Entertainment
American country music icon Loretta Lynn, who died Tuesday at the age of 90
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Steph Deschamps / October 5, 2022
She stood behind many Republican candidates, including Donald Trump in 2016. But she was a unanimous voice in the music industry, which she deeply influenced.
When I’m six feet under, they can say, ‘Loretta stopped singing. To Billboard magazine, she had confided that she would never retire from music. The icon of the American country song Loretta Lynn died this Tuesday at the age of 90 years. She was made famous by her texts relaying the problems encountered by women and long passed under silence by society.
Born Loretta Webb on April 14, 1932 in a poor family of Kentucky, she was the eldest of eight siblings. She immortalized her childhood in her song “Coal Miner’s Daughter”. “Well, I was born a miner’s daughter/In a shack, up in Butcher Holler Heights,” she recounts in her 1970s hit.
At only 15 years old, the singer married Oliver Vanetta, whose life she shared for 50 years, until his death in 1996. They settled in a small logging town in Washington State, where Loretta Lynn gave birth to four children before she even blew out 20 candles. Shortly after, the couple also welcomed twins.
Captivated by his wife’s voice, Oliver Vanetta gave her a guitar in the early 1950s. A gift of fate. The self-taught singer is inspired for her texts by her own experiences as a young bride and the tumult of her love relationship.
She formed her own band, called Loretta and the Trailblazers, and began performing in bars before recording her first hit, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl,” in 1960. “Most songwriters were writing about falling in love, breaking up and being alone,” she explained to The Wall Street Journal in 2016. “The female perspective I was describing was new.
The singer then went on tour to promote her songs on the radio, and performed for the first time on the mythical stage of the Grand Ole Opry in 1960, a Nashville institution of which she would become one of the most acclaimed artists.
Loretta Lynn is a hitmaker. With “Dear Uncle Sam” in 1966, she signs one of the first titles evoking the tragedy of the war in Vietnam. Also in 1966, she released “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)”, which catapulted to the top of the charts and made her the first country singer to have written a number one hit.
In 1969, she released one of her most controversial songs, “Wings Upon Your Horns,” which used a religious metaphor to describe a teenager losing her virginity. In “The Pill” in 1975, she praised the freedoms allowed by the birth control pill.
In 1988, Loretta Lynn entered the Country Music Hall of Fame. Over the course of her life, she will have been awarded nearly every artistic honor, including the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, presented by Barack Obama in 2013.
Despite the progressive themes of her lyrics, the singer insisted that her music had “no political purpose.” She has sided with many Republican candidates, including Donald Trump in 2016, although she has also supported Democrats like Jimmy Carter.
But she was unanimous in the music industry, which she deeply influenced, collaborating with many artists, including Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Elvis Costello. In 2021, at almost 89 years old, she released the album “Still Woman Enough”, which included re-recordings and new songs.
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Steph Deschamps / September 23, 2023
Actor Billy Miller has died at the age of 43. Known for his role as “Billy Abbott” on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, which ran for 719 episodes.
American actor Billy Miller has died. The cause of his death remains unknown. However, his agent revealed that “the actor suffered from manic-depressive disorders”.
Born in Texas in 1979, Billy Miller grew up in Austin.
In 2007, he landed his first major role in the soap opera La Force du Destin. The following year he was cast as “Billy” in the hit soap opera The Young and the Restless.
His acting skills won him two Daytime Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor.
He played the character for 6 years, appearing in over 700 episodes. In 2014, he decided to step down in favor of David Thorn
He then went on to appear in various series, including CSI, General Hospital and Suits, Lawyers Made to Measure, where he co-starred with Meghan Markle.
On the big screen, he played roles in American Sniper and Bad Blood.
Entertainment
“It’s insane!”: the stars of “Breaking Bad” reveal that they receive nothing for airing the series on Netflix
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Sylvie Claire / September 12, 2023
In the midst of a writers’ and actors’ strike, Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul try to make streaming platforms see “reality ».
After months of paralysis, the situation seems to be at a standstill in Hollywood, where the writers’ strike, later joined by the actors, is still in full swing. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are among the many stars who have joined the movement, mainly to support their less well-off colleagues. The two actors have been on the picket lines in front of major studios on several occasions, but they also regularly appear in the media to defend the cause. Interviewed on the spot by the Canadian version of Entertainment Weekly, Aaron Paul returned to the viral success that “Breaking Bad” has enjoyed since its arrival on Netflix, years after its broadcast on television. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t get a dime from Netflix for ‘Breaking Bad’. It makes no sense to me. Series live forever on these platforms. (…) I think a lot of these broadcasters know they’ve gotten away with not paying people what they’re worth, and it’s time they did. That’s one of the things we’re fighting for,” he said.
Also present, Bryan Cranston was more measured, wishing to reiterate that the streaming giants were not their “enemies”. “They’re not bad guys. They’re people we’ll all work with again at some point. We just want them to see reality,” he said, according to Deadline. He also added that “residuals”, the sums received by all artists and technicians who have participated in a project, with each broadcast in the U.S. or elsewhere, are used to pay their bills, as are DVD sales. “But these things have disappeared,” he lamented.
As a reminder, the writers’ strike was launched last May, on the initiative of their union, the WGA. After a month and a half without any real negotiations with the body representing the studios (the AMPTP), the SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, joined the movement. The aim of these organizations is to renegotiate the contracts used by these major studios, in order to adapt to the changes the industry has undergone in recent years. The subject of AI is particularly under discussion, as is that of streaming platforms, which are not subject to the same rules as other broadcasters. In the absence of an agreement, Hollywood is paralyzed and several productions are at a standstill, which has an impact on many theatrical releases, but also on the return of your favorite series.
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Steph Deschamps / 6 September 2023
American country singer Jimmy Buffett died on Friday. He was 76 years old.
Buffett had only one real success, “Margaritaville” in 1977, but he had an eye for business affairs. He built an empire that included real estate and hotel businesses, and made the Forbes billionaire list.
According to the American newspaper New York Post, Buffett had had to cancel concerts in recent months following a number of hospital admissions.
Jimmy passed away peacefully on the night of September 1, surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs,” reads a statement posted on the singer’s website and social networks.
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