Celebrity
Clarence Avant, ‘Godfather of Black Music’ and benefactor of athletes and politicians, dies at 92
NEW YORK — The wise manager, businessman, facilitator, and consultant Clarence Avant, who launched or shaped the careers of Quincy Jones, Bill Withers, and many others and became known as “The Godfather of Black Music,” has passed away. He was 92.
A family announcement on Monday morning stated that Avant, who will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, passed away on Sunday at his Los Angeles home.
As a name in the credits or a name behind the names, Avant’s accomplishments were visible and unnoticed. He was raised by a mentor who was a music manager named Joe Glaser and was born in a segregated hospital in North Carolina. Joe Glaser gave him two pieces of advice: never reveal how much you know and ask for as much money as possible “without stuttering.”
He made his management debut in the 1950s, working with artists including Little Willie John, Sarah Vaughan, and composer Lalo Schifrin, who created the theme song for “Mission: Impossible.” He was an early supporter of Black-owned radio stations in the 1970s, and after Berry Gordy Jr. sold the business in the 1990s, he became the head of Motown.
Additionally, he founded the labels Sussex (a cross between two Avant-garde passions: success and sex), Tabu, and the S.O.S Band, as well as working with obscure singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriquez, who would later go on to become well-known thanks to the Oscar-winning documentary “Searching for Sugarman.”
Other work was done more quietly. In 1968, Avant, who Stax CEO Al Bell had chosen to serve as a link between the entertainment and business worlds, facilitated the sale of Stax Records to Gulf and Western. He helped Michael Jackson plan his first solo tour, raised money for Bill Clinton and Obama, and advised Babyface, L.A. Reid, Narada Michael Walden, and other younger followers.
If they’re clever, everyone in this profession has visited Clarence’s desk, as Quincy Jones loved to say.
The wise manager, businessman, facilitator, and consultant Clarence Avant has died. He was 92.
“Clarence leaves behind a devoted family and a large network of friends and colleagues who have transformed the world and will do so for a long time. The joy of his legacy lessens the pain of our loss, according to the statement made by Avant’s son Alex, daughter Nicole, and her husband, Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix.
Avant also impacted sports. He produced a primetime television special for Muhammad Ali and assisted running back Jim Brown in moving from football to acting. When Babe Ruth’s record for most home runs in a season was about to be broken by baseball legend Henry Aaron in 1974, Avant ensured that Aaron secured the kind of rich commercial deals frequently out of reach for Black athletes. He started by making a direct request to the Coca-Cola president.
Aaron would later claim to have become everything he was “because of Clarence Avant” in an interview with The Undefeated.
At an Ebony Fashion Fair in the middle of the 1960s, Avant met model Jacqueline Grey, with whom he later married. They had two kids: Nicole Avant, a former U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas and, along with Sarandos, a significant Obama fundraiser, and music producer-manager Alexander Devore. In addition to being inducted into the Rock Hall, he was given two honorary Grammy Awards, an NAACP Image Award, and a BET Entrepreneur Award.
Jacqueline Avant was assassinated in their Beverly Hills home in 2021, and among those who mourned her passing were Magic Johnson and Bill Clinton. Nicole Avant would say that her mother, a well-known philanthropist, was responsible for instilling in Clarence Avant and the rest of the family “the love and passion and importance of the arts, culture, and entertainment.”
The wise manager, businessman, facilitator, and consultant Clarence Avant has died. He was 92.
Clarence Avant was born in 1931 and spent his formative years in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was one of eight children raised by a single mother there, and he left high school early to come up north. He managed a lounge in Newark, New Jersey, with the assistance of a buddy from North Carolina, and soon met Glaser, whose patrons included Al Capone, Barbra Streisand, Louis Armstrong, and more. Avant was given access to locations where Black people had previously been rarely allowed, thanks to Glaser.
“Mr. Glaser would have me go with him to these dog shows,” Avant remarked to Variety in 2016. You must also consider that I was the only Black person present at the goddamn dog show. When he took me to a game at Yankee Stadium, he had 16 tickets behind the home dugout. Whenever I tried to go to the back row, he would grab me and shout, “Goddamn it, sit your ass up here with me.”
Avant and Jones were particularly close due to a lost record contract. Jones, one of the few Black executives in the business, was a vice president of Mercury Records in the early 1960s. Jimmy Smith, a jazz artist represented by Avant, had recently been signed by Mercury for $100,000. Avant set a far greater goal for Smith, closer to 500,000.
Do you consume Kool-Aid? Jones would recall telling Avant, who was negotiating with Verve Records at the time.
The wise manager, businessman, facilitator, and consultant Clarence Avant has died. He was 92.
According to Jones, who worked with Avant on the TV show “Heart and Soul” and the motion picture “Stalingrad,” “he went and got the deal,” Billboard reported in 2006. I admired him for doing that.
As he progressed in the entertainment business, Avant became increasingly politically involved. He was the executive producer of “Save the Children,” a 1973 documentary about a musical fundraiser for the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s “Operation PUSH.” He was an early supporter of Tom Bradley, the first Black mayor of Los Angeles. When the civil rights activist Andrew Young was running for Congress in Georgia three years prior, he called him.
“He asked, “You’re running for Congress in Georgia?” Later, Young spoke to CNN. If you’re insane enough to run, then I’m crazy enough to help you, he declared.
Young had never met Avant, who volunteered to organize a charity event with Isaac Hayes and other performers at the Atlanta baseball stadium.
When advertisements for the performance started popping up all over town a month later, Young had forgotten about their talk.
Young estimated that 30,000 people attended despite the torrential downpour. And he never gave us a bill, either.
SOURCE – (AP)
Retired Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce destroyed a Penn State football fan’s phone after the alleged heckler called his brother, Travis Kelce, a fag.
In now-viral footage published on X (previously Twitter) on Saturday, Nov. 2, the retired Philadelphia Eagles great was seen accompanied by football fans outside Beaver Stadium in State College, Pa., for the Penn State-Ohio State game.
As the individual capturing the tape lifted a fist to Jason, 36, and called his name for a fist bump, another man nearby hurled the homophobic slur at the retired Philadelphia Eagles star.
Hey, Kelce. How does it feel that your brother is a queer dating Taylor Swift?” the man questioned, referring to Travis, 34, who has been seeing Swift since 2023. Jason turned around seconds later, snatched the man’s phone, and crushed it to the ground.
“Looked like a Penn State student was getting in Kelce’s face for no reason,” the original X user who submitted the video remarked. “Wild scene in State College.”
“Kelce how does it feel that your brother is a f****t for dating Taylor Swift?”
Jason Kelce proceeded to slam this kids phone on the ground.
Looked like a Penn State student was getting in Kelce’s face for no reason. Wild scene in State College pic.twitter.com/3PEdZXWhSg
— Chives (@jarrett_daveler) November 2, 2024
Additional footage on X shows Jason smashing the phone on asphalt before picking it up and walking away. The phone’s owner, wearing a Penn State hoodie at the time of the incident, was shown in many videos strolling closely behind Jason and recording him before the conflict occurred.
Another footage published on X, which appears to have been filmed after Jason shattered the man’s phone, showed the hooded Penn State supporter trudging through a mob to pick up his phone off the ground.
“Give me my phone, bro,” he seemed to say to Jason.
The NFL alum seized the gadget first, then stood in front of the man and asked, “Who’s the fag now?” Others appeared to interfere.
The incident occurred while Jason was at Beaver Stadium for an appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay. The Ohio State Buckeyes won Saturday’s game 20-13 over the Penn State Nittany Lions.
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Shaun White, the Olympic snowboarding champion, already has an impressive medal tally, but his surprise proposal to Nina Dobrev deserves a gold medal.
On Wednesday, the couple announced their engagement on Instagram. Dobrev posted photographs of the two hugging under an arch of white roses and showing off her five-carat Lorraine Schwartz engagement ring.
“RIP boyfriend, hello fiancé,” Dobrev said in the caption.
However, the photographs only tell half the tale, as Shaun devised an elaborate plan to surprise Dobrev with his proposal.
Shaun White’s Proposal To Nina Dobrev Was Romantic Gold
According to a Vogue interview published Wednesday, Shaun said he assembled a team of people from the couple’s inner circle and Vogue personnel to trick Dobrev into thinking she had been invited to an intimate dinner party with Anna Wintour.
Dobrev accepted the invitation, joking that Shaun made it “look so legitimate.”
He even asked Dobrev’s stylist to outfit her in Chanel for the event.
Dobrev said she recognized what was happening when she entered the venue and saw White standing beneath the flowery arch.
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Shaun’s Proposal To Nina Dobrev Was Romantic Gold
“I went into shock,” Dobrev admitted, later adding that White “said all the right things” before she agreed.
According to the publication, after Shaun proposed, the couple partied into the early morning hours with close friends and relatives.
“Best night of my life,” Shaun captioned his Instagram story on Wednesday.
The duo first became romantically involved in 2020, and they have since publicly recorded their relationship, globe vacations, and White’s Olympic farewell on social media.
SOURCE | CNN
Hollywood actress Teri Garr, known for her roles in classics like “Young Frankenstein” and “Tootsie,” has passed away at 79. She died Tuesday of multiple sclerosis “surrounded by family and friends,” said publicist Heidi Schaeffer.
Admirers took to social media in her honor, with writer-director Paul Feig calling her “truly one of my comedy heroes. I couldn’t have loved her more” and screenwriter Cinco Paul saying: “Never the star, but always shining. She made everything she was in better.”
Throughout her career, the performer, often known as Terri, Terry, or Terry Ann, seemed destined for show business from a young age.
Her father was Eddie Garr, a well-known vaudeville comic, and her mother was Phyllis Lind, one of the original high-kicking Rockettes at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Their daughter began dancing classes at six and was performing with the San Francisco and Los Angeles ballet companies by age fourteen.
She was 16 years old when she joined the road crew of “West Side Story” in Los Angeles, and she began starring in small roles in films as early as 1963.
In an interview from 1988, she described how she landed the role in “West Side Story.” After being rejected at her initial audition, she returned the following day dressed differently and was accepted.
Teri Garr, a comedian
Teri Garr then found steady work as a movie dancer, appearing in the chorus of nine Elvis Presley films, including “Viva Las Vegas,” “Roustabout,” and “Clambake.”
She has also appeared on various television shows, including “Star Trek,” “Dr. Kildare,” and “Batman,” and was a featured dancer on the rock ‘n’ roll music show “Shindig,” the rock concert performance “T.A.M.I.,” and a cast member of “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.”
Her breakthrough role was as Gene Hackman’s girlfriend in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 thriller The Conversation. This led to an interview with Mel Brooks, who offered her the Gene Wilder’s German lab assistant role in Young Frankenstein if she could speak with a German accent.
“Cher had this German woman, Renata, making wigs, so I got the accent from her,” Garr once said.
The film established her as a great comic performer, with New Yorker film writer Pauline Kael calling her “the funniest neurotic dizzy dame on screen.”
Her big smile and off-center appeal helped her land roles in “Oh, God!” with George Burns and John Denver, “Mr. Mom” (as Michael Keaton’s wife), and “Tootsie,” in which she played the girlfriend who loses Dustin Hoffman to Jessica Lange and discovers he has dressed up as a woman to revive his career.
A gift for spontaneous humor
Teri Garr, best known for comedy, has shown in films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Black Stallion, and The Escape Artist that she can also tackle drama.
She had a gift for spontaneous humor, frequently playing David Letterman’s foil during early guest appearances on N.B.C.’s “Late Night With David Letterman”.
Her appearances grew so frequent, and the pair’s good-natured bickering so convincing that rumors of romantic involvement circulated for a while. Years later, Letterman acknowledged those early appearances with helping the program become a success.
During those years, Garr began to experience “a little beeping or ticking” in her right leg. It started in 1983 and expanded to her right arm, but she thought she could handle it. By 1999, her symptoms had gotten so bad that she saw a doctor and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
After disclosing her diagnosis, Garr became a spokesman for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, giving hilarious remarks at events in the United States and Canada.
Source: AP
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