ENTERTAINMENT MAGAZINE NEWS

THE round birthday cake was small and simple — “Happy Birthday Mario,” it read. A little more than a dozen people showed up for the cold-cut spread and the operatic music piped into the little party room. Maybe 65 years ago, this same party might have been at the Beverly Hilton or some mansion on the Italian Riviera. That is when the birthday boy, Mario Lanza, was at the pinnacle of his fame as a movie star and singer. These days, it is an annual event at the Mario Lanza Institute, a small museum next to the church in South [...]

My sister and I are Jewish, but our family never went to temple or celebrated religious holidays. Now we have children of our own (though we’re no more religious). Last year, my young son went to an Easter egg hunt and had an absolute blast. So, next weekend, I’m making one for him. When my sister found out, she excoriated me and told me I am “a bad Jew.” How should I proceed? Sybil, Beverly Hills, Calif. Low-hanging fruit: You invited Sis and her brood to your ecumenical egg hunt, correct? Nothing like feeling excluded to make a gal prickly. [...]

Paul Tanner, a former trombonist for the Glenn Miller Ochestra who played an unlikely role in the history of rock ’n’ roll when, using a device he helped invent, he performed the famous electronic accompaniment on the Beach Boys’ signature recording “Good Vibrations,” died on Tuesday in Carlsbad, Calif. He was 95. His stepson Douglas Darnall confirmed the death. Mr. Tanner’s path to the Beach Boys was both circuitous and serendipitous. He played and recorded with Glenn Miller from 1938 until 1942; served, like Miller, in the Army Air Forces during World War II; and, afterward, returned to the band [...]

Kristin Chenoweth, the Tony Award-winning actress and Broadway singer, was injured on Wednesday by falling scaffolding on the Brooklyn set of the television series “The Good Wife.” Connect with NYTMetro Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation. Her publicist, Jill Fritzo, told The Associated Press that Ms. Chenoweth was hit in the head and taken to the hospital. Her condition was unclear. A spokesman for the New York Fire Department said that a call came in at 5:07 p.m. on Wednesday about a woman hit by scaffolding at that Brooklyn location, though he would [...]

CORRECTION APPENDED SOME years ago, I was standing behind Alec Baldwin at a party while talking with another writer, when the actor turned around and offered us a cigar with the most postmodern smile I have ever seen. ”Have a petit robusto,” he said. He exaggerated the ”eet” in ”petit” ever so slightly, a delicate emphasis that had the effect of making comically explicit the absurdity of applying ”petit” to ”robusto.” When he got to the latter word, he pronounced ”robusto” one syllable at a time — ”Ro. Bus. Toe.” — with such ironic vigor that cigar, celebrity and offer [...]