Top Entertainment Stories ‘96 - The Year In Review
1. Celebrity babies
Turns out, 1996 was a super year for celebrity spawning. Talk-show sensation Rosie O’Donnell adopted a baby boy. Michael Jackson paid a woman to bear him a child, and then he married her (the woman, that is). Other baby-themed stories swirled around Sylvester Stallone, Madonna, rocker Melissa Etheridge and the artist formerly known as Prince .
2. Tupac Shakur
The gangsta rapper, whose brief time in the spotlight included several scrapes with the law, was gunned down on a Las Vegas street in September. Shakur’s murder, which is still unsolved, falls into the life-imitates-art category. Despite his blazing talent, he couldn’t escape the fate he prophecized in song.
3. Movie-house mania
A six-house movie theater opened in Post Falls, another multiplex was scheduled to open in the Spokane Valley and a super-duper, 24-screen house was promised for downtown. Sounds great, unless it means nothing more than Chris Farley movies every 10 minutes.
4. The gay life
Ellen Degeneres contemplated having her television character come out as a lesbian. Melissa Etheridge - who electrified fans recently at the Spokane Arena - appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine with her pregnant partner Julie Cypher. And movies such as “The Birdcage,” “Stonewall” and “Romeo & Juliet” used drag queens both to have fun and make a plea for tolerance from the culture at large.
5. Royals fever
The British house of Windsor saw two divorces, tell-all biographies of a princess and a duchess and the growing celebrity status of royal heir Prince William, while the Monaco royals boasted one princess losing her hair and the other losing a husband.
6. John-John takes a wife
Speaking of royalty, America’s Kennedy family saw its most photogenic member, John F. Kennedy Jr., renounce his bachelorhood to marry Carolyn Bessette, a one-time assistant to fashion designer Calvin Klein. Circulation managers of supermarket tabloids are still smiling with glee.
7. The Macarena
Los Del Rio, a couple of Spanish-speaking lounge performers, joined with a bevy of beauties to record one of the year’s hottest dance hits. Only Alanis Morrisette’s best-selling CD “Jagged Little Pill” drew more flak for being overplayed.
8. Julia Sweeney goes Broadway
The Spokane native turned a particularly hard year of her life into a 90-minute, one-woman comedy which she took to Broadway after hit runs in San Francisco and L.A. Despite mostly good reviews, including one from the New York Times, the show closed after a short run.
9. Alien invasion
In a year that saw television star George Clooney inherit the “Batman” suit from disgruntled Val Kilmer, aliens ruled the box office. “Independence Day” ruled with more than $306 million worth of tickets sold, and Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks!” followed with a $9.4 million opening holiday weekend.
10. Michael Jackson
It was a big year for the self-described King of Pop. Following his divorce from wife Lisa Marie Presley, Jackson toured Asia, playing to ecstatic crowds, and became a daddy-in-the-making (see No. 1 above).
Runners-up: George Burns, Tiny Tim die; “Baywatch” babe Pamela Anderson Lee bombs in “Barb Wire,” then bombs in marriage with rock drummer Tommy Lee; Carolyn Lair is fired as director of the Spokane Arts Dept. after her credentials are questioned; Van Halen reunites with David Lee Roth, then fires him again.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 Photos (3 color)