Clark Dark with Entertainment News

Clark Dark here with the latest entertainment news...

First up the funniest man in America has died. Richard Pryor dead at age 65 from a heart attack.

Rchard Pryor hosted the Academy Awards as a co-host...once in 1977 along with Jane Fonda, Ellen Burstyn, and Warren Beatty; then again in 1983 in the company of Liza Minnelli, Dudley Moore, and Walter Matthau.

In related news...It seems comedian Chris Rock ,who hosted the ceremonies solo this year, will not be back to perform the same duties at next year's motion picture extravaganza. No explanation why.

Perhaps his caustic remarks suggesting filmmakers should wait for better talent instead of rushing bad movies into theaters may not have been well received by some Academy members.

"You want Tom Cruise and all you can get is Jude Law. Wait," Rock joked. "You want Russell Crowe and all you can get is Colin Farrell? Wait. `Alexander' is not `Gladiator.'"

He also made fun of himself.

"You want Denzel (Washington) and all you can get is me? Wait."

Rock's comments prompted Sean Penn, when he took the stage later, to defend Law as "one of our finest actors." We now know Sean doesn't have a sense of humor. Maybe he just didn't get the joke!

Matt Damon got married to his sweetie, girlfriend the former Luciana Bozan in a private ceremony Friday in New York City, so said his publicist. No Ben Affleck and Jennifer Gardner were not in attendance. Damon and Affleck, who are renown as best buds, won a best screenwriting Oscar for 1997's "Good Will Hunting."

What's this the Simpson sisters in the news again? First Ashlee Simpson reports her sister, Jessica Simpson, is not constantly watching media coverage of the break-up of her marriage to Nick Lachey. Yes folks the couple, a pair of mediocre singers whose mid-level music careers were turned into Hollywood superstardom by celebrating their marriage in television reality show and tv specials, are calling it quits after months of persistent breakup rumors. More, if you care later.

Somewhere floating in cyberspace is video captured by a customer at a Toronto McDonald's where Jessica Simpson's sister, Ashlee was acting out in a drunken stupor. Simpson, who was touring in the nation to our north, had been seen earlier in the evening imbibing at a popular local Canadian watering hole. Finally she was spotted on the counter at the local McD's performing as a drunk.

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Former U S Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota

Eugene McCarthy, a former United Stated Senator from Minnesota, died at the age of 89 on Saturday, December 10th. McCarthy made an unsuccessful run for the White House during the Viet Nam war in 1968. He was never one to mince words. At the time he said he was running for president "because the people who are running the war don't know what they're doing." Eugene McCarthy is one of the reasons President Lyndon B. Johnson chose not to run for a second term.

When McCarthy was asked his opinion of the current president he called George W. Bush "an amateur and a bully."

When you think of the protest movement of the '60s, and the political consequences of them, the names of Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy , Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. come to mind. Now, all five are gone. Some people believe Gene lasted the longest because he retired from politics and went into writing poetry.

Rest in peace, Senator.

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This Pryor Had Strong Convictions

I Ain't Dead Yet, M*therf@ck%r!

That's the name of the all-star comic DVD tribute to the late Richard Pryor available for sale at his website http://www.richardpryor.com.
The funniest man in America passed away on Saturday, December 10. He was 65 years old. (Some may think the president holds the title, but actually he's the second funniest man in America.)

Richard Pryor was, in my estimation, a comic genius. I recall seeing him perform in the early years on television. This particular performance of his routine included Pryor's impression of the first man on the sun. At the time he was a young comedian the country was all fired up about the race to the moon. His impression was topical to say the least. It appeared to have been the result of improvisational work done in some smoky little comedy club in New York City's Greenwich Village. It was Pryor hopping up and down as though he had been given a hot-foot on both feet. It was hilarious. The man was brilliantly funny.

Another skill he had, for which he was awarded the first Mark Twain Prize for Humor, was the ability to make us laugh to reduce the hatred among the races and cultures in this American melting pot.

I agree with Bill Cosby. Today's comic performers should understand what Richard Pryor was about--study and admire his genius, before they glorify and embrace the language.(The phrase "often imitated never duplicated" seems to work here.) He used the language to make a point. It was used for emphasis. It was used because there are times when other words simply will not do to communicate as effectively as M*therf@ck%ng profanity.

Rest in peace, Richard. You will be missed, and long remembered for your artistic comedic contributions and achievements.

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