I read two books by famous show business personalities this weekend. One was a first novel by Sidney Poitier, Montaro Caine, while the other was a memoir, The Friedkin Connection, by film director William Friedkin.

For...

Andy Warhol's portrait of ElizabethTaylor at L'Ermitage Hotel's lobby exhibit

The always-exciting L.A. Food & Wine Festival, which takes place in late August, is moving from the original L.A. Live/Staples site to a new venue at...

Why should an American audience of fairly sophisticated theatregoers (yes, we are) go to the Geffen Playhouse (10886 LeConte, Ave. Westwood (310) 208-5454) to see a play about a British prime minister? Well, I can think of at least...

$1.25 for a full roast beef dinner... with spinning salad, roast beef, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, beverage... the original cost of a meal in 1938 when they opened, offered to the first 1,000 people who showed up...

John Denver had one of those iconic voices which was instantly recognizable, like Willie Nelson and Luciano Pavarotti. I...

Many of us who grew up...

I do a fair amount of public speaking as a film producer and a blogger on The Huffington Post and my well-known restaurant newsletter. Recently, I was asked if...

If you have any interest in movies and 'film,' in what constitutes genius...or even a curiosity about what it takes to become an icon of...

Peking Duck at Chi-Lin

My Huffington readers are well aware of my passion for Chinese food. I have reported that I will...

Steve Wallace is the idiosyncratic guy who opened the singular Wally's Wine and Spirits Shop on Westwood Boulevard many years ago, offering us Angelenos a source for rare, small batch and unique boutique wines. He...

For most of the first decade of his amazing 60 year career, I was Paul Anka's publicist. So I read his new autobiography, MY WAY (St. Martin's Press) with special interest. It all began for me with...

Move over Verdi, Puccini, Bizet... (not you, Mozart)... make room for Lee Holdridge and Richard Sparks. Who? These are the guys who have created a new opera, Dulce Rosa, which will enter the pantheon of great operas we all...

I am certain that most of my Huffington readers know who Gustavo Dudamel is, but just in case you don't he is the 32-year Venezualan-born Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In the four...

"When I was 8 years old, I...

Yesterday, when I left the opening of the dramatic Jews in the Los Angeles Mosaic exhibit at the Autry National...

I went to see a wonderful film at the Academy on Sunday, one which...

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href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12807090@N08/8712069760/" title="artist renderingof new Academy museum by jayweston@sbcglobal.net, on Flickr">
Artits Rendering of the new Academy Museum

I may be the only working journalist...

Lynda Resnick at Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce.

Lynda and Stewart Resnick are world-class philanthropists. In the past they have invested their charitable dollars in organizations and people...

RivaBella (9201 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood (310) 278-2060) is where the old Hamburger Hamlet used to be, at the entrance to...