News about my favorite things. Will try to post the good and bad things that happened in my life. You can comment my posts in Portuguese and English. Thanks. PS: You can check my links: Linktree, Bluesky & Mastodon
Dame Diana Rigg, of James Bond and “The Avengers” fame, has died “peacefully” at 82.
The acclaimed actress known for her role as Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, the only Bond girl to ever marry 007, Rigg was bestowed her “Dame” title in 1994 for her contributions to all things drama.
The iconic Brit suffered from cancer and died surrounded by her family Thursday morning.
“My Beloved Ma died peacefully in her sleep early this morning, at home, surrounded by family,” her daughter, “Bletchley Circle” actress Rachael Stirling, told the Sun. “She died of cancer diagnosed in March, and spent her last months joyfully reflecting on her extraordinary life, full of love, laughter and a deep pride in her profession. I will miss her beyond words.”
Mastering both film and theater, Rigg earned Emmy, Tony, British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and Evening Standard awards in her long tenure on the stage and screen.
Despite her extensive stage experience, Rigg was perhaps best known for her star-making role in the television series “The Avengers” starting in 1965. There’s hardly a male baby boomer alive whose heart didn’t beat faster at the sight of Emma Peel, her whip-smart, cat-suited character in the mod espionage romp.
“It was a bit frightening,” Rigg, who was in her mid-20s in the swinging ’60s, told The Post in 2018. “Bear in mind, it was 50 years ago. I didn’t know quite what to do with that degree of lust. I’d been in London to drama school and I was [by] no means naive. But to be given that degree of notoriety was a bit of a shock.”
Most recently, Rigg played fan favorite Olenna Tyrell on HBO’s “Game of Thrones” from 2013 to 2015. The character went down in “GoT” history after she admitted to murdering King Joffrey just before being killed herself. She was nominated four times for the Guest Actress in a Drama Emmy for her work on the show.
1 of 4
Diana Rigg in 1965
Getty Images
2 of 4
Diana Rigg at the 2018 Tony Awards
Getty Images
3 of 4
Diana Rigg as Emma Peel in "The Avengers," circa 1966
Getty Images
4 of 4
Diana Rigg in 1964
Getty Images
She also starred on Broadway in “Abelard and Heloise” in 1971. (Her nude scene in the play and critic John Simon’s bitchy assessment of her body generated boatloads of publicity, Variety reported.) She later headlined a revival of Molière’s “The Misanthrope” in 1975 and “Medea” in 1994. She earned a Tony nod each time for best actress in a play — and won for “Medea.”
After shucking her “Avengers” catsuit in 1968, Rigg became a Bond girl — the only one who landed the spy and became Mrs. Bond, while clad in an ahead-of-its-time white jumpsuit. The film was 1969’s “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” in which George Lazenby played 007 for his first and last time. Rigg didn’t seem to have thought much of him.
“George was untried, unschooled … he was a model, a male model,” Rigg told The Post. “I was brought on board to help him and to give him gravitas.” Alas, she took that gravitas to the grave: Mrs. Bond was swiftly dispatched by the minions of archvillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Rigg’s other film credits include the Paddy Chayefsky satire “The Hospital” (1971), Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1968), “The Assassination Bureau” (1969), “Julius Caesar” with Charlton Heston (1970), “A Little Night Music” with Elizabeth Taylor (1977), “The Great Muppet Caper” (1981), and Bruce Beresford’s “A Good Man in Africa” opposite Sean Connery (1994).
She also hosted PBS’ “Masterpiece Mystery” from 1989 to 2004.
Rigg is survived by a daughter she had with her ex-husband, theater producer Archibald Stirling, actress Rachael Stirling.
Bono hails London as ‘capital of the world’ as U2 triumph at Twickenham
Bono also paid tribute to murdered Labour MP Jo Cox.
(David Jensen/PA)
By Catherine Wylie, Press Association
Bono has thanked Britain for “looking after the Irish” as U2 played to a packed Twickenham Stadium.
The rock star hailed London “capital of the world” as the band played the latest gig in The Joshua Tree tour, celebrating the album of the same name released 30 years ago.
He said the band were “boys” when they first came to the city and went on to reflect on Irish immigrants coming to Britain.
U2 at Twickenham (David Jensen/PA)
As green, white and orange Iights illuminated the stage, Bono described the scene as a “subliminal message from the motherland”.
He said: “We came to this great Great Britain and we thank you for looking after the Irish.”
Bono expressed thanks for the “safety” and “sanctuary” given, adding: “We hope that won’t stop.”
The band played for more than two hours and performed all the songs from The Joshua Tree album including With Or Without You and Where The Streets Have No Name, before belting out more recent hits such as Vertigo and Beautiful Day.
Released in March 1987, The Joshua Tree was drawn from U2’s relationship with the United States and beat Prince’s Sign O’ The Times to the best album prize at the 1988 Grammy Awards.
The band dedicated one of the last songs of their set – Ultraviolet – to murdered MP Jo Cox who was shot and stabbed on June 16 last year as she arrived for a constituency surgery in Birstall.
The mother-of-two had been elected as Labour MP for the Batley and Spen constituency just 13 months earlier.
Before the song, Bono said she lived her life “championing the lives of others”, adding: “Jo Cox, you light the way.”
For the last song, the band were joined on stage by Noel Gallagher for a rendition of Don’t Look Back In Anger.
As part of EW’s Rogue One cover reveal, we confirmed the Sith lord will be back at the height of his powers in the Dec. 16 film, which takes place just prior to the events of 1977’s original Star Wars.
Ever since Lucasfilm announced that the plot of its first stand-alone movie would focus on the Rebel warriors who staged a heist of plans for the first Death Star, fans knew – or at least seriously expected – that the most iconic villain in film history would return to the screen. If he didn’t…? The collective rage of the Star Wars fandom would probably Force-choke whoever nixed him.
Rogue One is a new kind of movie for Lucasfilm, a story that explores territory beyond the core “saga” films of the first three classic movies, George Lucas’ prequels, and the new trilogy that started with J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens and will continue in 2017 with director Rian Johnson’s Episode VIII. The next stand-alone film after Rogue One will be a young Han Solo story, coming out in 2018, which delves into the history of the captain of the Millennium Falcon long before he encounters Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi in that cantina on Tatooine.
Lucasfilm has said the main difference between the features is that the “saga” films are focused mainly on the Skywalker family – but now we know that doesn’t mean Rogue One will be completely devoid of Skywalkers.
In her interview with EW, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy was asked about which characters from the original trilogy may turn up alongside the new heroes and villains.
After a momentary hesitation, Kennedy said: “I think we can talk about Vader…”
Those were the seven words fans wanted to hear.
SITH SENSE
At 85, James Earl Jones will also reprise his role as Vader’s foreboding voice, while a variety of large-framed performers will embody the character behind the mask. (David Prowse, now 80, was often inside the suit in the original trilogy.)
Jones has lately performed the character on episodes of Disney XD’s animated Star Wars: Rebels – but many actors have imitated the voice over the years for games, cartoons, and other products. Onscreen, however, there can be no substitute.
That leaves the question: How much Vader are we going to get? The answer – just a little bit. (That’s why there isn’t a new image of him, unfortunately.) Kennedy says Rogue One has to make careful use of Vader. “He will be in the movie sparingly,” she says. “But at a key, strategic moment, he’s going to loom large.”
EW also learned a little about Vader’s reputation in the galaxy at this point in the chronology, roughly 19 years after the events of Revenge of the Sith, when Anakin Skywalker lost most of his limbs and was horrifically burned in a battle with Obi-Wan, necessitating the life-sustaining armor he wears forever after. As Rogue One unfolds, Vader is still a background player in galactic politics.
Vader is the muscle. The fixer. And also… the breaker, when he needs to be.
The Empire’s grip on the galaxy is beginning to be pried open, and the Death Star is how Emperor Palpatine intends to maintain his dominion over the star systems rising up against him.
The Rebels are barely familiar with Vader. Even within the Empire, he is more legend than everyday presence. “Within the Rebellion, it’s not commonly spoken about,” says director Gareth Edwards. “Within the Empire, there is the culture of knowing of the existence of Darth Vader. There’s definitely an underlying feeling that there is a power – a dark power – available to the Empire and that if you overstep your mark, you will suffer the consequences.”
With the man in black as a background figure, that brings us to the central villain of Rogue One: a man in white.
VILLAIN VS. VILLAIN
The main antagonist of the story is Ben Mendelsohn’s Director Orson Krennic, an ambitious Imperial officer with Machiavellian tendencies who is eager to secure a place at the Emperor’s side. “There is a lot of palace intrigue going on in the Empire, with people conspiring to move up the ranks and sabotaging each other,” producer John Knoll says. “There’s not a lot of loyalty there.”
In other words, Krennic and Vader aren’t friends. They’re barely allies, and Krennic is understandably threatened by the Sith Lord. “Vader doesn’t really play by the rules,” says Kiri Hart, Lucasfilm’s chief of story development. “He’s present in the military structure, but he’s not beholden to it. He’s not accountable to anybody, really, except Palpatine.”
Hart believes Vader’s volatility in the original film is part of what made him memorable and unsettling, so that quality will also be coming back in Rogue One.
“When Tarkin says to Vader to ‘release him’ when he’s choking that guy, Vader does it, but not because he has to. He’s just willing to give Tarkin one in that moment,” she says, with a nervous laugh. “That’s part of what makes the reveal of the Emperor, even in a hologram in Episode V, so cool because you’re like, ‘Oh, wow. Here is the guy that Vader literally bends his knee to. What’s that all about?’”
That’s what Krennic is trying to figure out, too: How can he acquire that most-favored status? What is it between the Emperor and Vader that binds them?
Krennic is left with a lot of motivation to quash this Rebel strike force and keep the Empire’s Death Star plans from going awry.
He can feel Vader’s mechanical breath on his neck.
VADER’S FIRST DAY
With Lucas retired and stepping back from the creative process, this new slate of Star Wars films marks the first time that a generation of filmmakers who grew up as fans are taking over the official stories. Some, like Edwards, first started making up their own Star Wars tales as children with the help of their Kenner action figures.
Bringing back a key original character onscreen is sort of like one of those 3 3/4-inch figures becoming life-size.
When asked about his first day with Darth Vader, Edwards actually went way back. He recalled being a kid and going to the opening of a toy shop that featured a special celebrity guest – the dark lord himself. “When I got home, my mum encouraged me to tell a neighbor what I’d done that day, and I said, ‘Oh, yeah, I met Darth Vader.’ And the neighbor said, ‘The real one?’ I was like, ‘No, it was just an actor – the real one’s out in space.’”
While prepping to start Rogue One, Edwards’ first experience with the fallen Jedi came in the Fall of 2014 during a test shoot on the Starkiller Base set of The Force Awakens. They were experimenting with how best to light all that gleaming black armor in amongst the shimmering backdrop of Imperial-style architecture.
“He’s got more in common with lighting a car than a person, so we wanted to get it exactly right,” Edwards said. “We had the breathing sound just to inspire everyone. I just got massive goosebumps. I was so nervous to turn the corner and see him. You have to pinch yourself. Everyone became children again, so easy. You just go straight back to being a 4-year-old, like, in a heartbeat.”
He says that’s when a filmmaker becomes a fan again. “There’s all these rules about security on set, but I couldn’t help it,” Edwards says. “I got my phone out and started taking pictures of him, and pictures of me with him, because I felt like no one would ever believe that I’d met Darth Vader.”
The real one this time.
In December, we’ll be encountering him again, too.
Review: Barry Egan at U2's opening night of Innocence + Experience in Vancouver
Barry Egan in Vancouver at U2
Published 15/05/2015 | 06:41
Bono, of the band U2, throws water at the crowd while the Edge watches as they perform in the band's first concert of their new world tour in Vancouver, Thursday, May, 14, 2015. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
A SLUMBERING giant awoke last night near the snow-capped Grouse Mountains in Canada.
Or to put it another way, U2 came back to the world stage last night in front of 20,000 fans at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.
It was not quite the return of four all-conquering superheroes but more like four men who have been through the wars before coming out the other side... with a brilliant new album that got denigrated.
The brilliance of the current Songs of Innocence album was obscured by the PR disaster that was the iTunes download debacle.
Bono, left, and Adam Clayton, of the band U2, perform in the band's first concert of their new world tour in Vancouver. Photo: Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP
"Divisive" wouldn’t begin to describe it.
So U2 had a lot to prove last night.
Fail on this tour and U2 would be looking at a fatal loss of relevancy.
So no pressure, then.
The band U2 performs in their first concert of their new world tour in Vancouver, Thursday, May, 14, 2015. The concert opens a 19-city tour, playing indoor arenas after a decade of larger outdoor shows. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP) MANDATORY
Would Bono - after his dreadful accident in Central Park last November - be able to cut it as a performer?
No longer jumping Jack Flash - more limping hack trash. No longer the young Dub who jumped down off the stage at Live Aid during Bad … now a battered 55 year old man held together by surgical pins, like a rock-star Frankenstein.
The answer to most of the above questions is, mercifully, that U2 – on the basis of what they did on stage last night in Canada – have no worries about the future.
They opened at 9pm with a blitzkrieg bop version of The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone), which was quickly followed by Out Of Control.
Bono, of the band U2, performs in the band's first concert of their new world tour in Vancouver, Thursday, May, 14, 2015. The concert opens a 19-city tour, playing indoor arenas after a decade of larger outdoor shows. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP) MANDATORY
“We’re a band from the Northside of Dublin,” Bono told Canada, introducing the song “This is one of our first singles [released in 1980]."
I’m glad to say that Ballymum boyo Bono still rocks like a beautiful bastard. After Out Of Control, they segued into Vertigo then an unsurprisingly emotive, even empowering, I Will Follow.
“A boy tries hard to be a man
His mother takes him by his hand
If he stops to think he starts to cry
Oh why,” he sang of his late mother.
And U2, with one of the greatest back-catalogues of songs from any band in the world, still have the power to move the listener to tears – both of joy and sadness.
Bono, of the band U2, spits water while performing in the band's first concert of their new world tour in Vancouver, Thursday, May, 14, 2015. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP) MANDATORY
When Bono et al are at full throttle, as they are on Until The End Of The World and Bullet The Blue Sky, the very walls of Rogers Arena seem to shake with the excitement of it all. It is at times like these when you realise just how magical these four fellas from the Northside of Dublin actually are. And why they are such a big part of our lives – and the zeitgeist.
So it would be a grave mistake to write off U2 as a music entity just because you don’t like a) U2 moving their tax affairs to Holland, b) Bono once shaking George Bush’s hand or c) that Bono has more money than you or I.
U2's Innocence + Experience is certainly not a normal rock show. Take That it certainly isn’t.
Advance reports indicated that it would be an autobiographical piece of rock theatre that owed more to Beckett than Bowie.
And yes, the opening image of the show is a single light bulb swinging forlornly inside Bono’s bedroom as a teenager at 10 Cedarwood Road in Dublin's Finglas/Ballymum, but it is all rather compelling.
Bono sings on Cedarwood Road, the sixth song into the set last night: "You can’t return to where you never left. I’m still standing on that street."
Unless you have a heart of stone, this is all quite moving.
It is here inside Bono’s bedroom that we will hear young Paul Hewson listen to the records - courtesy of Joey Ramone and The Clash among many others - that made him want to be a singer called Bono. There is plenty of dark psychoanalysis of Bono’s youth, not least on the emotionally lacerating Iris (Hold Me Close), where the U2 singer sings about the moment his life crumbled to dust when he was 14: his mother Iris died.
Bono, of the band U2, throws water at the crowd during the band's first concert of their new
world tour in Vancouver, Thursday, May, 14, 2015. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
So far, so bleak.
So far, so Beckett.
As Bono half-joked in an interview with The New York Times last week, “People will walk out into the aisles not buying T-shirts but having counselling, and wondering, ‘Where did the fun go?’”
In reality, there was plenty of fun last night in Vancouver. Mysterious Ways, followed by Desire and The Sweetest Thing had everyone in the audience showing their allegiances.
Bullet The Blue Sky was magnificent, as was – as ever – Sunday Bloody Sunday followed by the overwhelming raw power of Raised By Wolves. Pride of course, was a defining moment of the night. There was no songs, perhaps understandably, from the last album No Lines On The Horizon.
It was an incredible night in Canada. (And I say this having seen U2 in concert in Miami, New York, Boston, LA, Paris, Rotterdam, Glasgow, Prague, San Francisco , Rome, London, to name a few of their gigs, over the years.)
Any fears that U2 were putting on an over-reaching and pretentious rock opera heavy on concept and low on emotion are dismissed as soon as Bono bursts into the singular beauty of tonight's opener The Miracle (of Joey Ramone).
Every one of the 20,000 in the audience are bopping along to the sonic splendor of U2’s punk homage with Bono singing – and the audience singing the words back to him – “I woke up at the moment when the miracle occurred: heard a song that made sense out of the world.”
The crowd are held in thrall to every “wooah” from Bono, every soaring guitar riff from The Edge, every beat from Larry begin the kit and every whoosh from Adam’s bass-lines.
The crowd also hang on Bono’s every word like he is their personal Jesus.
The songs set forth Bono’s personal criteria of spiritual longing - restless search even.
The images (of Guggi on a horse, of the Dublin bombings of 1974 ) are even more powerful when it is set against the songs. Raised by Wolves shone with a beautiful sadness. But nothing compared to the terrible beauty of Iris (Hold Me Close.)
He introduced the song by saying if you are can’t discuss the past then you are stuck in the past. “This is for you, Iris,” the boy inside the man Bono said.
In the darkness of the vast arena last night, Bono then sang:
The star That gives us light Has been gone a while But it’s not an illusion The ache In my heart Is so much a part of who I am Something in your eyes Took a thousand years to get here
It was like Bono was singing to his late mum, as much to God, for deliverance.
Everyone in Rogers Arena last night was transported to a different world as Bono sang these words. I’m sure Larry Mullen was at that exact moment thinking of his late father, who died last weekend in Dublin.
Last night in Vancouver it was a night for reflection – and dancing, as U2, lest we forget, have some cracking tunes.
As the title of the show Innocence + Experience suggests, this is not Cats. This is a show that comes with a narrative about the human condition. It is far from French existentialism that Bono was reared but if this show is about anything, it is as much about the meaning of death (of mothers, of victims of bombings, of dreams) as it is about life.
(Before the show I listened at the hotel to California (There is No End to Love), where Bono sings "I’ve seen for myself/There’s no end to grief", is a kick to the heart. It said it all. They didn't play it at the show.)
The first half of show is called Innocence.
There was be an interval, something of a first for a U2 show. Then the second half saw U2 walk down a giant walkway to the opposite end of the arena to play the second part of the show, which was called Experience. (I hope you're all paying attention at the back. Because I'll be asking questions at the end.)
360, U2’s last concert tour from 2009 through 2011, earned the band an eye-watering €653 million in ticket sales from playing stadiums globally to crowds of upwards of 80,000.
Innocence + Experience is a much more stripped-back affair, with U2 playing indoor venues to dramatically smaller crowds.
Be that as it may, for the last few days on the eve of their Innocence and Experience world tour U2 have owned Vancouver. Irish bars downtown are full of U2 fans celebrating Bono, Larry, The Edge and Adam in their midst.
On Thursday morning, the group from Ireland was on the front page of Canada's Globe & Mail newspaper under the headline, How Long Must They Sing This Song?
The truth is, thousands of people have travelled from all over the world (some even sleeping on the pavement outside Rogers Arena here in Vancouver to get the best view of the stage) to hear U2 sing their songs during a two hour show last night - and again tomorrow. They’ll get to see an incredible performance from a band that unapologetically refuse to fade from view.
The crowd gave them a standing ovation as the came off to With Or Without You.
Five minutes later, the band from the Northside of Dublin encored in Vancouver with City Of Blinding Lights, Beautiful Day, Where The Streets Have No Name and Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.
In short, the best U2 gig I’ve ever been to. See you in Dublin at Christmas, Bono.
