Queen Latifah Gets ‘Equal’
of the Lambs,
Clarice
The Silence
(Rebecca Breeds),
The singer-actress follows in the footsteps of Denzel Washington and Edward Woodward, but with a gender switch, when she stars in the TV reboot of The Equalizer (Feb. 7 on CBS). The series follows Robyn McCall, a single mother with a teenage daughter, as she employs her extensive skills as a former CIA operative to help innocent people who’ve become trapped in dangerous circumstances. “This is one of the only jobs that I have taken in my life where someone asked me one time and I said yes immediately,” says Latifah, 50.
Love Story, starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw, gets a golden anniversary nod with a new limited-edition Blu-ray (Feb. 9), just in time for Valentine’s Day. Here are some fun facts about the seven-time Academy Award nominee, the No. 1 box office hit of 1970 and one of the first films ever to top $100 million in ticket sales.
• The film began as a screenplay by author who later adapted it into a novel that remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 41 weeks.
• MacGraw admitted she was confused about the movie’s tagline, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
• Eight up-and-coming actors—including and the role of Oliver before it went to Ryan O’Neal.
• Segal based Ryan O’Neal’s character on Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore, who were housemates at Harvard and friends of Segal’s.
• For the sake of authenticity, director Arthur Hiller convinced MacGraw to learn harpsichord for the scene in which it’s played by her character, Jenny.
• The snow scene in the Harvard football stadium was completely improvised—it was supposed to be a picnic, but the weather had other ideas.
Douglas, Peter Fonda
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