Diamond, Streep among 5 honored by Kennedy Center (AP)

WASHINGTON – The good times never seemed so good for Neil Diamond.

Known for his songs that have become anthems at ballparks and bars, Diamond was chosen Wednesday to receive the Kennedy Center Honors this year along with some of the biggest names from Broadway, jazz, classical music and Hollywood.

Diamond will be honored with Broadway singer Barbara Cook, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, saxophonist Sonny Rollins and actress Meryl Streep for their contributions to American culture through the arts. President Barack Obama will salute the artists and others will perform in their honor at a ceremony at the Kennedy Center on Dec. 4. CBS will broadcast the show Dec. 27.

Diamond said he was "flying way above sea level" when heard about the honor.

"I've watched, and I've seen, and I've even dreamed that someday that would happen to me," he told The Associated Press. "But I never really believed that it would."

Diamond said he used to get distracted when people sang along with him to hits like "Sweet Caroline," which was written for presidential daughter Caroline Kennedy who hosts the show.

"But I realized pretty quickly that it was a compliment, and I had no choice in the matter anyway, so I got with the program and just learned to love it," said Diamond, who earlier this year was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He said he's planning another U.S. tour next summer after performing abroad recently.

The 70-year-old Diamond also tweeted Wednesday that he was engaged to a woman named Katie — but wouldn't tell AP who she was so that she wouldn't "change her mind."

Streep, 62, has made more than 45 movies and has won two Oscars in a career that spans from Shakespeare to ABBA with the movie "Mamma Mia!" Some of her biggest hits have come in recent years with "The Devil Wears Prada," "Julie & Julia" and "It's Complicated." In the upcoming biopic "The Iron Lady," Streep will play British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

The actress said she is deeply honored by the Kennedy Center's nod and wishes her parents were alive to see it.

"All that education, allowance, tuition, voice lessons, summer jobs, scholarship application deadlines and loving care and discipline — all that they gave me, bore fruit in a way they never dreamed," she said in a statement.

George Stevens Jr., who created the honors and produces the show with his son Michael Stevens, said each of this year's honorees is the best at what they do. The heart of the show, he said, is exploring their lives through filmed tributes.

Ma is one of the best-known classical musicians, playing the cello since he was 4. He played for six U.S. presidents, including President John F. Kennedy and President Dwight D. Eisenhower at age 7 at a fundraiser to build a national cultural center that would later become the Kennedy Center. In 2009, he played at Obama's inauguration and last year was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The 55-year-old said he feels too young to be receiving such an award for lifetime achievements.

The son of Chinese parents who lived in Paris and moved to New York said some of his musical heroes have won the Kennedy Center Honors, including Mstislav Rostropovich and Leon Fleisher, so he was stunned to be joining their ranks. He said the honors are an important moment to nurture the arts each year.

"The whole nation gets together to celebrate essentially the accomplishments of the human spirit," he told AP, adding that society needs political, economic and cultural engines to succeed.

"The cultural part encompasses the arts and sciences," he said. "That's the seed for actual creativity."

Rollins, who turned 81 on Wednesday, has shared the stage with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, among others. He is one of the last surviving giants of jazz from the golden era of the late 1940s to the early 1960s.

"I definitely feel that this award is not so much for me as it is for some of the great, great jazz artists that preceded me," he said. "I'm very happy that it's an honor for jazz because I think jazz is such an important spiritual force all over the world."

As a lifelong New Yorker, Rollins would practice for hours at night on the Williamsburg Bridge, which connects Manhattan and Brooklyn. He could "play as loud as I want" and avoid disturbing his neighbors.

Cook, 83, made her Broadway debut in 1951 and later was cast in Leonard Bernstein's musical version of Voltaire's "Candide," which she considers the most difficult thing she's ever sang, and Meredith Wilson's 1957 hit musical "The Music Man," for which she won a Tony.

The Beatles later recorded the song she made popular, "Till There Was You." She returned to Broadway last year for "Sondheim on Sondheim" after spending years on her own concerts and solo albums.

Cook said she cried when she received the letter informing her of the Kennedy Center Honors.

"It's a kind of validation for me, for my whole life," she said. "Because when I sing, I put my whole life, the good part, the bad part, I put that into my work."

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Online:

http://www.kennedy-center.org/

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Meryl Streep, Neil Diamond honored by Kennedy Center (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Actress Meryl Streep will add another honor to her illustrious career as one of the five artists recognized by the Kennedy Center for their contribution to culture.

Streep will join cellist Yo-Yo Ma, singer and songwriter Neil Diamond, Broadway singer and actress Barbara Cook and saxophonist Sonny Rollins as 2011 Kennedy Center honorees, the performing arts organization said on Wednesday.

President Barack Obama will salute the five, and other stars will perform in their honor at a ceremony to be broadcast on CBS television on December 27.

Kennedy Center chairman David M. Rubenstein said the five honorees were extraordinary people "whose collective artistry has contributed significantly to the cultural life of our nation and the world."

Double Oscar-winner Streep, 62, is regarded as among the greatest living film actresses for performances in movies ranging from "Sophie's Choice" to "The Devil Wears Prada".

Rubenstein said "Sweet Caroline" singer Diamond has "created one of the most enduring catalogs of American popular music", and he called Yo-Yo Ma "one of the most versatile and popular classical music performers in the world."

Cook, 83, is best known for her 1950s Broadway performances in shows like "Candide" and "The Music Man", while Grammy-winning Rollins, 81, is regarded as one of the most influential jazz musicians in the world over a 60-year career.

The Kennedy Center Honors were created in 1978 and past honorees have included Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Carol Burnett, Luciano Pavarotti, Willie Nelson and Oprah Winfrey.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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Rosie O'Donnell puts laughter at center of new show (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters Life!) – Rosie O'Donnell said Thursday her upcoming daily talk show on Oprah Winfrey's OWN channel would blend celebrity chat, game shows, news topics and a big dose of her own brand of humor.

As for controversy? Well, maybe.

"We are going to have a controversy segment," the often outspoken O'Donnell deadpanned. "No, we're not!"

"We are not going to look for controversy, but should it be germane to what is happening in the world, I am sure we will bring up current events," she added.

The fledgling OWN cable network said the "The Rosie Show" will make its debut on October10 at 7pm and run five days a week.

It marks a return to TV talk shows for the actress, comedian and activist who won multiple Emmys for "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" from 1996-2002 and who then had a short-lived and headline-grabbing stint as co-host of "The View."

But if O'Donnell's appearance promoting the show on Thursday to a gathering of television critics is any indication, it's the comic aspects of the new program that may be making headlines.

O'Donnell, 49, said she had turned down offers from mainstream TV networks in favor of Winfrey's female-oriented lifestyle cable channel, which launched in January but has struggled to gain large audiences.

"It's a huge stamp of approval that is beyond anyone's dream. It's almost like being knighted," she said of joining

OWN.

But asked how she fit in with Winfrey's aspirational programing, she replied.

"I think the reason for my success is that I am not aspirational, but inspirational because people relate to me because I am not Madonna."

"I am more the audience...no-one is at home going 'if I could only be Rosie O'Donnell, an overweight lesbian who yells too much," she joked.

She said she hoped to mix up the traditional talk show format by having celebrity guests who are happy to have fun on TV, and she put British comedian and actor Russell Brand on top of her wish list.

"I find him fascinating" she said, adding that the "epic gorgeous and fantastic" British singer Adele was high on her ideal guest list, too.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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Film Society of Lincoln Center opens new home (AP)

NEW YORK – As a trendsetting designer and architect, David Rockwell has done it all — from Broadway shows and a restaurant partly owned by Robert De Niro to children's hospitals and a hip hotel near Times Square.

On Friday, his latest creation will open: the permanent home of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, a $41 million world-class movie complex that is both a community center for its Manhattan neighborhood and a staging ground for some of the finest new films and greatest old ones.

It was literally carved out of an old underground parking garage.

The Film Society is best known for hosting the New York Film Festival, starting Sept. 30 this year.

On its new facade on Manhattan's West Side are the titles of 1,000 films screened since the society was founded in 1969 to spotlight American independent and world cinema.

"Our primary goal here was to create an accessible place that could celebrate community filmmakers in a kind of informal way," says Rockwell. "We were looking to create the best possible environment for filmmakers to show their films."

Rockwell, 53, strolls around the 17,000-square-foot venue, pointing out what he says is different from commercial movie complexes.

For starters, the Film Society is one of a dozen resident organizations of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the largest such complex in the nation.

Until now, films were shown at the Walter Reade Theater, all but hidden at the back of the Juilliard School building on West 65th Street. The year-round program keeps changing, with film series built around a main theme — whether a particular director, or movies from a single country or culture.

The Film Society's successful basic approach will continue across the street at the new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, with one big difference: The space is hardly hidden. A 90-foot glass front and 160 orange LED lights in the sidewalk "grab your attention and lead you in like a welcome mat," says Rockwell.

He had to make this facade fit into a much bigger context: the transformation of Lincoln Center. Over the past decade, it has morphed from a 16-acre "fortress" — built in the 1960s with windowless stone walls protecting it from a high-crime neighborhood — to today's gleaming, translucent arts community inviting in one and all. There's a modernistic central fountain, with dancing around it on summer nights. Just above the Film Society sits a see-through restaurant with a grass roof that serves as a public lawn, complete with the free Wi-Fi that covers all of Lincoln Center.

As the economy slumped in recent years, and arts funding with it, it became critical to throw open the center's walls and doors, performing what architect Liz Diller called "an architectural striptease."

Her firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, oversaw the renewal plan. That included redesigning Alice Tully Hall, across West 65th Street from the Film Society, by wrapping it in mammoth glass walls facing Broadway.

Rockwell worked with Diller's firm to coordinate his facade with the master plan, he said in an interview that started on a sunny spring morning on the sidewalk.

The complex features two main screening rooms. Instead of the traditional padded walls, these are made of perforated metal — acoustically absorptive and designed to look like the flowing curtains found in historic Italian opera houses that were converted to cinemas in the 1920s.

"We took something that has always been done a certain way and reinvented it," he says. The exit hallways are lined with another surprise — stitched paper.

Rockwell's favorite space is in-between the two screening rooms — an 87-seat amphitheater facing the entrance, with leather stadium seating and a 152-inch plasma screen capable of 3-D projection and any other film format. Maple strip flooring cascades down the risers, up the end walls and onto the ceiling panels. Glass sidewalls change in hue from frosted to translucent.

"It feels like you're in a glowing capsule," he says.

This public gathering place is a setting for what does not usually happen in commercial theaters: screenings accompanied by discussions between directors and audiences, to eventually be live-streamed on the Internet.

In the entrance area in front of the amphitheater, visitors will be able to drop by a bookstore and a cafe to chat — without ever going to the movies.

"At so many film centers, you get your popcorn and you go into the screening room — after already spending so much time during the day looking at small screens one-on-one," he says. "One of the things the Film Society wanted to be about is conversation about film, a community of people with lots going on."

The project started in 2002, with Rockwell walking into a challenge, since the original space was part of Lincoln Center's underground garage, plus underutilized office space belonging to the nearby Metropolitan Opera. The trickiest part was excavating around a giant mechanical plant for the entire arts center.

"It was like a Rubik's Cube — a series of things that had to fit together," says the designer, whose Rockwell Group has offices in New York and Madrid. Over the years, the Chicago-born creator has built a global reputation not only for technically superb, glamorous spaces like Manhattan's Nobu restaurant — co-owned by De Niro — but also the personal philosophy behind each project.

Whether space is used for film, food, music or children's games, "it's all about human relationships," he says, "about bringing people together."

The Film Society's new venue celebrates "the part of going to see a film that involves conversation, meeting other people, socializing, curiosity, deciding what to see," he says.

The child of a vaudeville dancer and choreographer, Rockwell participated in a community theater that his mother ran when the family lived in Deal, N.J.

He loves drama.

His spectacular interiors include sets for Broadway hits like "Hairspray" and "The Normal Heart," as well as designs for the W hotel chain and the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, which hosts the Academy Awards. He's also created sets for the Oscars.

In California, he built a portable cooking school for English chef Jamie Oliver — trucks that open into kitchens for tours of the state.

The new complex will open with a documentary film about The New York Times.

An urban media center commenting on urban media "is the perfect postmodern moment," says Rockwell.

He's left his own bit of postmodern urban grit peeking out from the ceiling of the Film Society's entrance — a few slabs of concrete from the old garage, plus some raw concrete columns and exposed ductwork.

"Not having all highly finished materials was a nod to the Lincoln Center garage the film center displaced, and to the roots of this place — slightly less buttoned up, slightly younger," says Rockwell.

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Online:

http://www.filmlinc.com

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Hollywood stars at center of Broadway backlash (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Back Stage) – Every year, Hollywood celebrities head to Broadway where they get plenty of attention for their headlining efforts.

The Tony Awards, being presented on June 12, are the ultimate judge of the skills of any stage actor, famous or not, and many lesser-known performers worry that the value of the award diminishes as film stars continue to take them home.

Last year's star-studded broadcast disheartened many New York actors, including Hunter Foster, who started the Facebook group Give the Tonys Back to Broadway!! in an effort to combat the Tinseltown effect. With the now almost 9,000-member group, Foster hopes to restore the ceremony as a beacon of hope for the next generation of stage performers.

Whether stage actors like his sister, Sutton Foster -- nominated this year for her performance in "Anything Goes" -- will disappear from Broadway's future if the Tonys continue to focus on Hollywood stars is debatable. Many actors appearing on Broadway -- including Al Pacino, a nominee this year for "The Merchant of Venice" -- began their careers on stage, but their mass appeal comes from their films.

"I have worked my ass off to get to where I am, so I understand that struggle," Scarlett Johansson -- who was one of four Hollywood actors to win a Tony in 2010 -- told BroadwayWorld.com last year. "If somebody is cast because they are a name but they're not right for the job, well, it's very frustrating."

Experts and actors agree, however, that celebrities are necessary for some producers to bankroll productions, and a famous headliner brings more stable jobs for New York actors.

This year's list of nominees lacks many of the Broadway season's big names -- including Chris Rock, Robin Williams, Ben Stiller, and Daniel Radcliffe. David Sheward, executive editor of Back Stage and a Tony voter, blogged about how the dearth of well-known nominees could be a response by the nominating committee to last year's backlash.

However, Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of the Broadway League, which presents the awards with the American Theater Wing, said there is no correlation between last year's response and this year's nominees.

"If you look at the shows, most of the people who got good reviews are nominated," said St. Martin, who is also on the awards' administration committee, which oversees the nominating process. "People whose reviews were not as good, either for the show or the individual, perhaps are not."

A star can be an economic necessity for a Broadway show, and Michael Riedel, New York Post theater columnist and host of PBS's "Theater Talk," does not think Hollywood stars take jobs away from New York actors. "If you didn't have these celebrities, a lot of these shows wouldn't be produced," he said. "All of these shows have people in them who are not movie stars and they're all working."

CRUSADERS

A Tony represents the Holy Grail for a stage actor and can significantly boost a performer's career, whereas film and television actors are already honored with awards like Oscars and Emmys. Having widely recognized actors swoop in and secure a Tony nomination can be upsetting to some, said Garrett Eisler of the blog The Playgoer, as there are limited spots.

According to Eisler, stars have driven Broadway ticket sales throughout history, but "what changed is the definition of who is a star." In the 1950s and '60s, the box office names were Robert Preston, Rex Harrison, and Zero Mostel, who had some fame from film but whose main medium was the stage. "A Broadway star could really be a star," Eisler said, recognizing that Patti LuPone is one of the few who fits this bill today. "Now you can't be a star unless you're a Hollywood star."

The Internet democratizes entertainment, and a stage performer will never receive the same size audience for a Broadway show that another actor will receive for a film or a television series.

"There's been a generational shift," Eisler explained, noting that today's generation of young people is the first to come of age with the Internet. "Certain stars can't become household names without appearing on multiple platforms."

Tony winner and New York stage veteran Victoria Clark acknowledged her win for "The Light in the Piazza" in 2005 helped launch her career and turned her into more of a "known quantity." Her role as Mother Superior in this year's "Sister Act," for which she is nominated, came to her in part because of her name and the connections she made through her past work.

"Jerry Zaks could have gone after anybody between the ages of 45 and 80 for this part," she said, referring to the show's director. "There's a message to our directors: Support the people that supported you when you first started your career and go back to those people and give them a shot."

Celebrities coming to Broadway take work away from New York theater actors, according to Clark, but she also says the industry should not separate actors into film, TV, and stage categories. "It's our culture that segregates us," she argued. "If we were actors in any other country, we'd all be doing everything, no questions asked."

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Center stage beckons for Jason Sudeikis of `SNL' (AP)

NEW YORK – As several cameras and a large film crew hover around him, Jason Sudeikis is enjoying the attention.

"Think about how long this lighting would take if I didn't have perfect bone structure," he says, smiling. "Show off God's work."

Sudeikis is shooting promotions for the MTV Movie Awards, which he'll host June 5. As he lists the attendees, he riffs effortlessly ("Blake Lively ... nice guy?") and ponders the Scrabble points in "Shia LaBeouf."

The awards will introduce Sudeikis to millions of viewers just as he's making his largest splash on the big screen. He stars in the upcoming summer comedy "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy," out in September, and plays a supporting role in the star-filled "Horrible Bosses," out in July.

For the veteran "Saturday Night Live" cast member, center stage is a relatively new vantage point. Hosting the MTV Movie Awards (the last two hosts were Andy Samberg and Aziz Ansari) has been a kind of platform for rising comedians on the cusp.

"A platform either to dive beautifully off of or to fall completely off of, but a platform nevertheless," says the 35-year-old Sudeikis.

Though born in Virginia, Sudeikis was raised in Kansas City, Kan., and has a Midwestern aw-shucks candor. But he often uses a cheery facade for arrogant or oblivious characters. Whether playing Vice President Joe Biden or the devil, Sudeikis is usually grinning broadly.

"I always liked smart asses," he says. "I probably wanted to be Axel Foley from age 9 until 38. In three years, I'll probably stop wanting to be Axel Foley. I like people that laugh, smart asses that also laugh, that don't take any of it too seriously. Love Ace Ventura. Love Groucho Marx. Love Bugs Bunny."

Sudeikis didn't sincerely pursue comedy until he came to the famed Chicago improv troupe Second City in 1997. His family had some familiarity with showbiz: Sudeikis' uncle is George Wendt ("Cheers"). Wendt's success, Sudeikis says, pacified his parents in accepting entertainment as a career.

At Second City, he "dove in completely" to improv and helped develop a Las Vegas offshoot. There, he became enamored of the Blue Man Group and even auditioned once (unsuccessfully).

He was hired first as a writer on "SNL," which he did for two years, getting a handful of sketches on the air. Though Sudeikis yearned to be a performer, he learned the "SNL" system and relished the writing process.

"I really enjoyed the re-write table. That was my favorite thing to do," says Sudeikis. "When Tina Fey likes one of your jokes and puts it into the script, you can't help but feel like, `Maybe I am somehow doing the right thing, the right job.'"

Horatio Sanz overlapped with Sudeikis at Second City and again at "SNL," where he co-wrote Sudeikis' first sketch to air (Jack Black singing "Cats in the Cradle" to his estranged father).

"We all knew there was a performer in him," says Sanz. "Because it's so effortless for him, I think you kind of forget that he's such a good comedic actor. He doesn't go too big too often. A lot of what he plays is a lot like him."

Sudeikis became a cast member in 2006 as part of one of the show's best classes: Kristin Wiig, Bill Hader and Andy Samberg. Sudeikis and Wiig often wrote together and one of their late-night, gum-chewing sessions led to an early recurring hit: "Two A-Holes." In it, the two played an absurdly self-absorbed couple.

"I probably dealt with a lot of people like that — inflated egos — through sports and also entertainment," says Sudeikis. "And then again, there might be part of me that's not too dissimilar from that, the worst parts of myself."

Sudeikis says this "SNL" season, which concluded this past weekend, has been one of creeping nostalgia, as he, Wiig, Hader, Samberg realize their time together is waning.

"We all sort of realize that you're not going to do this forever," says Sudeikis, who expects to return next season.

But they all have other projects now, too. For Sudeikis, most notably, there's "A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy," an R-rated comedy in which a group of friends decide to have an orgy. It's a generational kind of film with characters in their late `20s and early `30s — stuck between the free-love `60s and the sexting `00s — insisting on their own chance for sexual inhibition.

Writer-directors Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck first met Sudeikis at an "SNL" after-party, where he and Huyck sang a karaoke duet of "Living on a Prayer."

"I have never seen a dude bring more charisma than that guy brought in that moment," says Huyck. "He was one of those guys that you could just see instantly and go, `He's got that thing.'"

Says Gregory: "We've had those conversations: Is he a young Bill Murray? Is he a young Chevy Chase? What is he? I always think more than anything, he's a young Tom Hanks."

The pair convinced Sudeikis to make "Orgy" — a risky proposition for a first leading role — partly by comparing it to Hanks doing 1984's "Bachelor Party" early in his career.

Handsome and confident, Sudeikis has shown leading man appeal, including in a memorable guest arc on "30 Rock." (He was previously married to "30 Rock" writer Kay Cannon, and last year dated "Mad Men" actress January Jones, which attracted tabloid coverage.)

One of Sudeikis' most popular characters is speechless: A tireless — and surprisingly skilled — dancer, clad in an Adidas jumpsuit that adorns the background of the "What Up with That?" sketch. Since dancing is often the province of award show hosting, there's a chance Sudeikis may trot the character out at the MTV Movie Awards.

"Very possibly," he says. "You got to dance with the one that brung you. No pun intended."

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Online:

http://www.mtv.com/ontv/movieawards/2011/

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Jude Law takes center stage in tabloid spying case (AP)

LONDON – Actor Jude Law is taking a lead role in a court battle over the wide-ranging spying campaign mounted by a British tabloid newspaper.

Law was one of many people allegedly targeted by the scandal-hungry News of The World, which listened in on voicemails to get its scoops.

Law was named Friday in one of four test cases to be considered by Justice Geoffrey Vos at Britain's High Court next year.

Vos says that the cases will help him set a range of damages to award people targeted by the News of The World — the biggest-selling Sunday tabloid newspaper — enabling other cases to be resolved without going to court.

The News of the World is currently facing about 20 lawsuits from alleged hacking victims, although more are expected.

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