People: Oscars honoring Lee, Rowlands, Reynolds
Spike Lee, Gena Rowlands and Debbie Reynolds are the season’s first Oscar winners. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Thursday that the filmmaker and two actresses will receive honorary Academy Awards Nov. 14 at its annual Governors Awards ceremony in Hollywood.
Lee and Rowlands will receive honorary Oscars for their career achievements. Reynolds will accept the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs called each of the recipients to inform them of their awards. She said Lee responded by saying, “Get outta here!”
The independent filmmaker and teacher at New York University has two Oscar nominations: Original screenplay for 1989’s “Do the Right Thing” and documentary feature for 1997’s “4 Little Girls.”
Sharpton going weekly at MSNBC
The Rev. Al Sharpton is losing his weeknight pulpit on MSNBC and will move to Sunday mornings.
In a memo to staffers sent late Wednesday, MSNBC President Phil Griffin announced that Sharpton’s program “PoliticsNation” will air as a weekly hourlong show on Sundays starting Oct. 4. Sharpton’s weeknight show ends Sept. 4.
Sharpton’s program is the latest casualty of the changes underway at MSNBC, which is moving away from opinionated discussion shows and more toward breaking news during the day. Live coverage will air in the “PoliticsNation” hour until a new program is launched.
As a civil rights activist who often found himself in the news, Sharpton was the most polarizing of MSNBC’s hosts. But he was popular among the channel’s more politically progressive fans.
Banderas studying fashion design
Antonio Banderas has swapped film for fashion, at least temporarily. The “Mask of Zorro” star is studying at Central Saint Martins, the London college that trained designers Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen.
This week, Banderas tweeted a picture of himself surrounded by dressmaker’s dummies and the words: “The 2nd week of studies at Central St Martin begins. Intense, exciting, serious and fun all the same time.”
The college confirmed Thursday that the actor is taking a specially crafted short course in fashion. The course lasts several weeks and is due to end before full-time students return in October.
The 55-year-old Spanish actor told a British TV show earlier this year that he aspired to study fashion.
The birthday bunch
Actor David Soul is 72. Actress Barbara Bach is 69. Actor Daniel Stern is 58. Olympic gold medal figure skater Scott Hamilton is 57. Country singer Shania Twain is 50. Actor Jack Black is 46. Actor Jason Priestley is 46. Country singer LeAnn Rimes is 33. Actor Armie Hammer is 29. Rock singer Florence Welch (Florence and the Machine) is 29. Reality TV star Alana Thompson, AKA “Honey Boo Boo,” is 10.