Tag archives: actress

Gina Lollobrigida Remembered 
By Richard Mineards   |   January 31, 2023

On a personal note, I remember Italian screen legend Gina Lollobrigida, who has died in Rome at the age of 95. I had a delightful dinner with the actress at a boffo bash in Punta del Este, Uruguay, when I flew there from New York to attend a champagne-soaked party for 550 guests hosted by […]

Kloots on Coping 
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 19, 2022

Hospice of Santa Barbara’s free virtual “Illuminate” Speaker Series steps up the star quotient with its next presentation on Wednesday, April 20: Amanda Kloots, the TV host, Broadway actress, award-winning fitness entrepreneur, and recently a finalist on the 30th season of Dancing with the Stars. Kloots might also be the speaker who has been most […]

Bisset en Rose
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 3, 2022

There’s something appealing about seeing an aging actress playing an aging actress discussing acting, movies, and life in a movie. Not in the least because it’s still exceedingly difficult for actresses “of a certain age” – even in our era of more awareness – to find meaty roles.  That’s partly why the veteran British star […]

Jeanne Cooley Greeley Thayer: A Life of Wanderlust, Art & Family
By Jack Thayer   |   July 22, 2021

Jeanne Thayer never felt comfortable on a pedestal, ever since she was a young girl, too tall and lanky to feel like she belonged at the center of attention. Modesty followed her like a shadow, from her self-perceived awkwardness of youth into the awareness of her own privilege as a young adult. She lived a […]

Baking and Reading Your Way Through a Pandemic
By Claudia Schou   |   February 4, 2021

In the Kitchen with Leslie Zemeckis  When Leslie Zemeckis saunters into a room, people pay attention. That’s because the Montecito-based actress-baker-author exudes a kind of charm and poise that makes it possible to swan her way through any room – even a kitchen. Her kitchen is her temple, her place for Zen. So is her […]

As Harding’s Mom, Janney’s Aim is True
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 1, 2021

I don’t know if it means anything that my phone went dead just after I asked Allison Janney about White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. There was a long pause. Some laughter. Then she said, “Oh boy, oh dear. I don’t know how anyone could want to be …” Janney, of course, is the […]

Art of Titanic Proportions
By Richard Mineards   |   December 31, 2020

Gordon Frickers, an old friend who used to be my photographer on The Falmouth Packet when I started my career, has morphed into a very competent maritime artist. Now living in Brittany in the north of France after 25 years in the seafaring city of Plymouth, Devon, Gordon has just completed a two-year project of […]

A Honking Good Concerts Series Comes to a Close
By Steven Libowitz   |   September 3, 2020

Actress-singer Teri Bibb has played the role of understudy-turned-star Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera more than 1,000 times, both on Broadway and with the national tour that included singing a command performance at the White House. A veteran whose experience includes appearing in more than 50 musicals across the country, Bibb’s credits […]

A (Virtual) Kiss from a Roses
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 26, 2020

Santa Barbara healer-dancer-actress Teagan Rose’s mission is to support people in connecting more deeply to their sense of home in their body, to their truth, and to their primal creativity. Her Embodiment and Voice Activation sessions and workshops specialize in emotional liberation and integration, self-love and self-understanding, energetic balancing and clearing, embodied trauma release, and […]

Madame President
By Richard Mineards   |   October 31, 2019

Award-winning actress and opera singer Deborah Bertling has been appointed president of the women’s board of the Community Arts Music Association. Her extensive performance history throughout California has included dozens of plays, musicals, staged readings, concerts, feature films, and several Opera Santa Barbara productions. Deborah is also president of the Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation. In […]

Kristin Chenoweth Makes SB Debut
By Steven Libowitz   |   September 26, 2019

Tony Award-winning actress/singer Kristin Chenoweth has no illusions about who she is and what she can do. Blessed with a brilliant voice, plucky determination, and such a bubbly personality that The Daily Beast called her “the human version of just-popped champagne,” Chenoweth has soared on Broadway as Glinda in Wicked, and earned accolades, Emmy awards […]

Lauding a Leading Lady in Comedy
By Steven Libowitz   |   August 29, 2019

We’re not pulling your ear – pardon, leg – when we tell you that Carol Burnett, the funny lady whose career dates back nearly six decades – is coming to downtown’s jewel of a theater next month to be honored as a Granada Legend. They could hardly have picked a more worthy or highly decorated […]

Julia’s Back
By Richard Mineards   |   August 15, 2019

Montecito actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus‘ critically acclaimed HBO series Veep went on hiatus while she underwent treatment for breast cancer. Now Julia, 58, has opened up to the celebrity glossy, Vanity Fair, about her cancer diagnosis and returning to work after a life-threatening illness. On the cover of the Conde Nast monthly Julia wears a diaphanous […]

Remembering Sylvia
By Richard Mineards   |   June 20, 2019

On a personal note, I remember actress Sylvia Miles, who has died in New York aged 94. The two-time Oscar-nominated camp icon’s notoriety grew when she joined Andy Warhol’s Manhattan social circle in the ‘70s becoming a legendary party girl and inspiring the famous jibe: “Sylvia Miles and Andy Warhol would attend the opening of […]

It’s All About Eva at 93
By Richard Mineards   |   March 8, 2018

How nice to see veteran Montecito actress Eva Marie Saint at the age of 93 back at the Oscars. Eva, who picked up an Academy Award as best supporting actress in Elia Kazan’s gritty 1954 movie On The Waterfront, presented the coveted trophy for best costume design to the beautiful Daniel Day-Lewis film Phantom Thread. […]

Baxter’s Ties That Bind
By Steven Libowitz   |   November 30, 2017

The world “family” shows up in the title of no fewer than half a dozen TV shows on Meredith Baxter‘s list of acting credits, from an early guest shot on The Partridge Family, to her four-year (and double Emmy-winning) stint at the end of the 1970s on Family to her famed seven-year run as Elyse […]