Tags:
Larger than life Oprah Winfrey celebrated her 60th birthday quietly at home, away from the archlights
Fifty came with a televised bash, celebrity friends and a black-tie dinner, but Oprah Winfrey had a low-key 60th birthday at home in California on January 29.
The billionaire media entrepreneur will have a “quiet dinner” in the seaside town of Montecito, 90 miles (145 km) northwest of Los Angeles, says a source familiar with her plans.
Winfrey had previously said she would have “the biggest blowout party I can dream of,” but scaled back the affair after the guest list grew too large, the source said. Instead, last week she and her friends in West Hollywood attended a birthday SoulCycle spin class, an indoor stationary cycling exercise with motivational coaching. Winfrey posted a video online after the class with a group of people wearing navy blue T-shirts with “Happy Birthday Oprah” on the front. A self-made woman, she rose from poverty as an African American born to a teenage mother in rural Mississippi to become one of the world’s most powerful celebrities, with an estimated net worth of $2.9 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
She runs her own cable TV channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network, in partnership with Discovery Communications Inc.
Winfrey’s popular daytime talk show ended in 2011, and her trademark interviews were a must for public figures looking to remake their images. She told CBS television’s This Morning programme last October: “The 6-0 number, I’ve always said to people to own it. Even I, who has said to women all these years, own it, own it, own it, took a pause for that.”
Her 50th birthday party in 2004 on her Oprah Winfrey Show featured actor John Travolta, comedian Jay Leno and singers Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder, who all surprised her on set. She followed up with a high-profile luncheon and black-tie dinner.
Tales of the past
The influences behind Oscar-winning actress Anjelica Huston’s memoirs
That circumstance foreshadows an extraordinary childhood with an often absent father that Anjelica Huston, who won the best supporting actress Academy Award in 1986 for Prizzi’s Honor — a film directed by her father, shares in her memoir, A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York. If a storytelling gene exists, Huston, 62, inherited one from her father, the Oscar-winning director John Huston, and another from her mother, the ballet dancer Enrica Soma, who nurtured in her a love of books.
Your mother’s exceptional gift for language has influenced you.
I certainly hope so. I think it came from both of my parents, my mother and also my father, who wrote on every screenplay that he directed. He was tremendously aware of language and a very literate person.
What were some of the books you read as a young girl?
“I was a Louisa May Alcott girl: Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys, An Old Fashioned Girl. Also, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. I loved those Gothic romances. My mother gave me the French writer Colette when I was 13. The Vagabond, Cherie, those were my coming-of-age books. That was a rare and wonderful thing.
You wrote your memoir in longhand. Why?
There’s something about the brain-to-hand connection that really works for me. The amount of time it takes for a thought to transfer to my hand is good timing. The brain-to-hand thing is a little bit of a dance. It works. It’s rhythmic, and it flows.
You recount that Peter O’Toole visited your home when you were a child. You recently met him again. Now that he has died, what do you remember most about him?
The remarkable vulnerability of those blue eyes, the soul of a poet and one of the most beautiful voices in the English language.
Hugh Jackman to star in director Joe Wright’s live-action Peter Pan feature film
Academy Award nominee Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables) has been set to star in Warner Bros. Pictures’ upcoming live-action Peter Pan feature for director Joe Wright (of Atonement and Pride & Prejudice fame). The announcement was made recently by Greg Silverman, President, Creative Development and Worldwide Production, and Sue Kroll, President, Worldwide Marketing and International Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures.
Jackman will portray the villainous Blackbeard in an all-new tale about author J.M. Barrie’s beloved character Peter Pan, the boy who would never grow up. Silverman stated, “Hugh Jackman always delivers indelible performances that resonate with audiences. We know he will create a Blackbeard who will be a powerful presence in this original Peter Pan adventure.” Kroll added, “There is a reason that Hugh is known and loved the world over. He is uncompromising in his dedication to every role, and we are all thrilled to be working with him again.”
Best known to audiences worldwide for his portrayal of the Wolverine, Jackman most recently wrapped production on X-Men: Days of Future Past, reprising his role as the conflicted superhero for the sixth time in that popular film franchise. In addition to an Oscar nomination, he won a Golden Globe Award and earned a BAFTA Award nomination for his gripping performance as Jean Valjean in 2012’s Les Misérables. This past fall, Jackman led an all-star cast in the acclaimed dramatic thriller Prisoners. Also an accomplished stage actor, he received a 2004 Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway musical The Boy From Oz. Wright will direct the as-yet-untitled Peter Pan adventure from a screenplay by Jason Fuchs. Greg Berlanti and Paul Webster are serving as producers. The film is set for a worldwide release beginning July 17, 2015.
