'Happy' development Fonzie was a minor role, director Garry Marshall recalls
8/16/2004A chatty guy himself, Garry Marshall was surprised when a cool, silent type emerged as the star of his 1970s sitcom, Happy Days, which begins new life with the DVD release of its first season.
Henry Winkler's biker Fonzie wasn't even included in the opening credits in the first season of Happy Days, which starred Ron Howard as a 1950s teen. With barely any dialogue early on, the Fonz quickly became the show's most popular character.
"People were telling me it turns out really the big shot is this Fonzie character, who has no lines," director Marshall said in an interview to promote his latest movie, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. "He's like the big weapon we've got here."
Winkler's role quickly expanded so that within a couple of seasons, he was technically the star, though Howard retained top billing.
Also debuting today on DVD is season one of Marshall's spinoff Laverne & Shirley, which starred his sister, Penny Marshall, and Cindy Williams.
Marshall created Happy Days as an alternative to his work on the live-audience sitcom The Odd Couple. Early on, Happy Days was shot on sets and real locations.
"Happy Days was my artistic period," Marshall said. "I wanted to make a little film each week, all one-camera shoots like a little film. Pretty! Nice! And they said, 'Too soft, and too expensive.'●" By season three, the show had switched to the live-audience format, which continued through the end of its 11-year run.
A trial date has been set for Sept. 30 for Courtney Love, who faces two felony drug charges for illegal possession of painkillers.
The rock singer, 40, arrived in court yesterday in Los Angeles, wearing a purple knit top over a black halter and black heels. She fidgeted in her chair during the 10-minute hearing before Superior Court Judge Elden S. Fox.
When he asked whether the trial date was acceptable, Love initially replied, "I don't know." She agreed to the date after consulting with her lawyer and thanked the judge before leaving.
Love could face up to three years and eight months in prison if convicted.
In July, she was sentenced to 18 months in a drug rehabilitation program after pleading guilty to being under the influence of a controlled substance, a misdemeanor charge connected to an alleged break-in at the same ex-boyfriend's home last fall. Police called to her home hours after that arrest allegedly found painkillers there, leading to the felony drug charges.
She also faces a felony assault charge for allegedly attacking a woman with a liquor bottle April 25 at her ex-boyfriend's home in Los Angeles and charges of assault and reckless endangerment in New York City for allegedly striking a fan with a microphone stand at a nightclub in March.
Love, the widow of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, was formerly the lead singer of the band Hole. She had to delay a concert tour with her new band this year because of her legal problems.
WGTE-TV, Channel 30, in Toledo and WBGU-TV, Channel 27, in Bowling Green, have scheduled a special American Masters tribute to Julia Child, Julia! America's Favorite Chef for broadcast at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Child died Aug. 12, three days before what would have been her 92nd birthday at her home in Santa Barbara, Calif.
She is known for introducing French cuisine to American home cooks through her television series and her cookbooks. The film tells two love stories: one between Julia and Paul Child, the other between Julia and French food.
Lil' Kim said yesterday she was innocent of federal perjury charges and said the case against her is part of a witch hunt against hip-hop music.
The rapper, whose real name is Kimberly Jones, was indicted in April for lying to a grand jury investigating a 2001 gun battle.
"I am innocent of the charges I have been accused of and am very confident I and my co-defendants will win this case in the courtroom," Lil' Kim told a press conference in Manhattan.
Lil' Kim, 29, is charged with one count of conspiracy, three counts of perjury, three counts of making false statements, and one count of obstruction.
Her trial was set to begin Feb. 28.
Harry Potter will survive to the seventh book of J.K. Rowling's series about the young wizard, but the author won't say whether Harry will reach adulthood.
"He will survive to book seven, mainly because I don't want to be strangled by you lot," she told a group of fans Sunday at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. "But I don't want to say whether he grows any older than that."
She encouraged fans to try to piece together future plots and urged them to focus on why Harry's nemesis, the evil warlock Voldemort, hadn't been killed.
Rowling further teased her fans over whether Harry's pals, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, would be more than pals by the end of the series.
"I'm not going to say. I can't say. I think I've given quite a lot of clues by now on this subject," she said. "You are going to have to read between the lines on that one."
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On the Net:
http://www.jkrowling.com/
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BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - They came. They saw. They bared all.
And in the end, the 1,826 people who shed their clothes for Spencer Tunick on Sunday were a work of art.
With Tunick issuing commands through a megaphone, nude bodies of every age, shape, size, skin tone and fitness level formed sculptures in the concourse of a dilapidated former train station, standing up, lying down, leaning sideways on their knees.
Tunick has been doing such nude assemblages - he calls them temporary site-related installations - around the world since 1992. The artist chose Buffalo's decaying Central Terminal, with its broken windows and walls of graffiti, as a juxtaposition to an earlier work at New York's pristine Grand Central Terminal, with a plan to display photographs of the two side by side.
"I think what the bodies did was bring some hope to the future," said Tunick.
For the volunteers, being part of Tunick's art meant leaving their inhibitions in a pile of clothing outside and enduring a series of sometimes uncomfortable positions on a cold and dusty tile floor, cameras documenting every move.
"Get on your knees, bend forward and curl up in a ball," Tunick instructed. "Be quiet please. Head down. Head further down!"
"Very good. It's very good. Don't move," he said.
"When he had us all leaning on our knees, that was getting a bit painful," volunteer Joe Giovenso said afterward. "I don't think I could have held that much longer."
Tunick's work is largely acclaimed but sometimes draws resistance. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, which invited him, said it received only two or three complaints.
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NEW YORK (AP) - Lil' Kim, whose perjury trial is set for early next year, says the charges against her are a "witch hunt against the hip-hop industry."
Prosecutors say the rapper lied to a grand jury investigating a 2001 shooting allegedly involving members of her entourage. One man from a rival rap group was injured in the shooting.
Her former manager and co-defendant, Damion Butler, has been indicted for allegedly shooting a weapon during the incident and is serving a prison term on unrelated weapons charges.
Lil' Kim, whose real name is Kimberly Jones, is accused of telling the grand jury that Butler was not present during the 2001 shooting. She is charged with conspiracy, perjury and obstruction.
"I am completely innocent of the charges I have been accused of, and am very confident that my co-defendants and I will win this case in the courtroom," Lil' Kim, 29, said in a statement. "This case is a witch hunt against the hip-hop industry."
She won a Grammy Award in 2002 for her part in the hit remake of "Lady Marmalade." ---
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - The Netherlands' Princess Margarita, who last year aired royal dirty laundry during a fight with her aunt Queen Beatrix, is now divorcing the husband who was at the center of it all.
The spat made headlines in the Netherlands for weeks last summer as a Dutch magazine published a series of tell-all interviews with Margarita.
She accused the Royal House of abusing its power to obtain confidential information about her husband and damage his reputation. The Royal House denied the charges, but was embarrassed by Margarita's tales of drinking and philandering by other members of the family.
Margarita separated from her husband, Edwin de Roy van Zuydewijn, earlier this year.
Dutch national broadcaster NOS said Friday that Margarita now plans to divorce Van Zuydewijn, citing Margarita's lawyers. The lawyers said Margarita now regretted breaking the family's tradition of keeping their affairs private, NOS reported.
In a statement released by the Royal House, Queen Beatrix said she hopes Margarita "receives the peace she needs to build up a new life."
/AP-CS-08-16-04 1520EDT