Friday, February 07, 2020

Phillip Schofield: ITV presenter comes out as gay

HETEROSEXUAL SOCIAL NORMS AND PERSONALITY CONSTRUCTS 
TWISTED AND MAIMED OUR CULTURE OF SEXUALITY CREATING
GAY MARRIED MEN TRYING TO BE STRAIGHT

Phillip Schofield: ITV presenter comes out as gay



Media captionPhillip Schofield on ITV's This Morning: 'Every person I tell it gets a little lighter'

TV presenter Phillip Schofield has revealed he is gay, after 27 years of marriage to his wife Stephanie Lowe.
The 57-year-old made the announcement via a statement posted on his Instagram story.
"Today, quite rightly, being gay is a reason to celebrate and be proud," he wrote.
"Yes, I am feeling pain and confusion, but that comes only from the hurt that I am causing to my family."
Schofield presents ITV programmes including Dancing On Ice and This Morning, which won a National Television Award last week for best live magazine show.

Holly Willoughby and Phillip SchofieldImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionHolly Willoughby co-presents This Morning and Dancing on Ice with Schofield

The presenter was interviewed by his co-host Holly Willoughby on Friday's edition of This Morning.
"You know this has been bothering me for a very long time," he said. "Everybody does this at their own speed when the time is right."
The presenter added in recent times his sexuality has "become an issue in my head".
"All you can be in your life is honest with yourself and I was getting to the point where I knew I wasn't honest with myself. I was getting to the point where I didn't like myself very much because I wasn't being honest with myself."
"[Coming out] is my decision. This is absolutely my decision. It was something I knew that I had to do. I don't know what the world will be like now. I don't know how this will be taken or what people will think."
But the presenter said he is not ready yet for a relationship with a man.

Presentational grey line

Phillip Schofield's statement in full:

"You never know what's going on in someone's seemingly perfect life, what issues they are struggling with, or the state of their wellbeing - and so you won't know what has been consuming me for the last few years. With the strength and support of my wife and my daughters, I have been coming to terms with the fact that I am gay.
"This is something that has caused many heart-breaking conversations at home. I have been married to Steph for nearly 27 years, and we have two beautiful grown-up daughters, Molly and Ruby. My family have held me so close - they have tried to cheer me up, to smother me with kindness and love, despite their own confusion. Yet still I can't sleep and there have been some very dark moments.
"My inner conflict contrasts with an outside world that has changed so very much for the better. Today, quite rightly, being gay is a reason to celebrate and be proud. Yes, I am feeling pain and confusion, but that comes only from the hurt that I am causing to my family.

Phillip Schofield and wife Stephanie LoweImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionPhillip Schofield and wife Stephanie Lowe, pictured in November

"Steph has been incredible - I love her so very much. She is the kindest soul I have ever met. My girls have been astonishing in their love, hugs and encouraging words of comfort. Both mine and Steph's entire families have stunned me with their love, instant acceptance and support.
"Of course they are worried about Steph, but I know they will scoop us both up. My friends are the best, especially Holly, who has been so kind and wise - and who has hugged me as I sobbed on her shoulder. At ITV, I couldn't hope to work with more wonderful, supportive teams.
"Every day on This Morning, I sit in awe of those we meet who have been brave and open in confronting their truth - so now it's my turn to share mine. This will probably all come as something of a surprise and I understand, but only by facing this, by being honest, can I hope to find peace in my mind and a way forward.
"Please be kind, especially to my family."

Presentational grey line

Dermot O'Leary was among the TV presenters applauding Schofield's decision to come out.
"Sending big love to the Schofield and his family," he tweeted. "Stand up guy, heart of a lion. X"
Richard Osman of BBC One's Pointless said: "When you create a new entertainment show and start discussing who should host, the first name on the list is always Phillip Schofield. That's a fact.
"He's just the very best at what he does, and the public adore him. Looking forward to many more years of his charm and brilliance."
The BBC's Victoria Derbyshire added: "So much love for Schofe for his open, honest, dignified statement."
Radio presenter and singer Ronan Keating said: "Sending all my love and support for Schofe and his family. Incredibly brave."
Britain's Got Talent Judge David Walliams said: "I am sending all my love to Schofe today. I have always held him in the highest regard, and now have nothing but respect and admiration for him. Let's hope we are moving towards a world where no-one has to come out anymore, they can just be who they are and celebrate that."
Dancing on Ice star Ian H Watkins, who recently made history by dancing with his same-sex partner on the show, welcomed Schofield to "our beautiful rainbow family!"

Sarah Greene and Phillip Schofield
Image captionSarah Greene and Phillip Schofield presenting Going Live! in 1987

Schofield found fame on children's TV in the 1980s alongside Gordon the Gopher in the BBC's Broom Cupboard, and on Saturday morning show Going Live!
He has starred in the West End in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Doctor Dolittle, and fronted TV game shows like Talking Telephone Numbers and Schofield's Quest before joining This Morning in 2002.
The programme has won at National Television Awards for 10 years in a row, including the prize for best live magazine show at last month's ceremony.
Entertainment reporter Caroline Frost told BBC Radio 5 Live that stars from the previous generation were likely have been told in the past that coming out as gay could damage their careers.
"You see all these young stars coming through and they don't have to think about it," she said. "They're fluid. They just define their own terms.
"But a lot of those older entertainers are having to play catch-up. They branded themselves and were probably advised 'Don't come out because it will ruin your following'.
"So they are having to catch-up and climb back up the hill of enjoying the same privileges that have come very naturally to that new generation."
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Dickens: Publisher made fortune from book imitations

23 June 2019

 
LOUIS JAMES COLLECTION/GETTY 
As well as producing parodies of Dickens, Lloyd also published popular horror book Varney the Vampire which is thought to have inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula

A Victorian publisher who made a fortune from imitations of Charles Dickens' novels, which "outraged" the author, is the subject of a new book.

In the 1840s Edward Lloyd published Oliver Twiss, Nickelas Nickelbery and Martin Guzzlewit soon after Dickens wrote the books they were based on.

Prof Rohan McWilliam of Anglia Ruskin University has co-edited the book on Lloyd.

Lloyd also published the first novel featuring the barber Sweeney Todd.
GETTY IMAGES
Edward Lloyd (right) published Oliver Twiss, Nickelas Nickelbery and Martin Guzzlewit soon after Dickens (left) wrote Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby and Martin Chuzzlewit

Although the novels were produced quickly to "cash in" on Dickens' soaring popularity, they were not flimsy works with Oliver Twiss longer than the original Oliver Twist, said Prof McWilliam, who specialises in the history of Victorian Britain, and has published Edward Lloyd and His World: Popular Fiction, Politics and the Press in Victorian Britain, co-edited by Sarah Louise Lill.

"Dickens was outraged that other authors and publishers were making money from his creations, but he was unable to get a judge to ban them," he said.

"What's particularly interesting is that many Victorian readers may have first encountered Dickens not through his own work, but through one of these imitations.

"There were many titles produced, which indicate that they were incredibly popular. And in some ways the plagiarisms could be seen as the original form of fan fiction."GETTY IMAGES
Lloyd also published the first novel featuring the demon barber Sweeney Todd, which was later turned into a musical by Stephen Sondheim

From his publishing house just off Fleet Street, Lloyd helped create the first mass readership for popular fiction by issuing "penny dreadfuls" aimed at working class people including Varney the Vampire, which is thought to have influenced Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Lloyd was also the original press baron - Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper was a Sunday paper aimed at the working class, and went on to become the first newspaper to sell a million copies.

 Edward Lloyd and His World: Popular Fiction, Politics and the Press in Victorian Britain, 1st Edition (Hardback) book cover
Edited by Sarah Louise Lill, Rohan McWilliam
Routledge
240 pages
Description
The publisher Edward Lloyd (1815-1890) helped shape Victorian popular culture in ways that have left a legacy that lasts right up to today. He was a major pioneer of both popular fiction and journalism but has never received extended scholarly investigation until now. Lloyd shaped the modern popular press: Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper　became the first paper to sell over a million copies. Along with publishing songs and broadsides, Lloyd dominated the fiction market in the early Victorian period issuing Gothic stories such as Varney the Vampire (1845-7) and other 'penny dreadfuls', which became bestsellers. Lloyd's publications introduced the enduring figure of Sweeney Todd whilst his authors penned plagiarisms of Dickens's novels, such as Oliver Twiss (1838-9). Many readers in the early Victorian period may have been as likely to have encountered the author of Pickwick in a Lloyd-published plagiarism as in the pages of the original author.


This book makes us rethink the early reception of Dickens. In this interdisciplinary collection, leading scholars explore the world of Edward Lloyd and his stable of writers, such as Thomas Peckett Prest and James Malcolm Rymer. The Lloyd brand shaped popular taste in the age of Dickens and the Chartists. Edward Lloyd and his World fills a major gap in the histories of popular fiction and journalism, whilst developing links with Victorian politics, theatre and music.　
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RIP KIRK DOUGLAS 103 YRS OLD!

How Kirk Douglas helped break the Hollywood blacklist




Kirk Douglas in SpartacusImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionKirk Douglas starred in Spartacus, which won four Oscars when it was released in 1960
There was one problem when Kirk Douglas saw the original script for the 1960 film Spartacus.
It wasn't very good.
The actor, who died on Wednesday aged 103, had optioned the rights to Howard Fast's novel - and the film would go on to become Douglas's best-known movie.
The star originally enlisted the author to adapt his own work for the big screen, but Fast was not used to writing screenplays and struggled with the format.
Douglas urgently needed someone to rescue the script before the historical epic went into production.
That sparked a sequence of events which helped end the so-called Hollywood blacklist - the 1950s ban on scriptwriters and film-makers with alleged communist sympathies.



Kirk DouglasImage copyrightEPA
Image captionDouglas said his role in breaking the blacklist was his proudest achievement
When it came to producing movies, Douglas was a perfectionist.
"He was a person who had integrity," Tim Gray, senior vice president at Variety magazine, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "He'd be the first to admit that he wasn't easy to work with, but he was always fighting to make a better film."
Douglas hired Dalton Trumbo to rewrite the script for Spartacus, which Trumbo did in just two weeks.
But Trumbo had been a member of the Communist Party in the 1940s, so was blacklisted by Hollywood at the end of the decade.
He and nine other writers and directors, collectively known as the Hollywood Ten, were jailed for contempt of Congress in 1950 after refusing to co-operate with authorities, who were on the hunt for communists and sympathisers.



Bryan Cranston as Dalton TrumboImage copyrightSKY
Image captionBryan Cranston played Dalton Trumbo in a 2015 film about the screenwriter's life
A pamphlet circulated at the time identified 151 professionals in the entertainment industry who were thought to be communists.
Those named could no longer work in Hollywood - at least not using their real names. And if they did keep working under pseudonyms, they had to do so at very cheap rates.
In his 2012 memoir I Am Spartacus!: Making A Film, Breaking The Blacklist, Douglas wrote about hiring Trumbo, who planned to rewrite the script under the name Sam Jackson.
"I gave my new friend 'Sam' a copy of the book and he promised to read it right away," Douglas said. "I had been thinking a lot about the day when the blacklist would end."

'A tremendous risk'

It became widely known in Hollywood that Trumbo had written Spartacus. A gossip columnist, Walter Winchell, ran an item in March 1959 outing him as the screenwriter.
That perhaps paved the way for what Douglas did next.
Douglas said he told Trumbo that once the film was finished, "not only am I going to tell them that you've written it, but we're putting your name on it".
In August 1960, the studio Universal-International announced that the writer would receive a full screen credit as Dalton Trumbo.
The blacklist was effectively broken.
"The masquerade was over," Douglas later wrote. "All my friends told me I was being stupid, throwing my career away. It was a tremendous risk. But the blacklist was broken.
"I wasn't thinking of being a hero and breaking the blacklist. It wasn't until later I realised the significance of that impulsive gesture."
]]]]]]copyrightGETTY
Image captionBritish actress Jean Simmons co-starred in Spartacus with Douglas
In fact, Douglas claimed to have first broken the blacklist nine months earlier by requesting that Universal Studios issue a parking pass for Trumbo - which was significant because it was issued under the writer's real name.
Either way, Rebecca Keegan, senior film editor at the Hollywood Reporter, told BBC Radio 5 Live that Douglas's actions were "pretty extraordinary".
"It was a radical thing to do at the time, it was a huge statement," she said. "Douglas put his real name in the credits. It was one of the most significant acts in ending the use of the blacklist, which had had such an oppressive effect in Hollywood."
Keegan says Douglas used his star power to make sure Trumbo got the credit he deserved.
"The fact that Hollywood was using these blacklisted screenwriters, paying them pennies on the dollar, and not allowing them to use their real names, he thought that was absurd," she explained.
"And he had enough power at that point that he could make a decision like that and have a profound impact on the industry."
Later in his career, Douglas revelled in telling people how he had broken the blacklist.
A floral tribute being erected at Douglas's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Image copyrightEPA
Image captionA floral tribute was erected at Douglas's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
But some have argued that he overstated the part he played.
Trumbo's daughter, Melissa, said that when his 2012 book was published, she "threw it across the room".
In 2002, Trumbo's widow Cleo wrote a letter to the LA Times saying "no single person can be credited with breaking the blacklist".
Nonetheless, Douglas became the public face of the blacklist rebellion, which would have taken some courage in itself, even if just as one member of a growing movement.
Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle in 2012, Douglas said: "I have been working in Hollywood over 60 years and I've made over 85 pictures, but the thing I'm most proud of is breaking the blacklist."

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