Latest news with #AveMaria
South Wales Argus
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- South Wales Argus
BBC EastEnders star confirmed to be leaving the soap
Molly Rainford, known for playing Queen Vic barmaid Anna Knight on the BBC soap, will be leaving. She joined the show two years ago but will leave for new career options, according to reports. The BBC has confirmed the star's exit and wished her well for the future. EastEnders star Molly Rainford set to leave BBC soap A BBC spokesman told Newsquest: "We can confirm that Molly Rainford will be leaving EastEnders later this year, and we wish her all the best for the future.' On the exit, an insider told The Sun: "Molly came into the show two years ago, and in that time has been trusted with some great storylines. 'It's just so happened that when Molly was considering other options in her career, a meeting was held to discuss the future of the character, and both parties were in mutual agreement that it was the right time for Anna Knight to wave goodbye to Walford.' Molly's character Anna is the daughter of George Knight and Cindy Beale. She made her first appearance in June 2023. EastEnders' Top 5 Villains The now 24-year-old from London rose to fame on Britain's Got Talent. In 2012, at the age of 11, she made it to the final of the ITV competition, finishing sixth after a rendition of Beyoncé's version of "Ave Maria" in the final. In March 2023, it was announced that she had been cast in EastEnders. Since joining the soap, she has also appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, where she finished as the runner-up alongside professional partner Carlos Gu. Other EastEnders exits confirmed in 2025 Molly is not the only star to leave the show this year. Bobby Brazier is leaving popular BBC soap EastEnders after four years. Clair Norris, who plays Bernie Taylor, has also left the show after eight years. Team #EastEnders has won Soap of the Year at the 2025 @TRICawards . A huge thank you to everyone who voted for us, we appreciate each and every one of you! 🥳 🏆 — BBC EastEnders (@bbceastenders) June 24, 2025 In March, it was revealed that Matthew James Morrison's time as Felix Baker was coming to an end. One of the biggest departures of the year was Natalie Cassidy, who played Sonia Fowler in EastEnders, and left the show after 32 years. Recommended reading: Speaking about her exit, she said: 'It felt very final but also very good. It's a nice place to leave Sonia after so much has happened to her. 'Sonia feels like she's never going to live down what happened with Reiss, so the only thing to do is leave the Square. 'I'm never going to say goodbye to her because, after 32 years, Sonia is ingrained in me. So, while I'm saying goodbye on screen, for now, Sonia is always there, knocking about!'
Glasgow Times
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
BBC EastEnders star confirmed to be leaving the soap
Molly Rainford, known for playing Queen Vic barmaid Anna Knight on the BBC soap, will be leaving. She joined the show two years ago but will leave for new career options, according to reports. The BBC has confirmed the star's exit and wished her well for the future. EastEnders star Molly Rainford set to leave BBC soap A BBC spokesman told Newsquest: "We can confirm that Molly Rainford will be leaving EastEnders later this year, and we wish her all the best for the future.' On the exit, an insider told The Sun: "Molly came into the show two years ago, and in that time has been trusted with some great storylines. 'It's just so happened that when Molly was considering other options in her career, a meeting was held to discuss the future of the character, and both parties were in mutual agreement that it was the right time for Anna Knight to wave goodbye to Walford.' Molly's character Anna is the daughter of George Knight and Cindy Beale. She made her first appearance in June 2023. EastEnders' Top 5 Villains The now 24-year-old from London rose to fame on Britain's Got Talent. In 2012, at the age of 11, she made it to the final of the ITV competition, finishing sixth after a rendition of Beyoncé's version of "Ave Maria" in the final. In March 2023, it was announced that she had been cast in EastEnders. Since joining the soap, she has also appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, where she finished as the runner-up alongside professional partner Carlos Gu. Other EastEnders exits confirmed in 2025 Molly is not the only star to leave the show this year. Bobby Brazier is leaving popular BBC soap EastEnders after four years. Clair Norris, who plays Bernie Taylor, has also left the show after eight years. Team #EastEnders has won Soap of the Year at the 2025 @TRICawards . A huge thank you to everyone who voted for us, we appreciate each and every one of you! 🥳 🏆 — BBC EastEnders (@bbceastenders) June 24, 2025 In March, it was revealed that Matthew James Morrison's time as Felix Baker was coming to an end. One of the biggest departures of the year was Natalie Cassidy, who played Sonia Fowler in EastEnders, and left the show after 32 years. Recommended reading: Speaking about her exit, she said: 'It felt very final but also very good. It's a nice place to leave Sonia after so much has happened to her. 'Sonia feels like she's never going to live down what happened with Reiss, so the only thing to do is leave the Square. 'I'm never going to say goodbye to her because, after 32 years, Sonia is ingrained in me. So, while I'm saying goodbye on screen, for now, Sonia is always there, knocking about!'
The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
BBC EastEnders star confirmed to be leaving the soap
She joined the show two years ago but will leave for new career options, according to reports. The BBC has confirmed the star's exit and wished her well for the future. EastEnders star Molly Rainford set to leave BBC soap A BBC spokesman told Newsquest: "We can confirm that Molly Rainford will be leaving EastEnders later this year, and we wish her all the best for the future.' On the exit, an insider told The Sun: "Molly came into the show two years ago, and in that time has been trusted with some great storylines. 'It's just so happened that when Molly was considering other options in her career, a meeting was held to discuss the future of the character, and both parties were in mutual agreement that it was the right time for Anna Knight to wave goodbye to Walford.' Molly's character Anna is the daughter of George Knight and Cindy Beale. She made her first appearance in June 2023. EastEnders' Top 5 Villains The now 24-year-old from London rose to fame on Britain's Got Talent. In 2012, at the age of 11, she made it to the final of the ITV competition, finishing sixth after a rendition of Beyoncé's version of "Ave Maria" in the final. In March 2023, it was announced that she had been cast in EastEnders. Since joining the soap, she has also appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, where she finished as the runner-up alongside professional partner Carlos Gu. Other EastEnders exits confirmed in 2025 Molly is not the only star to leave the show this year. Bobby Brazier is leaving popular BBC soap EastEnders after four years. Clair Norris, who plays Bernie Taylor, has also left the show after eight years. Team #EastEnders has won Soap of the Year at the 2025 @TRICawards . A huge thank you to everyone who voted for us, we appreciate each and every one of you! 🥳 🏆 — BBC EastEnders (@bbceastenders) June 24, 2025 In March, it was revealed that Matthew James Morrison's time as Felix Baker was coming to an end. One of the biggest departures of the year was Natalie Cassidy, who played Sonia Fowler in EastEnders, and left the show after 32 years. Recommended reading: Speaking about her exit, she said: 'It felt very final but also very good. It's a nice place to leave Sonia after so much has happened to her. 'Sonia feels like she's never going to live down what happened with Reiss, so the only thing to do is leave the Square. 'I'm never going to say goodbye to her because, after 32 years, Sonia is ingrained in me. So, while I'm saying goodbye on screen, for now, Sonia is always there, knocking about!'
Spectator
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
A life among movie stars can damage your health
Mothers of America let your kids go to the movies! get them out of the house so they won't know what you're up to it's true that fresh air is good for the body but what about the soul that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images… So wrote Frank O'Hara in 'Ave Maria', in 1964. Matthew Specktor is the son of the talent agent Fred Specktor and the writer Katherine McGaffey, whose crushing misadventures in screenwriting seem to him a detour in what could have been a far happier life. His father's specialism was originally 'oddballs and misfits', carting around actors like Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern to no-hope castings where even Nicholson's wolfish smile seemed wrong. But film-making was changing fast, away from conventional matinée idols into its golden age of humanist complexity on screen: men and women whose unusual faces, films and personal myths still fascinate us today. As a teenager in the shabby Santa Monica of the late 1970s, Specktor stays out all night watching Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. When he rolls in with the dawn, his mother asks if he's revised for his test, but also joins in with quoting the script back at him on her way to wrestle with the typewriter at the bottom of the garden. There is no chance of him not being allowed to go to the movies; but will he be able to escape them too? When he has a summer job in the mailroom at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), there's advice from Dustin Hoffman, who's using a spare office and with whom he shares cigarette breaks. Along with the smoking, Hoffman quips that working at this powerhouse will also be 'bad for your health'. Specktor writes: Is it? This is what I will never understand. Are the movies bad for me – so much dreaming – or are they life itself? I'll spend the rest of my life brushing up against those people who haunt other people, crowding the margins of their dreams… I'll never know what it means to have the movies at my mercy, to be Hollywood's biggest star, but I'll also never know what it's like to be without them, now that they have colonised my imagination like a swarm of bees. In a book that is part Hollywood history, part nuanced family memoir, the faultlines in his parents' marriage are visible from the start. In 1963, even California is stifling. Sex is furtive and marriage proposals are made on the flimsiest grounds. Fred is a young assistant, the bullying of his working-class father having been replaced by the 'scary' Lew Wasserman, who makes being a marine feel like a gentle memory. The intellectual, beautiful woman with whom he falls in love is working, inevitably, as someone's secretary, with great literature falling out of her handbag. He will wonder that she is a person of enormous potential, someone who wouldn't necessarily have to waste her life in the movie business. For him, this industry is an escape. For her, it could be slumming. She carries around a copy of Ulysses. 'Who are you going to impress?' asks Fred. 'Most people here don't know James Joyce from the guy who wrote From Here to Eternity.' What a line. For the deal-maker, Los Angeles makes life shinier. For the complicated artist, it's an identity crisis waiting to happen. But without their uneasy love story their son wouldn't be here to tell it. Specktor has written authoritatively about the film industry in both fiction and criticism, but this is the first time he's created a history that's confessional as well as deeply researched. The combination, along with his gift for setting a scene, makes this his best book yet. While we can imagine the strangeness of being a star, The Golden Hour explores the strangeness of being ordinary in this extraordinary world, 'impatient with a life that is merely human-sized'. As a son, as an artist himself and as a former development executive seeing the way literature is used up like so much coal, Specktor knows the film industry to be relentlessly careless of a writer's dreams. (F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood was one of the casualties perceptively explored in Specktor's book of essays Always Crashing in the Same Car.) In his family's tragedy, McGaffey, who died in 2009, didn't get enough of her second act either. His grief is as much for the life she might have had, and for all of the books she might have written, as for her loss. Fred is now 92 and, extraordinarily, is still working at CAA as their longest standing agent, whose clients include Helen Mirren, Danny Devito, Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close. After years of pursuing Morgan Freeman, he celebrated eventually signing him with a homage ear piercing, aged 73, and remains in what his son terms his 'eternal present', like a basketball player who has never left the court. In this bizarre world the boundaries between life and art might seem extremely porous, but film has always been able to get under the skin and into the soul. It remains an intoxicating form, still able to inspire hysteria from politicians who have always appreciated its power. The lights remain hopefully on, even if the golden hour is probably past.
USA Today
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
What Swift fan accounts should know about copyright after Barstool's 'Taylor Watch' canceled
What Swift fan accounts should know about copyright after Barstool's 'Taylor Watch' canceled The rumors may be terrible and cruel, but the ones about Barstool Sports' "Taylor Watch" podcast being canceled are true. The podcast with 115,000 fans on TikTok, 78,000 fans on Instagram and 16,000 subscribers on YouTube — geared toward discussing all things Taylor Swift — aired its final episode on June 4. What was supposed to have been a celebratory moment for Swift regaining control of her masters started on a melancholic note as hosts Kelly Keegs and Gia Mariano sang "Ave Maria." The two sat in their brown leather chairs to acknowledge the termination of a show they've cultivated for two-plus years. "'Taylor Watch' is canceled," Keegs said on the 150th episode, "because having a music related podcast or something that can toe the line with lawsuits in general where it comes to music rights, whatever, is just not feasible with Barstool Sports at this time." One underlying issue lies in copyrighted photos, videos and music being used on social media. Several posts potentially opened parent company Barstool Sports to lawsuits, and the podcasters had two options: to cancel "Taylor Watch" or be fired. "It was all just stupid mistakes on my part," Mariano said on the podcast through tears. "It was never intentional. We would never think that we could just get away with something." "Or even jeopardize the company," Keegs jumped in. "We love working here." Long live the Eras Tour with our enchanting book The one- to two-hour episodes crafted a corner in the Swiftie community where fans (and some haters) tuned in to hear the thoughts of Keegs and Mariano. " Gia and I went to Paris Night 2 together, and there were some people coming up to us and saying what they liked about the show," Keegs tells the USA TODAY Network of Swift's May 10, 2024, concert. "Then by the time we were in Miami — that was a totally different experience — I couldn't believe how many people were coming up to us who knew who we were." The two hosts offered unfiltered thoughts on Swift's music, business moves, concerts and news. They would post short snippets to social media. A couple included some paparazzi photos and sped-up music pulled from the internet. "It's what I looked forward to every week," Keegs says. Her favorite part was the voicemail segment when people called in to offer their thoughts. "We got a call from a mom excited about the 'Speak Now (Taylor's Version).' She gave birth to her son when the first version came out and now he's a teen. She made him listen to 'Never Grow Up.' It was a beautiful full circle moment." Copyright's gray area So where do the legal lines lie for copyright? It's a perfect question for David Herlihy, an intellectual property, new media and entertainment lawyer who also teaches at Northeastern University in Boston. Copyright is the subject of entire college courses, so keep in mind the following is heavily abbreviated. Herlihy also provides an asterisk: " None of these things are absolute, but there are basic policy contours of copyright." Let's start with images and videos that fan accounts share on social media. Herlihy says the copyright of photos of Swift taken in a public place are owned by the photographers and can be licensed to news outlets. However, the photographers can't make merch with the photos, "because that's a commercial exploitation of her likeness." What about fan accounts that repost photos and credit them, do they need permission? Some cases can be deemed fair-use, which means using copyrighted material doesn't need permission under "certain circumstances." This balances copyright holders' intellectual property rights with the public's need to access and use information. "You're using the photograph for news reporting, commentary or for conversation, and the law regards news, commentary and conversation as valuable," Herlihy says. "So depending upon the nature of the use, the rights of the copyright owner may actually yield to other socially beneficial purposes." What Taylor Swift's trademark applications say about potential business moves. However, Instagram has a clear policy that users cannot post content that violates someone else's intellectual property rights, including copyright. 'Taylor Watch' is not the first account within the past month to get flagged. In fact a few behemoth Swift fan accounts with six digits in followers were recently sent to Instagram purgatory and deactivated for similar infractions including @ and @tstourtips. Meta, Instagram's parent company, did not comment on the deactivations to the USA TODAY Network. The accounts, which are not officially affiliated with Swift, share news, theories on upcoming announcements and records broken by the superstar. They foster micro-communities of the global fandom. And they celebrate moments like Swift buying back her first six albums from Shamrock Capital. For Keegs and Mariano, "Taylor Watch" was their safe space to gab about the superstar. 'It's not like we aren't Taylor fans still,' Keegs said. She tried to find a bright side explaining, "If we want to be poetic about it, I suppose you can say our watch has ended because [Swift's] gotten all of her stuff back." Don't miss any Taylor Swift news; sign up for the free, weekly newsletter This Swift Beat. Follow Bryan West, the USA TODAY Network's Taylor Swift reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.
