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    The Sunday Read: ‘The Blind Side’ Made Him Famous. But He Has a Different Story to Tell.

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    Emma Kehlbeck and Maddy Masiello and Listen and follow ‘The Daily’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadioIt was an overcast Monday afternoon in late April, and Michael Oher, the former football player whose high school years were dramatized in the movie “The Blind Side,” was driving Michael Sokolove on a tour through a forlorn-looking stretch of Memphis and past some of the landmarks of his childhood.In the movie, Oher moves into the home of the wealthy white couple Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy. They take him shopping for clothes, help him obtain a driver’s license, buy him a pickup truck and arrange for tutoring that helps improve his grades and makes him eligible to play college football. In real life, Oher went on to play eight seasons as a starting offensive tackle in the N.F.L. and won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens.Now, Oher is suing the Tuohys, claiming that they have exploited him by using his name, image and likeness to promote speaking engagements that have earned them roughly $8 million over the last two decades — and by repeatedly saying that they adopted him when they never did.There are a lot of ways to listen to “The Daily.” Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on X: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with ”The Daily,” write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, Frannie Carr Toth and Krish Seenivasan. More

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      Gena Rowlands, Actress Who Brought Raw Drama to Her Roles, Dies at 94

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      Gena Rowlands, the intense, elegant dramatic actress who, often in collaboration with her husband, John Cassavetes, starred in a series of introspective independent films, has died. She was 94.The death was confirmed by the office of Daniel Greenberg, a representative for Ms. Rowlands’s son, the director Nick Cassavetes. No other details were given.In June, her family said that she had been living with Alzheimer’s disease for five years.Ms. Rowlands, who often played intoxicated, deranged or otherwise on-the-verge characters, was nominated twice for best actress Oscars in performances directed by Mr. Cassavetes. The first was the title role in “A Woman Under the Influence” (1974), in which her desperate, insecure character is institutionalized by her blue-collar husband (Peter Falk) because he doesn’t know what else to do. The critic Roger Ebert wrote in The Chicago Sun-Times that Ms. Rowlands was “so touchingly vulnerable to every kind of influence around her that we don’t want to tap her because she might fall apart.”Her second nomination was for “Gloria” (1980), in which she starred as a gangster’s moll on the run with an orphaned boy.Ms. Rowlands and John Marley in “Faces,” which Renata Adler of The New York Times called “a really important movie” about “the way things are.” Like many of her movies, it was directed by Ms. Rowland’s husband, John Cassavetes.United Archives, via Getty ImagesBut it was “Faces” (1968), in which she starred as a young prostitute opposite John Marley, that first brought the Cassavetes-Rowlands partnership to moviegoers’ attention. Critics spread the word; Renata Adler described the film in The New York Times as “a really important movie” about “the way things are,” and Mr. Ebert called it “astonishing.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Anthea Sylbert, Costume Designer Who Became a Producer, Dies at 84

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      Her career unfolded in three phases: as the creator of costumes for movies like “Chinatown,” as a studio executive and as a producer, largely with her friend Goldie Hawn.Anthea Sylbert, the Oscar-nominated costume designer of the films “Chinatown” and “Julia,” who left Hollywood fitting rooms to be a studio executive and, later, Goldie Hawn’s producing partner, died on June 18 at her home on the Greek island of Skiathos. She was 84.Robert Romanus, her stepson, said the cause was complications of emphysema.Ms. Sylbert began designing costumes for films in 1967. Over the next decade, she collaborated with A-list directors like Mike Nichols, Roman Polanski and Elaine May and conceived what Jack Nicholson wore when he starred in “Chinatown,” “The Fortune” and “Carnal Knowledge.”“Jack Nicholson actually gave me the best compliment I ever got as a costume designer,” she said in “My Life in 3 Acts,” a forthcoming documentary about Ms. Sylbert directed by Sakis Lalas. “He said, ‘When “The Ant” does your clothes, you don’t have to act as much.’” (“The Ant” was short for Anthea, she explained.)Ms. Sylbert envisioned Jake Gittes, the natty, determined private detective played by Mr. Nicholson in “Chinatown” (1974), as a dandy.“I thought he would be interested in fashion,” she told Sam Wasson for his book “The Big Goodbye: ‘Chinatown’ and the Last Years of Hollywood” (2020). “The one who would be noticing what the stars were wearing when he went to the races.”Deborah Nadoolman Landis, chair of the David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design at the School of Theater, Film and Television at the University of California, Los Angeles, recalled a vivid scene in “Chinatown” in which Gittes and Evelyn Mulwray, played by Faye Dunaway, sit together in a red restaurant banquette.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert Towne, Screenwriter of ‘Chinatown’ and More, Dies at 89

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      Celebrated for his mastery of dialogue, he also contributed (though without credit) to the scripts of “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Godfather.”Robert Towne, whose screenplay for Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” won an Oscar, and whose work on that and other important films established him as one of the leading screenwriters of the so-called New Hollywood, died on Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.His publicist, Carri McClure, confirmed his death on Tuesday. She did not cite a cause.Mr. Towne’s Academy Award was part of a phenomenal run. He was nominated for best-screenplay Oscars three years in a row; his “Chinatown” win, in 1974, came between nominations for “The Last Detail” and “Shampoo,” both directed by Hal Ashby. He had also worked as an uncredited script doctor on “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) and “The Godfather” (1972).He was widely regarded as a master at writing dialogue, though he was less gifted at meeting deadlines — he was notorious for delivering long, unshapely scripts way past their due dates. The film historian David Thomson called him “a fascinating contradiction: in many ways idealistic, sentimental and very talented; in others a devout compromiser, a delayer, so insecure that he can sometimes seem devious.”Mr. Towne speaking at the Writers Guild Awards in Los Angeles in 2016.Phillip Faraone/Getty Images North AmericaMr. Towne later directed a few movies, and occasionally appeared onscreen, but he left his most lasting mark as a writer. And although he remained active into the 21st century, his reputation is based largely on the work he did in the 1970s.Beginning in the late 1960s with cutting-edge movies like “Midnight Cowboy” and “Easy Rider” and running through “Raging Bull” in 1980, the New Hollywood was a pinnacle for American directors, who followed the French auteur model of making idiosyncratic, personal movies, and also for talented screenwriters like Mr. Towne and a small army of gifted actors, like Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman, who did not fit the old Hollywood mold.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Which Cannes Films Might Become Oscar Contenders?

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      Films backed by the studio Neon have won Cannes and gone on to Oscar nominations regularly in the last few years. That’s one reason to keep an eye on “Anora.”Last year’s Cannes Film Festival was practically a one-stop shop for Oscar voters, premiering three major films — “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The Zone of Interest” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” — that would go on to be nominated for best picture.Does this year’s crop of Cannes movies have the same juice?At the 77th edition of the festival, which concluded Saturday, Sean Baker’s “Anora” was named the winner of the prestigious Palme d’Or. Three of the last four Palme winners went on to receive a best-picture nomination — “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Triangle of Sadness” and “Parasite” — and all of them, like “Anora,” were distributed by the studio Neon. That’s an astonishing streak that positions “Anora” in the best way possible, lending a veneer of prestige to Baker’s raucous comedy about a Brooklyn stripper who marries into Russian wealth.In 2018, Baker’s “The Florida Project” came awfully close to a best-picture nomination. If voters are more amenable to his indie sensibility this time around, expect robust campaigns for the lead Mikey Madison and for Baker’s script and direction. More of a long shot but equally worthy is supporting actor Mark Eydelshteyn as the live-wire heir our title character weds: Though Oscar voters rarely reward young men, this kid’s a total find, like a Russian Timothée Chalamet.Zoe Saldaña shared the best actress award at Cannes with three other female co-stars of “Emilia Pérez,” which is so much more than a musical.VixensIn a surprise move, the Cannes jury split the best actress award four ways, honoring the main female cast of the talked-about musical “Emilia Pérez.” That means the ensemble member Selena Gomez now has a Cannes trophy that has eluded the likes of Marion Cotillard, though I suspect more fruitful Oscar campaigns would be waged on behalf of the leading lady Zoe Saldaña, who’s never had a more robust role, and especially Karla Sofía Gascón, who could become the first trans actress to be nominated for an Oscar. (The fourth winner was Adriana Paz.)Netflix has picked up “Emilia Pérez” and will certainly give it a significant awards push, though the streamer’s stewardship could have drawbacks. It’s true that this is a hard-to-classify film — equal parts crime drama, trans empowerment narrative and full-blown movie musical — which would have made it a difficult theatrical sell. But some of its more outrageous moments are certain to be memed and mocked as soon as it makes its streaming debut, which could hobble the film’s reputation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Richard Sherman, Songwriter of Many Spoonfuls of Sugar, Dies at 95

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      He and his brother, Robert, teamed up to write the songs for “Mary Poppins” and other Disney classics. They also gave the world “It’s a Small World (After All).”Richard M. Sherman, the younger brother in a songwriting team that won two Oscars and two Grammys, brought Disney movies to musical life and gave the world numbers like “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and the ubiquitous, multiply translated “It’s a Small World (After All),” died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 95.The death, in a hospital, was announced by the Walt Disney Company.The careers of the Shermans — Richard and Robert — were inextricably linked with Walt Disney. Their Academy Awards were for “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” a chimney sweep’s alternately cheerful and plaintive anthem from “Mary Poppins” (1964), and for the film’s score. Their Grammy Awards were for “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too,” shared in 1975 for best recording for children, and the “Mary Poppins” score.“It’s a Small World” was written for the Disney theme-park ride of the same name. The song plays as guests in boats pass among 240 dolls of many nations with identical faces — tiny can-can and folk dancers, mermaids and mariachi bands — plus Big Ben, the Taj Mahal and grinning farm animals.“People want to kiss us or kill us,” Richard Sherman said in a 2011 video interview about the song, which he said was “the biggest hit of the World’s Fair,” where it was introduced in 1964.The Shermans brought a musical-theater sensibility to movie songwriting. The question was never which came first, the music or the words; what came first was the idea.The framework of “Mary Poppins” did not exist until the Shermans got their hands on P.L. Travers’s beloved books about a magical nanny, a series of adventures in 1930s London with no discernible conflict or resolution. In the movie, the problem is the children’s behavior, brought on by a neglectful father. It also seemed like bad taste to employ live-in servants during hard economic times, so they moved the Banks family to the Edwardian era.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Film Academy Looks Overseas for Donors

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      The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced a global $500 million campaign to shore up its financial future.The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday announced a global $500 million fund-raising effort to help diversify its base of support and ensure its financial future in a period of transformation for the film industry and the nonprofit cultural sector.“Both are going through radical business model shifts right now due to changing audience habits and revenue streams,” Bill Kramer, the chief executive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said in an email. “As a nonprofit, and like any healthy organization or company, the academy needs a sustainable and diverse base of support to allow for solid long-term planning and fiscal certainty.”Announced during a news conference in Rome hosted by the Italian film studio Cinecittà, the campaign is called Academy100, in honor of the 100th Oscars ceremony in 2028. The academy plans to use about $300 million of the new funds to bring its endowment to $800 million; the remainder will go toward operating expenses and special projects.The academy currently has an annual operating budget of about $170 million, 70 percent of which comes from its Oscars broadcast deal with Disney and ABC, which runs through 2028. About $45 million of the operating expenses are used by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.Given the challenges experienced by many cultural organizations, the academy has reason to want to shore up its finances. In March, for example, Joana Vicente of the Sundance Film Festival resigned after less than three years as chief executive amid questions about her fund-raising abilities. Last summer, Center Theater Group in Los Angeles announced a series of sharp cutbacks — including suspending productions at the Mark Taper Forum — to deal with drops in revenue and attendance. And the Metropolitan Opera in New York has withdrawn emergency funds from its endowment.The academy said in its news release that the money raised “will endow and fund programs that recognize excellence in cinematic artistry and innovation; preserve our film history; enable the creation of world-class film exhibitions, screenings and publications; train and educate the next generation of diverse global film artists; and produce powerful digital content.”More than $100 million has already been committed to the campaign, the academy said, including support from Rolex, which is based in Switzerland.As part of the effort, the academy plans to host gatherings and events in locations around the world to “become increasingly global,” press materials said, and help develop a global “pool of new filmmakers and academy members and support the worldwide filmmaking community.”The academy said its “expanded international outreach” will include Buenos Aires; Johannesburg; Kyoto, Japan; Lagos, Nigeria; London; Marrakesh, Morocco; Melbourne, Australia; Mexico City; and Mumbai. More

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      Lourdes Portillo, Oscar-Nominated Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 80

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      Her films centered on Latin American experiences and received wide acclaim.Lourdes Portillo, the Oscar-nominated Mexican-born documentary filmmaker whose work explored Latin American social issues through spellbinding narratives, has died. She was 80.Ms. Portillo died Saturday at her home in San Francisco. Her death was confirmed by her friend Soco Aguilar. No cause was given.One of Ms. Portillo’s best-known works is her 1994 documentary “The Devil Never Sleeps,” a murder-mystery in which Ms. Portillo investigates the strange death of her multimillionaire uncle, whose widow claimed he had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In 2020, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation at the National Film Registry.“Using vintage snapshots, old home movies and interviews, the film builds a biographical portrait of Oscar Ruiz Almeida, a Mexican rancher who amassed a fortune exporting vegetables to the United States and went on to become a powerful politician and businessman,” Stephen Holden, a Times movie critic, wrote in a 1995 review of the film.The documentary had the tenor of a telenovela and presented open questions about Mr. Ruiz Almeida’s mysterious life and death and the people who could have had a motive for the murder.“The more Oscar is discussed, the more enigmatic he seems,” Mr. Holden wrote.Ms. Portillo crafted the film’s story line from the information her mother relayed over the phone while Ms. Portillo was living in New York, she said in a talk at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles last year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Zone of Interest’ Oscars Speech Is Defended by Jewish Film Artists

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      Remarks about Israel that the director Jonathan Glazer made as he accepted an Oscar for “The Zone of Interest” drew a letter of support after facing criticism last month.More than 150 Jewish actors, filmmakers and other artists signed an open letter that was published on Friday in defense of remarks about Jewishness and the war in Gaza that the director Jonathan Glazer made in his Oscars acceptance speech for “The Zone of Interest,” his film about the Holocaust.Glazer’s speech has become one of the most hotly debated in Oscars history, drawing an open letter of strong denunciation from other Jewish film professionals last month and now one of support.“Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” Glazer, who is Jewish, said at the Academy Awards on March 10. “Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”The new letter expresses support for Glazer. “In his speech, Glazer asked how we can resist the dehumanization that has led to mass atrocities throughout history,” it says. “For such a statement to be taken as an affront only underscores its urgency.”Its signatories included the actors Joaquin Phoenix, Hari Nef and Debra Winger; the directors Joel Coen, Nicole Holofcener and Boots Riley; the playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard; and the artist Nan Goldin, according to Variety, which reported the existence of the letter on Friday. Its signatories were confirmed by Sarah Sophie Flicker, an artist and cultural organizer who helped organize the letter.“We stand with all those calling for a permanent cease-fire, including the safe return of all hostages and the immediate delivery of aid into Gaza, and an end to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of and siege on Gaza,” the letter says.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More