Her family released a statement, saying Summer died Thursday morning and that they “are at peace celebrating her extraordinary life and her continued legacy.”

“Words truly can’t express how much we appreciate your prayers and love for our family at this sensitive time,” the statement read. She had been living in Englewood, Fla., with her husband, Bruce Sudano.

• BLOG: Lifeline Live rounds up celeb reactions

Summer came to prominence just as disco was burgeoning, and came to define the era with a string of No. 1 hits and her beauty-queen looks.

Disco became as much defined by her sultry, sexual vocals — her bedroom moans and sighs — as the relentless, pulsing rhythms of the music itself.

Love to Love You Baby, with its erotic moans, was her first hit and one of the most scandalous songs of the polyester-and-platform-heel era.

Unlike some other stars of disco who faded as the music became less popular, Summer was able to grow beyond it and later segued to a pop-rock sound. She had one of her biggest hits in the 1980s with She Works Hard For The Money, which became another anthem, this time for women’s rights.

Soon after, Summer became a born-again Christian and faced controversy when she was accused of making anti-gay comments in relation to the AIDS epidemic. Summer denied making the comments, but was the target of a boycott.

Still, even as disco went out of fashion she remained a fixture in dance clubs, endlessly sampled and remixed into contemporary dance hits.

Summer was born LaDonna Adrian Gaines in 1948 in Boston. She was raised on gospel music and became the soloist in her church choir by age 10.

Love to Love You Baby was her U.S. chart debut and the first of 19 No. 1 dance hits from 1975 to 2008 — second only to Madonna.

During the disco era she burned up the charts: She was the only artist to have three consecutive double-LPs hit No. 1, Live and More, Bad Girls and On the Radio. She was also the first female artist with four No. 1 singles in a 13-month period, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where she was a nominee this year.

She was never comfortable with the Disco Queen label. Musically, she began to change in 1979 with Hot Stuff, which had a tough, rock ‘n’ roll beat. Her diverse sound helped her earn Grammy Awards in the dance, rock, R&B and inspirational categories.

Dionne Warwick said in a statement that she was sad to lose a great performer and “dear friend.”

“My heart goes out to her husband and her children,” Warwick said. “Prayers will be said to keep them strong.”

Summer released her last album, Crayons, in 2008. It was her first full studio album in 17 years. She also performed on American Idol that year with its top female contestants.

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By Michael D. Sellers

Editor’s note: The following analysis was originally published by one of our frequent guest bloggers, Michael Sellers, on his site The John Carter Files, where readers shared it to Facebook 1300 times. We thought our readers might enjoy the article, and so we’re offering it here.

We didn’t react immediately when Disney announced , with John Carter 11 days into its theatrical run, that it will be booking a $200m writedown, making the Andrew Stanton film instantly the holder of the “biggest flop ever” title.  We wanted to sleep on it, and have an opportunity to reflect on the strategy behind the announcement.

Well, we’ve slept on it, and here are our thoughts.

First, the timing and manner of the announcement has brought clarity regarding something we’ve long suspected:   The one-note,  uninspired marketing of John Carter reflects the underlying reality that at Disney — where no key executive involved in green lighting the project remains — John Carter some time ago became first an orphan, then a hospice case, meaning the Disney top brass first distanced themselves from the project, then accepted the diagnosis of the experts that it would not succeed and decided there was no point in making creative, imaginative, or otherwise “heroic”  efforts to save the film.   Instead, as with a hospice patient, they simply did the minimum necessary to keep it reasonably comfortable until it had run its course and time came to pull the plug.   I realize this may sound like a cynical overstatement — but I don’t think it is.  I’ll explain why.  But first — let’s look at the logic of the announcement.

If your frame of reference is the economics of this movie only — the announcement, coming when it did and being stated the way it was stated, seems shortsighted and foolish.  With the film only 11 days in theaters (3 in China, unreleased in Japan), the announcement (a shot heard round the world, not just in the US) instantly branding the film as the BIGGEST FLOP EVER would clearly be expected have a negative effect on ticket sales for the remainder of the run.  How much effect?  If we use standard industry measures, John Carter as of yesterday had harvested approximately 60% of it’s likely total box office revenue — so another $100m or so remains to be captured, and the announcement will surely have the effect of depressing that remainder by at least 10%.  So let’s start with $10m there; then add in diminished DVD/Blu-Ray value, diminished TV values  …. and clearly you end up with the timing and nature of the announcement costing some tens of millions of revenue dollars to Disney. Why throw that money away unnecessarily?  The argument, being put forward in some quarters,  that public company disclosure requirements demanded that Disney make such a statement right now is ridiculous and is not supported by the actions of other publicly owned studios in similar situations.  There are wars of choice and wars of necessity; in corporate terms there are announcements of choice and announcements of necessity and this was the former, not the latter.

So we wondered yesterday — why make the announcement now when it wasn’t really necessary to do so?  Why not, if an announcement was deemed appropriate, say something to the effect that Disney is grateful that audiences worldwide continue to enjoy the film and support it in theaters, and while results aren’t what Disney had hoped for, Disney remains confident that Andrew Stanton and the film-makers have made a film that will stand the test of time, with longterm revenues and asset value helping to offset near term losses, which will be substantial, but which in any event will not be enough to substantially affect the overall bottom line at Disney where the motion picture division in total only accounts for 7% of revenue.

In other words, why not acknowledge there will be a near term loss, meet your disclosure obligations, set up your next quarterly report so you can “beat expectations” (that’s the game, right?) — and get all this done without negatively impacting the remaining theatrical run — and without throwing the movie, the filmmakers, and the fans under the bus.

But that, as noted, is if you are looking at it from the frame of reference of the economic interests of this movie.

Time to zoom out a bit.

Clearly there was much more in play than just the economics of one movie, or even the economics of the motion picture division at Disney.  This all has to do with the larger corporate scheme of things.

The announcement from Disney was was timed so that it came after the stock markets had closed — giving investors and analysts overnight to put the news in perspective.  Then this morning, when trading started,  Disney stock was hardly affected, trading down 0.7% at $43.12, which is a lot closer to the 52 week high of $44.13 than the low of $28.19 registered last October.

One analyst - Drew Crum of Stifel, Nicolaus was quoted as saying that the motion picture division of Disney is “financially not that important……..While the studio serves as a creative engine for Disney’s intellectual property, it comprised only 7 percent of fiscal year 2011 segment operating income and is only 6 percent of our fiscal year 2012 estimate. While discouraged by another large film loss (last year, it was Mars Needs Moms), we’re not deterred and continue to focus on the positives including media networks and parks – nearly 90 percent of estimated fiscal year 2012 segment operating income.”

Another analyst, Nomura’s Michael Nathanson, put it this way:  ”One-off charges at the studio segment are not indicative of the overall health of the company’s core businesses, namely the media networks and [theme] parks.  We view any pullback in the stock around this higher film loss as an enhanced buying opportunity.”

An “enhanced buying opportunity”?

Now — put those numbers in perspective.  The studio comprises  only 7% of operating income for Disney, who is much more in the business of theme parks and cable TV networks.  So, looking at from that perspective, which is of course the perspective that top Disney management would be looking at it, it was clearly better to pull the plug on hospice case John Carter and eat whatever fallout (minimal in the overall scheme of things) this produces, even if doing so meant losing some 10′s of millions in unharvested revenue and forever branding an otherwise worthy film that will make $300m worldwide at the box office as the “biggest flop ever”.  Larger corporate interests were clear — pull the plug, minimize the damage to stock prices, and move on.

So … the announcement does make sense.

Cold, calculating, corporate sense.

I would how Walt Disney would feel about that calculation?

Just as the decision to make the announcement makes more sense now — so too do some other things make better sense.

Such as the fact that with the execs who originally greenlit John Carter gone, and with MT Carney (marketing head and author of the removal of “of Mars” from the title) , no one at Disney really had ownership of this property — no one was, within the studio — a true champion of the project nor did anyone at the studio have a great deal personally at stake. The heads that would have rolled were already gone; those that remained would remain intact no matter what happened to John Carter. In the absence of any champion, what evolved was a stodgy “going through the motions” promotional campaign that was remarkable for its uninspired one-note artlessness, and which included none of the cross-promotions, merchandise tie-ins, or other “very Disney” types of components that were expected, but never materialized.

Meanwhile, the campaign never adapted — never even attempted the kind of course corrections that were clearly indicated after the first round of TV ads in December failed to ignite interest. Prior to the release we kept wondering — do they know something that we don’t'? Does Disney understand the Disney audience in some unique way? It was baffling then. Now it’s clear — no one was really seriously trying to get the promotion to work. Hospice care – that’s all it was.

In sum, it now seems clear that Disney made the judgment some time ago that the patient could not be saved, and at best could just be made reasonably comfortable and allowed to continue until the moment came when Disney could make the announcement which — in the overall corporate scheme of things where the motion picture division accounts for 7% and John Carter is a subcomponent of that –would best serve the larger corporate interests.

That day came yesterday; Disney did what its executives felt it was in the company’s best interests to do; and the results prove one thing for sure: Disney has proven to be much, much more adept at managing its stock price than marketing John Carter.

And so it goes.

Edgar Rice Burroughs deserved better.

Andrew Stanton deserved better.

Fans of both ERB and Andrew Stanton deserved better.

And all the 1000 or more people who worked on the movie, busting a gut for four years and putting their heart and soul into it — they deserved better.

But in the end, the Walt Disney Corporation is not in the business of making movies – they are in the business of making profits, of generating value for shareholders. John Carter is a momentary blip on that radar, and if the film, filmmakers, fans, and good old ERB himself all had to be sacrificed on the altar of earnings per share, so be it. It makes sense.

**************

This is not the end for John Carter.  Andrew Stanton has made a wonderful film whose stature will grow as time passes. This is no Heaven’s Gate; no Ishtar; no Water World.  Cinema history may have labeled it “flop” for the moment — the longer term evaluation will be quite different. It will eventually take root and the film’s passionate fan base will gradually elevate it out of the muck and mire into which it has been so unceremoniously deposited.

In the meantime — it’s a pretty damn dark day on Barsoom.

Addendum

[Frank – you guys may want to add this – or may not, up to you. We could also do a separate article on “The Curious Case of the John Carter Fan Trailers]

Editor’s note:  Aside from the John Carter Files website, Michael Sellers has been responsible for creating two fan trailers for John Carter  that have created quite a stir, getting more than a quarter million hits on Youtube and causing articles to be written about it in the Hollywood Reporter, Wired, LA Times, and CNN (plus more than 200 entertainment sites).

According to the website IMDB the movie is set…

“In a not-too-distant future, North America has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 12 districts. Each year two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts, the televised games are broadcast throughout Panem. The 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch. When 16-year-old Katniss’ young sister, Prim, is selected as the mining district’s female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart Peeta, will be pitted against bigger, stronger representatives who have trained for this their whole lives.”

Sound familiar?  It should this is a theme Science Fiction writers have used for decades….”Roller Ball” and “the Running Man” are two other movies in the same vein which immediately come to mind.  But as we say in the “Industry” it’s not the story that’s important but how you tell it.  And if the critics are right most agree that this story has been told exceedingly well.

“The Hunger Games” began as a “young adult” science fiction novel penned by Suzanne Collins and published in 2008; the first book of a trilogy.  It was the popularity of the book that first drew the attention of Hollywood producers.  The film is directed by veteran director Gary Ross best known for his work on “Pleasantville”, “Seabiscuit” and “Big”.  The screenplay was written by Ross, Suzanne Collins and screenwriter Billy Ray.

Twenty One year old Jennifer Lawrence leads the cast as the tough and determined Katniss Everdeen with nineteen year old Josh Hutcherson, of “Bridge to Terabithia” fame completing the pair as Peeta Mellark with Liam Hemsworth as Gale.  One of my favorite all time actors, Stanley Tucci, has been cast in the role of the Capitol TV’s game show host Caesar Flickman.

Will this movie surpass the expectation of the critics and Lionsgate Productions…that’s up to you the audience to decide.  But from the look of all the ticket presales I would say its well on its way.

The Elusive Envelope and Independent Filmmaking

By

Sam Firstenberg

At the end of 1989 I was invited by an independent producer to direct a World War II movie entitled “The Eagle and The Condor,” based on a true event that took place in a POW camp in Germany towards the end of the war. It was to be a $10 million dollar movie, a big budget for an independent film at that time. The movie was to be shot in and around Zagreb as a co-production with Jadran Studio of Croatia, which at the time was part of Yugoslavia. At that time my agent was Martin Baum of CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and the producers contacted him to set up the terms of hiring me. Mr. Baum negotiated a very good deal, with great compensation, a large expense allowance, plus first class travel and accommodations. I was very happy because it was a very interesting project, a good story with an excellent cast, and decent budget. I love war movies and I was hoping this one could be the best of my career, and to top it all, I was to be paid well. It is customary in our business to give the director 10% of his salary upon the signing of the contract, before beginning work. The contract I had included this point, and my agent was waiting for the 10% to be paid so that I could start working. According to the producers, the money for the production was in transfer from several banks into one account, and they told us that as soon as the transfers were completed, they would write me the check for that 10%. At the same time, they wanted me to leave for Zagreb immediately, since the pre-production team was already there preparing the movie, and they needed the director on location urgently. Tremendous pressure was put on my agent to let me go to Croatia even before the first payment was made, in order not to delay the schedule. To convince him not to worry about the money, they brought all sorts of documents to his office, proving that indeed the money would be available within few days. As a sign of good will I agreed to go, if the production would provide me with a round trip first class ticket from Los Angeles to Zagreb, plus five star accommodations and weekly expenses (known in our industry as per diem). They agreed to this, and the next day I received a KLM first class ticket. I was promised that, as is customary, the line producer would meet me in the airport in Zagreb, and give me the agreed upon per diem expenses upon arrival.

On the designated day a stretch limousine with a uniformed chauffeur arrived at my house to whisk me off to the airport. It is starting out very well, I thought to myself. Flying first class to Amsterdam was nice and pleasant, and so was staying overnight at the five star Hotel Kampinsky. A smaller limousine took me back to the airport the next day to fly on a smaller plane to Zagreb (sorry, no first, only business class this time.) After clearing passport control I was met by the local team consisting of an American producer, Croatian producer working with Yardan, and a line producer. They drove me into town, not in a large or small limo but rather in a tiny local car driven by the producer himself.

Now by this point in my career I had been a director on location in many different places – the Philippines for “American Ninja,” South Africa for “American Ninja II,” Louisiana for “Avenging Force” and more. It is customary in our industry that upon arriving on location the producer immediately hands me an envelope with cash for the first week’s per diem expenses, as specified in the contract. It is especially true in foreign countries where I have no local currency to start with. But that day I was not given the expected envelope, neither at the airport, nor in the car, not even in the hotel lobby. I was puzzled but politely did not say a thing. The hotel we arrived at was the very fancy Intercontinental, in the center of town, probably the best hotel in Zagreb at the time. It reflected well on the production, but the lack of the envelope was bothering me a bit. So during registration, when I was asked to give my credit card, I acted on instinct and said that I did not have any, and that if the hotel insisted on it, one of the producers should put up his credit card to vouch for me. And so it was. As I discovered three weeks later, this turned out to be a very smart move!

It was agreed that we would all meet for dinner that evening, after I got to my room and rested. The “room’ was an overwhelming surprise. It was the Presidential Suite, with two large rooms, including a piano, and a huge bathroom. It was on the top floor of the hotel and overlooked the old city with a magnificent view. Since it was December the suite was decorated for Christmas, with flowers, fruit baskets, and bottles of wine. It certainly appeared that the producers were living up to their word and abiding by the contract in terms of the five star accommodations. I was very happy, and called home to announce my arrival.

In the evening we met in the lobby in preparation for dinner, and since I had not been given the expected envelope, I approached the line producer and asked when I could expect the per diem as promised. He replied that he was very sorry for the inconvenience, but it is only a delay, because cash was not available today, but I should not worry, he added, tomorrow it would all be arranged and I will be given the per diem cash. And in the meantime, I asked, what should I do? In the meantime, he replied, that I should not worry, when in the hotel I could just sign my room number at the restaurant, and also for any other expenses such as telephone, fax, room service, bar, laundry, and so forth. Outside the hotel I should just use my own money, until cash arrives. By now my defensive guard was up. I decided that being in a Communist country, where I knew no one, it would be better if I preserved all the US dollars I was carrying with me, saving them for any possible emergency that might arise. So I declared that I had been relying on the promised per diem, and I had not brought cash with me. So unless we ate at the hotel, the production would have to take care of me whenever we were out working, and in need of food.

In the ensuing days and weeks we were busy with pre-production duties, mainly location scouting, production meetings to discuss logistics, wardrobe, extra casting, and so on. The envelope did not arrive the next day as promised, nor did it arrive in the following days. Whenever I asked about it the answer was the same: Don’t worry, the cash will come tomorrow. In the meantime I ate all my meals in the hotel restaurant – breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. The food was good although rather expensive, but I didn’t care since I was just signing my room number, nice and easy.

On top of my other duties, I was also working with a writer on a rewrite of the script. This was one of the duties stipulated in my contract, and it carried, according to the regulations of the Director’s Guild of America, as well as according to the contract, a separate fee and compensation. These are called development fees. The problem with the rewrite was that the producers did not want to fly the writer to Croatia to work with me, but rather asked me to communicate with him by fax and phone from the hotel (this was before the days of e-mail!) As needed we spoke by phone for endless hours, and then he would fax me pages, and I would fax pages back to him. As we all know, using a phone in a five star hotel is not cheap, especially if the calls are international. In Zagreb it was, as I discovered later, very expensive. In fact, it was very, very, expensive. So here I am, living in the Presidential Suite that I am sure is costing at least $500 a night, with mushrooming restaurant and phone bills, reaching thousands of dollars, and every time I was approached by the hotel regarding the bill I sent them to talk with the American and Croatian producers. They should take care of it.

Two weeks later it was Christmas. In the days leading to Christmas great events of historical proportions were unfolding in neighboring Romania – we were witnessing the downfall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and an ongoing revolution that would bring down the Communist regime. As the days passed we completed much of the necessary pre-production work, but with no starting date in sight, and more and more free time on my hands, I spent much of my time watching the Romanian drama unfold on CNN – the improvised trial, and execution of Ceausescu just a few miles away across the border. I had time to roam the streets of Zagreb, and I visited the old and new city. The one thing that made the biggest impression on me was not any historical or architectural detail, but the height of the Croatian people. I am not short by any standards, but in the streets of Zagreb almost everyone was taller than me, even the women – especially the women. After being in Manila, where all I saw walking along the streets were the tops of people’s heads, since virtually all Philippinos are shorter than me, Zagreb was a strange experience as I had to lift up my head all the time.

As the holiday approached, the town became more and more festive; decorations were up, people were holiday shopping, but it was a warm winter that year and no snow was in sight. The lack of snow got us all worried, since the movie we were about to shoot takes place entirely in the snow. It was an integral part of the story and we had yet to see one flake of snow. There is a film set of a German POW camp outside Zagreb, and every time we visited it, it looked like it was the middle of summer. The beautiful, sun washed grounds was not looking good for us, but there was another factor of greater concern, and it was financial. I had been involved in many productions all over the world and with all that experience I could sense that something was wrong. I still had not seen the elusive envelope, there was no definite start date, there was no money visibly being spent, and there was a lot of bickering between Jadran Studios and the American producers. Each side was expecting the other side to start spending money and neither side, it seems, had any money to spend or just did not want to be the first to start spending. I did not get my 10% advance in the United States, and no one had received any living expenses so far. In the back of my mind doubts were starting to develop that this production was not going to happen, doubts that there was no money at all for this production.

Christmas night was a beautiful evening. The town people gathered in the main square to celebrate with family and children in Sunday clothing, and music, food, and fireworks going on until midnight. Then we all went to one of the churches for midnight mass, carried out in the Croatian language so I did not understand a word, except for here and there “Bethlehem” and “Jerusalem” which I understood and it delighted me, because I am originally from Jerusalem.

The following week, between Christmas and New Years, was slow and tense. We started looking for snow outside Zagreb, in the mountains and even across the border in Hungary. But it was a warm winter, and there was no snow to be found anywhere in the area. At the same time the relationship between Jadran and the Americans was heating up and got very tense over money issues. The Intercontinental was after the studio and producers for some payment since we occupied six rooms plus the presidential suite I was in, and our collective telephone, room service, laundry, and restaurant bills were already astronomical. There was no more work for us to do – the rewrite was finished, all locations were scouted, props and wardrobe were ready – so it got boring. We were thinking of renting a car and going on a tour of Dubrovnik, but decided against it.

Toward the end of the week, as we were approaching the New Year, I was becoming more and more convinced that this movie was not going to happen. I was sure by now that there was no money behind the production – if they could not come up with a few hundred dollars for living expenses, how could they come up with 10 million?

I approached the producer and line producer with my doubts and with an ultimatum – If I did not receive the 10% salary and per diem by New Year’s Day, I was going to pack up and go home. I had the round trip ticket still in my possession. The producers encouraged me not to lose faith and not to worry, because the money would soon be in the bank, I would be paid, the production would be on track, and we would all live happily ever after. I listened and kept silent but my doubts just grew, because from my experience I know one thing – when people in a position of responsibility tell me not to worry, I start to worry, and if they keep repeating it a lot, I start to worry a lot. So, at this point a new thought entered my mind, one that got me paranoid. After all, I thought to myself, here I am staying in the luxurious Intercontinental, the most expensive hotel in the area, and in the very expensive presidential suite, no less. I have used the telephone in that suite for calls to Los Angeles for several hundred hours. I eat in the hotel, all three meals, every day, for three weeks straight, always signing my name and room number. Add to this the hundreds of faxes at $5 per page and laundry services, so I calculated that my bill alone would be in the tens of thousands of dollars. On the one hand I did not care because supposedly the production was taking care of the expense, and the hotel did not have my credit card number. On the other hand, what if the hotel insists on being paid and the producers back out, and the credit card they used does not cover the bill? The hotel management could insist that I pay and if I refused, they could call the police. Now, I was thinking to myself, this is a Communist country, not particularly well known for respecting human and civil rights. Here I am a foreigner, and if they took me away I could end up in a prison where nobody could trace me. They could take me from here to Belgrade and from there maybe even to Moscow, and then perhaps to some labor camp in Siberia – who knows? These are the kind of thoughts you develop when you are all alone, at night, in the huge presidential suit, at the top floor of the Intercontinental Hotel in Zagreb, Yugoslavia (back then we still considered Croatia to be part of Yugoslavia,) with a huge unpaid bill. So armed with this new paranoia, I knew I had to devise a plan of escape, one that was bullet proof and that no one would suspect. I could not sleep that night and spent the rest of it planning my next move, and indeed, came up with a brilliant solution.

The American producer in Zagreb was Clive Trenchard, a very nice man, who liked fun and good food, as his guest, I visited some of the finest restaurants in the city. Clive was British who had grown up in the Bahamas in a Greek Community and he kept reminding me of that fact. He also spoke a lot about Greek food and the fact that one day he would visit Greece. We had spoken often about Greece. I told him about my traveling there, and how much I admired the Greek culture, its food, music, and people. On December 31 early in the morning I rushed to the hotel restaurant for breakfast and to meet Clive. Right away I told him that I had a great idea for the New Year. Since for the next two days everything would be closed for the holiday, we could rent a car and drive all the way down to Greece to fulfill his lifelong dream. I would be his guide for the trip since I had already been to Greece twice before. At first Clive was dumbfounded by the idea; it had never crossed his mind to just leave everything and go. But I didn’t let it go and kept after him with great enthusiasm until Clive started to think it was not a bad idea at all. From skepticism he moved to enthusiasm and when I offered to share the cost of renting the car, since it was a private excursion not related to the production, he not only agreed to go, but was also thankful to me for coming up with such a fantastic idea. We agreed that right after breakfast we should rent a car, and so we did.

The rest of the day our small group was busy planning the evening to come. They were eager to have a good time ushering in the New Year. Again, like in Christmas, the town people gathered in the main square with music, food, and fireworks. After the champagne at midnight, our group went back to the hotel to join the hotel party. It was agreed that Clive, his wife Emma who was the wardrobe designer, and I, would meet very early in the morning by the rented car in the hotel parking lot to start our vacation trip. I left the party before the others, bidding all goodnights, promising to see them all when we return from Greece. I made sure that was clear to everyone, that I am coming back. In the suite I packed all my belongings into the one suitcase I had brought. Luckily I always travel light, and I went to sleep setting the alarm for 5 AM.

When I woke up the next morning it was still dark outside and dark in the hotel corridors as I made my way out of the Presidential Suite for the last time, suitcase in hand. Despite the fact that I was pretty sure that nobody would notice me sneaking out of the hotel at such an unlikely hour, I was pretty nervous. Just to make sure I did not encounter any hotel workers, and not to raise suspicions, I did not go out through the main door and did not cross the lobby, but rather used a side door from the kitchen to the parking lot. I had found this route the day before and practiced it; to be sure it would work. The plan worked, and few moments later, I was out in the dark parking lot, waiting by the rented car, with my suitcase hidden out of sight, ready to put it in the trunk of the car.

Clive and Emma arrived soon after, carrying small bags for the three day trip. They were surprised by the size of my suitcase for such a short trip, but I told them that I didn’t have anything smaller, so I had packed just a few items in that case. The truth, of course, was that I had all my belongings with me, including passport, credit cards, and a few hundred dollars in cash which I had not yet spent.

The trip south was beautiful; we traveled through Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and into Greece. It was a great opportunity for me to see the beautiful land that formerly was Yugoslavia. It took us two days to reach the Greek border and to cross into Saloniki. From the moment we left the hotel, I felt relief. Everyone knew we had just gone for a few days, so I did not think the hotel would send anyone to chase us, but still one never knows. It was only when we passed into the West, and arrived in Saloniki, that I truly breathed easier. After spending a night in Athens and visiting the city’s tourist attractions, and after eating some good Greek food, I informed Clive and Emma that I was not returning to Zagreb. Once they overcame the initial shock, they asked for an explanation, and I told them I was simply executing my ultimatum. The production company had not fulfilled their commitment to me, so I was not bound by any contract to stay. I also explained to them the reason for my secrecy and advised them to do the same, and not return to Zagreb, but Clive could not conceive such an idea. Our next stop was a travel agency where I arranged my flight to Los Angeles. I took advantage of the fact that I was so close to Israel, and flew to Tel Aviv to visit my family. From there I flew back to Los Angeles, never to see the Zagreb again, or the elusive envelope with my per diem.

In the ensuing weeks all the producers fought with each other, and finally the Los Angeles based team split up. Within this conflict I became friendly with one group that justified my actions because they too had never been paid. A few weeks later I met with Clive for lunch in Beverly Hills. A week or so after I left, he also gave up and packed to go home but with a broken heart. I learned that he had to cover the hotel bill, which amounted to several tens of thousands of dollars. As far as I know he was never compensated by the production company. The Director’s Guild of America, which was involved in drafting my contract, decided to sue the production company, to try to extract from them at least the development fee owed me, since I had fulfilled my role in rewriting the script.

A year or so later I was in Israel directing the movie “Delta Force III” when one night I got a telephone call from Los Angeles. In Los Angeles it was the middle of the day, and on the other side of the line was a judge who was presiding over the trial between the DGA (Director’s Guild) and the production company. He wanted answers to some questions regarding the case, and the lawyers from both sides interrogated me as well. So in fact I was on the witness stand, only from half way across the world and on the phone. The next day the lawyer from the guild called to inform me that we won the case in a grand way. The owner of the production company irritated the judge so badly that not only did he order him to pay me the development fees, but to also compensate me for the ordeal in Zagreb. He awarded me a quarter of a million dollars! Wow, I thought to myself, just like that a quarter of a million dollars, for not even doing the work. It sounded too good to be true, and indeed it was. The day after the trial the production company declared bankruptcy and soon after vanished. There was no money to collect and the whole ordeal remained in the realm of an episode I could only use as a conversation piece, a good story.

I know that this story is not directly related to movie making or directing movies, but indirectly it is. It’s about the business of making movies, and what can happen to an innocent director on his way to the Oscars. Is there a lesson to be learned from this story; a lesson about hope, and trust, and resourcefulness? I don’t know you will have to judge for yourself. But before I go, I would like to share with you one more incident that occurred to me in Yugoslavia and then we shall part.

As I mentioned earlier, within our group in Zagreb there was a young Croatian producer, a wonderful man by the name of Boris Gregorich. Boris was an optimistic fellow, always trying to be helpful. He kept trying to mend the rifts between Jadran Studios and the Americans, and he was our translator and host. He soon became our good friend as well. During our stay in Zagreb, neighboring Romania was going through a period of turmoil and violence. Every day I would come to Boris for an interpretation of the events across the border, to hear a local point of view. He was articulate and his opinions were interesting. One time I asked him for his opinion about the future of Yugoslavia. Could it survive as one country given that it was composed of more then six different nations? Would we see in Yugoslavia the kind of violence that was taking place in Romania? Boris got very distressed – how could I possibly compare the two countries, he asked. Such chaos and violence could never happen here, he added adamantly. His opinion was that when the system would change, it will be a peaceful change. “How could you be so sure” I asked. “Because here in Yugoslavia the people of the different ethnic groups are tolerant and peaceful, and all get along.” I don’t think Boris was naïve or ignorant, but he definitely was very idealistic. As a young man, married to a beautiful woman and father to a wonderful girl, he wanted to believe in a better world; but how wrong he was.

So just like in the movies, on and off camera, in life there are also many surprises, twists and turns. You wish for one thing, but something ales happen. This movie resulted in memories only; pleasant, unpleasant, and funny.  But in the case of the former Yugoslavia it of course went terribly wrong. When the ethnic conflicts broke out a year later in Croatia, Bosnia, and then in Kosovo, I watched the pictures on the daily news, and read about the suffering, and it wrenched my heart to see what was happening to the good people I had seen and met on my trip to Croatia.  I wondered if Boris and his family, and the other people I had befriended in Zagreb were safe.  My escape from the hotel seems so minute in comparison.  Thankfully the war is over now and peace and calm have returned to the region.  Maybe it is time for me to visit Dubrovnik at last.

Sam Firstenberg   2005

Jones’ death was confirmed by Christine Weekes, administrative manager for the medical examiner’s office in Fort Pierce, Florida, near the Martin Memorial Hospital South where the performer had been taken.

His publicist, Helen Kensick, said Jones died of a heart attack in Indiantown, Florida, but she had no further details.

Jones, born in Manchester, England, became the principal teen idol of the rock quartet featured on the NBC comedy series “The Monkees,” which was inspired in part by the Beatles film “A Hard Day’s Night” and ran for two seasons from the fall of 1966 to August of 1968.

Although not allowed to play their own instruments on their early records, Jones and his three cohorts — Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork — had several hits that sold millions of copies, including “Last Train to Clarksville” and “I’m a Believer.”

Jones got his start as a young actor, at the age of 11, on the British soap opera “Coronation Street” before landing a role as the Artful Dodger in a West End production of “Oliver!” He went on to originate that role for the Broadway production and earned a Tony nomination.

But Jones gained stardom after answering a casting call for a new TV series being created about the zany misadventures of four Beatles-like rock musicians called the Monkees. Two members of the group, Nesmith and Tork, were actual musicians with performing and recording experience, while Jones and Dolenz were primarily actors who more or less dabbled in music.

Although disparaged by critics as the “Pre-Fab Four” for the manufactured way in which the band came together, the group proved to be adept performers who were eventually given control over their own recordings.

The TV series, introduced by its catchy theme, “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees,” debuted as an immediate ratings hit weeks after the group’s first single, “Last Train to Clarksville,” had topped the pop charts.

The group collaborated early on with some of the major songwriters and session musicians of the day, including Neil Diamond, Carole King, Glen Campbell and Hal Blaine.

The self-titled first LP topped the album charts that October, and the popularity of the group generated a wave of merchandising, including toys, games and lunchboxes. But their first and only feature film, “Head,” was a box-office flop.

After their fifth album, the group began to splinter, releasing two more albums as a trio without Tork and one last LP as a duo following Nesmith’s exit in 1969.

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And so I went into “The Woman in Black” expecting very little. Indeed, five minutes in and I was chuckling smarmily at the thought that anyone could buy Daniel Radcliffe as an adult, much less the father of a 4 year old boy!  Fifteen minutes later, I had forgotten who Harry Potter even was, and after an hour I was just trying to keep from crying out in fear in front of my wife. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

“The Woman in Black” is Radcliffe’s first post-Potter foray into film, based on a 1983 novel by Susan Hill. The story was first adapted into a successful play, and then a well received British serial, before gothic horror legend Hammer Films began production on this new adaptation of the novel in 2010. “The Woman In Black” tells the story of Aurthur Kipps (played by Radcliffe), an attorney who is sent to a remote village on the eastern end of the United Kingdom to settle the estate of a recently deceased widow. Kipps begins to have visions of a ghostly apparition in black, and is forced to unravel the terrible connection between the apparition and the violent deaths of the town’s children.

Ciarán Hinds

The first thing that struck me about this film was the slow, methodical pacing. It takes its time establishing Kipps’ character, his family life and his own tragic past, all against a haunting backdrop of rolling hills and black marshes. The sense of creeping dread is palpable, and perfectly suited to this type of Victorian Gothic horror.

Radcliffe plays a good protagonist, a role that didn’t require much dialogue. He is supported by Ciarán Hinds and Janet McTeer, who play a rich couple who befriend the attorney Kipps. Hinds is particularly well cast as the rational minded skeptic who repeatedly warns Kipps not to go chasing shadows in his search for the truth.

Make no mistake, although this is an old fashioned horror film, the scares are quite modern. This is “The House of Usher” meets “The Grudge”. Director James Watkins inserts an insidious creepiness into every frame, including a collection of the most terrifying dolls known to man. Special mention must be made of the clown toy with serrated, human teeth, who I am confident will be haunting me in some sugar induced nightmare to come.

Janet McTeer

The only issue I have with Mr. Watkins’ direction was the inclusion of what I consider too many cheap scares. Long moments of silence, punctuated by a loud noise that ends up coming from bad pipes, leaves a viewer feeling cheap and used. There were a bit too many of these moments, and in my opinion, the film didn’t need them. It was genuinely terrifying enough.

Even though there isn’t anything in “The Woman in Black” that you haven’t seen before, it is all done so very well as to seem brand new. The ending, which may be a bit predictable for horror fans, was still pulled off with enough panache as to satisfy even the most jaded fans of the genre.

I went into this film expecting mediocrity at best, and I left with a pain in my chest. When it comes to horror films, that’s a good thing. In the Hammer Films tradition, this is a throwback to an earlier age. “The Woman In Black” is creepier, jumpier, and more terrifying  than most of the horror fare out there, while relying on little to no gore to pull it all off.

And in this day and age, that ain’t easy to do.

Robert Garcia

But by the mid-1990s, rumors of marital woes and drug abuse began to tarnish her image and she took a downward spiral that saw her name emblazoned in sordid tabloid headlines rather than glowing reports of musical success.

Word of the 48-year-old singer’s death broke early Saturday evening as the industry gathered in Los Angeles for the official Pre-Grammy Gala hosted by her mentor Clive Davis, chief creative officer of Sony Music Worldwide.

Beverly Hills police Lt. Mark Rosen told KABC-TV that Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. (local time) in her room on the fourth floor of the Beverly Hilton. Her body remained in the hotel and Beverly Hills detectives were investigating.

Houston’s publicist, Kristen Foster, said Saturday that the cause of her death was unknown.

In recent years, Houston had struggled to regain her past glory. In 2009, she released I Look to You, her first studio album in seven years and first since going through rehab and divorcing Bobby Brown, her husband of 14 years, in 2006. While the album did debut at No. 1 and sold more than 1 million copies, it failed to produce any massive hit singles, or receive hoped-for Grammy Awards nominations. Her subsequent overseas tour met with mixed reviews, with disappointed fans demanding refunds.

It was a sad end for the once incandescent star who paved the way to pop success for other African-American singers such as Janet Jackson, Anita Baker, Mariah Carey andMary J. Blige, and has been cited by the likes of Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson,Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Leona Lewis for inspiring them to become singers. The gospel-trained Houston was the daughter of singer Cissy Houston, goddaughter of Aretha Franklin and cousin of Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick

Houston was already an up-and-coming magazine model (she was one of the first women of color to grace the cover of Seventeen) when record mogul Clive Davis signed her to his Arista Records label in 1983. In an interview accompanying the 2010 reissue of her debut album, Whitney Houston: The Deluxe 25th Anniversary Edition, Davis recalls first seeing her backing up her mother at the New York City club Sweetwater’s.

“She did two solo numbers, one of which was the song The Greatest Love Of All. Whitney sang the song with such fervor, with such a natural vocal gift, with such passion, that I was stunned. I knew really right then and there that this was a special talent and I was blown away by her,” Davis recalled. “There was no hesitation. I wanted to sign Whitney.”

Together, they would make music history. Davis spent more than a year grooming Houston, lining up producers and collecting the right material. Her first hit, Hold Me, a duet with Teddy Pendergrass for his 1984 Love Language album, went to No. 5 on the R&B chart. It was a precursor to Whitney Houston, which arrived in 1985 to rave reviews.

First single You Give Good Love was a top 5 pop hit, and its follow-up, Saving All My Love for You, was even bigger. It went to No. 1, as did How Will I Know, the video for which became one of the first by an African-American female to get heavy rotation on MTV. The Greatest Love of All also spent three weeks at the top of the charts andWhitney Houston wound up selling 13 million copies domestically.

She earned three nominations at the 1986 Grammy Awards, including one for album of the year. Saving All My Love for You won for female pop vocal, and her performance of the song on the show would win her an Emmy Award later that year. The Greatest Love of All would also be nominated for record of the year at the following year’s Grammys.

Houston’s superstardom was solidified in 1987 with the release of Whitney, which sold 9 million copies in the USA and spawned four No. 1 singles: I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),Didn’t We Almost Have It All, So Emotional and Where Do Broken Hearts Go. That gave her a record seven chart-toppers in a row. A fifth single,Love Will Save the Day, was a Top 10 hit. Thanks to her record sales and concert grosses for 1986 and 1987, Forbes ranked her as the eighth-highest-earning entertainer at the time.

Her crossover success was unprecedented for an African-American woman, but she soon found herself defending it against critics, who claimed her hits lacked soul. Her third album, 1990′s I’m Your Baby Tonight, took her in a more urban direction thanks to production from the likes of L.A. Reid and Babyface, Stevie Wonder and Luther Vandross, but it’s acceptance was less spectacular. The album peaked at No. 3 while selling 4 million copies, though singles I’m Your Baby Tonight and All The Man That I Need topped both the pop and R&B charts.

Still, big things and big changes were on the horizon for Houston, whose 1991 Super Bowl performance of The Star Spangled Banner remains the yardstick by which other singers are judged. Two things happened in 1992 that would have profound affects on her career. She made a move into acting and making soundtracks with The Bodyguard, and after a three-year courtship, she married R&B singer and former New Editionmember Bobby Brown.

In The Bodyguard, she starred as a singer who was being protected by Kevin Costner‘s title character from a stalker fan. The film grossed more than $121 million at the box office, and the soundtrack had an even bigger impact for Houston. Her cover of Dolly Parton’s 1974 hit, I Will Always Love You, distinguished by Houston’s a cappella intro, stayed at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a then-record 14 consecutive weeks and had significant stints atop the R&B and adult contemporary charts as well. The album also spawned Top 5 hits I’m Every Woman (a Chaka Khan hit on which Houston had sung background when she was 15) and I Have Nothing. The album sold 17 million copies in the U.S., won three Grammys including album and record of the year, plus a slew of other awards.

Two years later, Houston performed at a state dinner at the White House honoring newly elected South African President Nelson Mandela, and would later be the first major artist to perform in that country, playing three shows to 200,000 people.

Her next film, 1995′s Waiting to Exhale starring Angela Bassett, was also a hit with a huge soundtrack. This time, she teamed with Babyface to co-produced the star-studded album and contributed to its success with Exhale (Shoop Shoop), Why Does It Hurt So Bad and Count On Me, a duet with CeCe Winans. She earned $10 million for her next role, 1996′s The Preacher’s Wife, which starred Denzel Washington and Courtney B. Vance. While it didn’t do as well at the box office as the previous two films, Houston got her best review yet as an actress. The soundtrack saw Houston cutting loose in a gospel setting. It featured six songs with the Georgia Mass Choir including He’s All Over Me with gospel legend Shirley Caesar. I Believe in You and Me and Step By Step were both radio hits.

Houston branched off into TV in 1997, producing a remake of Rodgers & Hammerstein’sCinderella starring Brandy with Houston as Fairy Godmother. The highly rated ABC special earned seven Emmy nominations. That set the stage for Houston’s first studio album in eight years, My Love Is Your Love. The album sold 4 million copies in the U.S., and spawned a successful world tour, but peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200, making it her first album not to at least reach No. 3. Still, with production from the likes of Wyclef Jean, Missy Elliott and Rodney Jerkins, it had the hits When You Believe with Mariah Carey, Heartbreak Hotel, It’s Not Right But It’s Okay, My Love Is Your Love and I Learned From the Best.

As the ’90s closed, Houston’s popularity was beginning to wane just as rumors about drug use with Brown swirled and reports began surfacing about erratic behavior and weight loss, along with missed interviews and canceled concerts. On Jan. 11, 2000, marijuana was discovered in Houston and Brown’s luggage as they passed through security at a Hawaii airport, though they boarded the plane and left before police arrived.

Two months later, she was conspicuously missing when Clive Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was also to have performed on the Academy Awards, but was fired by musical director Burt Bacharach.

She signed a $100 million, six-album deal with Arista/BMG in 2001, but after appearing on the Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Special, her extremely thin frame fueled more rumors of drug abuse. Those rumors were confirmed a year later when she did an interview with Diane Sawyer to promote her upcoming album Just Whitney. She admitted using drugs in the highly watched TV interview, which included her infamous declaration, “Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let’s get that straight. OK? We don’t do crack. We don’t do that. Crack is wack.”

Just Whitney was her poorest-selling album to date and none of its singles made the Hot 100′s top 40. She got positive reviews for 2003′s One Wish: The Holiday Album, but only modest sales.

Houston’s image took further pummeling on the sordid 2005 Bravo reality series Being Bobby Brown, which gave an inside look into their family life. Critics savaged the show, but morbidly fascinated viewers tuned in to see just how low they could sink. The show was canceled after Houston decided to no longer participate. She separated from Brown in September 2006 and the divorce was finalized in 2007, with Houston gaining custody of the couple’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina.

In a 2009 interview with Oprah Winfrey to promote her just out album, I Look To You, Houston blamed an emotionally abusive and jealous Brown for many of her problems, confessed that she laced her marijuana with rock cocaine, and revealed the she had spent time in rehab and had undergone an intervention by her mother.

The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with a career-best opening week of 305,000 copies sold. It was her first chart-topping album since 1992′s The Bodyguardand would go on to sell 1 million copies. But the title track and the Alicia Keys-pennedMillion Dollar Bill had only modest success, and she received none of the expected Grammy nominations.

Her post-release TV appearances were also spotty. Though the fans responded warmly, she had to apologize for her voice cracking at a three-song Good Morning Americaconcert in New York’s Central Park . It came not long after the Oprah interview, which she says wore out her vocal cords. She gave a much-better-received performance of I Didn’t Know My Own Strength on the American Music Awards two months later.

She received similarly mixed reviews on her current tour. But the re-release in January ofWhitney Houston was a stark reminder of the gorgeous voice she once had, and how much had been lost to years of drug abuse and personal turmoil.

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Before I saw this movie I was trying to figure out if this was a baseball movie like “The Natural” or “Bull Durham” or if it was a family type movie like “Angels in the Outfield.”  As it turns out it is a little of both.

This movie based on “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” written by Michael Lewis and published in 2003, is more about the life of Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt, than about major league baseball.  Divorced and sharing custody of a young daughter he loves dearly and refuses to be separated from, Beane desperately fights all who get in his way to make the Oakland A’s a winning and more important, a profitable team.  Then steps in the bean counter, Peter Brand, played rather lack lusterly by Jonah Hill.  It appears that Brand has found a way to break America’s past time down to a set of statistics, then use that formula to pick ball players.  And the real scary thing is….it works….not only in the movie but in the real world too as most MLB teams use it or a form of it to draft players today.

But like I said this is not a baseball movie but more a movie about the choices we make as we go through life.  This is evident when Beane (Pitt) is offered a very lucrative job as GM of the Boston Red Sox’s.  Since taking the job meant he would have to move to Boston and be separated from his daughter he turns it down.   Two years later the Red Sox win the World Series using the formula Beane put in place at Oakland while Beane is still fighting to find that winning combination in Oakland.

Moneyball released by Sony Pictures is well scripted by Steve Zaillian, Stan Chervin and Aaron Sorkin of “West Wing” fame and skillfully directed by Steven Soderbergh with Kerris Dorsey, of TV’s “Brothers and Sisters” fame doing an excellent job of playing Billy Beane’s daughter Casey.  Some of the film’s best moments are between Pitt and Dorsey.  This film has been nominated for six academy awards; Best picture, Lead actor, Supporting actor, Film editing, Sound mixing and Adapted screenplay.  Moneyball is now playing at a pay per view station near you.  It is worth the money.

What would an Oscar telecast be if there wasn’t some controversy swirling around and this year is no different.  The original host for this year’s awards presentation was supposed to be Eddie Murphy but he stepped down when shows produce and friend of Murphy’s, Brett Ratner resigned as producer after using a gay slur when talking about rehearsals.  Murphy in support of his friend stepped down too.  This will be Crystals ninth time hosting the awards.

So let’s look at the nominees for Best Picture:

War Horse
The Artist
Moneyball
The Descendants
The Tree of Life
Midnight in Paris
The Help
Hugo
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Leading the field is the Martin Scorsese 3D film “Hugo” with 11 votes and the silent film “The Artist” with 10.  It’s a tossup here but I’m leaning towards “The Artist.”

Best Actress:

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Viola Davis, The Help
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Meryl Streep is the favorite here for her portrayal of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady.”

Best Actor:

Demian Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball

This is a tough one between George Clooney and Demian Bichir but I think Dimian Bichir will end up the winner here.

If you would like to see the rest of the nominees you can go to:

http://oscar.go.com/nominees

In the next few weeks we will be listing each of the best picture nominees in depth and have our staff list their favorites….Till than,” That’s All Folks.”

Oh Bugs Bunny won his Oscar in 1958 for “Knightly Knight Bugs” and was nominated for two others;  “Wild Hair” and “Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt.”   

Robert Hegyes, best known for playing Juan Epstein—one of Gabe Kaplan‘s “star” pupils—in Welcome Back, Kotter, died this morning after an apparent heart attack, according to New Jersey’s Star Ledger. He was 60.

The actor, who also played a detective on the later seasons of Cagney & Lacey, had been in poor health since suffering a previous heart attack a couple of years ago, according to his brother.

But he will always be remembered as the note-from-his-mutha-forging Juan Luis Pedro Philippo DeHuevos Epstein!

“The character of Epstein from Welcome Back, Kotter was modeled after Chico,” the avowed Marx Brothers fan wrote on his website. “The wheeler-dealer, skirt-chasing scam artist. In general I was able to relate to them culturally as well. They were immigrant Jews and I was an immigrant Italian.”

And Epstein, of course, was a Puerto Rican Jew with anywhere from nine to seven siblings, depending on the episode.

Born in New Jersey, Hegyes went to New York after college, where he performed off-Broadway before landing his breakthrough role on Kotter alongside—you may know him—John Travolta, who played head Sweathog Vinnie Barbarino.

Kotter ran for four seasons from 1975 to 1979. Hegyes appeared on Cagney & Lacey from 1986 to 1988, and continued to work steadily in television. He guest roles on Diagnosis: Murder and NewsRadio, and played himself on Saturday Night Live and The Drew Carey Show.

He later taught writing and public speaking at Brooks College in Long Beach, Calif., and wrote screenplays.

Hegyes, Travolta, Kaplan, Laurence Hilton-Jacobs (Freddie “Boom-Boom” Percy Washington) and Ron Palillo (Horshack) appeared at the TV Land Awards last year to accept the 35th Anniversary Award.

Hegyes, who was divorced at the time of his death, was married three times. His survivors include two children, two step-children and three siblings.

Read more: http://www.eonline.com/news/welcome_back_kotters_juan_epstein/289570#ixzz1kclvO2pO