Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? author Edward Albee has died aged 88.
Edward Albee’s assistant said the playwright died on September 16 at his home on Long Island near New York. No cause of death was given.
A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Edward Albee was arguably America’s greatest living playwright after the deaths of Arthur Miller and August Wilson in 2005.
He was awarded Pulitzers for A Delicate Balance, Seascape and Three Tall Women.
Edward Albee’s plays explored the darker sides of marriage, religion, raising children, and American life.
Image source Wikipedia
His best-known work, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a portrait of a decaying marriage set over one evening, was denied the 1963 Pulitzer Prize after debuting on Broadway the previous year.
The prize’s advisory board ruled that the work was not sufficiently “uplifting” because of its profanity and s**ual themes.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf did win a Tony Award for best play, and was later adapted for a film starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
In 1996, Edward Albee described the effect of the play’s success: “I find Virginia Woolf hung about my neck like a shining medal of some sort – really nice but a trifle onerous.”
The same year he was awarded a National Medal of the Arts by President Bill Clinton.
He continued to write into his 70s, and 2008 saw the premiere of a new play, Me, Myself and I, about identical twins.
A few years ago, before undergoing major surgery, Edward Albee penned a short statement to be published at the time of his death: “To all of you who have made my being alive so wonderful, so exciting and so full, my thanks and all my love.”
Edward Albee’s longtime partner, sculptor Jonathan Thomas, died in 2005.
Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, has sued literary agent Samuel Pinkus, who she says tricked her into assigning him the copyright on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book.
Harper Lee, 87, says Samuel Pinkus took advantage of her failing hearing and eyesight to transfer the rights and has failed to respond to license requests.
To Kill A Mockingbird was published in 1960 and is considered a classic. It has sold more than 30 million copies.
Harper Lee is rarely seen in public and declines almost all interview requests.
Harper Lee has sued literary agent Samuel Pinkus, who she says tricked her into assigning him the copyright on To Kill A Mockingbird
The novel is the only published book by the author, who lives in Monroeville, Alabama.
In the lawsuit, Harper Lee alleges that when her long-time literary agent, Eugene Winick, became ill in 2002, his son-in-law, Samuel Pinkus, switched several of Winick’s clients to his own company.
Samuel Pinkus is alleged to have transferred the rights to secure himself “irrevocable” interest in the income derived from Harper Lee’s book.
He also sought to avoid paying legal obligations he owed to his father-in-law’s company for royalties, according to the lawsuit.
It is further alleged that Samuel Pinkus failed to respond to offers on e-book rights and a request for assistance related to the book’s 50th anniversary.
The lawsuit bids the court to assign any rights in the book owned by Samuel Pinkus to Harper Lee and asks that she be returned any commission he took from 2007 onwards.
Samuel Pinkus did not immediately respond to an email from Reuters news agency seeking comment.
Set in Depression-era, small-town Alabama, To Kill A Mockingbird tells the story of a lawyer who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.
Author Adam Johnson has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel based in North Korea, The Orphan Master’s Son.
In 2012, judges failed to select a winner of the award for fiction for the first time in 35 years.
Adam Johnson, who teaches creative writing at Stanford University, spent time in North Korea to research his book.
“I wanted to give a picture of what it was like to be an ordinary person in North Korea,” said Adam Johnson.
“It’s illegal there for citizens to interact with foreigners, so the only way I could really get to know these people was through my imagination,” he added.
Adam Johnson has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel based in North Korea, The Orphan Master’s Son
Pulitzer judges praised Adam Johnson’s book as “an exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart”.
Other books in contention were, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, by Nathan Englander and The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey.
Sharon Old’s Stag’s Leap won the poetry award.
Tom Reiss’ biography of French aristocrat Alex Dumas, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography.
The prize for general non-fiction was awarded to Gilbert King for Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America, which details racial injustice in Florida in 1949.
The New York Times won four awards including two awards for its reporting on Apple and Wal-Mart overseas, and another for an examination of the hidden wealth of the Chinese premier’s family.
Caroline Shaw, 30-year-old violinist and vocalist, won the $10,000 Pulitzer Prize for music.
Composer Marvin Hamlisch, who wrote the scores for films and shows including The Sting and A Chorus Line, has died in Los Angeles, aged 68.
Family spokesman Jason Lee said the musician died on Monday after a brief illness.
Marvin Hamlisch wrote more than 40 film scores including his Oscar-winning score and title song for The Way We Were.
In total he won three Academy Awards, four Emmys, a Tony and three Golden Globes.
His publicist said he had been scheduled to fly to Nashville, Tennessee, this week to see a production of his latest hit musical, The Nutty Professor.
Directed by Jerry Lewis, the show is based on the 1963 comedy film of the same name. It is due to transfer to Broadway.
He was working on a new musical, Gotta Dance, at the time of his death and was scheduled to write the score for a new film about Liberace, Behind the Candelabra.
Starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, and directed by Steven Soderbergh, the HBO biopic is currently in production and is due out in 2013.
Composer Marvin Hamlisch, who wrote the scores for films and shows including The Sting and A Chorus Line, has died in Los Angeles, aged 68
Marvin Hamlisch’s scores for Broadway included A Chorus Line, which received the Pulitzer Prize, as well as They’re Playing Our Song, The Goodbye Girl and Sweet Smell of Success.
The organizers of the Tony awards paid tribute to Marvin Hamlisch and writer Mark O’Donnell – who has also died aged 58: “We’ve lost two greats: Tony-winners Marvin Hamlisch (composer of A Chorus Line) & Mark O’Donnell (Hairspray co-librettist). Rest in peace.”
His prolific output for films included original compositions and musical adaptations for Sophie’s Choice, Ordinary People, The Swimmer and Three Men and a Baby.
He also scored early Woody Allen films Take the Money and Run and Bananas.
Most recently, he worked on 2009’s The Informant!, starring Matt Damon and directed by Steven Soderbergh.
“Music can make a difference,” Marvin Hamlisch is quoted as saying on his official website.
“There is a global nature to music, which has the potential to bring all people together. Music is truly an international language, and I hope to contribute by widening communication as much as I can.”
Romantic drama The Way We Were (1973), which starred Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, won Marvin Hamlisch Oscars for best original dramatic score and best original song. His adaptation of Scott Joplin’s music for The Sting won him a third Oscar.
He also co-wrote the hit song Nobody Does it Better, sung by Carly Simon, for the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, as well as Aretha Franklin’s R&B hit Break It to Me Gently.
“He was classic and one of a kind,” Franklin told the Associated Press on Tuesday.
“Who will ever forget <<The Way We Were>>?”
Marvin Hamlisch was a graduate of New York’s Juilliard School of Music and Queens College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree.
His interest in music started early. He entered Juilliard at the age of seven. In his autobiography, The Way I Was, Marvin Hamlisch said he lived in fear of not meeting his father’s expectations.
“By the time Gershwin was your age, he was dead,” the Viennese-born musician told his son.
“And he’d written a concerto. Where’s your concerto, Marvin?”
In his teenage years, Marvin Hamlisch turned from recitals to songwriting. An early job in the theatre was as a rehearsal pianist for the Broadway production of Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand in 1964.
“Maybe I’m old-fashioned,” he told the AP in 1986.
“But I remember the beauty and thrill of being moved by Broadway musicals – particularly the endings of shows. The end of West Side Story, where audiences cried their eyes out. The last few chords of My Fair Lady. Just great.”
Marvin Hamlisch was principal pops conductor for symphony orchestras in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Dallas, Pasadena, Seattle and San Diego.
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra said on Twitter: “We are shocked and saddened at the passing of our Principal Pops conductor, Marvin Hamlisch. We send our deepest condolences to his family.
“Hamlisch was a great musician and composer who in many ways revolutionized film, theater and popular song. He was a wonderful colleague.”
He was to be announced to the same position with the Philadelphia Orchestra and was due to lead the New York Philharmonic at its New Year’s Eve concert.
Marvin Hamlisch is survived by his wife of 25 years, Terre.
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