Month: August 2022

Serena Williams says she is ready to step away from tennis after winning 23 Grand Slam titles, turning her focus to having another child and her business interests.

“I’m turning 41 this month, and something’s got to give,” Williams wrote in an essay released Tuesday by Vogue magazine.

Williams said she does not like the word retirement and prefers to think of this stage of her life as “evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”

Williams is playing this week in Toronto, at a hard-court tournament that leads into the U.S. Open, the year’s last Grand Slam event, which begins in New York on Aug. 29.

The American has won more Grand Slam singles titles in the professional era than any other woman or man. Only one player, Margaret Court, collected more, 24, although she won a portion of hers in the amateur era. 
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Singer Olivia Newton-John, who gained worldwide fame as the high school sweetheart Sandy in the hit movie “Grease,” died Monday after a 30-year battle with cancer. She was 73. 

Newton-John “passed away peacefully at her ranch in Southern California this morning, surrounded by family and friends,” said a statement from her husband John Easterling posted on her official social media accounts. 

The entertainer, whose career spanned more than five decades, devoted much of her time and celebrity to charities after first being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. 

The British-born and Australian-raised star dedicated a number of albums and concerts to raise funds for research and early detection of the disease, including the construction of a health center named after her in her adopted home of Melbourne.  

“I don’t like to say ‘battled,'” a defiant Newton-John told Australia’s Channel Seven TV in September 2018, after revealing she had been diagnosed with cancer for a third time.  

“I like to say ‘win over,’ because ‘battled’ sets up this anger and inflammation that you don’t want.” 

‘You’re the one that I want’ 

Newton-John is best-known for starring in the 1978 musical “Grease” alongside John Travolta, as the-girl-next-door Sandy, who trades her ankle-length skirt and prim and proper hair for skin-tight black pants and a perm. 

The high school sweetheart-turned-bad girl resonated with audiences worldwide and continues to capture hearts decades after the movie was released.  

“Making it was fun, but you never know with movies if audiences are going to go with it or not, even if you love it,” she said in a Forbes interview in 2018.  

“It is incredible that it is still going but it’s not even just that, it’s showing no signs of stopping. You say ‘Sandy and Danny’ and people instantly know what you’re talking about.” 

“Grease” remained the highest-grossing musical for three decades, with Newton-John and Travolta maintaining a close relationship long after the film was made. 

“She was my favorite thing about doing ‘Grease,'” Travolta said in an interview to mark the film’s 40 anniversary in 2018. 

There was no one else “in the universe” who could play Sandy, he said of Newton-John, who turned 29 during the making of Grease and later revealed she had to be convinced by Travolta to take up the role after self-doubts that she was too old to play a teenager.  

“If you were a young man in the 70s … if you remember that album cover with Olivia with that blue shirt on, with those big blue eyes staring at you,” Travolta recalled.  

“Every boy’s, every man’s dream was: ‘oh, I would love for that girl to be my girlfriend.'” 

Her career would span from singer and actor to author and philanthropist in the coming decades, with her passion for cancer research at the forefront, championing natural therapies, including medicinal cannabis in the treatment of cancer. 

She performed into her late 60s, until her latest diagnosis, including a two-year residency in Vegas, a 2015 tour with Australian music legend John Farnham and even recording a Club Dance track at 67 with her daughter Chloe Lattanzi. 

“I have done everything, and the icing on the cake as well,” she said, reflecting on her career.  

“So I feel grateful for anything that happens now.” 

 
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A London museum agreed Sunday to return a collection of Benin Bronzes looted in the late 19th century from what is now Nigeria as cultural institutions throughout Britain come under pressure to repatriate artifacts acquired during the colonial era. 

The Horniman Museum and Gardens in southeast London said that it would transfer a collection of 72 items to the Nigerian government. The decision comes after Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments formally asked for the artifacts to be returned earlier this year and following a consultation with community members, artists and schoolchildren in Nigeria and the U.K., the museum said. 

“The evidence is very clear that these objects were acquired through force, and external consultation supported our view that it is both moral and appropriate to return their ownership to Nigeria,” Eve Salomon, chair of the museum’s board of trustees, said in a statement. “The Horniman is pleased to be able to take this step, and we look forward to working with the NCMM to secure longer term care for these precious artifacts.” 

The Horniman’s collection is a small part of the 3,000 to 5,000 artifacts taken from the Kingdom of Benin in 1897 when British soldiers attacked and occupied Benin City as Britain expanded its political and commercial influence in West Africa. The British Museum alone holds more than 900 objects from Benin, and National Museums Scotland has another 74. Others were distributed to museums around the world. 

The artifacts include plaques, animal and human figures, and items of royal regalia made from brass and bronze by artists working for the royal court of Benin. The general term Benin Bronzes is sometimes applied to items made from ivory, coral, wood and other materials as well as the metal sculptures. 

Increasing demand for returns

Countries including Nigeria, Egypt and Greece, as well indigenous peoples from North America to Australia, are increasingly demanding the return of artifacts and human remains amid a global reassessment of colonialism and the exploitation of local populations. 

Nigeria and Germany recently signed a deal for the return of hundreds of Benin Bronzes. That followed French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision last year to sign over 26 pieces known as the Abomey Treasures, priceless artworks of the 19th century Dahomey kingdom in present-day Benin, a small country that sits just west of Nigeria. 

But British institutions have been slower to respond. 

Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Information and Culture formally asked the British Museum to return its Benin Bronzes in October of last year. 

The museum said Sunday that it is working with a number of partners in Nigeria and it is committed to a “thorough and open investigation” of the history of the Benin artifacts and the looting of Benin City. 

“The museum is committed to active engagement with Nigerian institutions concerning the Benin Bronzes, including pursuing and supporting new initiatives developed in collaboration with Nigerian partners and colleagues,” the British Museum says on its website. 

BLM inspires museum to ‘reset’

The Horniman Museum also traces its roots to the Age of Empire. 

The museum opened in 1890, when tea merchant Frederick Horniman opened his collection of artifacts from around the world for public viewing. 

Amid the Black Lives Matter movement, the museum embarked on a “reset agenda,” that sought to “address long-standing issues of racism and discrimination within our history and collections, and a determination to set ourselves on a more sustainable course for the future.” 

The museum’s website acknowledges that Frederick Horniman’s involvement in the Chinese tea trade meant he benefitted from low prices due to Britain’s sale of opium in China and the use of poorly compensated and sometimes forced labor. 

The Horniman also recognizes that it holds items “obtained through colonial violence.” 

These include the Horniman’s collection of Benin Bronzes, comprising 12 brass plaques, as well as a brass cockerel altar piece, ivory and brass ceremonial objects, brass bells and a key to the king’s palace. The bronzes are currently displayed along with information acknowledging their forced removal from Benin City and their contested status. 

“We recognize that we are at the beginning of a journey to be more inclusive in our stories and our practices, and there is much more we need to do,” the museum says on its website. “This includes reviewing the future of collections that were taken by force or in unequal transactions.” 
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Nigerian artist Isaac Ekele is part of an exhibition of portraiture in the Western U.S. state of Colorado. VOA’s Scott Stearns reports on his hyper-realistic drawings.
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The Spanish government maybe had a good idea, but the execution of the body positivity campaign has gone horribly wrong. 

The idea was to encourage women to come out and enjoy the beaches – without any worries about how they looked in their swimsuits.

But three of the five women whose photographs were used in the campaign said they had not given permission for the images to be used. 

Arte Mapache the campaign’s creator, has apologized for failing to obtain permission to use the images.  

“Given the – justified – controversy over the image rights in the illustration, I have decided that the best way to make amends for the damages that may have resulted from my actions is to share out the money I received for the work and give equal parts to the people in the poster,” the artist said.

Two of the women in the campaign’s artwork are professional models.  One has a prosthetic leg that was airbrushed out of the campaign artwork. 

Sian Green-Lord told The Guardian, “It’s one thing using my image without my permission, but it’s another thing editing my body, my body with my prosthetic leg … I don’t even know what to say but it’s beyond wrong.”

Juliet FitzPatrick, a cancer survivor, told the BBC that the face of a woman who had a mastectomy may be based on a photograph of her.  However, while the woman in the Spanish government photo has had a single mastectomy, FitzPatrick had a double mastectomy. 

She told the BBC that using her likeness without her permission “seems to be totally against” the theme of the campaign.  “For me it is about how my body has been used and represented without my permission.”

British photographer Ami Barwell who had taken photos of Fitzpatrick told the BBC that she believes Fitzpatrick’s photo was a composite of photos that she had taken of Fitzpatrick and another woman.  

Barwell told the BBC, “I think that the person who created the art has gone through my gallery and pieced them together.” 

Another model, Nyome Nicholas-Williams, who wears a gold bikini in the photo, said her image was taken from her Instagram account without her permission. 
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Pat Carroll, a comedic television mainstay for decades, an Emmy-winner for “Caesar’s Hour” and the voice Ursula in “The Little Mermaid,” has died. She was 95. 

Her daughter Kerry Karsian, a casting agent, said Carroll died at her home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on Saturday. Her other daughter Tara Karsian wrote on Instagram that they want everyone to “honor her by having a raucous laugh at absolutely anything today (and everyday forward) because besides her brilliant talent and love, she leaves my sister Kerry and I with the greatest gift of all, imbuing us with humor and the ability to laugh…even in the saddest of times.” 

Carroll was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1927. Her family relocated to Los Angeles when she was 5 years old. Her first film role came in 1948 in “Hometown Girl,” but she found her stride in television.

She won an Emmy for her work on the sketch comedy series “Caesar’s Hour” in 1956, was a regular on “Make Room for Daddy” with Danny Thomas, a guest star on “The DuPont Show with June Allyson” and a variety show regular stopping by “The Danny Kaye Show,” “The Red Skelton Show” and “The Carol Burnett Show.” 

Carroll also played one of the wicked stepsisters in the 1965 television production of “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella” with Lesley Ann Warren. 

In addition, she also played one of the wicked stepsisters in the 1965 television production of “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella” with Lesley Ann Warren. Plus, she won a Grammy in 1980 for the recording of her one-woman show “Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein.” 

A new generation would come to know and love Carroll’s voice thanks to Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” which came out in 1989. She was not the first choice of directors Ron Clements and John Musker or the musical team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who reportedly wanted Joan Collins or Bea Arthur to voice the sea witch. Elaine Stritch was even cast originally before Carroll got to audition. And her throaty rendition of “Poor Unfortunate Souls” would make her one of Disney’s most memorable villains. 

Carroll would often say that Ursula was one of her favorite roles. She said she saw her as an “Ex-Shakespearean actress who now sold cars.” 

“She’s a mean old thing! I think people are fascinated by mean characters,” Carroll said in an interview. “There’s a fatal kind of distraction about the horrible mean characters of the world because we don’t meet too many of them in real life. So when we have a chance, theatrically, to see one and this one, she’s a biggie, it’s kind of fascinating for us.” 

She got the chance to reprise the role in several “Little Mermaid” sequels, spinoffs and even theme park rides. 

Carroll was also the voice of Granny in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro.”
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