Broadway marks 9/11 anniversary with iconic song (AP)

NEW YORK – Joel Grey, Kara DioGuardi, Bebe Neuwirth, Ben Vereen and Brian Stokes Mitchell — along with sailors, nuns, drag queens, ballerinas and a Spider-Man — helped mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks with a full-throated reprise of the song "New York, New York."

The stars and cast members from musicals like "The Book of Mormon," "Anything Goes" and "Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the Musical" gathered in Times Square on Friday to belt out the John Kander and Fred Ebb song made famous by Frank Sinatra.

The event was put on to support the 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance's I Will Campaign, which asks people to observe the anniversary by performing good deeds, supporting charitable causes, volunteering and engaging in acts of compassion.

"Each of us has a gift. Each of us has something that we have been given. Each of us has something that we can share with others. That's part of what today is about: using the gifts that we were given to make the world a better place," Mitchell said.

The event drew together puppeteers from "War Horse," singing nuns from "Sister Act," sailors from "Anything Goes," crooners from "Jersey Boys," colorfully-dressed drag queens from "Priscilla Queen of the Desert," dancing children from "Billy Elliot: The Musical," Reeve Carney of "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" and the four main actors in "The Book of Mormon" — Andrew Rannells, Josh Gad, Nikki M. James and Rory O'Malley.

Firefighters from a nearby firehouse were saluted and NYPD Officer Daniel Rodriguez also sang an operatic "God Bless America." As the sun moved away and left the square in darkness, the Broadway singers lifted their voices and arms as they sang the city's anthem.

The mini-concert was a replay of what the Broadway community sang 10 years ago to promote theater in New York City following 9/11. One newcomer this time was DioGuardi, the songwriter and ex-"American Idol" judge who has begun performances in "Chicago."

"I think it's really important that everyone on the day remember to take some time out to remember the people we lost and hopefully help someone in need," she said.

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Online: http://www.ilovenytheater.com/broadwayunites

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Elizabeth Taylor's iconic jewels coming to auction (AP)

NEW YORK – Elizabeth Taylor dazzled the world with her luminous beauty, lavish lifestyle — and an unquenchable passion for diamonds and jewels that was fueled by the great loves of her life.

The late Hollywood star amassed one of the foremost jewelry collections in the world, including a 33.19-carat diamond ring and a 16th century pear-shaped pearl from one of her seven husbands, Richard Burton.

The Associated Press recently viewed about two dozen of her most iconic pieces at Christie's auction house, which is selling her complete jewelry collection, valued at $30 million, in New York on Dec. 13-14.

"These are the top jewels that Elizabeth Taylor received from the great loves of her life, Mike Todd and Richard Burton," said Christie's jewelry expert Rahul Kadakia. "They're from moments in life that were very dear to her," jewels that were purchased in Bulgari in Rome, at Cartier in New York and at auction.

The stories behind them are as priceless as the gems themselves. In a 2002 memoir, "My Love Affair with Jewelry," Taylor took readers on a personal journey of her collection, describing in her own words how she came to own each piece.

"I never, never thought of my jewelry as trophies," she wrote. "I'm here to take care of them and to love them. . When I die and they go off to auction I hope whoever buys them gives them a really good home."

It's an extraordinary collection of rubies, diamonds, emeralds and sapphires in intricate and bold designs.

Among the standouts is the 16th-century La Peregrina, one of the largest and most symmetrically perfect pear-shaped pearls in the world, which Burton purchased for Taylor in 1969 as a Valentine's Day gift.

The two had met in Italy on the set of the 1963 film "Cleopatra," and married for the first time in 1964.

Once part of the Crown Jewels of Spain, the pearl later passed into the hands of Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon III and the Duke of Abercorn.

When it came up at auction in New York, Burton snapped it up for $37,000, beating out the underbidder, a member of the Spanish Royal family.

Cartier later created a ruby and diamond necklace from which the pearl was suspended, a design that was inspired by the famous Velazquez portraits of Spain's Queen Margarita and Queen Isabel wearing the pearl as a necklace.

It is estimated to fetch $2 million to $3 million.

Taylor, who was married eight times — twice to Burton — died in March at age 79. The couple appeared together in about a dozen films, including "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in which Taylor played an alcoholic shrew in an emotionally sadomasochistic marriage.

Burton was enamored of historical pieces, and in 1972 purchased the famous 17th-century Taj Mahal diamond pendant for Taylor's 40th birthday. The transaction took place at John F. Kennedy International Airport because the couple didn't have time to run into the city before catching a plane, said Kadakia.

The heart-shaped diamond is associated with one of history's greatest love stories. It belonged to Emperor Shah Jahangir, who had the diamond inscribed with his wife's name "Nur Jahan." He later passed the stone on to his son, Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal in memory of his wife Mumtaz, who died in childbirth.

"I would have liked to buy her the Taj Mahal but it would cost too much to transport," Burton remarked after buying it.

Cartier later recreated the diamond's original silk cord as a gold rope-like necklace set with rubies and diamonds.

The necklace has a pre-sale estimate of $300,000 to $500,000.

"Jewelry was a way of life for Elizabeth Taylor. They were her friends. She enjoyed wearing them and it gave her a lot of pleasure because they reminded her of the great moments in her life, the great places in her life," Kadakia said.

Like the time Taylor's third husband, theater and film producer Mike Todd, presented her with a red leather Cartier box as she sat by the pool at a rented villa in the south of France.

Inside was a ruby necklace, matching earrings and bracelet.

"She was so, so happy that she jumped into the pool wearing all this jewelry and started doing laps," said Kadakia, adding that the pieces will be sold separately.

One of the most extravagant gifts Taylor received from Burton was the asscher-cut 33.19-carat diamond set in a platinum ring. Known as the Elizabeth Taylor Diamond, Kadakia said its size and clarity — "as white as they can be and potentially flawless" makes it a perfect gem.

Burton purchased it in 1968 at a New York auction for $305,000. At the December sale, it's expected to fetch $2.5 million to $3.5 million.

"Elizabeth Taylor used to refer to it as her baby and wore it as much and as often as she could," said Kadakia, including in nearly all her subsequent films.

Among the pieces of jewelry that Taylor purchased for herself was the Duchess of Windsor diamond brooch, which she got at auction for $620,000. Kadakia said she paid a big price for it for two reasons, to remember her friend and because the proceeds were going to a cause dear to her, AIDS research.

The brooch is estimated to bring $400,000 to $600,000.

Eighty of the most iconic pieces will be sold on the evening of Dec. 13. The following day, 189 more gems will be sold. About 500 pieces of Taylor's costume jewelry will be sold online at the same time.

Christie's also will be selling the star's haute couture and ready-to-wear fashion, accessories, 20th-century decorative arts and film memorabilia from her Bel Air home on Dec. 14-16. Details have not been released.

Christie's said the top 80 jewelry pieces will be shipped prior to the auction to Geneva, Paris, Hong Kong, Dubai and Los Angeles; many of them also will be shown in London and Moscow. Serious collectors will be able to try on the jewelry by appointment.

The entire collection will be exhibited from Dec. 3-10 at Christie's New York galleries.

A portion of the proceeds from the exhibition admissions and publications related to the sales will be donated to The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. Proceeds from the auctions will go to Taylor's estate.

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Online:

http://www.christies.com

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S.Africa's iconic plucky pup 'Jock' goes 3D in film (AFP)

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – South African literary classic "Jock of the Bushveld" has been turned into the country's first 3D animation film and features the voices of global celebrities like Bryan Adams and Desmond Tutu.

The film, which opens Friday in southern Africa, is based on the 1907 bestseller by Percy Fitzpatrick who details his true-life bush adventures during the 1880s gold rush with his pup Jock, who became a national icon.

"Everyone loves dogs, it's an inspiring story," said director Duncan MacNeillie.

The book traces Jock's transformation from a sickly Staffordshire Bull Terrier pup to a brave companion in the wildlife-rich Eastern Transvaal, now called Mpumalanga.

MacNeillie had brought Jock to the big screen with a 1986 movie that made a splash in South Africa but ignored everywhere else due to the cultural boycott of the prevailing apartheid regime.

More than two decades later, he has resurrected the story as feature-length cartoon complete with musical score and 3D technology to capture the vibrant South African bush, and to appeal to children around the world.

"It's still based from the classic," he said. "It's from the dog's point of view... There is a happy ending and good inspiration."

The film drew top names with the narrator "Fitz" voiced by Donald Sutherland, Oscar-winner Helen Hunt playing Jock's mother, and South Africa's "white Zulu" singer Johnny Clegg and English lyricist Tim Rice working on the music.

Global peace icon Tutu voices a wise African "Tata", which means "father" in South Africa, and his involvement led to Canadian rocker Adams' signing up to play the brown-coated, white-socked lead.

"I went down to Cape Town to meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has a small voice segment in the film," said MacNeillie.

"When I got there, there was Bryan Adams sitting in Tutu's home having tea."

The film tells the story through the eyes of Jock, who remains a puppy through to the end, sparing him the book's harshest knocks: he does not go hunting with his owner, does not lose his hearing after a kick from a kudu, and does not die at the end.

Instead, a French girlfriend and a best friend rooster voiced by sitcom Cheers star Ted Danson have been added, and Jock's escapades even involve an unlikely disco with dancing warthogs and baboons in an abandoned mine.

The film took five years to create by a small team in Johannesburg.

"We did not want it to be just a prettified, generic outdoor African setting. We were very careful not to make it look like Disney's The Lion King," said MacNeillie, who himself lives in the region where the film is set.

But the producers have clearly borrowed a page from Disney's marketing techniques, with a raft of merchandising already flooding South African stores, which should help the film turn a profit.

Marketing manager Andy Rice said the movie was "an opportunity to bring South Africa on the 3D map".

"It's all about courage, faith, self-confidence, believing in oneself," he said.

While the budget is confidential, a spokeswoman estimated it to be roughly 10 percent of a typical animated production.

The film has been made for export and has been sold to a Hollywood-based marketing and distribution and when asked the desired target, MacNeillie simply summed up: "The world!"

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Iconic Marilyn Monroe dress sells for $4.6 million (AFP)

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – The legendary white dress seen billowing under Marilyn Monroe in an iconic image of 1950s Hollywood has sold at auction for $4.6 million, shattering estimates.

The dress, worn by the star in the 1955 film "The Seven Year Itch," had been expected to fetch between one and two million dollars.

But the sale Saturday, part of a collection of Hollywood memorabilia held by actress Debbie Reynolds, saw Monroe's "subway" dress -- now cream colored from age -- sold for $4.6 million (or $5,520,000, with added fees).

The entire sale, which included other Monroe garbs, was valued at $22.8 million, Nancy Seltzer, a spokeswoman for auction house Profiles in History, told AFP in an email.

Signed by the American designer William Travilla, the pleated ivory dress contributed in part to Monroe's enduring image as a 20th Century sex symbol.

It was the highest value feature of the auction that also some 700 pieces go under the hammer.

Among them were dresses Monroe wore in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1953) and "The River of No Return" (1954), as well as costumes from other classic Hollywood staples "Gone With the Wind," "The Sound of Music," "Cleopatra," "Ben-Hur," "The Wizard of Oz," and "My Fair Lady."

Reynolds, a singer, dancer and actress whose greatest role came in "Singin' in the Rain," began collecting Hollywood memorabilia in the 1970s when MGM Studios liquidated its assets. Her immense collection includes over 3,500 costumes, 20,000 photographs and hundreds of props and other decorations.

A second sale from the Reynolds collection is planned for December.

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Iconic Buffalo Springfield stampedes into Bonnaroo (AP)

By CHRIS TALBOTT, AP Entertainment Writer Chris Talbott, Ap Entertainment Writer – Thu Jun 9, 11:50 am ET

MANCHESTER, Tenn. – Richie Furay knows a little something about miracles in his new career as a preacher.

A Buffalo Springfield reunion may not strictly qualify as a one. But like most folks he'd written off the possibility when the band famously flamed out in 1968, ending a short but incandescent run that would ripple through music for decades to come.

"People have asked me did I think The Buffalo Springfield would ever get back together again, and my answer was a short, `Never, it's not gonna happen,'" Furay said in a phone interview last Saturday before the band's soundcheck in Los Angeles. "That old saying, `Never say never,' is true."

The surviving members of the California quintet — Furay, Stephen Stills and Neil Young — will make their only festival appearance this year on Saturday at Bonnaroo, serving as a focal point for an event heavy on bands influenced by the folk- and country-rock pioneers.

Young first broached the idea of a reunion in a song, "Buffalo Springfield Again" from 2000's "Silver & Gold," and finally reached out personally last year to invite Furay and Stills to join him at his annual Bridge School benefit concert in October.

Fans cheered the reunion and, more importantly, the band enjoyed it. Over the years their relationships sometimes bore the lingering strain of that 1960s breakup. But not this time. Things were so much fun, they made plans for a six-date mini-tour in California to warm up for Bonnaroo and have since announced a fall tour.

There's a harmony these days that didn't exist during the band's revolving-door run from 1966-68.

"Nobody's looking for a career move or anything," Furay said. "This isn't a career move. This is just a bunch of guys who played music together 40 years ago having fun, readdressing the music that we played, and there's no agendas. ... Man, it's so much more relaxed and I am going to speak for Neil and for Stephen, we're just having fun. There's no reason to be doing this if everyone isn't having fun and everyone's having fun. We knew that back at the Bridge School. It was like stepping back in time."

And it's an exciting time to revisit. Buffalo Springfield held together just long enough to record one album together, one album apart and enough leftovers for a third.

In these few dozen tracks is a large portion of the DNA for today's thriving folk- and country-rock scenes. Buffalo Springfield alongside groups like The Byrds helped meld sounds no one really thought belonged together at the time. Folk purists felt rock `n' roll was abusive, and rock purists didn't want to fluff up their music. And the country guys had no idea what to make of it all.

Buffalo Springfield — which originally included bassist Bruce Palmer and drummer Dewey Martin, who have both passed away — had just one big hit in its short run, but its commercial success was inverse to its influence. Tension in the band between Young and Stills and legal problems for Palmer led to the band's split. Young and Stills went on to success as solo artists and together in Crosby, Stills, Nash & (sometimes) Young. Furay formed the influential country-rock band Poco with latter-day Springfield member Jim Messina before forming the nondenominational Calvary Chapel in Bloomfield, Colo.

The band entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Songs like the band's biggest hit "For What It's Worth," "Bluebird," "Mr. Soul" and the iconic "Broken Arrow," performed live for the first time during the reunion, with their topical themes and open-hearted intent, still resonate with listeners today — perhaps as much as ever. The band lived during a politically tumultuous time and reappears in a time that feels just as stormy.

"Just the faces have changed," said Furay, who now lives in Colorado.

The ideas and influences of Buffalo Springfield can be felt every year at Bonnaroo, an all-genre event that nevertheless has a soft spot for roots rock.

You could easily call bands like Mumford & Sons, My Morning Jacket, The Decemberists, Ray LaMontagne, Old Crow Medicine Show and many others in the festival's four-day lineup distant descendants of Buffalo Springfield.

Organizers of Bonnaroo, which kicks off Thursday, think it was a coup to land the reunited act's only festival date. It also was another chance to look forward by looking back.

"I think Bonnaroo has always been about presenting not only sort of what is current and breaking but also artists that have influenced a lot of the music that our audience is listening to," Bonnaroo co-creator Rick Farman of Superfly Productions said. "And there's always been a thing within sort of the rock world of looking back at the sort of predecessors, the ones who created the pathways for the new artists and sort of putting them up on a pedestal to be experienced in that way.

Saturday night's performance will be Young's first return to Manchester since a scorching 2003 solo show that Farman and his friends place among the top five performances in the 10-year history of the festival.

"That was a transcendent moment for the festival for I think a lot of us who produce it personally and I think for the audience," Farman said. "So, you know, having him back and having him in this configuration is really exciting."

Furay says it's an exciting prospect for the band as well and perhaps just one in a long line of steps these old friends will take together. No one has committed to anything beyond the fall tour, but there are songs being written.

"We haven't discussed, you know, `Hey, we're going to sit down and we're going to write 10 new songs,'" Furay said. "Neil's so prolific anyway. Stephen told me the other day he had a song. I've been writing music. So I just think it's obvious that something may transpire like that, it may come to pass."

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Online:

http://www.bonnaroo.com

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Contact Chris Talbott at http://www.twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

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