SHORT SHOTS

Ex-host Lauer can keep Kiwi ranch

Former Today show host Matt Lauer can keep a lakeside ranch in New Zealand after authorities there concluded there wasn’t enough evidence he’d breached a “good character’’ condition.

Lauer has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least three women and was fired from NBC last November.

His termination triggered an investigation by New Zealand authorities, who require foreign buyers of important assets to be of good character. The provision is broad and includes criminal convictions as well as anything else that authorities decide reflects poorly on an owner’s integrity.

Lauer last year purchased a lease for the Hunter Valley Station, a 10,750-hectare farm near the ski resort of Queenstown which advertising material described as a “truly majestic setting,’’ which adjoins a Unesco World Heritage site.

New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Office (OIO) said that as part of its investigation, it had taken sworn statements from Lauer and had been in touch with NBC.

Lauer is one of dozens of powerful men who’ve faced a range of sexual misconduct allegations since last year when allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein were published.

David Cassidy ‘lied’ about alcoholism

Former teen idol David Cassidy did not have dementia, as he claimed before he died, and lied about giving up drinking, the singer told the makers of a documentary about him in the months before his death.

Cassidy, 67, who shot to fame in the 1970s TV show The Partridge Family, died of organ failure at age 67 in Florida in November last year, nine months after declaring he was fighting dementia in a bid to stave off reports about odd behaviour.

But in an excerpt released on Wednesday from documentary David Cassidy: The Last Session, Cassidy told producers that his problems were due to alcoholism.

“I have a liver disease,” Cassidy told one of the producers in a recorded telephone call after an emergency hospital admission in September.

“There is no sign of me having dementia at this stage of my life. It was complete alcohol poisoning. The fact is, I lied about my drinking,” he added.

Cassidy, whose hits Cherish and I Think I Love You, had teen girls swooning in the 1970s, was arrested three times for drunken driving between 2010 and 2014 and ordered to rehab as part of his sentence in 2014.

The documentary, which was chronicling the singer’s attempts to make a comeback and cope with dementia, was filmed in the months before his death.

Film-maker Kira Muratova dies

Ukrainian director Kira Muratova, one of the Russian-speaking world’s most respected filmmakers, has died at the age of 83, Ukraine’s state film agency announced.

The award-winning director and screenwriter, who received a special jury prize at Berlin Film Festival in 1990 for her film The Asthenic Syndrome, died late on Wednesday in the Ukrainian city of Odessa, where she had lived and worked for many years.

Muratova was born on Nov 5, 1934 in the city of Soroca, which was then part of Romania but later became part of the Soviet republic of Moldova, in a family of active Communists.

She graduated from the renowned VGIK film school in Moscow in 1959 and went on to work with famous Soviet actors and entertainers, including Russian singer-songwriter, poet and actor Vladimir Vysotsky and theatre director Oleg Tabakov.

Her films included Brief Encounters from 1968, which starred Vysotsky and Muratova herself, as well as 1971’s Long Farewells.

She won a lifetime achievement award at the Berlin festival in 2000 and at the Locarno international film festival in 1994.

Last ‘Wizard of Oz’ munchkin dies

Jerry Maren, the last surviving munchkin from the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz’ and the one who famously welcomed Dorothy to Munchkin Land, has died at age 98.

Maren died May 24 at a San Diego nursing home, his niece, Stacy Michelle Barrington, said.

In an entertainment career that spanned more than 70 years, he portrayed The Hamburglar and Mayor McCheese in McDonald’s commercials, appeared in scores of films and TV shows and made personal appearances as Little Oscar for Oscar Mayer hot dogs.

But it was his role as one of the Lollipop Kids in The Wizard of Oz that always held a special place in his heart. He would show up regularly at film conventions, munchkin gatherings and other events honouring the cast over the years.

“I’ve done so many things in show business but people say, ‘You were in The Wizard of Oz?’ It takes people’s breath away,” he told writer Paul Zollo during a 2011 interview for the publication North Hollywood Patch.

“But then I realised,’’ he added, “Geez, it must have been a hell of a picture, because everyone remembers it everywhere I go.’’

Maren, who stood just 1.3 metres, was one of more than 100 little people recruited to play munchkins in the movie.