Westheimer died on Friday at her home in New York City, surrounded by her family, according to publicist and friend Pierre Lehu.

Westheimer never advocated risky sexual behavior. Instead, she encouraged an open dialogue on previously closeted issues that affected her audience of millions. Her one recurring theme was there was nothing to be ashamed of.

“I still hold old-fashioned values and I’m a bit of a square,” she told students at Michigan City High School in 2002. “Sex is a private art and a private matter. But still, it is a subject we must talk about.”

Westheimer’s giggly, German-accented voice, coupled with her 4-foot-7 frame, made her an unlikely looking — and sounding — outlet for “sexual literacy.” The contradiction was one of the keys to her success.

But it was her extensive knowledge and training, coupled with her humorous, nonjudgmental manner, that catapulted her local radio program, “Sexually Speaking,” into the national spotlight in the early 1980s. She had a nonjudgmental approach to what two consenting adults did in the privacy of their home.

“Tell him you’re not going to initiate,” she told a concerned caller in June 1982. “Tell him that Dr. Westheimer said that you’re not going to die if he doesn’t have sex for one week.”

Her radio success opened new doors, and in 1983 she wrote the first of more than 40 books: “Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex,” demystifying sex with both rationality and humor. There was even a board game, Dr. Ruth’s Game of Good Sex.

She soon became a regular on the late-night television talk-show circuit, bringing her personality to the national stage. Her rise coincided with the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when frank sexual talk became a necessity.

“If we could bring about talking about sexual activity the way we talk about diet — the way we talk about food — without it having this kind of connotation that there’s something not right about it, then we would be a step further. But we have to do it with good taste,” she told Johnny Carson in 1982.

She normalized the use of words like “penis” and “vagina” on radio and TV, aided by her Jewish grandmotherly accent, which The Wall Street Journal once said was “a cross between Henry Kissinger and Minnie Mouse.” People magazine included her in their list of “The Most Intriguing People of the Century.” She even made it into a Shania Twain song: “No, I don’t need proof to show me the truth/Not even Dr. Ruth is gonna tell me how I feel.”

Westheimer defended abortion rights, suggested older people have sex after a good night’s sleep and was an outspoken advocate of condom use. She believed in monogamy.

In the 1980s, she stood up for gay men at the height of the AIDS epidemic and spoke out loudly for the LGBTQ community. She said she defended people deemed by some far-right Christians to be “subhuman” because of her own past.

Born Karola Ruth Siegel in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1928, she was an only child. At 10, she was sent by her parents to Switzerland to escape Kristallnacht — the Nazis’ 1938 pogrom that served as a precursor to the Holocaust. She never saw her parents again; Westheimer believed they were killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

At the age of 16, she moved to Palestine and joined the Haganah, the underground movement for Israeli independence. She was trained as a sniper, although she said she never shot at anyone.

Her legs were severely wounded when a bomb exploded in her dormitory, killing many of her friends. She said it was only through the work of a “superb” surgeon that she could walk and ski again.

She married her first husband, an Israeli soldier, in 1950, and they moved to Paris as she pursued an education. Although not a high school graduate, Westheimer was accepted into the Sorbonne to study psychology after passing an entrance exam.

The marriage ended in 1955; the next year, Westheimer went to New York with her new boyfriend, a Frenchman who became her second husband and father to her daughter, Miriam.

In 1961, after a second divorce, she finally met her life partner: Manfred Westheimer, a fellow refugee from Nazi Germany. The couple was married and had a son, Joel. They remained wed for 36 years until “Fred” — as she called him — died of heart failure in 1997.

After receiving her doctorate in education from Columbia University, she went on to teach at Lehman College in the Bronx. While there she developed a specialty — instructing professors how to teach sex education. It would eventually become the core of her curriculum.

“I soon realized that while I knew enough about education, I did not really know enough about sex,” she wrote in her 1987 autobiography. Westheimer then decided take classes with the renowned sex therapist, Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan.

It was there that she had discovered her calling. Soon, as she once said in a typically folksy comment, she was dispensing sexual advice “like good chicken soup.”

“I came from an Orthodox Jewish home so sex for us Jews was never considered a sin,” she told The Guardian in 2019.

In 1984, her radio program was nationally syndicated. A year later, she debuted in her own television program, “The Dr. Ruth Show,” which went on to win an Ace Award for excellence in cable television.

She also wrote a nationally syndicated advice column and later appeared in a line of videos produced by Playboy, preaching the virtues of open sexual discourse and good sex. She even had her own board game, “Dr. Ruth’s Game of Good Sex,” and a series of calendars.

Her rise was noteworthy for the culture of the time, in which then-President Ronald Reagan’s administration was hostile to Planned Parenthood and aligned with pro-conservative voices.

Phyllis Schlafly, a staunch anti-feminist, wrote in a 1999 piece “The Dangers of Sex Education,” that Westheimer, as well as Gloria Steinem, Anita Hill, Madonna, Ellen DeGeneres and others were promoting “provocative sex chatter” and “rampant immorality.”

Father Edwin O’Brien, the director of communications for the Catholic archdiocese of New York who would go on to become a cardinal, called her work upsetting and morally compromised.

“It’s pure hedonism,” O’Brien wrote in a 1982 opinion published by The Wall Street Journal. “’The message is just indulge yourself; whatever feels good is good. There is no higher law of overriding morality, and there’s also no responsibility.”

Westheimer made appearances on “The Howard Stern Radio Show,” “Nightline,” “The Tonight Show,” “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “The Dr. Oz Show” and “Late Night with David Letterman.” She played herself in episodes of “Quantum Leap” and “Love Boat: The Next Wave.”

Her books include “Sex for Dummies,” her autobiographical works “All in a Lifetime” (1987) and “Musically Speaking: A Life through Song” (2003). The documentary “Ask Dr Ruth” aired in 2019.

During her time as a radio and television personality, she remained committed to teaching, with posts at Yale, Hunter, Princeton and Columbia universities and a busy college lecture schedule. She also maintained a private practice throughout her life.

Westheimer received an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College-Institute of Religion for her work in human sexuality and her commitment to the Jewish people, Israel and religion. In 2001 she received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the Leo Baeck Medal, and in 2004, she received the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, from Trinity College.

Ryan White, the director of “Ask Dr Ruth,” told Vice in 2019 that Westheimer was never someone following trends. She was always an ally of gay rights and an advocate for family planning.

“She was at the forefront of both of those things throughout her entire life. I met her friends from her orphanage saying even when she met gay people throughout her life in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s she was always accepting of those people and always saying that people should be treated with respect.”

She is survived by two children, Joel and Miriam, and four grandchildren.

NEW YORK (AP) — Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, an Oscar nominee whose most famous work skewered American food and diets and who notably ate only at McDonald’s for a month to illustrate the dangers of a fast-food diet, has died. He was 53.

Spurlock died Thursday in New York from complications of cancer, according to a statement issued Friday by his family.

“It was a sad day, as we said goodbye to my brother Morgan,” Craig Spurlock, who worked with him on several projects, said in the statement. “Morgan gave so much through his art, ideas, and generosity. The world has lost a true creative genius and a special man. I am so proud to have worked together with him.”

Spurlock made a splash in 2004 with his groundbreaking film “Super Size Me,” which was nominated for an Academy Award. The film chronicled the detrimental physical and psychological effects of Spurlock eating only McDonald’s food for 30 days. He gained about 25 pounds, saw a spike in his cholesterol and lost his sex drive.

“Everything’s bigger in America,” he said in the film. “We’ve got the biggest cars, the biggest houses, the biggest companies, the biggest food, and finally: the biggest people.”

In one scene, Spurlock showed kids a photo of George Washington and none recognized the Founding Father. But they all knew the mascots for Wendy’s and McDonald’s.

He returned in 2019 with “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” — a sober look at an industry that processes 9 billion animals a year in America. He focused on two issues: chicken farmers stuck in a peculiar financial system and the attempt by fast-food chains to deceive customers into thinking they’re eating healthier.

“We’re at an amazing moment in history from a consumer standpoint where consumers are starting to have more and more power,” he told The Associated Press in 2019. “It’s not about return for the shareholders. It’s about return for the consumers.”

Spurlock was a gonzo-like filmmaker who leaned into the bizarre and ridiculous. His stylistic touches included zippy graphics and amusing music, blending a Michael Moore-ish camera-in-your-face style with his own sense of humor and pathos.

“I wanted to be able to lean into the serious moments. I wanted to be able to breathe in the moments of levity. We want to give you permission to laugh in the places where it’s really hard to laugh,” he told the AP.

After he exposed the fast-food and chicken industries, there was an explosion in restaurants stressing freshness, artisanal methods, farm-to-table goodness and ethically sourced ingredients. But nutritionally not much had changed.

“There has been this massive shift and people say to me, ‘So has the food gotten healthier?’ And I say, ‘Well, the marketing sure has,’” he said.

Not all his work dealt with food. Spurlock made documentaries about the boy band One Direction and the geeks and fanboys at Comic-Con. One of his films looked at life behind bars at the Henrico County Jail in Virginia.

With 2008’s “Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?” Spurlock went on a global search to find the al-Qaida leader, who was killed in 2011. In “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,” Spurlock tackled questions of product placement, marketing and advertising.

“Being aware is half the battle, I think. Literally knowing all the time when you’re being marketed to is a great thing,” Spurlock told AP at the time. “A lot of people don’t realize it. They can’t see the forest for the trees.”

“Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” was to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017 but it was shelved at the height of the #MeToo movement when Spurlock came forward to detail his own history of sexual misconduct.

He confessed that he had been accused of rape while in college and had settled a sexual harassment case with a female assistant. He also admitted to cheating on numerous partners. “I am part of the problem,” he wrote.

“For me, there was a moment of kind of realization — as somebody who is a truth-teller and somebody who has made it a point of trying to do what’s right — of recognizing that I could do better in my own life. We should be able to admit we were wrong,” he told the AP.

Spurlock grew up in Beckley, West Virginia. His mother was an English teacher who he remembered would correct his work with a red pen.

He is survived by two sons — Laken and Kallen; his mother Phyllis Spurlock; father Ben; brothers Craig and Barry; and former spouses Alexandra Jamieson and Sara Bernstein, the mothers of his children.

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

NEW YORK (AP) — Dabney Coleman, the mustachioed character actor who specialized in smarmy villains like the chauvinist boss in “9 to 5” and the nasty TV director in “Tootsie,” has died. He was 92.

Coleman died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, his daughter, Quincy Coleman, said in a statement to The Associated Press. She said he “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely.”

“The great Dabney Coleman literally created, or defined, really — in a uniquely singular way — an archetype as a character actor. He was so good at what he did it’s hard to imagine movies and television of the last 40 years without him,” Ben Stiller wrote on X.

For two decades Coleman labored in movies and TV shows as a talented but largely unnoticed performer. That changed abruptly in 1976 when he was cast as the incorrigibly corrupt mayor of the hamlet of Fernwood in “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” a satirical soap opera that was so over the top no network would touch it.

Producer Norman Lear finally managed to syndicate the show, which starred Louise Lasser in the title role. It quickly became a cult favorite. Coleman’s character, Mayor Merle Jeeter, was especially popular and his masterful, comic deadpan delivery did not go overlooked by film and network executives.

A six-footer with an ample black mustache, Coleman went on to make his mark in numerous popular films, including as a stressed out computer scientist in “War Games,” Tom Hanks’ father in “You’ve Got Mail” and a fire fighting official in “The Towering Inferno.”

He won a Golden Globe for “The Slap Maxwell Story” and an Emmy Award for best supporting actor in Peter Levin’s 1987 small screen legal drama “Sworn to Silence.” Some of his recent credits include “Ray Donovan” and a recurring role on “Boardwalk Empire,” for which he won two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

In the groundbreaking 1980 hit “9 to 5,” he was the “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” boss who tormented his unappreciated female underlings — Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton — until they turned the tables on him.

In 1981, he was Fonda’s caring, well-mannered boyfriend, who asks her father (played by her real-life father, Henry Fonda) if he can sleep with her during a visit to her parents’ vacation home in “On Golden Pond.”

Opposite Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie,” he was the obnoxious director of a daytime soap opera that Hoffman’s character joins by pretending to be a woman. Among Coleman’s other films were “North Dallas Forty,” “Cloak and Dagger,” “Dragnet,” “Meet the Applegates,” “Inspector Gadget” and “Stuart Little.” He reunited with Hoffman as a land developer in Brad Silberling’s “Moonlight Mile” with Jake Gyllenhaal.

Coleman’s obnoxious characters didn’t translate quite as well on television, where he starred in a handful of network comedies. Although some became cult favorites, only one lasted longer than two seasons, and some critics questioned whether a series starring a lead character with absolutely no redeeming qualities could attract a mass audience.

“Buffalo Bill” (1983-84) was a good example. It starred Coleman as “Buffalo Bill” Bittinger, the smarmy, arrogant, dimwitted daytime talk show host who, unhappy at being relegated to the small-time market of Buffalo, New York, takes it out on everyone around him. Although smartly written and featuring a fine ensemble cast, it lasted only two seasons.

Another was 1987’s “The Slap Maxwell Story,” in which Coleman was a failed small-town sportswriter trying to save a faltering marriage while wooing a beautiful young reporter on the side.

Other failed attempts to find a mass TV audience included “Apple Pie,” “Drexell’s Class” (in which he played an inside trader) and “Madman of the People,” another newspaper show in which he clashed this time with his younger boss, who was also his daughter.

He fared better in a co-starring role in “The Guardian” (2001-2004), which had him playing the father of a crooked lawyer. And he enjoyed the voice role as Principal Prickly on the Disney animated series “Recess” from 1997-2003.

Underneath all that bravura was a reserved man. Coleman insisted he was really quite shy. “I’ve been shy all my life. Maybe it stems from being the last of four children, all of them very handsome, including a brother who was Tyrone Power-handsome. Maybe it’s because my father died when I was 4,” he told The Associated Press in 1984. “I was extremely small, just a little guy who was there, the kid who created no trouble. I was attracted to fantasy, and I created games for myself.”

As he aged, he also began to put his mark on pompous authority figures, notably in 1998’s “My Date With the President’s Daughter,” in which he was not only an egotistical, self-absorbed president of the United States, but also a clueless father to a teenager girl.

Dabney Coleman — his real name — was born in 1932 in Austin, Texas After two years at the Virginia Military Academy, two at the University of Texas and two in the Army, he was a 26-year-old law student when he met another Austin native, Zachry Scott, who starred in “Mildred Pierce” and other films.

“He was the most dynamic person I’ve ever met. He convinced me I should become an actor, and I literally left the next day to study in New York. He didn’t think that was too wise, but I made my decision,” Coleman told The AP in 1984.

Early credits included such TV shows as “Ben Casey,” “Dr Kildare,” “The Outer Limits,” “Bonanza,” “The Mod Squad” and the film “The Towering Inferno.” He appeared on Broadway in 1961 in “A Call on Kuprin.” He played Kevin Costner’s father on “Yellowstone.”

Twice divorced, Coleman is survived by four children, Meghan, Kelly, Randy and Quincy, and the grandchildren Hale and Gabe Torrance, Luie Freundl and Kai and Coleman Biancaniello.

“My father crafted his time here on earth with a curious mind, a generous heart, and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humor that tickled the funny bone of humanity,” Quincy Coleman wrote in his honor.

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Mark Kennedy can be reached at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

NEW YORK (AP) — Steve Lawrence, a singer and top stage act who as a solo performer and in tandem with his wife Eydie Gorme kept Tin Pan Alley alive during the rock era, died Thursday. He was 88.

Lawrence, whose hits included “Go Away Little Girl,” died from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease, said Susan DuBow, a spokesperson for the family.

Lawrence and Gorme — or Steve & Eydie — were known for their frequent appearances on talk shows, in night clubs and on the stages of Las Vegas. The duo took inspiration from George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern and other songwriters.

Soon after Elvis Presley and other rock music pioneers began to dominate radio and records, Lawrence and his wife were approached about changing their style.

“We had a chance to get in on the ground floor of rock ‘n’ roll,” he recalled in a 1989 interview. “It was 1957 and everything was changing, but I wanted to be Sinatra, not Rick Nelson.

“Our audience knows we’re not going to load up on heavy metal or set fire to the drummer — although on some nights we’ve talked about it,” he joked.

Although Lawrence and Gorme were best known as a team, both also had huge solo hits just months apart in the early 1960s.

Dionne Warwick, a longtime friend, said in a statement that Lawrence was “resting with comfort in the arms of the Heavenly Father. My heartfelt condolences go out.” Carol Burnett, in a statement, called Lawrence one of her favorite guests on her variety show. “He was also my very close friend,” she said. “He will always be in my heart.”

Lawrence scored first in 1962 with the achingly romantic ballad “Go Away Little Girl,” written by the Brill Building songwriting team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Gorme matched his success the following year with “Blame It on the Bossa Nova,” a bouncy tune about a dance craze of the time that was written by Brill hitmakers Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.

By the 1970s, Lawrence and his wife were a top draw in Las Vegas casinos and nightclubs across the country. They also appeared regularly on television, making specials and guesting on various shows.

In the 1980s, when Vegas cut down on headline acts and nightclubs became scarcer, the pair switched to auditoriums and drew large audiences.

“People come with a general idea of what they’re going to get with us,” Lawrence said in 1989. “It’s like a product. They buy a certain cereal and they know what to expect from that package.”

Lawrence launched his professional singing career at age 15. After two failed auditions for “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” TV show, he was accepted on the third try, going on to win the competition and the prize of appearing on Godfrey’s popular daytime radio show for a week.

King Records, impressed by the teenager’s strong, two-octave voice, signed him to a contract. His first record, “Poinciana,” sold more than 100,000 copies, and his high school allowed him to skip classes to promote it with out-of-town singing dates.

After several guest appearances on Steve Allen’s television show, Lawrence was hired as a regular. When the program became NBC’s “Tonight” in 1954, he went with it, singing and exchanging quips with Allen. The series set the pattern for the long-running “The Tonight Show.”

“I think Steve Allen was the biggest thing that happened to me,” said Lawrence, who stayed with the show’s host for five years, honing his comedic skills and attracting a wide audience with his singing. “Every night I was called upon to do something different. In its own way it was better than vaudeville.”

Early in the series’ run, a young singer named Eydie Gorme joined the cast. After singing together for four years, she and Lawrence were married in 1957.

Until Gorme’s death, in 2013, they remained popular, whether working together in concert or making separate TV appearances.

His reasoning: “If we did television together all the time, why should anyone go see us in a club?”

He appeared in such shows as “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Diagnosis Murder” and “The Nanny.”

He and his wife did star together in “The Steve Lawrence-Eydie Gorme Show” in 1958 and Lawrence had his own series, “The Steve Lawrence Show,” in 1965.

He also made stage appearances without Gorme, including a starring role in a 1962 summer stock version of “Pal Joey.” He made it to Broadway in 1964 — and earned a Tony Award nomination — in the musical “What Makes Sammy Run?” based on Budd Schulberg’s classic novel about a New York hustler who claws his way to the top of the entertainment world.

Critics praised Lawrence but gave the play bad reviews. Still, it turned a profit, and insiders attributed its success to his performance.

Lawrence also had a few character roles in movies, most notably “Stand Up and Be Counted,” “Blues Brothers 2000,” “The Lonely Guy” and “The Yards.”

Native-born New Yorkers, Lawrence and Gorme lived in a Manhattan apartment during their early years together. When the center of TV entertainment shifted to Hollywood, they moved to Beverly Hills.

Born Sidney Liebowitz in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, Lawrence was the son of a Jewish cantor who worked as a house painter. He began singing in his father’s synagogue choir at 8, moving on to bars and clubs by his mid-teens. He took his name from the first names of two nephews.

He and Gorme had two sons, David, a composer, and Michael. Long troubled with heart problems, Michael died of heart failure in 1986 at age 23.

“My dad was an inspiration to so many people,” his son David said in a statement. “But, to me, he was just this charming, handsome, hysterically funny guy who sang a lot. Sometimes alone and sometimes with his insanely talented wife. I am so lucky to have had him as a father and so proud to be his son.”

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This report contains biographical material compiled by former AP reporter Bob Thomas

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

NEW YORK (AP) — Richard Lewis, an acclaimed comedian known for exploring his neuroses in frantic, stream-of-consciousness diatribes while dressed in all-black, leading to his nickname “The Prince of Pain,” has died. He was 76.

Lewis, who revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2023, died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday night after suffering a heart attack, according to his publicist Jeff Abraham.

A regular performer in clubs and on late-night TV for decades, Lewis also played Marty Gold, the romantic co-lead opposite Jamie Lee Curtis, in the ABC series “Anything But Love” and the reliably neurotic Prince John in “Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men In Tights.” He re-introduced himself to a new generation opposite Larry David in HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” kvetching regularly.

“I’m paranoid about everything in my life. Even at home. On my stationary bike, I have a rear-view mirror, which I’m not thrilled about,” he once joked onstage. To Jimmy Kimmel he said: “This morning, I tried to go to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I counted sheep but I only had six of them and they all had hip replacements.”

Comedy Central named Lewis one of the top 50 stand-up comedians of all time and he earned a berth in GQ magazine’s list of the “20th Century’s Most Influential Humorists.” He lent his humor for charity causes, including Comic Relief and Comedy Gives Back.

“Watching his stand-up is like sitting in on a very funny and often dark therapy session,” the Los Angeles Times said in 2014. The Philadelphia’s City Paper called him “the Jimi Hendrix of monologists.” Mel Brooks once said he “may just be the Franz Kafka of modern-day comedy.”

Comedians took to social media Wednesday to share their thoughts, including Albert Books who called Lewis “a brilliantly funny man who will missed by all. The world needed him now more than ever” on X, formerly Twitter. Other tributes came from Bette Midler, Michael McKean and Paul Feig, who called Lewis “one of the funniest people on the planet.”

Following his graduation from The Ohio State University in 1969, the New York-born Lewis began a stand-up career, honing his craft on the circuit with other contemporaries also just starting out like Jay Leno, Freddie Prinze and Billy Crystal.

He recalled Rodney Dangerfield hiring him for $75 to fill in at his New York club, Dangerfield’s. “I had a lot of great friends early on who believed in me, and I met pretty iconic people who really helped me, told me to keep working on my material. And I never looked back,” he told The Gazette of Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2010.

Unlike contemporary Robin Williams, Lewis allowed audiences into his world and melancholy, pouring his torment and pain onto the stage. Fans favorably compared him to the ground-breaking comedian Lenny Bruce.

“I take great pains not to be mean-spirited,” Lewis told The Palm Beach Post in 2007. “I don’t like to take real handicaps that people have to overcome with no hope in sight. I steer clear of that. That’s not funny to me. Tragedy is funny to other humorists, but it’s not to me, unless you can make a point that’s helpful.”

Singer Billy Joel has said he was referring to Lewis when he sang in “My Life” of an old friend who “bought a ticket to the West Coast/Now he gives them a stand-up routine in L.A.”

In 1989 at Carnegie Hall, he appeared with six feet of yellow legal sheets filled with material and taped together for a 2½-hour set that led to two standing ovations. The night was “the highlight of my career,” he told The Washington Post in 2020.

Lewis told GQ his signature look came incidentally, saying his obsession with dressing in black came from watching the television Western “Have Gun – Will Travel,” with a cowboy in all-black, when he was a kid. He also popularized the term “from hell” — as in “the date from hell” or “the job from hell.”

“That just came out of my brain one day and I kept repeating it a lot for some reason. Same thing with the black clothes. I just felt really comfortable from the early ’80s on and I never wore anything else. I never looked back.”

After getting sober from drugs and alcohol in 1994, Lewis put out his 2008 memoir, “The Other Great Depression” — a collection of fearless, essay style riffs on his life — and “Reflections from Hell.”

Lewis was the youngest of three siblings — his brother was older than him by six years, and his sister by nine. His father died young and his mother had emotional problems. “She didn’t get me at all. I owe my career to my mother. I should have given her my agent’s commission,” he told The Washington Post in 2020.

“Looking back on it now, as a full-blown, middle-aged, functioning anxiety collector, I can admit without cringing that my parents had their fair share of tremendous qualities, yet, being human much of the day, had more than just a handful of flaws as well,” he wrote in his memoir.

Lewis quickly found a new family performing at New York’s Improv. “I was 23, and all sorts of people were coming in and out and watching me, like Steve Allen and Bette Midler. David Brenner certainly took me under his wing. To drive home to my little dump in New Jersey often knowing that Steve Allen said, ‘You got it,’ that validation kept me going in a big, big way.”

He had a cameo in “Leaving Las Vegas,” which led to his first major dramatic role as Jimmy Epstein, an addict fighting for his life in the indie film, “Drunks.” He played Don Rickles’ son on one season of “Daddy Dearest” and a rabbi on “7th Heaven.”

Lewis’ recurring role on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” can be credited directly to his friendship with fellow comedian, producer and series star Larry David. Both native Brooklynites — born in the same Brooklyn hospital — they first met and became friends as rivals while attending the same summer camp at age 13. He was cast from the beginning, bickering with David on unpaid bills and common courtesies.

He is survived by his wife, Joyce Lapinsky.

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

Ozzy Osbourne, who led many parents in the 1980s to clutch their pearls with his devil imagery and sludgy music, gets the nod as a solo artist, having already gone into the hall with Black Sabbath. Nominations also were handed to hip-hop duo Eric B. & Rakim, soft rockers Foreigner, singer-guitarist Peter Frampton, alt-rockers Jane’s Addiction and Dave Matthews Band, and dance icons Kool & the Gang.

“Continuing in the true spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, these artists have created their own sounds that have impacted generations and influenced countless others that have followed in their footsteps,” said John Sykes, Chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in a statement.

Ten of the 15 nominees are on the ballot for the first time, including Carey, Cher, Foreigner, Frampton, Kool & the Gang, Kravitz, Oasis, O’Connor, Osbourne and Sade. Sade, whose 1980s soft rock hits include “Smooth Operator” and “The Sweetest Taboo,” is having a moment, having last year been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Carey, with 19 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, Blige with eight multi-platinum albums and nine Grammy Awards, and Cher — the only artist to have a No. 1 song in each of the past six decades — would help boost the number of women in the hall.

Artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years before they’re eligible for induction. The induction ceremony will take place in Cleveland this fall.

Nominees will be voted on by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals. Fans can vote online or in person at the museum, with the top five artists picked by the public making up a “fans’ ballot” that will be tallied with the other professional ballots.

Last year, Missy Elliott, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Chaka Khan, “Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius, Kate Bush and the late George Michael were some of the artists who got into the hall.

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

“Who doesn’t want to watch dogs play all day long?” asks Laurie Johnson, the director of Florida Little Dog Rescue in St. Cloud, Florida, who has been part of “Puppy Bowl” for a decade.

There are some changes this year to the canine football telecast: Four previous puppy players return to be inducted in the new Puppy Bowl Hall of Fame and the show, which has grown to include armadillos, hedgehogs and chickens, will focus on dogs.

“What we’ve done this year to flip the whole script is because it’s sort of a celebration of the fact that it’s the 20th year,” says “Puppy Bowl” referee Dan Schachner. “We’ve decided to go all in on puppy, making it the “most puppiest ‘Puppy Bowl’ ever.”

The “Puppy Bowl” made its debut as counter-programming to the Super Bowl in 2005. Dogs score touchdowns on a gridiron carpet when they cross the goal line — any goal line — with a toy.

The show is really just an excuse to spend time watching adorable, clumsy pups in colorful sweaters play with chew toys, wag their tails furiously and lick the camera. A deeper reason is to encourage animal adoption.

“We always say the same message every year: Adopt, don’t shop,” says Schachner. “There are responsible breeders out there, but it kind of defies logic that somebody who’s searching for a dog would look beyond their local shelter or rescue.”

According to the ASPCA, approximately 390,000 shelter dogs are euthanized each year and 2 million shelter dogs are adopted. Schachner says the number of animals languishing in shelters is back up after falling during the pandemic. “It’s worse than ever,” he says.

Florida Little Dog Rescue, which like all puppy groups is vetted by Animal Planet, sent seven pup players and two Hall of Fame inductees this year. Johnson, who volunteers her time, says it’s an honor that Animal Planet picks her pups year after year.

“It does bring attention to our rescue, which helps some of our other dogs get adopted. But, honestly, for us, the biggest excitement is that we’re helping dogs all over the country get into homes, because rescue is not a competition, it’s a cooperation,” says Johnson.

Most of the puppies are usually adopted by airtime, since the show is filmed in the fall. But the point is to show that animals just like the ones on the show can be found at any shelter at any time.

Schachner also has some advice for anyone who falls for a particular pup on the broadcast: “That animal is probably likely part of a litter, right? So there’s probably siblings out there that are still up for adoption or their parents — their mom, their dad — is in the shelter looking for a forever home.”

Florida Little Dog Rescue was the first to send a Shar Pei to the “Puppy Bowl” — the pup, Wrinkles, was quickly adopted by a crew member at the taping — and Johnson says many viewers might not know that all kinds of breeds — Corgis, Westies, Doodles and Cavapoos, included — are available at shelters and rescue groups.

The inaugural “Puppy Bowl” was watched by nearly 6 million viewers. Last year, 13.2 million viewers tuned in, the largest reach for the event in five years. In comparison, The Emmy Awards telecast on Fox this year reached just 4.3 million viewers. This year’s show will be simulcast across Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS, truTV, Max and Discovery.

The dogs are split into two teams — Team Fluff and Team Ruff — and each dog is given a nickname — like “Slick Rick” or “J-Paw” — and a specialty, like “Epic end zone dance.”

They are free to frolic, but may face penalties for things like “unsportlike dog conduct” and “trash barking.” Awards are given to Most Valuable Puppy and, new this year, an Underdog Award for the more introverted pup.

This year’s broadcast is built on the work of dozens of volunteers, as well as 600 pee pads, 200 poop bags, 10 bags of treats, 30 water bowls and 18 cameras. The cat halftime show will also return.

Schachner started refereeing 13 years ago, when there were 59 dogs invited. “I’ll never forget that because I thought that was a tremendous amount of dogs to be trying to officiate in one place.”

That number has by now more than doubled, with this year’s broadcast featuring 131 puppies. “The scope and the size of this show from the time I started 13 years ago to now is just very impressive.”

The canine entries this time come from 73 shelters and rescue groups across 36 states and territories. The entrance requirements include being healthy and sturdy enough to be on the field with playmates, between 3-6 months old and having no training.

“We don’t want dogs that are show dogs, that are sitting there with a trainer. We want to see them in all their puppy glory. Part of that is to show what puppies are in their true state,” says Schachner.

“They are playful, they are curious, they’re going to get into trouble, they’re going to do crazy things. And from time to time, they’re going to score touchdowns and really impress you.”

NEW YORK (AP) — An average of 16.9 million viewers tuned in to see performances by Miley Cyrus and Billie Eilish and watch Taylor Swift make history at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, the largest audience for the telecast in four years and another consecutive annual increase for a show that is recovering from its pandemic declines.

Ratings were up 34% on Sunday across CBS, Paramount+ and other digital platforms from last year, and with delayed watching included was expected to amass over 17 million viewers. The telecast peaked with 18.25 million viewers during the in memorium segment, with performances by Stevie Wonder, Annie Lennox, Jon Batiste and Fantasia Barrino.

The numbers Sunday easily beat the 12.4 million people who tuned in to watch Harry Styles, Lizzo and Bad Bunny perform during the show in 2023, along with a tribute to 50 years of rap history.

That’s another year of growth seen under host Trevor Noah, who has hosted since 2021. Live viewership was 8.8 million in 2021 and 8.9 million in 2022. The numbers this year are closer to pre-pandemic levels: Music’s showcase night was seen by 18.7 million people in 2020.

The upward trajectory is in stark contrast to the fate of the Emmy Awards earlier this year: That telecast on Fox reached a record low audience of 4.3 million viewers.

This year, Grammy viewers watched Miley Cyrus powerfully belt out her megahit “Flowers, which won record of the year, and Billie Eilish’s gentle piano ballad from “Barbie,” “What Was I Made For?,” which was crowned song of the year. The album “Midnights” earned Swift her fourth career Grammy for album of the year, a record.

Live television viewership has declined across-the-board over the past few years, with pro football one of the few events to buck the trend.

NEW YORK (AP) — Carl Weathers, a former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” movies, facing off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator” and teaching golf in “Happy Gilmore,” has died. He was 76.

Matt Luber, his manager, said Weathers died Thursday. His family issued a statement saying he died “peacefully in his sleep.”

Comfortable flexing his muscles on the big screen in “Action Jackson” as he was joking around on the small screen in such shows as “Arrested Development,” Weathers was perhaps most closely associated with Creed, who made his first appearance as the cocky, undisputed heavyweight world champion in 1976’s “Rocky,” starring Sylvester Stallone.

“It puts you on the map and makes your career, so to speak. But that’s a one-off, so you’ve got to follow it up with something. Fortunately those movies kept coming, and Apollo Creed became more and more in people’s consciousness and welcome in their lives, and it was just the right guy at the right time,” he told The Daily Beast in 2017.

Most recently, Weathers has starred in the Disney+ hit “The Mandalorian,” appearing in all three seasons.

“We lost an icon,” former “Predator” co-star Jesse Ventura wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Carl Weathers was a phenomenal talent, a true professional and a dear friend.”

Creed, who appeared in the first four “Rocky” movies, memorably died in the ring of 1984’s “Rocky IV,” going toe-to-toe with the hulking, steroided-using Soviet Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lundgren. Before he entered the ring, James Brown sang “Living in America” with showgirls and Creed popped up on a balcony in a Star-Spangled Banner shorts and waistcoat combo and an Uncle Sam hat, dancing and taunting Drago.

A bloodied Creed collapses in the ring after taking a vicious beating, twitches and is cradled by Rocky as he dies, inevitably setting up a fight between Drago and Rocky. But while Creed is gone, his character’s son, Michael B. Jordan’s Adonis Creed, would lead his own boxing trilogy starting in 2015.

Weathers went on to 1987’s “Predator,” where he flexed his pecs alongside Ventura, Schwarzenegger and a host of others, and 1988’s nouveau blaxploitation flick “Action Jackson,” where he trains his flamethrower on a bad guy and asks, “How do you like your ribs?” before broiling him.

He later added a false wooden hand to play a golf pro for the 1996 comedy classic “Happy Gilmore” opposite Adam Sandler and starred in Dick Wolf’s short-lived spin-off series “Chicago Justice” in 2017 and in Disney’s “The Mandalorian,” earning an Emmy Award nomination in 2021. He also voiced Combat Carl in the “Toy Story” franchise.

Weathers grew up admiring actors such as Woody Strode, whose combination of physique and acting prowess in “Spartacus” made an early impression. Others he idolized included actors Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte and athletes Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali, stars who broke the mold and the color barrier.

“There are so many people that came before me who I admired and whose success I wanted to emulate, and just kind of hit the benchmarks they hit in terms of success, who created a pathway that I’ve been able to walk and find success as a result. And hopefully I can inspire someone else to do good work as well,” he told the Detroit News 2023. “I guess I’m just a lucky guy.”

Growing up in New Orleans, Weathers started performing in plays as early as grade school. In high school, athletics took him down another path but he would reunite with his first love later in life.

Weathers played college football at San Diego State University — he majored in theater — and went on to play for one season in the NFL, for the Oakland Raiders, in 1970.

“When I found football, it was a completely different outlet,” says Weathers told the Detroit News. “It was more about the physicality, although one does feed the other. You needed some smarts because there were playbooks to study and film to study, to learn about the opposition on any given week.”

After the Raiders, he joined the Canadian Football League, playing for two years while finishing up his studies during the offseason at San Francisco State University. He graduated with a B.A. in drama in 1974.

After appearing in several films and TV shows, including “Good Times,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Starsky & Hutch,” as well as fighting Nazis alongside Harrison Ford in “Force 10 From Navarone,” Weathers landed his knockout role — Creed. He told The Hollywood Reporter that his start in the iconic franchise was not auspicious.

He was asked to read with the writer, Stallone, then unknown. Weathers read the scene but felt it didn’t land and so he blurted out: “I could do a lot better if you got me a real actor to work with,” he recalled. “So I just insulted the star of the movie without really knowing it and not intending to.” He also lied that he had any boxing experience.

Later in life, Weathers developed a passion for directing, helming episodes of “Silk Stalkings” and and the Lorenzo Lamas vehicle “Renegade.” He directed a season three episode of “The Mandalorian.”

Weathers introduced himself to another generation when he portrayed himself as an opportunistic and extremely thrifty actor who becomes involved with the dysfunctional clan at the heart of “Arrested Development.”

The Weathers character likes to save money by making broth from discarded food — “There’s still plenty of meat on that bone” and “Baby, you got a stew going!” — and, for the right price, agrees to become an acting coach for delusional and talent-free thespian Tobias Funke, played by David Cross.

Weathers is survived by two sons.

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

NEW YORK (AP) — Chita Rivera, the dynamic dancer, singer and actor who garnered 10 Tony nominations, winning twice, in a long Broadway career that forged a path for Latina artists and shrugged off a near-fatal car accident, died Tuesday. She was 91.

Rivera’s death was announced by her daughter, Lisa Mordente, who said she died in New York after a brief illness.

Rivera first gained wide notice in 1957 as Anita in the original production of “West Side Story” and was still dancing on Broadway with her trademark energy a half-century later in 2015’s “The Visit.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do if I wasn’t moving or telling a story to you or singing a song,” she told The Associated Press then. “That’s the spirit of my life, and I’m really so lucky to be able to do what I love, even at this time in my life.”

In August 2009, Rivera was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the U.S. can give a civilian. Rivera put her hand over her heart and said she shook her head in wonderment as President Barack Obama presented the medal. In 2013, she was the marshal at the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City.

“She was a true Broadway legend,” playwright Paul Rudnick said on X, formerly Twitter. “She always delivered and audiences adored her. The moment she stepped onstage, the world became more exciting and glorious.”

Rivera rose from chorus girl to star, collaborating along the way with many of Broadway’s greatest talents, including Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Michael Kidd, Harold Prince, Jack Cole, Peter Gennaro and John Kander and Fred Ebb.

She rebounded from a car accident in 1988 that crushed her right leg and became an indefatigable star on the road. She was on Broadway in a raucous production of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” in 2012 and the chilly “The Visit” in 2014, earning another best actress Tony nomination.

“She can’t rehearse except for full-out,” said playwright Terrence McNally in 2005. “She can’t perform except for full-out, no matter what the size of the house. She’s going to be there 101% for that audience.”

She won Tonys for “The Rink” in 1984 and “Kiss of the Spider Woman” in 1993. When accepting a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2018, she said “I wouldn’t trade my life in the theater for anything, because theater is life.”

She was nominated for the award seven other times, for “Bye Bye Birdie,” which opened in 1960; “Chicago,” 1975; “Bring Back Birdie,” 1981; “Merlin,” 1983; “Jerry’s Girls,” 1985; “Nine,” 2003; and “Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life,” 2005.

“I don’t think we have enough original musicals,” she told The Associated Press in 2012. “I know I’m being old fashioned, but the theater is the place where music, lyrics, words, scenery and stories come together. And I’ve been blessed enough to have done several shows when they really did. They take you places and they’re daring. That’s what we need.”

Her albums include 16 tracks pulled from her original cast recordings and put out as part of Sony’s Legends of Broadway series and two solo CDs — “And Now I Sing” for a tiny record label in the 1960s and “And Now I Swing” in 2009 for Yellow Sound Label.

“I looked up to you and always will admire you as a talent and mostly as a person!” wrote Kristin Chenoweth on X. “A kick butt woman you were. All the rest of us just wanna be you.”

In the 1993 musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” Rivera played the title role, a glamorous movie star at the center of the fantasy life of an inmate in a South American prison. The story, from a novel by Manuel Puig, had already been made into an Oscar-winning 1985 movie.

In his review, then-Associated Press drama critic Michael Kuchwara wrote that Rivera “is more than a musical theater star. She’s a force of nature — which is exactly what is needed for the role of the Spider Woman. With her Louise Brooks haircut, brassy voice and lithe dancer’s body, Rivera dominates the stage whenever she appears.”

In 1975, she originated the role of Velma Kelly (to Gwen Verdon’s Roxie Hart) in the original Broadway production of “Chicago.” Rivera had a small role in the 2002 film version, while Catherine Zeta-Jones won the best supporting actress Oscar as Velma — just as Rita Moreno had picked up an Oscar for her portrayal of Anita in “West Side Story.”

The songwriters for “Chicago,” Kander and Ebb, also wrote Rivera’s first Tony-winning performance, for “The Rink.” In winning the Tony for best actress in a musical, Rivera topped the show’s top star, Liza Minnelli, who also had been nominated. The two played a mother and daughter who struggle to rebuild their relationship after a long estrangement; the setting is an old-fashioned roller rink that has seen better days.

“Spider Woman” had been her first Broadway show since 1986, when she suffered a broken leg in the traffic accident while she was appearing in “Jerry’s Girls,” a Broadway tribute to the songs of Jerry Herman.

At the Tony awards a few weeks later, she flashed her cast and belted out “Put on a Happy Face” from the musical “Bye, Bye, Birdie.”

It took months of physical therapy to bring back her dancing skills. She told The Associated Press: “It never entered my mind that I wouldn’t dance again. Never. I can’t explain to you why. It’s hard work getting back but that’s what I’m doing.”

“My spirit is still there.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Broadway songwriter and performer, featured Rivera in a scene in his 2021 film adaptation of “Tick, Tick… Boom,” and in a statement said having her included “remains one of the all-time joys of my life.”

Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero was born Jan. 23, 1933, in Washington, D.C. Her Puerto Rican father, Pedro del Rivero, was a musician who played in the United States Navy Band, who died when she was 7. Her mother was of Scottish and Italian descent.

She took dance classes and then entered the prestigious School of American Ballet in New York. Her first theater gig, at age 17, was in the touring company of “Call Me Madam.” That led to chorus stints in such shows as “Guys and Dolls” and “Can-Can.”

In her 2023 memoir, “Chita: A Memoir,” another woman steals scene after scene: her self-proclaimed alter ego, Dolores. Unapologetic and fiery, Dolores was the unfiltered version of Chita and served as motivation in times of self-doubt. In one chapter, Rivera writes that she doesn’t read reviews “or Dolores just might invest in a dozen voodoo dolls.”

“I consist of — and I think we all do — I consist of two people: Dolores and Conchita,” Rivera sain in an interview with the AP that year. “Conchita, she’s the one that has been taking all the glory, you know. She’s been doing all the shows, but Dolores is the one that’s pushed her into it. And she’s been keeping me on track, so I listen to Dolores. I listen to her. She’s growing in my head now as we speak.”

Among other early appearances on the New York stage were roles in “The Shoestring Revue,” 1955; a 1955 musical version of “Seventh Heaven” starring Ricardo Montalban; and “Mr. Wonderful,” a 1956 show starring Sammy Davis Jr.

“I can’t believe that I’ve been given the gift to look back and relive my life,” she told The Associated Press shortly before “The Dancer’s Life” opened on Broadway in late 2005. “It’s about how anybody can do it — if you really believe it, you have the good fortune, you do all the right things and you really work hard.”

Rivera, who had a relationship with the now-deceased Davis, married fellow “West Side Story” performer Tony Mordente in 1957. The marriage ended in divorce. Their daughter, Lisa Mordente, also became a performer who occasionally appeared on Broadway, garnering a Tony nomination in 1982 for “Marlowe.”

Among those honoring Rivera on social media were actor Jason Alexander, who said “she set the bar in every way,” and actor and dancer Debbie Allen, who wrote: “I will miss touching you, but I will forever hear your laughter and hold that baton of power you tossed my way.”

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits