RIP Don Cornelius

Earlier today I read that Soul Train creator Don Cornelius committed suicide.  He was found in his home in Southern California early this morning.  He was 75 years old.

I remember back in the day watching this show. It was fun to watch the dancers and the different music artist every Saturday.  Soul Train brought some great music into the homes of millions of Americans.  I remember a while ago watching a documentary titled Soul Train:  The Hippest Trip in America.  VH1 is showing the documentary on February 6 at 9:30pm.  I know Centric, the cable channel use to show episodes of Soul Train.  I wonder if they will start up again.  Or maybe have a Soul Train marathon this weekend.

‘Soul Train’ creator Don Cornelius found dead

By Greg Kot

Tribune critic

Don Cornelius became the baritone-voiced bellwether of Chicago cool when he took “Soul Train” from the South Side to a national audience in the 1970s.

Cornelius, 75, was found dead Wednesday at his Mulholland Drive home in Encino, Calif. He apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police say. There was no sign of foul play, but the Los Angeles Police Department was investigating.

Born in Chicago in 1936, Cornelius grew up in the Bronzeville neighborhood and worked numerous jobs: he sold insurance, worked as a TV newsman and deejayed at WVON, which serenaded the South and West Sides with soul music. While employed at WCIU-TV in the ’60s, he started hosting soul dance parties around the city and eventually approached station management about a show based on the same idea. They accepted.

“I wasn’t surprised because I was invited to come over there by one of my mentors, Roy Wood, who was the news director at WVON-AM radio,” Cornelius told the Tribune last year. “He was a good man. He had persuaded them to do a black-oriented news show called ‘A Black’s View of the News.’ I knew the format at Channel 26 had a lot to do with ethnic-targeted programming, so I said to the owner one day, ‘Why don’t you let me try this?’”

“Soul Train” debuted in 1970 with low expectations and overhead. Color cameras weren’t in the budget and the dancefloor was the size of a typical living room. But the show struck a chord with an audience that had been largely ignored by other teen-oriented dance shows, most famously Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand.” For young, African-American kids, “Soul Train” was must-see after-school viewing because it presented mostly R&B artists that other shows neglected. And, perhaps most importantly, it showcased the hippest dance moves.

You can read the entire article here at the Chicago Tribune.

Mr. Cornelius use to end his show with the following saying:

“And you can bet your last money, it’s all gonna be a stone gas, honey! I’m Don Cornelius, and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace and soul!”

Check out the video to the Soul Train theme song The Sound of Philadelphia.  The song was written by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff.

RIP Mr. Cornelius.

Undercovers stars grace cover of Jet Magazine

Undercovers stars Boris Kodjoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw grace the cover of the October 18, 2010 edition of Jet Magazine.

I’ve been watching the show since it premiered. The pilot episode was somewhat slow but I try not to give up on a show based on the pilot.  I thought the episodes after the pilot were better.  But the ratings for the show haven’t been that great.  Undercovers usually ranks fourth on Wednesday nights in it’s 8:00pm timeslot.  I did read in Deadline Hollywood that NBC has ordered six more scripts for the show so hopefully that’s good news.

All remaining freshman series on NBC got some good news today. Three, The Event, Law & Order: Los Angeles and Outsourced, have been picked up for the rest of the season with back-nine orders. A similar pickup for Chase is said to be pending, while I hear Undercovers is close to receiving an order for additional scripts, said to be about 6.

At least it made it past the 2nd episode.  A couple of new shows on network tv have already been cancelled and they only aired twice. Nowadays if a new tv show doesn’t capture the number one rating in it’s time slot the networks cancel the show within a couple of weeks.

Anyway I’m sticking by Undercovers. I hope NBC doesn’t bail out on this show. It’s nice watching black folks in leading roles for a change instead of being relegated to the background as the best friend or shoulder to cry on.

 

Idris Elba stars in Luther on BBC America

Last night the BBC America crime drama miniseries Luther premiered.

Idris Elba stars as the self destructive detective John Luther.

According to BBC America:

Luther is a gripping, psychological thriller driven by a brilliant and emotionally impulsive detective tormented by the darker side of humanity.

A self-destructive near-genius, Luther might just be as dangerous as the depraved criminals he hunts. In each episode, the murderer’s identity is known from the start, focusing the drama on the psychological duel between predator and prey.

Luther shines a light into the hearts and minds of psychopaths and killers, and the shadowy spaces of his own soul.

The six part miniseries first aired on BBC One in England earlier this year. A second series for Luther will air in England 2011.  It will air as 2 two hour long movies.

I enjoyed part one.  A nice change of pace to hear Idris talk in his native British accent.  The actress who plays Alice Morgan looked familiar.  Her name is Ruth Wilson.  After doing a google search I recognized her from a PBS miniseries I saw earlier this year starring Naomie Harris titled Small Island.

If you missed part one you can catch it again on BBC America on Thursday October 21 at 9:00pm.  New episodes of Luther air on Sundays at 10:00pm.

Undercovers premieres tomorrow night

NBC’s new series Undercovers premieres tomorrow night at 8:00pm ET. The show stars former Soul Food alum Boris Kodjoe and British actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw.  Undercovers also stars former Simon & Simon star Gerald McRaney and Mekia Cox who was a dancer in the Michael Jackson documentary concert film This Is It.

I’ve been looking forward to watching this show since they announced that Boris and Gugu would be the leading stars. Talk about a miracle on network television. And it shouldn’t be a miracle in the 21st century.  I blogged about this miracle back in February.

Anyway MSNBC has an article about the show and interviews the two actors.

‘Undercovers’ puts minority leads in the TV spotlight

New series from ‘Lost’ creator features two main characters who happen to be black

Voters may have overwhelmingly elected a black man as president in 2008, but broadcast TV decision makers still don’t fully believe mainstream audiences will embrace a drama series with a black lead unless coupled with a white actor or as part of a large, multiracial ensemble cast. And don’t even consider two black leads carrying a drama series on a major network.

“Lost” creator J.J. Abrams may change that perception with his anticipated new show on NBC, “Undercovers,” which debuts Sept. 23. (TODAYshow.com is a part of msnbc.com, which is a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

The drama stars Boris Kodjoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Steven and Samantha Bloom, a married couple who were once spies and are now getting back into the business. At the core, the show is a brightly written romantic adventure with two strong leading characters who happen to be black.

Boris made an interesting yet very true comment about how things go in liberal Hollywood.

“I just decided I wasn’t going to be the affirmative action guy,” Kodjoe said of the practice of auditioning minorities for roles. “Everybody says you did a great job. Then you get the call they ‘went another way,’ which means they went with a white actor. (The color of your skin) is something you have no control over. After a while, it wears you out.”

But Undercovers creator J.J. Abrams and producer Josh Reims were definitely looking for a different type of cast from what you’re normally seeing on network television.

He was finally persuaded that Reims and Abrams were serious about casting non-white actors in the roles if they could find the right actors. The veteran producers knew exactly what they didn’t want to see in their two prospective leads: the same homogenous actors playing in every other series on the air.

“We wanted (our series) to look different,” said Reims, who previously worked with Abrams on “Felicity.” “We didn’t go out of our way to say we are hiring two black people to be the leads of the show. But we (knew) it would be great if we could do that.”

Check out the entire article here.

NFL TV blackouts

Bad news for NFL fans in quite a few cities. According to USA Today, at least 11 cities could be facing television blackouts during the 2010 NFL season. The economy and poor performances by several teams are the reasons for some NFL teams not being able to sell out their games.

More stadium blues: NFL TV blackouts loom in several cities

By Sean Leahy, USA TODAY
The blackout blues will be back this season for some NFL fans.

At least 11 NFL teams could be facing TV blackouts in their home markets as the NFL fights through a downward trend in stadium attendance.

A confluence of issues — including a still-struggling economy, the quality of the viewing experience in fans’ homes and sustained poor performance among some teams — have come together to keep some teams off local TV.

NFL rules require that games be blacked out in the home market if it is not sold out 72 hours prior to kickoff. The league had 22 games (8.6% of the regular season) blacked out last year, a five-year high. And the forecast for the new season is already gloomy in many markets.

“We’re grappling with the attendance issue,” said Tampa Bay Buccaneers spokesman Jonathan Grella, whose team may face its first blackout on Sunday in the opener against the Cleveland Browns. Buccaneers co-chairman Joel Glazer said as far back as March that blackouts were a strong possibility as the team rebuilds following a 3-13 season.

TV blackouts are part of a long-standing NFL policy that commissioner Roger Goodell has consistently said is not up for reconsideration.

This season, Goodell said he’s encouraged teams to get creative, even in a down economy, and offer value to fans.

Some of the cities being hit by the NFL blackout include Tampa Bay, San Diego, Detroit, Buffalo, Oakland and St. Louis.  Man was I happy to see that the Washington Redskins, despite their losing ways, have sold out all eight games

The NFL regular season starts Thursday, September 9 with the Minnesota Vikings playing the Super Bowl Champions New Orleans Saints.  My Washington Redskins will play on Sunday night, September 12 against my number one enemy, the Dallas Cowboys.  I can’t stand the Cowboys

The Real Housewives of D.C.

As you know I’ve bitched and moaned about how reality shows have pretty much taken over network and cable tv.  But I’ll admit I do have a couple of guilty pleasures when it comes to reality tv shows.   One of those shows is America’s Next Top Model and unfortunately I’m addicted to the Real Housewives franchise.  Yes I watch all the housewives from Orange County, New York City, Atlanta and New Jersey. The latest housewives saga starts on Thursday August 5. The Real Housewives of D.C.

I blogged about the first mention of the D.C. Housewives last year.

Since I live in the D.C. metro area (not the DMV, lol) I will definitely watch this one.

The Reliable Source at the Washington Post did a feature about the cast last month.

Washington, you’re forgiven if you don’t know what to make of your “Housewives.”

Are the stars-to-be of “The Real Housewives of D.C.” representative of our city? Of course not.  Four out of five are white, all are affluent, and most live in the ‘burbs.

Are they prominent Washington players? Not really. A few have social pull in limited circles, but none are A-listers.

Should they all be on TV? Federal and Virginia prosecutors, still weighing charges against Tareq and Michaele Salahi for the White House dinner-crashing and certain business practices, didn’t have a say.

But who cares! This will be reality TV in all its semi-staged glory. Bravo touts the series as portraying “connected D.C. power players” navigating “the unwritten social rules of the Beltway.” But none of these women works in government or politics; for the most part, neither do their husbands. Friends tell us most of the cast didn’t know each other before taping began last year. Bravo gave serious consideration to a lobbyist and a fundraiser, but both dropped out, because their jobs either required discretion or were too boring.

Instead, we’ve got a modeling agency owner, a socialite mom, an expat, a real estate agent and, well, Michaele Salahi. We’ve written about them only a kajillion times over the past year as they’ve shown up at parties and cafes with TV cameras in tow, but let’s meet them — and the other housewives — again!

Yes the Salahis. Who can forget the White House dinner party crashers.

When I first heard about the D.C. Housewives show I thought for sure Bravo casting would concentrate on all white women from Northwest D.C. and Northern Virginia.  Well at least they diversified the cast with one black woman even though the D.C. area is very diverse.

This week’s TV Week from Sunday’s Washington Post has an article about the new franchise but the article spends more time talking about Michelle Salahi.  Just click on the pictures to read the article.

Why am I not surprised that the Salahi woman is on the cover? TV Week could have at least featured the entire cast on the cover but we are talking about the Washington Post.

Anyway if you can’t get enough of the Real Housewives franchise just wait.  There’s more.  Bravo has another Real Housewives franchise in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  Yeah that’s right.  This one features former child stars Kim and Kyle Richards who just happen to be the aunts of Paris Hilton.

Other cast members, which Bravo will not confirm but people with knowledge of the production did, include: Kim and Kyle Richards, former child actors who are the younger sisters of Kathy Hilton and aunts to Paris and Nicky.

Kyle Richards, married with four daughters, is no stranger to the camera, having worked in TV starting in the ’70s on shows like “Little House on the Prairie” and “Fantasy Island.” Her acting credits list the original “Escape to Witch Mountain,” John Carpenter’s cult classic version of “Halloween” and the 2006 frat boy comedy, “Pledge This!” starring her niece, Paris.

Kim Richards, a divorced mom of four, broke into the entertainment business on family sitcom “Nanny and the Professor,” and had parts in TV shows ranging from “ABC Afterschool Specials” and “Diff’rent Strokes” to “Chips” and “The Dukes of Hazzard” as well as a starring role in “Escape to Witch Mountain.” She has some reality TV experience, too, appearing in her niece’s Fox series, “The Simple Life.”

According to the article the Beverly Hills saga will premiere either late fall or early 2011.

Christmas in July on TV One

It’s been hot as hell around here.  It’s been that way since late May/early June before summer officially started.  With the exception of a couple of days back in June the temperature’s been stuck at 90 degrees plus.  Sometimes the heat index has been 100 degrees.  According to the Weather Channel.com it’s gonna be nothing but 90 degrees plus through the weekend including up to 97 degrees on Saturday.  That’s why I can’t wait until cooler temps get here in the fall.  Fall needs to get here pronto. Yeah I said it.  As BlackgirlinMaine stated, not all black folks love heat and humidity

Anyway to somewhat cool things off TV One has an all day Christmas in July marathon on Saturday.   Shows include Amen, Living Single, A Different World, Martin, Good Times and The Jeffersons.

RIP Vonetta McGee

Actress Vonetta McGee passed away on July 9.  The cause of death was cardiac arrest.

Vonetta appeared in what many folks called back on the 70′s blaxploitation pictures including Blacula, Shaft in Africa and Hammer. Vonetta also starred in Thomasine and Bushrod, The Eiger Sanction and Detroit 9000.

Vonetta was married to actor Carl Lumbly and she is survived by Carl, their son Brandon, her mother, Alma McGee, three brothers, Donald, Richard and Ronald McGee and a sister, Alma McGee.

Vonetta McGee, Film and TV Actress, Dies at 65
By MARGALIT FOX

Vonetta McGee, a film and television actress originally known for blaxploitation pictures like “Blacula,” “Hammer” and “Shaft in Africa,” died on July 9 in Berkeley, Calif. She was 65 and a Berkeley resident.

The cause was cardiac arrest, said Kelley Nayo, a family spokeswoman.

In “Blacula” (1972), Ms. McGee portrayed the love interest of Mamuwalde (William Marshall), an African prince who, after an ill-fated trip to Transylvania centuries earlier, re-emerges in modern Los Angeles as a member of the thirsty undead.

Reviewing the film in The New York Times, Roger Greenspun called Ms. McGee “just possibly the most beautiful woman currently acting in movies.”

In “Hammer” (1972), Ms. McGee appeared opposite Fred Williamson in the tale of a young black prizefighter. In “Shaft in Africa” (1973), the third installment in the private-eye series starring Richard Roundtree, she played an emir’s daughter.

Ms. McGee’s other films include “The Kremlin Letter” (1970); “Detroit 9000” (1973); “Thomasine & Bushrod” (1974); and “The Eiger Sanction” (1975), directed by and starring Clint Eastwood.

Lawrence Vonetta McGee, named for her father, was born in San Francisco on Jan. 14, 1945. While studying pre-law at San Francisco State College, she became involved in community theater. She left college before graduating to pursue an acting career.

According to a Los Angeles Times article, Vonetta McGee wasn’t fond of the term blaxploitation.

McGee was no fan of the “blaxploitation” label that was attached to many of the films featuring black casts in the ’70s.

That label, she told The Times in 1979, was used “like racism, so you don’t have to think of the individual elements, just the whole. If you study propaganda, you understand how this works.”

Although The Times reported that McGee “calls herself one of the lucky graduates of the black-film genre,” she pointed out that there was a difference between someone like Diana Ross and other potentially marketable black actresses.

“She has had the luxury of a studio behind her,” McGee said. “This is where a lot of us fell short. We all needed a certain amount of protection. But we were on our own.”

RIP Vonetta McGee.

Kim Fields

Parade.com has an interesting interview with actress Kim Fields.

She talks about her Facts of Life days, going to college and working with Tyler Perry.   Kim played Tootie on The Facts of Life.   I was a huge fan of this show back in the day.

Kim Fields: I Would Never Divorce Myself from ‘Facts of Life’

by Tim Hayne

As an actress, Kim Fields spent most of her formative years in front of the camera. Now, she’s spending a lot of time on the other side of the lens.

The 41-year-old showbiz vet, wife to actor Christopher Morgan and mother to son Sebastian, 3, has been busy directing episodes of Tyler Perry’s hit sitcoms “Meet the Browns” and “House of Payne,” and offering advice to aspiring filmmakers as a panelist at this summer’s “Lens on Talent: Get Focused” film symposium and as a guest on the upcoming season of BET’s “Lens on Talent: A Johnson & Johnson Filmmaker’s Challenge,” which premieres September 12.

Fields sat down with Parade.com to talk about her child-star past, the underwhelming feat of turning 40, what it’s like to work with Tyler Perry, and why she has (almost) no regrets from her “Facts of Life” days.

Getting the acting bug at an early age.

“I was never pushed into the industry. I was a very shy child. I was not one to perform for friends and family at every get-together. When my mom [actress Chip Fields] started going to acting classes out here in New York, we couldn’t afford a baby sitter. And so she took me to the acting classes just because, well, what else was she going to do with me? And there were other kids there whose parents couldn’t afford sitters either. We would keep ourselves entertained by imitating what we saw them doing, and that kind of birthed acting classes for the younger kids. In that crop was Danielle Spencer, who played Dee on ‘What’s Happening.’ Her father was a ridiculously tremendous actor named Tim Pelt who we lost some time ago in a horrible car crash.”

I also remember Kim from her few appearances on Good Times.  Kim’s real life mom, Chip Fields appeared in Good Times as Janet Jackson’s birth mom.   Kim also starred in one of my all time favorite shows, Living Single.  I still watch the reruns on TV One.  Back in the late 70′s Kim starred in the short lived series Baby I’m Back.

It’s nice to read about a former child star who’s all grown up and doing very well in life.

You can read the entire Parade.com interview here.

Life After

Tv One starts season 2 of the tv show Life After next Monday (July 19) at 9:00pm ET.  Life After looks at whatever happened to certain actors, singers and other entertainers. I’m looking forward to this season. One of the actors being interviewed is Janet Hubert who played the first Aunt Viv (Vivan Banks) on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.  She left the show in 1993 after season 3.

I’ve always wondered what the real story was behind her leaving the show.  I liked her Aunt Viv character better than her replacement.

Other folks featured this season include Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Mark Curry, Karrine Steffans, Ruben Studdard, Shar Jackson, Elise Neal and Ron Artest.