Mars, Foo Fighters to play Grammys
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Actress Frances Sternhagen, 82; comedian Rip Taylor, 78; actor Billy Gray (“Father Knows Best“), 74; actor Richard Moll, 69; actress
actor
48;
actress (“Baywatch,” “Charles in Charge”), 40; and actor Orlando Bloom, 35.
, 51; singer
, 50; actress
, 46; (“Baywatch”), 44; actress Nicole Eggert
Foo Fighters and Bruno Mars both have six Grammy nominations, including album of the year. And now both acts will perform at the award show.
The Recording Academy announced Thursday that
and will also hit the stage at the 54th annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 12.
Kanye West leads with seven nominations. Adele is also up for six Grammys, including album, song and record of the year. She’s currently recovering from surgery on her vocal cords and her sophomore album, 21, was last year’s top seller.
The Grammys will air live on CBS from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
German vocalist to sing no more
German bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff announced he is ending his singing career after nearly 40 years due to health issues.
Quasthoff did not go into specifics. But in a statement from his agent forwarded Thursday to the Vienna office of the Associated Press, he said, “My health no longer allows me to live up to the high standard that I have always set for my art and myself.”
Quasthoff says he will continue teaching and other activities linked to his craft.
A jury should decide whether the sheriff’s deputy who arrested Mel Gibson for drunken driving suffered workplace discrimination, a judge ruled Thursday despite expressing serious concerns about whether the man can win his case.
Superior Court Judge Barbara Scheper said James Mee should be allowed to argue to jurors that he suffered discrimination
Quasthoff, considered one of the world’s finest singers and having performed an unusually wide range of vocal repertoire, was born with severe birth defects after his mother took the drug Thalidomide during pregnancy. He stands barely 4 feet tall, and his arms are extremely short.
Deputy’s case may proceed
and a hostile work environment after arresting Gibson in Malibu in 2006.
Mee, who is Jewish, claims his Christian superior officers ordered him to remove Gibson’s anti-semitic remarks from a report and then ostracized him and blocked his chances for a promotion. Attorneys for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department have denied any wrongdoing and written in court filings that the deputy was insubordinate and was subjected to the same discipline as others.
James Mee
Original veejays to pen memoirs
MTV’S surviving original veejays have some wild times to share.
Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, announced Thursday that it had signed with
and for an “uncensored” oral history of the music channel launched in 1981. The book is currently untitled, and no release date has been set.
— From Our Press Services