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This article was published 13/07/2024 (632 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LAST TIMBIT MUSICAL ROLLS OVER TO CRAVE

TORONTO — The Last Timbit is rolling off the stage and onto the small screen.

The Tim Hortons-sponsored musical that was filmed during its short run in Toronto’s Elgin Theatre last month is set to hit Crave on Aug. 12.

The coffee-and-doughnuts chain commissioned the production to advertise its 60th anniversary.

It’s based on the true story of a group of people stranded in a Tim Hortons during a blizzard in Sarnia, Ont., in 2010.

The company tapped Broadway elite to create the show, including Michael Rubinoff, an originating producer of Come From Away, and actress Chilina Kennedy.

LIFETIME HONOUR LANDS ON GOOD LORD BIRD AUTHOR

NEW YORK — The U.S. Library of Congress has awarded a lifetime achievement prize to James McBride, whose acclaimed novels include The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, Deacon King Kong and The Good Lord Bird.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced Thursday that McBride, whose story lines have ranged from the crusades of abolitionist John Brown to a Brooklyn neighbourhood in the 1960s, is this year’s winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. The award is given to an American author who excels as a prose stylist and creative thinker.

“I’m honoured to bestow the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction on a writer as imaginative and knowing as James McBride,” Hayden said in a statement. “McBride knows the American soul deeply, reflecting our struggles and triumphs in his fiction, which so many readers have intimately connected with.”

McBride, 66, said in a statement that he wished his mother were alive to hear of his prize. He then joked, “Does it mean I can use the Library? If so, I’m double thrilled.”

McBride won a National Book Award for Good Lord Bird, the Kirkus Prize for The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store and the Carnegie Medal for Deacon King Kong, which Oprah Winfrey chose for her book club. In 2016, he was given a National Humanities Medal.

FORMER ALF CHILD STAR dead at 46

PHOENIX — Former child actor Benji Gregory, who played the young boy on the 1980s television sitcom ALF, has died. He was 46.

Gregory, whose legal name was Benjamin Gregory Hertzberg, died on June 13, according to records from the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner. The cause of his death is pending.

Gregory’s sister, Rebecca Pfaffinger, told the New York Times that her brother’s body was found in his car in the parking lot of a bank in Peoria, outside Phoenix. He apparently had gone there to deposit some residual cheques, she said. His dog Hans also died in the vehicle.

It is unknown whether Arizona’s summer heat played a role. The high temperature in metro Phoenix hit 42.2 C the day of Gregory’s death, according to National Weather Service records.

Gregory was eight when he gained fame playing Brian Tanner on the NBC show about a family that took in ALF — a hairy alien life form — after the creature’s spaceship crashed. He also appeared in commercials and other TV shows, including The A-Team and Fantasy Island.

As an adult, Gregory enlisted in the U.S. navy and became an aerographer’s mate, tracking the weather for aviation and nautical safety, according to the entertainment database IMDb.

STUDIOS HIT PAUSE ON COSTNER’S NEXT HORIZON

LOS ANGELES — One of the most ambitious rollouts in recent Hollywood memory has already hit a roadblock as Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2 has been pulled from its planned Aug. 16 release date.

The film was meant to follow the June 28 release of Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1. In two weeks of release, the first film, with an estimated cost of US$100 million and a running time of three hours, has brought in just $24.5 million. Costner, who directed, co-wrote, produced and stars in Horizon, is reported to have invested some US$38 million of his own money into the project.

A statement from a New Line Cinema spokesperson read, “Territory Pictures and New Line Cinema have decided not to release Horizon: Chapter 2 on Aug. 16 in order to give audiences a greater opportunity to discover the first instalment of Horizon over the coming weeks, including on PVOD and Max.”

The first instalment of Horizon, a Civil War saga, will hit premium video-on-demand services on Tuesday, while continuing to play in theatres.

KIM KARDASHIAN TRIES FISH-FLUID FACIAL

Kim Kardashian has revealed the latest addition to her in-depth beauty regimen — salmon sperm injections to her face.

The 43-year-old reality TV star, who previously said she’d consider eating feces every day to preserve her youth, opened up about the new skin care treatment on this week’s episode of The Kardashians.

“I got a salmon-sperm facial, salmon sperm injected into my face,” she shared with family matriarch Kris Jenner.

Kardashian didn’t share whether the trend has had any visible effects, but Dr. Joshua Zeichner, a New York City-based dermatologist, believes in its benefits.

“Salmon (semen) has been shown to improve skin, hydration, plumpness, texture, and wrinkles,” he told Pop Sugar last year. “The effects on the skin are thought to be due to high DNA levels. DNA is composed of amino acids, which have long been used in skin care for their hydrating and cell-renewing benefits.”

Salmon sperm facials are just the latest eyebrow-raising trend embraced by the Skims mogul. In 2013, she said on an episode of Kourtney & Kim Take Miami that she got a “vampire facial,” a procedure that involves drawing a client’s own blood, separating the platelet-rich plasma and then injecting the PRP back into the skin.

— wire services