PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
Matthews retires from MSNBC, cites comments to women
Longtime MSNBC host Chris Matthews abruptly retired from his “Hardball” show on Monday, apologizing for making inappropriate comments about women and following a brutal week where he also took heat from supporters of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
His exit came after a weekend of discussions with his bosses, three days after GQ ran a column by a freelance journalist about her “own sexist run-in” with Matthews in the makeup room before appearing on his show.
Matthews opened his program Monday with the announcement, talking in his familiar staccato style, that he was ending his run on the political talk show he started in 1997. After a commercial break, he was replaced in the anchor chair by a shaken Steve Kornacki.
Matthews said that “compliments on a woman’s appearance that some men, including me, might have incorrectly thought were OK were never OK. Not then, and certainly not today, and for making such comments in the past, I’m sorry.”
‘Inside the Actors Studio’ host Lipton dies at 93
James Lipton, an actor-turned-drama-school-dean who got hundreds of Hollywood luminaries to open up about their life and art and became an unlikely celebrity himself as the longtime host of “Inside the Actors Studio,” died Monday. He was 93.
Lipton died of bladder cancer at his
New York home, his wife, Kedakai Lipton, said.
The Detroit-born Lipton began the Bravo show in 1994 that also served as a class for his students at the Actors Studio Drama School, where he was then dean. He often said his only requirement for a guest was whether they had something to teach his students. His first guest, Paul Newman, set a standard of stardom for those that would follow, including Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Glenn Close, Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand.
Recording Academy fires ousted CEO, citing investigations
The Recording Academy on Monday fired Deborah Dugan, its former president who called into question the integrity of the Grammy Awards nominations process.
The academy said the decision was reached after “two exhaustive, costly independent investigations” about Dugan and her allegations. It said the reviews found “consistent management deficiencies and failures,” though no specifics were offered.
Dugan had been on administrative leave since mid-january, when she was ousted amid a complaint about her treatment of a longtime Recording Academy employee. Dugan had also raised several issues about the way the organization ran and accused its top lawyers of acting inappropriately toward her during a business meeting.
Dugan’s ouster played out days before the Grammy Awards, which made no mention of her or her allegations of a rigged voting process for some of the ceremony’s top awards.