My Publicist Note Book

Denzel Washington isn’t like most of the famous actors around him. He doesn’t go hob-nobbing around with the rich and famous in the film industry. You also aren’t likely to see him at every single party, especially the ones where all the of drug use and other craziness tends to take place. According to Denzel, in an interview with the Guardian, “Actually, even within the industry, I don’t have any actor friends. My friends are old friends. One’s an ex-music guy, the other’s a restaurant owner and the other’s an ex-pro ballplayer.” He said that he doesn’t make friends to try to get a job and that he’s not a ‘b**t-kisser.’ He went on to say, “My wife and I were raised right. I don’t want movie-star friends. And being African American, there were no big movie stars to hang out with anyway, not when I was starting out, they were just the third guy from the back! For whatever reason, I never befriended any white actors.” Which is why Denzel’s team went right into spin mode when Denzel...

1939 wasn't a great year for special effects.  But all of that analysis can backfire. Bet you can't watch this movie again without looking for the special effects holes. There are quite a few of those. Try not to let them ruin the magic of the movie for you. The poorly crafted magic from 1939.  Silly 1939... #1 Margaret Hamilton's Makeup Margaret Hamilton's makeup was toxic. To keep from accidentally ingesting it, she had to stick to a liquid diet for the whole filming of the movie. That's not really surprising. Anything that green can't be good for you. Still, that's a long time to go without food. The movie took between 5 to 6 months to shoot. Shoots lasted most of the day. That's commitment. At least her character was supposed to be grumpy. #2 The Wizard Had Many Roles Frank Morgan -- the character who played the Wizard of Oz -- played a number of other roles. He shows up again on screen as Professor Marvel, the ...

Disney Unveils Their Next Big Animated Movie  In celebration of a slew of announcements at Disney’s D23 Expo in Anaheim, Calif, audiences were treated to never-before-seen clips and concept art behind their most anticipated properties — Lasseter announced the development of Zootopia, a brand-new concept for 2016 that puts the animals back in clothes. Zoo-what?  Disney Animation has been quietly preparing a number of secret projects, one of which is their 2016 feature, a project called Zootopia. Announced for the very first time at Disney's D23 Expo, the animated movie is being directed by Tangled's Byron Howard from a script by Jared Bush and takes place in a different world where animals are essentially people. Disney's Zootopia plot summed up: a buddy action comedy set in a world where humans never existed. It focuses on two animals from opposite sides ("flat teeth vs sharp teeth"): Nick Wilde, a fox (seen below), and Lt. Judy Hopps, a rabbit, who s...

Watch out Wendy Williams and Steve Harvey, Queen Latifah is back on the scene for another shot at daytime success! The triple threat entertainer is the cover star for the August issue of the Hollywood Reporter, and she says the new “Queen Latifah Show” will “bring some positivity to daytime TV.” This isn’t the queen’s first rodeo. In 1999, she launched her first self-titled talk show but it ended after just two season. Luckily, she “had enough great moments that I’m not completely turned off toward doing a talk show again.” The Queen Latifah Show has been sold to 94 percent of the country, including CBS’ 16 owned stations, mostly in afternoon time periods. It is the first talk-show acquisition for the powerful station group, which has a daytime slate produced by its own syndicator, CBS Television Distribution (CTD). The Sony Pictures Television-produced talk show is scheduled of a September 16th premiere. Will you be tuning in?  The 43-year-old entertainer will be ...

Eugene Allen, the man whose life and career were the inspiration for Lee Daniels’ The Butler. He served 8 different presidents as a butler in the White House. On August 16, you will be able to see him depicted as Cecil Gaines.  ‪#‎ LeeDanielsTheButler‬ ! The film follows the life of Cecil Gaines, an African-American domestic worker at the White House (played by  Forest Whitaker ) who worked for ten different U.S. presidents from the mid-1950s onward, with Robin Williams playing  Dwight Eisenhower , James Marsden playing  John F. Kennedy , Liev Schreiber playing Lyndon Johnson, and John Cusack playing Richard Nixon, among others.  The suggestion is that President Obama was invited to play himself in a brief scene near the end. President Barack Obama does NOT make his big-screen acting debut in the upcoming White House drama "Lee Daniels' The Butler." "We wanted him to do it," Daniels said, and it was in the script for him to make an ap...