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Odetta, the awesome blues and folk singer whose work was a soundtrack to the American civil rights movement and an inspiration to Bob Dylan and many others, has died at the age of 77. She began singing in the 1940s, and "In 1961, Martin Luther King, Jr. anointed her 'The Queen of American folk music.'" Okay? She was also Rosa Parks' favorite singer. Not much more needs to be said, except that her music was off the chain. Three clips come tumbling down like Jericho, below:
At the Las Vegas rally for Proposition 8 yesterday, comedian and Adventures of New Christine ingenue Wanda Sykes told a massive crowd of onlookers that she'd gotten married on October 25...to a woman. After divorcing her husband in 1998, many had hoped Sykes would break up Larry David's marriage and claim him for her own. While it looks like that hilarious coupling will never come to pass, we wish the brilliant Sykes all the happiness in the world. Here's what she told the crowd:
"You know, I don't really talk about my sexual orientation. I didn't feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life...Everybody that knows me personally they know I'm gay. But that's the way people should be able to live their lives...Now, I gotta get in their face. I'm proud to be a woman. I'm proud to be a black woman, and I'm proud to be gay."
We probably should have already known, as Sykes and New Christine co-star Julia Louis-Dreyfus often had jokes in the script about their two characters being married. Go Wanda!
UPDATE: You can hear Wanda's speech and an interview afterwards here. And here's some video for you:
Proud to Be Gay [AP]
Del Martin, lifelong gay rights activists and one half of one of the first gay couples to wed in California, has passed away at the age of 87. Her new wife (and partner of some fifty years) was by her side. [SFGate]
Estelle Getty, actress and adorable little old shrunken lady, passed away today. She was 84. Perhaps best known for her role as cranky and wise-cracking "Ma" Sophia Petrillo to Bea Arthur's Dorothy on the sitcom The Golden Girls, Ms. Getty got her start in the theatre. She once played Harvey Fierstein's mother in the Broadway show Torch Song Trilogy! Those two roles alone ought to cement her in the gay pantheon of revered tough and hilarious broads for the rest of time. Ms. Getty suffered from something called Lewy body dementia, which was misdiagnosed earlier as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. In 2006 she issued a statement through her caregiver about her condition and outlook, telling her fans "that if she has made you laugh, encouraged you to think, and challenged your beliefs, then she has done her job."
[Leven Rambin, socialite/actress/ghost, at a screening of a Roman Polanski documentary in New York last night; image via Splash]
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the "DC Madam" who was convicted in April of charges related to her famous prostitution ring, died today in an apparent suicide at her mother's house in Florida. She was 52. Palfrey was busted in October of 2006, and it wasn't long before she captured national attention by threatening to release her phone records—records that could've destroyed the careers of hundreds of Washington politicians and officials. Or so went speculation at the time.
Palfrey, a former receptionist, cocktail waitress, and probable escort herself, began her escort service under the name "Pamela Martin & Associates" in 1993. By 2006 her girls charged $300-per-hour and allegedly counted as clients thousands of important Washington figures.
She was finally busted in 2006 (by the Post Office!), whereupon she began her second career as an inescapable media figure (in DC, at least). She made headlines by threatening to sell her client list to pay for her attorneys—attorneys she kept firing, until finally deciding to defend herself. The presiding judge eventually convinced her to take a court-appointed lawyer as the case went to court this February.
Meanwhile, Palfrey continued insisting she'd done nothing illegal. She was merely offering an "erotic fantasy service." The first high-profile johns Palfrey outed—Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias and some think-tank nut—admitted no wrong-doing. Tobias did eventually resign.
And finally she released what is probably the biggest name on her list—Senator David Vitter. Vitter, who's even been linked to other whores, did not resign.
She didn't sell the list. She did hand it over to ABC, but they apparently found nothing on it newsworthy enough to share.
As her trial for money laundering and racketeering drew closer, Palfrey found herself settling into a comfortable role as a media talking head—DC's own unrepentant Heidi Fleiss, happy to opine on the whoring of great men in case tomorrow's column was looking a little dry.
Faced with the convictions on all charges, though, and possible jail time, well—who the hell knows what was really going on. You never do.
Now we await the conspiracy theorists who'll swear she was killed by the government before she could reveal that Dick Cheney was a client, or something.
Thousands of people in Jamaica turned out last weekend to celebrate the life of Bob Marley's mother, who apparently died earlier this month, in a development I totally missed. Her name was Cedella Booker, and she died at the age of 81, outliving her son by 27 years. Bob Marley, the reggae superstar who was (argument starter) the most notable musician of the 20th century, now leaves behind only his seemingly endless procession of kids to carry on his name—his British dad died in 1955. We should also note that Marley once had a brief affair with Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Noted! Anyhow, let's take a moment to remember Cedella Booker, who recorded two albums herself, and wrote two books about her son [The Root]. Her life produced a net gain in the world's happiness. How shall we memorialize her? With a video of her son singing "Natural Mystic," of course:
"I always feel like something of an impostor," Jodie Foster said at this week's Hollywood Reporter 'Women in Entertainment Power 100' breakfast this week. Says the AP: "Foster characterized herself as a 'professional' and a 'gentleman.'" Really? What else, Clarice? "I don't know what I'm doing... I suppose that's my one little secret." Nonsense, my dear, surely you have more than just the one? "The one lesson is to try and be who you are and not try and be somebody else because you're never going to be very good at being somebody else." But Jodie, maybe if you just sat with us and went over it a few times, we could get it down pat? Great, thanks, you're the best!
Critic, biographer and novelist Elizabeth Hardwick, co-founder of the New York Review of Books, has died. In a response to a letter from screenwriter and New Yorker columnist Penelope Gilliatt that complained about Hardwick's trashing of Lillian Hellman in 1968, Hardwick wrote: "Perhaps Miss Gilliatt doesn't yet understand all there is to know about New York and the literary and intellectual world here. When we remember the number of unjustified slams and unwarranted raves, the way convictions sometimes cross uncomfortably, it is astonishing that relations remain as humorous, slap-dash, unparanoiac, and, above all, as pleasantly disorganized as they really are." [NYO]
Yesterday, real estate agent to the stars, former Ramones manager and ex-wife of Belle and Sebastian muse Seymour Stein was found lying in a pool of blood in her multimillion dollar apartment. The medical examiner has since ruled that she died from "blows to the head and neck." She lived, as the Times writes in a "building, at the corner of 78th Street, [that[ has the security of doormen, elevator operators, and surveillance cameras mounted on the sidewalk canopy and in the lobby." However: "a reporter found an unlocked service door on the side street."
The New York Times' Ginia Bellafante reminds us today of how the untimely death-by-snake of matriarchal "Meerkat Manor" star, Flower Whiskers, has touched so many, so deeply. YouTube memorial videos like the one above abound, and Animal Planet has this to say: "We at Animal Planet our devastated by her loss and recognize that her death will have a deep impact on our viewers. Life in the Kalahari will never be the same." Perhaps our favorite line comes from narrator and 'Rudy' star Sean Astin: "Flower was a formidable leader and a noble mother. The desert has lost its favorite rose."
Related: US detains nearly 25,000 in Iraq [AFP]
Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop and pioneer of "ethical beauty," general greenness and all-around good personness, died yesterday; she was 64. [The Business]
Madeleine L'Engle, beloved author of our first chapter book A Wrinkle In Time, among many many others, is dead at 88. Thank you, Madeleine L'Engle, for introducing us to the pleasure of the written word. And, later on, for all those hot sexual fantasies about twins Sandy and Dennys Murry. [AP]
New York Times photog Bill Cunningham works the pit outside the funeral, which is set to start at 2:30 p.m., up at St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street.
Brooke Astor died this afternoon. She was 105. A grand life—one only slightly marred by having idiots in her family. [City Room]