Standup comic Robert Schimmel, whose X-rated brand of humor made him a Howard Stern favourite, has died from injuries suffered in a automobile accident. They was 60.
The Bronx-born Schimmel died Friday night in a Phoenix hospital, said his spokesman, Howard Bragman.
Schimmel, a frequent visitor on Stern's radio show, was riding in a automobile driven by his 19-year-old daughter, Aliyah, when the vehicle flipped Aug. 26.
Bragman said Aliyah Schimmel swerved to keep away from another vehicle & lost control of the automobile, sending it rolling to the side of the freeway.
Schimmel's daughter is hospitalized with nonlife-threatening injuries.
His 11-year-old son, who also was in the automobile, was reportedly released from the hospital hours after the accident.
The son of Holocaust survivors, Schimmel rose to stardom with the help of Rodney Dangerfield.
In 1986, Dangerfield invited Schimmel to perform on his HBO "Young Comedians Special," setting the young comic on his path to fame.
In addition to appearing with Stern, Schimmel was a frequent visitor on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien."
The self-deprecating Schimmel was known for incorporating details from his personal life - the lovely, the bad & the ugly - in to his routines. Schimmel survived a heart assault & battled non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. His first marriage ended in a messy divorce; they was on the brink of splitting along with his second spouse.
"He was the butt of his own jokes & lampooned his own foibles & distinctive circumstance," Bob Merlis, the veteran music publicist who signed him to Warner Bros. Records in 1996, told the Examiner.com. Schimmel is survived by his brother, Otto; father, Sandy; father, Jeffrey & his second spouse, Melissa.
He is also survived by his seven kids from his first marriage - Jessica, Aliyah & Jacob - & seven sons from his second marriage, Max & Sam.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Movies and Entertainment: George Clooney's "The American" First Over Labor Day!
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – George Clooney outgunned his rivals at the Labor Day holiday weekend box office in North The united states with a low-caliber opening for his assassin drama "The American," as the profitable summer moviegoing season wound down on a historicallyin the past weak note.
According to studio estimates issued on Sunday, "The American" earned $13 million in the work of the three-day period beginning September 3; its tally stands at $16.1 million since Wednesday, when it got a two-day head-start on the competition.
The opening is slightly better than industry forecasts, but is similar to that of his 2008 flop "Leatherheads," which ended its brief run with $31.3 million.
The film, in which Clooney plays a stone-faced gun enthusiast holed up in a picturesque French town, was directed by rock photographer Anton Corbijn. It was released by Focus Features, the art-house unit of General Electric Co's NBC Universal.
Also new were 20th Century Fox's violent fantasy "Machete" at No. 3 with $11.3 million, & Warner Bros.' Drew Barrymore romantic comedy "Going the Distance" at No. 5 with $6.9 million. Both opened on Friday.
"Machete," a bloody homage to 1970s B-movies using the immigration debate as a backdrop, stars character actor Danny Trejo as a Mexican assassin with a penchant for dispatching people with sharp objects. Robert Rodriguez directed with Ethan Maniquis. Fox said the audience was 60 percent Latino.
"Going the Distance" stars Barrymore & Justin Long as bi-coastal lovers. It is the latest in a string of rom-com flops for the actress, including "Lucky You," "Music & Lyrics" & "Fever Pitch."
TICKET SALES SLIDE
Last weekend's champion, the Screen Gems heist drama "Takers," slipped to No. 2 with $11.5 million, taking its 10-day total to $37.9 million.
Sales for the top-12 films fell to their lowest level since the September 11-13 weekend last year, a fitting coda to a summer lineup whose weak performance was obscured by the 3D boom.
While sales from the first weekend in May through Labor Day on Monday are projected to break last year's record, the increase comes solely from higher ticket prices. The number of tickets sold -- a better gauge of Hollywood's health -- hit its lowest level since 1997.
Tracking firm Hollywood.com Box-Office predicted summer attendance would come in at 552 million tickets sold, a 2.6 percent drop from last year, & the lowest since 1997 when 540 million were sold. It forecast summer receipts of $4.35 billion, up 2.4 percent from last summer's record levels.
The top summer films were "Toy Story 3" ($408 million), "Iron Man 2" ($312 million) & "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" ($298 million). Notable bombs included "Cats & Canines: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" ($42 million), "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" ($29 million), "The Switch" ($21 million), "Jonah Hex" ($10.5 million) -- & now "Going the Distance."
Movies released in 3D, such as "Toy Story 3," "Cats & Canines," "Despicable Me," & "The Last Airbender," allowed film theaters to charge an average premium of $3 per ticket. In some markets, this pushed the ticket cost to $20. The average ticket cost for all movies was $7.88, according to Hollywood.com Box-Office.
Sales are expected to stay weak for the next few weeks as the studios dump their under-performers so that they can focus on status pics catering to awards voters & on holiday-season crowd-pleasers.
Screen Gems is a unit of Sony Corp. 20th Century Fox is a unit of News Corp. Warner Bros. Pics is a unit of Time Warner Inc.
(Reporting by Dean Goodman; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
According to studio estimates issued on Sunday, "The American" earned $13 million in the work of the three-day period beginning September 3; its tally stands at $16.1 million since Wednesday, when it got a two-day head-start on the competition.
The opening is slightly better than industry forecasts, but is similar to that of his 2008 flop "Leatherheads," which ended its brief run with $31.3 million.
The film, in which Clooney plays a stone-faced gun enthusiast holed up in a picturesque French town, was directed by rock photographer Anton Corbijn. It was released by Focus Features, the art-house unit of General Electric Co's NBC Universal.
Also new were 20th Century Fox's violent fantasy "Machete" at No. 3 with $11.3 million, & Warner Bros.' Drew Barrymore romantic comedy "Going the Distance" at No. 5 with $6.9 million. Both opened on Friday.
"Machete," a bloody homage to 1970s B-movies using the immigration debate as a backdrop, stars character actor Danny Trejo as a Mexican assassin with a penchant for dispatching people with sharp objects. Robert Rodriguez directed with Ethan Maniquis. Fox said the audience was 60 percent Latino.
"Going the Distance" stars Barrymore & Justin Long as bi-coastal lovers. It is the latest in a string of rom-com flops for the actress, including "Lucky You," "Music & Lyrics" & "Fever Pitch."
TICKET SALES SLIDE
Last weekend's champion, the Screen Gems heist drama "Takers," slipped to No. 2 with $11.5 million, taking its 10-day total to $37.9 million.
Sales for the top-12 films fell to their lowest level since the September 11-13 weekend last year, a fitting coda to a summer lineup whose weak performance was obscured by the 3D boom.
While sales from the first weekend in May through Labor Day on Monday are projected to break last year's record, the increase comes solely from higher ticket prices. The number of tickets sold -- a better gauge of Hollywood's health -- hit its lowest level since 1997.
Tracking firm Hollywood.com Box-Office predicted summer attendance would come in at 552 million tickets sold, a 2.6 percent drop from last year, & the lowest since 1997 when 540 million were sold. It forecast summer receipts of $4.35 billion, up 2.4 percent from last summer's record levels.
The top summer films were "Toy Story 3" ($408 million), "Iron Man 2" ($312 million) & "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" ($298 million). Notable bombs included "Cats & Canines: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" ($42 million), "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" ($29 million), "The Switch" ($21 million), "Jonah Hex" ($10.5 million) -- & now "Going the Distance."
Movies released in 3D, such as "Toy Story 3," "Cats & Canines," "Despicable Me," & "The Last Airbender," allowed film theaters to charge an average premium of $3 per ticket. In some markets, this pushed the ticket cost to $20. The average ticket cost for all movies was $7.88, according to Hollywood.com Box-Office.
Sales are expected to stay weak for the next few weeks as the studios dump their under-performers so that they can focus on status pics catering to awards voters & on holiday-season crowd-pleasers.
Screen Gems is a unit of Sony Corp. 20th Century Fox is a unit of News Corp. Warner Bros. Pics is a unit of Time Warner Inc.
(Reporting by Dean Goodman; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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