Joshua Bell is such a poster boy for his generation of classical musicians that fans tend to know pretty much everything about him: His background as a violin prodigy. His youthful good looks and floppy brown hair. His penchant for boundary breaking – recording movie soundtracks and playing with jazz and even bluegrass artists. His $4 million Stradivarius.

Here’s one thing that might surprise them, though: The dude can eat. And not in the fueling, eat-to-live kind of way. Watching him work through a tasting menu like the one served recently at lunch at the Bazaar by Jose Andres was to see someone in full thrall of the pleasure of dining.

"After music, I think food is my life," Bell says. "I think I pretty much live from one meal to the next, and during each meal I’m planning the next if I haven’t planned it already. I think it’s true of most musicians. I don’t know why; maybe it’s the sensual part of art and being an artist, and food is such a sensual thing."

Bell is in Southern California serving as the artistic director of the Laguna Beach Music Festival, a stint that began on Monday and ends Sunday.

None of those topics came up during the two-hour, 14-course lunch at the Bazaar. Bell was too busy eating. And enjoying. And occasionally popping out of his seat to record a dish for posterity with the camera on his smartphone, like any other good foodie presented with such a meal.

Bell grew up in Indiana in a family that was intensely musical but didn’t pay a lot of attention to food. The turning point, which he can pinpoint vividly, was a trip to Europe in 1982 when he was 14. He had won a competition to attend a master class in Switzerland. His parents accompanied him and as a treat took him on a side trip to France, where they dined at La Pyramide, the venerable three-star restaurant regarded as the cradle of modern French cuisine.

"I’d never had food like that," he says. "I grew up in a kitchen with food that was good but quite simple. There were not a lot of fancy restaurants when I was growing up in Indiana. I remember the foie gras; I’d never had that before. And the cheeses – never, ever had anything like that. It changed my life.

"There were so many courses I don’t remember that much about the specifics. I just remember it was the best time ever. Just the three of us. My first great meal."

At the Bazaar, the meal (prepared by another Joshua – chef de cuisine Joshua Whigham) alternated between playful modernist twists and heartfelt examples of traditional Spanish cooking. Organized Caesar – salad components presented like perfect sushi rolls – in one course, wide, buttery sheets of jamon Iberico and house-canned seafood specialties in the next.

When Andres’ famous Caprese appeared – spheres of mozzarella and tomato served on a pungent basil and garlic sauce – Bell picked them up and ate them in one bite as instructed. And then threw back his head and groaned audibly as the flavors exploded.

"Oh, my God!" he says. "Wow. Wow. That’s just that sauce. Oh, wow. That’s an amazing dish. It’s just so outrageous."

Oddly enough for someone who enjoys food so much, Bell doesn’t cook for himself. As he puts it, traveling 200 days out of the year, he’s either just getting home or just leaving. And then there’s the whole New York thing: His apartment is a block from Gramercy Tavern and a block from Eleven Madison Park. And Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich’s new Italian food emporium Eataly is right outside his door.

But there’s something more: For a driven perfectionist, starting at square one to learn to cook seems so daunting. What if he makes a mistake? "For me to just get up there and look like an amateur, that would be very hard for me, when I’m used to doing something that I’m good at. "

The long lunch completed, he stepped into the Bazaar kitchen, where the staff was assembled, preparing for dinner. After thanking them for the memorable lunch, he pulled out his Stradivarius and poured himself into an equally memorable performance of the Chaconne from Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 2, a roiling bravura piece that left the staff open-mouthed in wonder.

- Russ Parsons, Los Angeles Times

CHEF WOLFGANG PUCK TO COLLECT FOOD’S OSCAR

The so-called Oscars of the food world this year will give the ultimate nod to a man best known for feeding celebrities at the real Oscars.

The James Beard Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement award this year will go to Wolfgang Puck, whose menu for The Academy Awards Governors Ball is almost as eagerly anticipated as the awards themselves.

Puck – who has won multiple honors from the foundation and is the only chef to have twice received its Most Outstanding Chef award – was chosen for his talent as a chef and restaurateur, as well as for his history of revolutionizing how American chefs think about food, foundation president Susan Ungaro said in a release.

Puck, whose cooking combines classic French technique with a focus on seasonal and local ingredients, has been an iconic voice in California cuisine. Born in Austria, he moved to Los Angeles in 1975. In 1982, he opened Spago, the restaurant for which he remains best known. Today, he has 20 restaurants around the country.

The award will be presented during the foundation’s annual awards gala on May 7 in New York.

- J.M. Hirsch, The Associated Press

Don Cornelius is shown in a 2009 file photo.

Law enforcement sources said police arrived at Cornelius’ home around 4 a.m. He apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing.

The sources said there was no sign of foul play, but the Los Angeles Police Department was investigating.

In a 2010 interview with The Los Angeles Times, he said he was excited about a movie project he was developing about “Soul Train.”

“We’ve been in discussions with several people about getting a movie off the ground. It wouldn’t be the ‘Soul Train’ dance show, it would be more of a biographical look at the project,” he said. “It’s going to be about some of the things that really happened on the show.”

According to a Times article, Cornelius’ “Soul Train” became the longest-running first-run nationally syndicated show in television history, bringing African American music and style to the world for 35 years.

Cornelius stopped hosting the show in 1993, and “Soul Train” ceased production in 2006.

Cornelius was 75 years old. He had two children with his first wife, Delores, and was married to his second, Viktoria, at the time of his death, though the two had filed for divorce.

RELATED: Bob May, who donned The Robot’s suit in ‘Lost in Space,’ has died

By Claire Noland

Dick Tufeld, a longtime radio and TV announcer who intoned “Danger, Will Robinson!” as the voice of the Robot in the 1960s science-fiction TV series “Lost in Space,” has died. He was 85.

Tufeld died Sunday at his home in Studio City while watching the NFL playoffs, his family said. He had heart disease and had been in declining health since sustaining a fall last year.

In “Lost in Space,” producer Irwin Allen’s futuristic retelling of the “Swiss Family Robinson” story that aired on CBS from 1965 to 1968, actor Bob May wore the Robot costume and Tufeld provided the voice.

Besides warning young Will Robinson of impending danger, Tufeld’s Robot uttered other lines that became catchphrases for faithful viewers — including “That does not compute” — and needled the antagonistic Dr. Zachary Smith with barbs like “Dr. Smith is a bubble-headed booby.”
Read the full story

By ELAINE WOO

Judy Lewis, a psychotherapist and former actress who wrote a book about her complicated heritage as the illegitimate daughter of Hollywood legends Loretta Young and Clark Gable, has died. She was 76.

A longtime resident of Los Angeles, Lewis died of cancer Friday in Gladwyne, Pa., according to her daughter, Maria Tinney Dagit.

Brought up in Bel-Air as Young’s adopted daughter, Lewis was an adult when she learned that the glamorous leading lady and Gable, the dashing star of “Gone With the Wind,” had conceived her during a brief affair in the 1930s.

Fearful of scandal, Young hid the pregnancy and later fabricated the adoption. Gable never acknowledged that Lewis was his daughter, although he visited her once when she was 15, an experience that Lewis tenderly recounted in her 1994 memoir, “Uncommon Knowledge.”
Read the full story

Henry Cavill stars as Theseus in 'Immortals', opening Friday. (Courtesy Relativity Media)

by GEOFF BOUCHER

In “Immortals,” the hyper-stylized Greek mythology movie that opens this weekend, Henry Cavill plays brave Theseus, a man who is told by gods and oracles that he has a date with destiny. Cavill can relate, in a way, because a little more than a decade ago, while he was still at a boarding school in Buckinghamshire, England, Cavill shook hands with the future.

The campus of Stowe School was being used as a backdrop for the kidnap thriller “Proof of Life,” and between shots, star Russell Crowe was amusing himself by booting a rugby ball through the posts as dozens of boys at a safe distance watched with wide-eyed fascination and a bit of fear. Cavill was in the crowd and decided that they looked foolish, so he marched up to the movie star and introduced himself.

Showtimes, theaters for ‘Immortals’

“I took his hand and said, ‘Hi, Mr. Crowe. My name is Henry, and I’m thinking of becoming an actor. What’s it like?’ And we talked just a bit,” the 28-year-old Cavill recalled. “A few days later I got a signed picture of him in ‘Gladiator’ that said, ‘Dear Henry, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’ You can imagine how I felt when I got to the end of that first journey of a thousand miles and I’m working with Russell Crowe. …”

Indeed, Cavill and Crowe have been in Vancouver filming Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel,” with Cavill playing Superman and Crowe, the hero’s doomed alien father, Jor-El, a role that Marlon Brando memorably handled in 1978 — five years before Cavill was born. The cape of Superman is heavier than it looks: There is intense pressure to live up to the history of the hero and to create a franchise that will fly for Warner Bros. now that Harry Potter’s magical box-office run is over and Christopher Nolan’s Batman series is drawing to its own conclusion with next year’s “The Dark Knight Rises.”
Read the full story

Image via Wikipedia

By NICOLE SPERLING

Director Brett Ratner resigned Tuesday as producer of the Oscar telecast after coming under fire for making an anti-gay slur, leaving the motion picture academy scrambling to cast a new team to helm the February award show.

Ratner, director of popcorn films such as “Rush Hour” and the newly released “Tower Heist,” was an unconventional choice for the job and was touted as someone who could shake up the program and bring more viewers and pizazz to the affair. Although the show’s ratings have flagged recently, the Oscars remain one of the most-viewed broadcasts of the year, often second only to the Super Bowl.

It was unclear whether Ratner’s handpicked host for the Feb. 26 broadcast, Eddie Murphy, would also bow out.

The controversy erupted after a Q&A session last weekend following a screening of “Tower Heist” during which Ratner said, “rehearsal is for fags.” He then went on Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show and talked explicitly about his sex life.

Ratner issued a public apology Monday and academy President Tom Sherak seemed to accept it, but the drumbeat of criticism continued, culminating in Ratner’s resignation.

Read the full story

Abigail Breslin and 'Janie Jones' co-star Alessandro Nivola at a screening of 'Janie Jones'. (AP / StarPix)

By AMY KAUFMAN

From Tatum O’Neal to Hailee Steinfeld, adorable child stars have long faced an uphill battle in making the shift to an adult career. Many have struggled to prove that there’s more to their talent than just playing cute. Abigail Breslin is well acquainted with that particular conundrum.

At the age of 10, she earned a supporting actress Oscar nomination for 2006’s “Little Miss Sunshine.” She had the memorable role of Olive, a chubby, somewhat dorky girl whose eccentric family rallies behind her efforts to win a beauty pageant. Since then, Breslin’s slowly been transitioning into more grown-up parts, playing Ryan Reynolds’ daughter in the romantic comedy “Definitely, Maybe” and tackling more serious fare in the somber drama “My Sister’s Keeper” opposite Cameron Diaz, not to mention her turn as feisty younger sister to Emma Stone’s gun-toting tough girl in the horror sendup “Zombieland.”

Now 15, she stars in “Janie Jones,” an independent drama opening Friday about a teenager who is introduced for the first time to her estranged father (Alessandro Nivola). Dad is a rock star, and she joins him on the road as the two work on their relationship.

“To anyone who said, ‘Well, she got an Academy Award nomination because she was a cute kid,’ I would say, ‘Look at her in this movie,’ ” said David Rosenthal, who wrote and directed the film and cast Breslin without even auditioning her for the part. “You see why she’s really a star.”
Read the full story

The Google Doodle honoring Mary Blair, Disney artist.

By AMY HUBBARD

Mary Blair, honored Friday with a Google Doodle, is the woman to thank for the Disneyland boat ride It’s a Small World.

Blair’s doodle coincides with a tribute to the longtime Disney artist. Thursday night, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosts “Mary Blair’s World of Color — A Centennial Tribute” to celebrate the woman, born a century ago, who made a place for herself among Disney’s famous founding animators, the Nine Old Men.

The Los Angeles Times‘ Susan King, a writer and expert on classic Hollywood, reported Monday on the coming tribute and says Blair is best known for her contributions to the 1950 animated “Cinderella,” 1951′s “Alice in Wonderland” and 1953′s “Peter Pan” — as well as the aforementioned design for It’s a Small World.

Blair, who followed her animator husband, Lee Blair, to the Disney studio in 1940, was greatly admired by boss Walt Disney, who requested her work on It’s a Small World.
Read the full story

Vesta Williams first came to prominence on the R&B charts with her hit 'Congratulations'. (Jason Merritt / Palm Beach Post)

By CHRISTIE D’ZURILLA

Vesta Williams, the R&B singer who rose to fame in the ’80s, was found dead Thursday evening in an El Segundo, Calif., hotel room. She was 53.

Though no official cause of death had been determined Friday, John Kades of the L.A. County coroner’s office told the Associated Press that it “could be a drug overdose.” An autopsy will be conducted, though foul play was not suspected.

Williams’ hits included “Sweet Sweet Love,” “Once Bitten Twice Shy” and “Congratulations,” a tale of heartbreak over a love marrying someone else that she later described to Mo’Nique as “a premonition that came true”. Williams appeared on the sitcom “Sister Sister” several times in the late 1990s, playing a best friend to Jackée Harry’s character.

“Just received truly devastating news: R&B great, and my friend of many yrs, Vesta Williams (@vesta4u) has passed away,” Harry said early Friday on Twitter.

Law enforcement sources told TMZ that multiple bottles of prescription pills were found in the room, where Williams’ body was discovered around 6:15 p.m. Toxicology test results typically come in around six weeks after an autopsy is conducted.

Image by Daniel Semper via Flickr

By JOE FLINT

Charlie Sheen and Warner Bros. are putting the finishing touches on a deal to end their legal battle.

Sheen, who had been in a fight with Warner Bros. over the studio’s firing him from his starring role on the CBS hit sitcom “Two and a Half Men” last March, will get about $25 million to settle out of his contract, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. The figure represents Sheen’s participation in profits from the show.

A spokesman for Warner Bros. denied there is a settlement and declined to comment further. A spokesman for Sheen referred calls to the actor’s lawyer, who couldn’t be reached immediately.

The expected agreement, which is still being ironed out, would bring to an end one of the ugliest fights ever between a star and a studio. It started in January when Warner Bros. shut down production on “Two and a Half Men” so Sheen, who has had a history of substance abuse issues, could seek treatment. It was not the first time the studio had to stop production on the show because of worries about Sheen’s well-being.

A few weeks later, Sheen declared himself ready to return to work and when Warner Bros. didn’t agree, he went on a public-relations offensive. Appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today,” he blasted Warner Bros. and “Two and a Half Men” co-creator Chuck Lorre and boasted about his drug use, womanizing and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.
Read the full story