It's hard to think of another actor who could do more with syllables than Maggie Smith. Language for her was an all-purpose prop.

Her characters would crash down on consonants, as though landing a plane in the midst of an engine blowout or stretch out vowels in defiance of several laws of physics. Silence was a deadly weapon in her hands. Her ...Read more

A day I have been dreading is now upon us: Dame Maggie Smith has died.

She was 89, of course, and spent much of her final acting years playing women who were facing the inevitable: Her iconic Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of "Downton Abbey," confesses she is ill in the first follow-up film and dies in the second. The reformed racist Muriel ...Read more

Say yes to heaven — and the dress. Lana Del Rey has reportedly wed swamp tour guide Jeremy Dufrene.

The “Say Yes to Heaven” and “Summertime Sadness” singer was photographed getting married Thursday in Des Allemands, Louisiana, at the public bayou where Dufrene works, according to the Daily Mail, which obtained and published photos and...Read more

NEW YORK — Chappell Roan isn’t so hot to go to Forest Hills, having pulled out of All Things Go just a day before her headlining slot at Saturday’s Queens festival.

The “HOT TO GO!” singer, 26, announced on Instagram Friday afternoon that she would not be performing at Forest Hills Stadium Sept. 28, nor at the festival’s Columbia, ...Read more

ANAHEIM, Calif. — After nearly three decades of defying the odds and shaking up the pop-punk scene, Sum 41 is officially saying goodbye.

The Canadian rock icons are gearing up for their final chapter with the Tour of the Setting Sum, marking the end of an era filled with blistering live shows, rebellious anthems, and a fan base that has grown...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Two-time Oscar winner Maggie Smith, the celebrated stage actress who starred in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and burnished her long-shining star by playing the scene-stealing dowager countess of "Downton Abbey" and the exacting Professor McGonagall in the "Harry Potter" franchise, has died. She was 89.

The respected English ...Read more

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Nicole Byer tends to find humor in the unexpected — and through her recent experience of losing power due to wildfires, she did just that.

“I didn’t even know there were fires until I lost power,” she laughs. In typical Byer fashion, she turned the chaos into a lighthearted adventure, crashing at various friends’ ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — Fall is here, time to (Block) party.

As temperatures kinda, sorta start to cool in Vegas, the city’s festival schedule takes the opposite trajectory: heating up with one major music gathering after the next through November.

And it all begins with the debut of A Big Beautiful Block Party on Friday and Saturday on the Plaza ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — There's an indisputable fact about Lyle and Erik Menendez: The brothers killed their parents, Jose and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez, on Aug. 20, 1989, in the den of their Beverly Hills mansion.

But what was the motivating factor behind the murders? Was it greed, as prosecutors contended, or was it retaliation after years of ...Read more

Madonna’s stepmother, Joan Ciccone, has died after a short bout with “very aggressive” cancer.

She was 81.

Joan Clare Ciccone married Silvio Ciccone in 1966, three years after the pop star’s mother died. The two had a tumultuous and fraught relationship, though in later years appeared to have softened, according to People. Madonna’s ...Read more

“Born to Die” singer Lana Del Rey appears ready to marry her boat captain boyfriend Jeremy Dufrene.

The pair picked up a marriage license Monday in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, according to TMZ. The outlet said the license hasn’t been returned and documented, so there’s so far no record of a wedding on file. The license is good for 30 ...Read more

Six years later, Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan have finally settled their contentious divorce.

The “Step Up” stars-turned-spouses, who were married from 2009 to 2018, are just waiting for a judge to give the green light on their binding agreement, obtained Thursday by TMZ.

A judge still has to sign off on the agreement, the details of ...Read more

A moving feature debut, “In the Summers” comes from writer-director Alessandra Lacorazza, pulling threads from her own childhood and family story to make a new tapestry. Watching it, I thought of something the playwright Steven Dietz once said in an interview, paraphrased as: Don’t write what you know. Write what you need to discover. ...Read more

NEW YORK — Prince Harry got a royal fright on his trip to New York City this week, when he stopped by Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonightmares.”

The 40-year-old Duke of Sussex joined the “Tonight Show” host, 50, in the haunted maze Thursday, starting with the Tower of Terror-esque elevator at the Rockefeller Center excursion.

“Was that you?...Read more

LOS ANGELES — John Leguizamo is tired of the omission of Latino stories in American history. And he is doing something about it … again.

The award-winning actor and producer is the host and force behind a new PBS series, “American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos,” premiering Sept. 27.

Directed by Ben DeJesus, the three-part ...Read more

Back in the 1920s, a comedy called "Abie's Irish Rose," about a Jewish boy married to a Catholic girl and the havoc that plays among their families, ran for more than five years on Broadway in spite of terrible reviews. ("People laugh at this every night, which explains why democracy can never be a success," wrote Robert Benchley, then a Life ...Read more

“I may be wrong. But frankly, I doubt it.” That line, or words to that effect, are a common refrain on “Murder, She Wrote.” It takes a certain amount of flinty self-confidence for a character to pull that off without sounding smug. We live in uncertain times. Hollywood is in its flop era. But when all else fails, there’s always Jessica...Read more

LAS VEGAS — Dita Von Teese talks of putting some distance between her show and the term “burlesque.” This idea is akin to Cirque du Soleil moving beyond “circus.” But it makes sense, at least in Las Vegas.

“I almost want to abandon the term burlesque,” Von Teese says during a chat at Voltaire at The Venetian, home of her new ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Skateboarding made a 180 in the 1990s.

At the beginning of the decade, the sport's popularity had reached a nadir — particularly vert skating, in which riders performed gravity-defying tricks as they launched off ramps and half-pipes. In less than 10 years, it came back into vogue, being broadcast into homes via the X Games.

...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — In “The Deliverance,” Anthony B. Jenkins is literally climbing the walls. To be fair, he’s possessed by a demonic presence — or rather his character, Andre, is.

In reality, the 12-year-old Apopka actor has been far too busy for climbing the walls, in the colloquial sense. In just the past few weeks he has been seen in ...Read more