Hollywood How To

Harrison Ford released from hospital following plane crash

BY Elizabeth Vanmetre
Harrison Ford has reportedly been released from the hospital following his plane crash on March 5.

The actor, 72, was seen driving in Los Angeles on Saturday, a source tells People.

Ford was rushed to UCLA Medical Center with critical injuries after he crashed a vintage plane on a southern California golf course following a loss of engine power.

"There was a lot of blood on his face and his body, and none of us had gloves to take care of this person. We were just doing our best to make sure he was all right," Dr. Sanjay Khurana, a doctor who happened to be on the scene, said.

The "Star Wars" actor was left with broken bones, which reportedly required him to have surgery.

NBC News' boss faces challenge fixing MSNBC

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Television Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- As he returns to run the NBC News Group, Andy Lack faces one of the same puzzles he tried to solve a decade and a half ago: how to make MSNBC work.

While he was gone, MSNBC changed from traditional news to a political network with a liberal lens.

Now that it is mired in a ratings slump, Lack's mandate as chairman will be figuring out if MSNBC needs a complete overhaul or a sharpening of its mission.

The current picture is seriously ugly. Through early March, Chris Hayes' viewership at 8 p.m. on weekdays was down 23 percent from last year, Rachel Maddow was off 24 percent and Lawrence O'Donnell down 26 percent. Among the 25-to-54-year-old demographic that is the basis for advertising sales, the prime-time lineup lost nearly half its audience. Daytime isn't much better.

Fatigue is natural for fans of any presidential administration in its sixth year, and liberals are traditionally less loyal to political talk media than conservatives.

"Like political groups that raise money, they do better when they have something to rail against," said Mark Feldstein, veteran television journalist and professor at the University of Maryland.

Phil Griffin, MSNBC president, has lately sought to broaden MSNBC's outlook by taking on a greater variety of stories, even hiring a food correspondent, and there's been some uptick in the ratings the past few weeks. He changed the daytime lineup, ditching opinionated programs hosted by Ronan Farrow and Joy-Ann Reid and establishing a news-focused bloc with Jose Diaz-Balart, Andrea Mitchell and Thomas Roberts.

Griffin has run MSNBC since 2006. Normally, executives at networks with his ratings are looking for another job, especially with a new boss coming in. But he and Lack have a long relationship, and Griffin has credited Lack with kick-starting his career by assigning him to supervise NBC News coverage of the O.J. Simpson case.

The shift in focus during the day has led some fans to fear MSNBC may abandon its liberal focus altogether.

That's very unlikely. Despite the ratings, analyst SNL Kagan predicts MSNBC will earn $509 million in revenue this year. While that's below Fox News Channel ($2.18 billion) and CNN ($1.16 billion), that would still be slightly up from $501 million in 2014, Kagan said.

The financial health is largely due to long-term deals with cable and satellite operators to carry MSNBC, made when the network sold itself as a counterbalance to Fox News, said Derek Baine, Kagan analyst. Bad ratings depress advertising prices, and while they would hurt MSNBC's future if they persist, the advertising is not as important as the carriage deals.

Considering Lack spent much of his first go-round at NBC News struggling to find an identity for MSNBC, the idea of searching for a new one is no doubt unappealing.

Shifting to straight news would be even harder because MSNBC is no longer seen as a primary news source. Its viewership doesn't go up much during big news events, certainly not like CNN and Fox.

While conservatives like getting news from Fox, liberals don't feel the same way about MSNBC. A Quinnipiac University poll of 1,286 registered voters a month ago found 29 percent of people said Fox was their most trusted news source, compared to 7 percent for MSNBC. Even among Democrats, more than twice as many people said they trusted CNN more for news than MSNBC.

To many fans, MSNBC's weakness isn't that it's liberal. It's that the network is boring.

"The solution is not that `we need more news' or that `we need to alter the political viewpoint,' but what does the content of the shows look like," said Keith Olbermann, former MSNBC prime-time host. "Do not be afraid to make good television. And in Rachel, Phil Griffin, and Andy Lack, they've got three people in place who've already done that there."

Olbermann single-handedly lurched MSNBC to the left during President George W. Bush's second term when his angry commentary attracted a loyal audience. He had the passion, Maddow the quietly analytical mind and together they formed a potent one-two punch.

After Olbermann left, MSNBC set about modeling its lineup after Maddow, its Rhodes scholar and highest-rated personality.

Liberal in outlook, MSNBC's programming approach is often conservative. Watching MSNBC can feel like a hidden camera picking up a discussion in the faculty lounge. Fox viewers often feel like they've stumbled upon a street brawl.

Setting politics aside, which is more fun to watch?

Many liberals feel MSNBC reflexively defends President Barack Obama when it could be challenging him, said Jeff Cohen, a former MSNBC producer and now an Ithaca College professor.

The network needs more energy and independence, he said.

Olbermann said the network needs an infusion of new ideas and new blood. Lack's skill is in spotting and managing talent, often from unexpected places, "and I am the largest example of that," he said.

Feldstein said it would be unwise for MSNBC to throw away an identity built up over a decade, certainly not with a presidential election year looming.

"I think Lack will tinker with MSNBC," he said. "He'll bring in new hosts, he'll try to punch it up. He'll add a bit more charisma and maybe a little bit more substance, wait for 2016 to bring the numbers up and declare victory."

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Follow David Bauder at twitter.com/dbauder. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/david-bauder

NBC reviving Coach with Craig T. Nelson

Everett Collection

NBC is putting Coach back in the game.

The broadcaster is reviving the 1990s sitcom with original series star Craig T. Nelson.

We’re told this not a reboot, but a sequel to the comedy series that ran for nine seasons on ABC from 1989 to 1997.

The pitch: “Coach Hayden Fox, in the present day, has retired from coaching. He is called back to become assistant coach to his own grown son, who is the new head coach at an Ivy league school in Pennsylvania that is just starting up a new team.”

NBC has ordered 13 episodes, which will be shot in the traditional “multi-cam” sitcom production style. There’s no other cast yet, so it’s unclear if any of the other actors from the original series will return. Barry Kemp, the original creator of Coach, will write and executive produce.

The move keeps Nelson in the NBC family now that his series Parenthood is coming to a close and represents the latest move by a TV network to dive into the recycling bin for buzzworthy content – like how NBC is reviving Heroes with Heroes Reborn, Showtime is bringing back Twin Peaks and Fox is re-opening The X-Files.

While NBC has demonstrated more rating strength in recent years thanks to The Blacklist and The Voice, it has struggled to find new break-out comedies. Other attempts at yesteryear sitcom nostalgia, such as titles starring Michael J. Fox (The Michael J. Fox Show) and Sean Hayes (Sean Saves the World), didn’t work out. But perhaps viewers will take a time out for Coach?

How Hollywood Legend Dale Dye Earned The Bronze Star For Heroism In Vietnam

by Paul Szoldra
Dale Dye is a veteran of the Vietnam war, accomplished actor, author, and entrepreneur, but most of the filmmaking world knows him as Hollywood’s drill sergeant.

After serving in Vietnam as an infantryman and a combat correspondent, Dye came to Los Angeles with the idea of bringing more realism to Hollywood films. Despite the door being shut in his face plenty of times, his persistence paid off when Oliver Stone took him on as a military technical advisor for “Platoon.”

That film jumpstarted Dye’s Hollywood career. But before he became the legendary technical advisor that helped shape everything from “Born on the Fourth of July” to “Saving Private Ryan,”

Dye, 70, served three tours as a Marine on the ground in Vietnam; a three-time recipient of the Purple Heart and recipient of the Bronze Star (with combat “V”) award for heroism, in fact.

I tried to Google my way to how he earned the Bronze Star award with little results. As far as I know, the story is not known to the general public. So I decided to ask him in an interview at his home, north of Hollywood. This is what he told me.

“I had made it through Hue, in Tet of ‘68, and I’d been hit in the hand. Just about blew my thumb off here and I got a piece of shrapnel up under my chin, and I was in the rear. And a unit that I had been traveling with — 2nd Battalion 3rd Marines — they called it rent-a-battalion because it was constantly OPCON/ADCON to various things, and they were really hot, hot grunts.

I mean these were good guys. And so I heard that they were going on this operation, and I knew all the guys, you know the 3rd Platoon of Echo Co. was my home. And so, I said I well I’m going. They said ‘ah you’re not ready for field yet.’ I said ‘yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m going.’

Marines fighting in Hue City. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

So I packed my shit and off I went. And I joined up with Echo Co. 2/3 … and we were involved in a thing called Operation Ford and it was either March, I guess March, of ‘68 and the idea was that there had been a bunch of [North Vietnamese Army] that had escaped south of Hue, or been cut off when they were trying to reinforce Hue. They had moved south of Hue along this long spit of sand — I think it was battalion-strength — and they had dug in there according to reconnaissance guys who had been in the area, and they were waiting for ships or boats to come down from North Vietnam and pick them up and evacuate them and get them out of there.

So the idea was that 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines was going to be sent in and we were going to sweep, I think north to south along the perimeter along that peninsula. And then there were guys who were gonna block in the south — another battalion, I think. And so we started walking — spread out as you usually are — and hadn’t really run into much. We were running through a few [villages] and sweeping them and taking a look, and then we started hitting boobytraps. And these were pretty bad because they were standard frag in a can — fragmentation hand grenade inside a C-ration can tied to a tree, pin-pulled, fishing line attached across the trail — you hit the fishing line, it pulls the frag out, spoon pops and the frag goes. Or we were hitting 105mm Howitzer rounds that were buried. So we got a few guys chewed up pretty bad.

And there was this one guy named Wilson who was walking maybe two or three ahead of me, and he should have known better than to go through this hedgerow. But I guess squad leaders were pushing us on or something like that, [and] Wilson went through the hedgerow and he hit a frag. Frag dropped right below his feet and blew up. So everybody was down and I could see what happened, so I ran up to see if I could help Wilson out. He had multiple frag all over him. It blew his crotch out, blew his chest out, and he had holes all over his face where the shrapnel had come up this way so I got a Corpsman up and we went to work on trying to save him. You had to play him like a flute. We tried to close his chest — and in those days we didn’t have all the medical gear, the QuikClot and all that sort of thing — we just did it with an old radio battery [and] piece of cellophane we got off it and closed his chest.

And we tried to breathe into him, but you had to play him like a piccolo, because the sinuses had shrapnel holes and you had to stick your fingers in there to make sure he didn’t leak air. Anyway, we kept him alive until they got a helicopter to come in and we got him out. He died on the way back to Danang. But they had noticed me go up and see what I could do for this guy.

So we continued to march and then we got hit really, really hard in the flank. And for some reason, I was out on the flank that got hit. And I was walking around by a machine gunner, name of Beebe, Darryl Beebe, Lance Corporal, and he had the M-60. And so they hit us really hard.

The third platoon commander, Lt. “Wild” Bill Tehan, ordered the platoon to pull back to this line of sand dunes where we had some cover from the fire. Beebe and I couldn’t get back. We were just trapped out there. And they started hitting us with grenades and 60mm mortars, and we couldn’t move. We couldn’t get back and we couldn’t go forward. And Beebe’s [assistant] gunner got killed, and he had ammo, maybe 20 meters up to the side. And I crawled over and got all his ammo and then crawled back to Beebe and started loading the gun. Off we went, and we just ripped them up. We tore into these bunkers that were taking us under fire. And Hell, I even pulled out my pistol and went to work. I mean we fired everything we had, threw every grenade we had.

Soldiers firing the M-60 in Vietnam (Photo: US Army)

We must have hurt them. I know we hurt them because I killed two or three that I saw get up and go and I shot at them and down they went. So I guess we suppressed enough fire where we could pull back and we pulled back. And at that point, I think it was mortars or 81s or the 105 battery that was supporting us, I don’t remember what. Anyway, they hit the bunker complex. And Tehan went up and he looked and we killed a bunch of them. The machine gun, the single machine gun had just killed a bunch of them.

And so I guess they marked me down as number two guy, having done two good things.

And then we got hit again, I think it was the next day. We had moved on, and we got hit again, and a corpsman and a couple of other people got hit. And I went up and pulled them out of the line of fire, and treated the corpsman. It was a very embarrassing thing because the corpsman was a guy by the name of Doc Fred Geise and I knew him real well. But he’d taken one in through the chest and I saw him go down, so I dropped my pack and went running up to him and they were firing all over me and one NVA that I didn’t even see, dumped a frag that hit right behind me. And boom it went off, and the next thing I knew, I was airborne. And I could feel stuff running down my legs. And I said, ‘ah, shit, I’m hurt.’ But I didn’t feel anything in particular, just dazed, you know the bell rung. And it was my canteen. That frag had blown out the bottom of both of my canteens, so I had water all over me.

Anyway, so I got up to Fred, and he had one through and through. And so, he was working on a guy who had taken one in the upper arm, broke the bone and I fixed him up the best I could then I got to Geise but there wasn’t much I could do. I stuffed the gauze in the entry wound, and wrapped it up the best I could — I was just winging it — what I could remember from first aid.

And he carried morphine syrettes. They look like those little tubes of toothpaste you get in a travel kit. And they have a plastic — they look like a little tube of Colgate — a plastic cover on the needle. And the needle has a loop in it, so you bite or pull the plastic off and break the seal with that little loop, throw that away, then you hit them in a muscle and inject that amount of morphine. I knew that.

Photo: WW2 US Medical Research Centre

But there was fire coming at me. I was working literally on my belly because the crap was just cutting right through us. And rounds were hitting so close they were just blowing dirt all over us.

Mud and water and all that sort of thing. But I tried to stay focused and get Doc Geise injected with morphine.

Well I pulled the plastic off the morphine syrette and I hit him three or four times in the thigh, you know trying to squeeze this morphine in. It wouldn’t go. And I couldn’t figure out — you know the poor guy’s thigh is worse than the gunshot wound — like a pin cushion. And I finally figured it out, ‘oh shit, I forgot to break the seal,’ so I break the seal and finally get morphine in him. But oh, God.

He was saying, ‘Dye, you asshole, you idiot,’ you know. And I’m just, ‘sorry, Doc.’

So anyway, we had a bad night that night because they had moved out of their fortified positions and they were trying to break through us. And we had a pretty serious fight that night.

I think that was the first and only time I burned through every round of ammunition I had and then also borrowed a bunch of ammunition. And in fact, we had a bunch of medevacs that had been taken out on amtracs, and the company gunny had kept their weapons. And so we were over there scavenging all night, getting loaded magazines. We only had the 20-round magazines at that point for the M-16, and a lot of 16s were going down. You know, they were not the best piece of gear we ever had.

So anyway, then we went on ahead and we had another three or four days with four or five sharp fights but nothing as spectacular. And we got to the rear, and I said well okay, I’ve got to go here. I’m going to go somewhere where I can go through my notebooks, and I had a little story about the corpsman, and I had a little story about this guy, and a little story about Beebe and the machine gun, and so on and I realized, a lot of that involved me, which I wasn’t real happy about, you know, mentioning my part in it.

Marines with Company G, 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, direct a concentration of fire at the enemy during Operation Allen Brook, 8 May 1968. (Official Marine Corps Photo)

But Lt. Tehan and the company commander really decided that I had done something spectacular, or out of the ordinary, let me put it that way.

And so they got Simmons and Beebe and Lt. Tehan and three or four other guys to write a statement that said this is what Sgt. Dye did. And the next thing I knew, my captain called me in and said ‘I hope you got a clean uniform and some boots that aren’t completely white,’ and I said, ‘oh no sir, I don’t.’ He said ‘well we’re getting you some because the general is going to pin a Bronze Star on you and that’s the first thing I ever heard about it. First time I ever heard that, you know. But that’s the story.”

Photo: Paul Szoldra/WATM

Here is the full citation for the award, which Dye received on Sep. 9, 1968:

For heroic achievement in connection with operations against insurgent communist (Viet Cong) forces in the Republic of Vietnam while serving as a Combat Correspondent with the Informational Services Office, First Marine Division. On 14 March 1968, during Operation Ford, Sergeant Dye was attached to Company E, Second Battalion, Third Marines when an enemy explosive device was detonated, seriously wounding a Marine. Reacting instantly, he moved forward through the hazardous area and skillfully administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the injured man. A short time later, the unit came under intense hostile fire which wounded two Marines. Disregarding his own safety, Sergeant Dye fearlessly ran across the fire-swept terrain and rendered first aid to the injured men while assisting them to covered positions.

On 18 March 1968, Sergeant Dye again boldly exposed himself to intense enemy fire as he maneuvered forward to replace an assistant machine-gunner who had been wounded.

Undaunted by the hostile fire impacting around him, he skillfully assisted in delivering a heavy volume of effective fire upon the enemy emplacements. Ignoring his painful injury, he steadfastly refused medical treatment, continuing to assist the machine gunner throughout the night.

His heroic and timely actions were an inspiration to all who observed him and contributed significantly to the accomplishment of his unit’s mission. Sergeant Dye’s courage, sincere concern for the welfare of his comrades and steadfast devotion to duty in the face of great personal danger were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.

Sergeant Dye is authorized to wear the Combat “V”.
For The President,
H.W. Buse, Jr.
Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps
Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific

Steppenwolf Theatre Company's Gala 2015 honors Martha Lavey and features Gary Sinise and his Lt. Dan Band

Gary Sinise and his Lt. Dan Band will perform at Steppenwolf's Gala 2015

By Candace Jordan

Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s world-renowned ensemble will join more than 600 members of Chicago’s corporate, civic and cultural communities for Gala 2015 on Saturday, May 9, at Steppenwolf, 1650 N Halsted St. The Gala will offer guests a unique opportunity to connect with Steppenwolf ensemble members in their artistic home while enjoying a preview of upcoming productions, cocktails, a gourmet dinner, auction, music and dancing with Steppenwolf co-founder Gary Sinise and his Lt. Dan Band!

Gala 2015, co-chaired by Eileen and Christopher Murphy and Rhonda and Scott Swanson, will begin with a special tribute to Martha Lavey in celebration of her leadership as Artistic Director of Steppenwolf for the last 20 years. Following the tribute, guests will view an exclusive showcase of scenes from Steppenwolf’s U.S. premiere production of The Herd by Rory Kinnear, directed by ensemble member Frank Galati and featuring ensemble members Francis Guinan, John Mahoney, Molly Regan and Lois Smith.

Following cocktails and performance, guests will make their way to a theatrically-designed tent created by Event Creative to enjoy a gourmet dinner and the annual live auction featuring once-in-a-lifetime adventures with Steppenwolf ensemble members and artists.

The evening wraps up with dancing and live music by Gary Sinise and his Lt. Dan Band and a late night DJ set. (And believe me, no one leaves this party early!)

For tickets and more info, click here!

Film director Randall Miller is jailed after ‘Midnight Rider’ ruling

By Iain Alexander

‘Midnight Rider’ director Randall Miller will serve time in prison following a ruling by Georgia’s Superior Court over the death of Sarah Jones.

Miller pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespass as part of a plea deal Monday. The director will spend 2 years in jail followed by 8 years of probation.

Miller is also banned from directing any motion pictures for 10 years.

Executive Producer Jay Sedrish was also sentenced to 10 years of probation and is banned from working in any supervisory roles on film productions for a decade.

Miller is the first crew member on ‘Midnight Rider’ to be sentenced to jail, and the announcement comes after a long legal battle following the tragic on-set death of Sarah Jones, who was run over by a freight train while shooting a scene for the movie.

Miller will also have to carry out 15 days of community service (360 hours) as part of his sentence and pay a $25,000 fine.

It was only recently that a crew member was killed in the pre-production of Martin Scorcese’s latest film, while renowned fitness guru Greg Plitt was killed after being hit by a train in LA.

Before this year’s Oscars, film crews around the world held a minute of silence to remember Sarah Jones, and to remind others how important it is for them to follow correct safety protocols.

On-set safety has been a top priority since Sarah Jones’ death, but with a string of high profile incidents in the past few months resulting in crew casualties, the film industry still has to do more to minimize risks and educate people on best practices.

"The X-Files" Returning to TV as 6-Epsiode Limited Series

By Chris Harnick

David Duchovny, left, and Gillian Anderson are shown in a scene from, "The X-Files: I Want to Believe."

The truth is still out there and "The X-Files" is back to expose it.

That's right, it's official: David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are suiting up once again as Mulder and Scully 13 years after the series ended for a new season of the Fox franchise. Mulder will yell "Scully!" once again on your television and Scully will exclaim "Oh my god" and everything will be right in the TV world.

Series creator Chris Carter is on board to helm the "six episode event series," Fox officially announced.

"I think of it as a 13-year commercial break," Carter said in a statement. "The good news is the world has only gotten that much stranger, a perfect time to tell these six stories."

The series is set to begin production this summer with a premiere date to be determined.

"We had the privilege of working with Chris on all nine seasons of 'The X-Files'—one of the most rewarding creative experiences of our careers—and we couldn't be more excited to explore that incredible world with him again," Fox's Gary Newman and Dana Walden said in a statement. "'The X-Files' was not only a seminal show for both the studio and the network, it was a worldwide phenomenon that shaped pop culture—yet remained a true gem for the legions of fans who embraced it from the beginning. Few shows on television have drawn such dedicated fans as 'The X-Files,' and we're ecstatic to give them the next thrilling chapter of Mulder and Scully they've been waiting for."

Chatter of an "X-Files" revival started gaining steam in early 2015 when Fox bosses confirmed they had started conversations about bringing back the beloved series that ran for nine seasons from 1993-2002 and spawned two movies.

"If this happens, it will be with David and Gillian reprising their roles. Chris is interested, both David and Gillian are interested. Scheduling it is very different," Gary Newman told press at TCA. "David has his shows and Gillian is doing something in the UK, so it's a little hard. I really don't know how fast it can happen because of that. But there are ongoing conversations happening."