Chuck Berry, Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Dies at 90
Officers responded to Berry's home outside St. Louis on Saturday afternoon and found him unconscious, the St. Charles County police said on Facebook. First responders were unsuccessful in reviving him and pronounced him dead at 1:26 p.m. local time.
One of the first inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Berry wove together beguiling narratives, fusing rhythm and blues with country and western — transfixing the nation.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton called Berry "one of the 20th Century's most influential musicians."
Known for chart-toppers such as "Johnny B Goode," "Roll Over Beethoven" and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," Berry's career rocketed in the 1950s after signing a record deal with Chess Records at the behest of musician Muddy Waters, according to Rolling Stone.
"I made records for people who would buy them. No color, no ethnic, no political — I don't want that, never did," Berry told the New York Times in 2003.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame said in a statement Saturday that Berry "created the rock sound."
"Chuck Berry is rock and roll. The undisputed original poet laureate, he influenced every rock and roll artist after him and every guitarist that ever plugged in," hall of fame President and CEO Greg Harris said in a statement.
"Today, we celebrate his poetry, his artistry and his massive contributions to 20th century culture," Harris said. It's fitting that he was the first person inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Rock and roll as we know it would not exist without him. Hail Hail, Rock and Roll. Hail Hail, Chuck Berry."
Many of the biggest names in rock 'n' roll have cited Berry as an inspiration thanks to his earworm tunes.
John Lennon once said: "If you had tried to try and give rock 'n' roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck 'Berry.'"
The Twitter account run by Lennon's estate was among those paying tribute to the legendary musician Saturday. Beatles drummer Ringo Starr also expressed his condolences: "R I P. And peace and love Chuck Berry Mr. rock 'n' roll music."
Leonard Cohen believed, "all of us are footnotes to the words of Chuck Berry," while Bob Dylan dubbed him the "Shakespeare of rock 'n' roll," Peter Guralnick recalled in Rolling Stone in October 2016.
Berry's signature duck walk was adopted by the likes of admiring bands such as The Who and AC/DC.
Despite mesmerizing the country with his infectious hooks and rhythm, he was temporarily pulled from the spotlight in 1959 when he was arrested for violating the Mann Act by driving an underage girl across state lines from Texas to his native Missouri, according to Biography.com. He spent two years in federal prison.
After his release, Berry worked an assembly line and studied cosmetology, before finding his place in American history with a guitar in his hands and a captain's hat on his head.
Later in life, Berry would serve another prison stint after running into trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, Rolling Stone reported.
But he would always return to the stage, even as he aged, playing shows into his mid-80s.
On his 90th birthday, Berry announced he was releasing his first LP in 38 years, slated to hit stores this year. He dedicated the album to his wife of 68 years, Themetta "Toddy" Berry, whom he is survived by.
Dick Clark Productions Sale to Dalian Wanda Is Dead
Dalian Wanda’s $1 billion purchase of Golden Globes producer Dick Clark Productions is dead, two individuals familiar with the matter told TheWrap.
The deal has fallen apart over problems getting currency out of China — and passing regulatory muster with the Chinese state, the insiders said.
Speculation that Donald Trump’s administration would not approve the deal was not the primary reason for its breakdown, according to both individuals.
Top brass at DCP owner Eldridge Industries still expect the deal to close, however, one insider close to the Todd Boehly-owned company said.
Eldridge Industries declined to comment on the matter. Representatives for Wanda did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
“The Chinese government now has a system in place for evaluating the price being paid,” one of the insiders said of the eyebrow-raising valuation of DCP.
“It was just too high,” the person said, adding that the real reason DCP won’t be leaving its home country is over currency controls.
In early February, TheWrap reported the sale was in jeopardy and that Wanda had not made a final payment to close the acquisition — though an insider at Eldridge Industries told TheWrap all parties expected payment to go through.
Chinese regulators have taken a stricter
approach to the country’s stock markets in recent months after a Wild
West period marred by wild speculation and rollercoaster price swings.
Though increased scrutiny eventually
created a somewhat more stable situation for traders, some big
cross-border Hollywood deals have been tripped up. Wanda acquired
Legendary last January and tried to fold the entity that owned the
production company into its publicly-traded theater chain, Wanda Cinema
Line, but Shenzhen Stock Exchange regulators put the kibosh on that,
expressing concern about the dozens of entities with ownership and
Legendary’s lack of profitability.
Wanda abandoned that attempt in August. News of the defunct deal comes at a time when Eldridge Industries is also attempting to offload its pricey prestige holding The Hollywood Reporter-Billboard.
Sharon Waxman contributed to this report.
Brad Grey's Paramount Exit and Studios in Turmoil
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Paramount's Brad Grey is merely collateral damage in an industry that’s figuring out how to survive.
It’s one of the worst-kept secrets in journalism that most public figures play a role in creating their obituaries. They don’t decide the wording of the stories or even the angles such final assessments take; but prominent people usually grant major newspapers interviews about their lives and careers, often multiple times over the years, and in doing so subtly shape how they’ll be perceived.Such luminaries as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, not to mention local heroes like Steven Spielberg and Meryl Streep, probably have already had conversations with The New York Times and other publications about their work and experiences — exit interviews, as it were, long before their exits ever take place.
Now might be a good time for Paramount CEO Brad Grey to consider such a move. I don’t mean to suggest the 59-year-old’s career is over, but clearly an important part of it is winding down. It would be good to learn what he’s thinking as talks move forward for him to leave the studio, as well as his ideas on the underlying causes, the peculiar way in which an individual’s fortunes brush against those of an entire industry.
Because it's obvious that far more is at play here than one man’s successes and failures. The film business is going through a remarkable upheaval, leaving its workers at a strange intersection where broad trends and personal trajectories collide.
Look around town, and you’ll notice that one major studio executive after another has been sent spinning, like so many skittles scattered by balls larger and faster than any they could ever block.
Amy Pascal, Jim Gianopulos, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Lynton — they’re just a few of the towering figures who’ve left their jobs after years, or are about to do so. And there is no indication that their successors will last as long.
There was a time when you could measure studio eras by the people who ruled them: There was the age of MGM’s Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer; the age of Universal’s Lew Wasserman and Sidney Sheinberg; the age of Warners’ Bob Daly and Terry Semel. Not any more. Executives’ careers are briefer now, and they’re likely to become briefer still.
Forget three strikes and you’re out; these days, a studio chief is lucky to get to bat. As technology shifts at the speed of light, Hollywood will be forced to shift just as fast. We’re not passing from one age to another; we’re entering a time of perpetual change. How odd that this most capitalist of industries might be America’s foremost exemplar of permanent revolution.
***
That’s been apparent in film for some time, where flux and fluidity have replaced stability and security. Fox, Warners, Sony and Paramount have all gone through rounds of musical chairs, and you can bet more will follow. Now it’s Paramount’s turn. With Rob Moore and Philippe Dauman having been given their walking papers, it was inevitable Grey would follow. All that remains to be seen is when, where and how he finally says goodbye.
The last time I can recall such turmoil was in the mid-1990s, when a host of people moved in and out of top jobs. But that was easier to explain. Back then, you could boil it down to one fundamental cause: the death of Frank Wells. When the Disney president died in a 1994 helicopter crash, his death unleashed a struggle for power. Michael Ovitz stepped in and Katzenberg stepped out, the former to resign within a year, the latter to create DreamWorks.
Looking back, subterranean shifts were also taking place in the business that nobody really understood: If Hollywood had been dominated by production people, it was now being dominated by the dealmakers — hence Ovitz and Ron Meyer (previously the founders of CAA) became the kings of this new country.
Still, the turbulence of the 1990s was mainly the result of one man’s death, while the current chaos seems to be caused by something far greater. The movement we’re seeing at the top isn’t so much about any individual’s performance as it is about an industry struggling to survive.
Profits are less than they should be, given the growing worldwide population and all the new technologies providing ways to reach it. Instead of riding the wave of change, most executives are drowning beneath it. Rather than chart a new course, they’ve kept doing things the old-fashioned way, following the truism that bigger means better. But bigger can also mean a quick way to go bust.
Rivals long to emulate Disney’s Robert Iger, who’s bet his empire on branded product from the likes of Marvel, Pixar, Disney Animation and Lucasfilm (as well as in-house product developed by production president Sean Bailey). But Iger benefits from Disney’s toy stores, theme parks and TV channels, while most of the other studios can only pray for that kind of pipeline.
Without such outlets, their way forward is unclear. Go small, and there’s the risk of being dwarfed by the competition; go big, and there’s the danger of toppling over altogether.
One day, we may have a clearer take on all this. We may smile fondly at the executives trying to navigate their way to success, just as we do at the silent screen honchos who refused to come to terms with the impact of sound. But for now, it’s all murky. The future is hidden, the present hard to understand.
Given this, Grey did well to last as long as he did. Now he’s collateral damage in an industry that’s in the midst of a revolution — and as we all know, revolutions have an awful tendency to chop off monarchs’ heads.
For more Galloway on Film, please check the archive.
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