailty with astonishing fidelity. And Lavin’s sense of timing is superb, whether delivering a joke or acerbically dissecting the work of her protegee.”
Lavin basked in a burst of renewed attention in her 70s, earning a Tony nomination for Nicky Silver’s “The Lyons.” She also starred in “Other Desert Cities” and a revival of “Follies” before they transferred to Broadway.
The AP again raved about Lavin in “The Lyons,” calling her “an absolute wonder to behold as Rita Lyons, a nag of a mother with a collection of firm beliefs and eye rolls, a matriarch who is both suffocating and keeping everyone at arm’s length.”
She also appeared in the film “Wanderlust” with Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, and released her first CD, “Possibilities.” She played Jennifer Lopez’s grandmother in “The Back-Up Plan.”
When asked for guidance from up-and-coming actors, Lavin stressed one thing. “I say that what happened for me was that work brings work. As long as it wasn’t morally reprehensible to me, I did it,” she told the AP in 2011.
She and Steve Bakunas, an artist, musician and her third husband, converted an old automotive garage into the 50-seat Red Barn Studio Theatre in Wilmington, North Carolina.
It opened in 2007 and their productions include “Doubt” by John Patrick Shanley, “Glengarry Glen Ross” by David Mamet, “Rabbit Hole” by David Lindsay-Abaire and “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife” by Charles Busch, in which Lavin also starred on Broadway, earning a Tony nomination.
She returned to TV in 2013 in “Sean Saves the World,” starring “Will & Grace’s” Sean Hayes, a show which lasted a season. Lavin also made appearances on “Mom” and “9JKL.”
Netrebko withdraws from Ariadne role debut in Vienna
Anna Netrebko has withdrawn from her planned role debut in Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos” at the Vienna State Opera and been replaced by Lise Davidsen in a switch of star sopranos.
“Ill health this month compromised the preparation time required before starting rehearsals just after the new year,” Netrebko said in a statement Monday. “I am sad that I will not be interpreting this incredible new role but, because of the time unexpectedly lost, I am unable to prepare it to the standard I demand of myself.”
Netrebko opened the season at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala with six performances as Leonora in Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” from Dec. 7-22.
Davidsen made her Ariadne role debut at England’s Glyndebourne Festival in 2017. She will take over from Netrebko for four performances from Jan. 21-31 in a cast that includes Michael Spyres, Kate Lindsey and Sara Blanch, with conductor Cornelius Meister.
“Bogdan Roščić and I are working to find a new period as soon as possible for me to sing it in Vienna,” Netrebko said, referring to the Vienna State Opera director.
Netrebko’s next scheduled performance is a recital in Palm Beach, Florida, on Feb. 3, 2025, her first U.S. appearance since 2019.
—From AP reports
