Conan O’Brien‘s in-laws say losing his “Tonight Show” gig gave him a chance to assess his life and career.
“They’re doing great,” Jake Powel says of his son-in-law and his daughter, Liza, who were married at Seattle’s St. James Cathedral in 2002. “Conan really has, for the first time in a decade, had the chance to think about what he wants to do with his career,” he tells the Seattle Times.
Powel says that when O’Brien’s Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour hits Seattle, Conan and Liza will spend time at his home, where Powel, a retired insurance man and jazz musician, and his wife, Pamela, will keep an eye on their grandkids, Neve and Beckett.
“We’re either baby-sitting or we’re just kind of hanging out together at our house,” Powel said of their plans. “My daughter has a lot of friends here, and Conan loves to hang out with them.”
O’Brien met Liza Powel when he was hosting “Late Night.” They were making a commercial makeover for the “worst advertisers” on one of NBC’s affiliates in Texas, and Liza Powel’s company was hired to produce it. She appeared on camera with Conan, “and you could see the connection forming right in front of your eyes,” Powel recalled.
The Powels traveled to Los Angeles to watch O’Brien host “The Tonight Show” for the last time.
“It was very impressive,” Jake Powel said. “He made a classic comment at the end of the show, telling people to be kind. He has always taken the high road and has always been classy about the way he handles things.” The show staff, without knowing that the Powels were family, raved about their boss.
“He’s a great guy and his ambition all his life was to be Johnny Carson, that kind of person,” Powel said of O’Brien. “He loves doing that, loves making people laugh and being in touch with what’s going on, here and now.
Larry King will fight to regain the title to his $12 million Beverly Hills mansion and two other homes, on grounds that his wife, Shawn Southwick, and her lawyers used undue influence to make him sign his rights away, TMZ reports.
Several years ago Shawn accused Larry of having an affair with her sister, Shannon Engemann. Sources connected to King says Shawn threatened to leak the story to the media, unless Larry signed a document, giving up his interest in their Beverly Hills estate, along with two other homes in Utah.
Sources said King took the document to his attorney, divorce lawyer Dennis Wasser, who ordered him not to sign it. Actually, TMZ says, King went to Shawn’s lawyer, who referred him to a former partner — and that attorney eventually gave King the green light to sign the agreement. Reportedly Wasser, unaware of the other lawyer’s advice and King’s eventual signing, was furious.
King will try to undo the agreement in divorce court, TMZ reports. The alleged undue influence will be that Shawn persuaded King to sit down with a former partner of her lawyer, who told him it was OK to sign the agreement.
The Tuscan-style Beverly Hills home is 9,500 sqare feet, with seven bedrooms and nine baths. King chose the place because he can walk to Nate n’ Al’s deli for breakfast with his cronies every morning.
Melanie Griffith says beating her addiction to drink and drugs was like “getting out of prison”.
The 52-year-old actress has been battling her addiction for three decades.
She spoke to Spanish magazine Hola! about her struggles.
The “Working Girl” star said: ‘I am an alcoholic and an addict and all my life I have fought against this, and I’ve done it well.
‘Now I feel free. I don’t drink, I don’t take pills, nothing, and it’s fantastic, like getting out of prison.’
Griffith, who is married to actor Antonio Banderas, 49, said her addiction was like a “beast” which, when fed, would want more, so she was “letting it die of hunger”.
She told the magazine she first checked into rehab when she was 30.
She has received treatment twice for substance abuse in 1988 and 2000, but also checked into a rehab facility last August, her spokesperson said, to “reinforce her commitment to stay healthy.”
Admitting she has “an addictive personality,” Griffith revealed to Australian magazine New Idea four years after her first trip to rehab that she felt “lucky to be alive”.
Jay-Z and a business partner are suing slugger David Ortiz, claiming the Boston Red Sox star named his Dominican nightclub after the mogul’s chain of 4-0/40 clubs.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Manhattan Federal Court, accuses Ortiz of calling his Santo Domingo club Forty-Forty in the hopes of trading on the rap star’s fame.
Jay-Z’s string of bars can be found in Manhattan, Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
Lawyer Peter Raymond tells the New York Daily News that Ortiz had visited the clubs twice and certainly knew about them.
The clubs are named after the feat of hitting 40 homers and stealing 40 bases in one season.
A message seeking comment was left Thursday night with SFX Baseball, the agency that represents Ortiz.
lsmith@denverpost.com
— The Associated Press also contributed to this report
