Former Hollywood child star Shirley Temple has died at the age of 85.
The actress found fame as a young girl in the 1930s in films like Bright Eyes, Stand Up and Cheer and Curly Top.
After retiring from films in 1950 at the age of 21, Temple returned to the public eye as a Republican candidate for Congress and as a US diplomat.
She died on Monday at home in Woodside, California, from natural causes. "She was surrounded by her family and caregivers," a statement said.
The family statement continued: "We salute her for a life of remarkable achievements as an actor, as a diplomat, and most importantly as our beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and adored wife for 55 years of the late and much missed Charles Alden Black."
The star accepted the Screen Actors Guild Awards life achievement award in 2006
Born in 1928, the sweet-faced, curly-haired Temple was one of the most popular child stars in Hollywood history, getting her first film role at the age of three.
Her singing, dancing and acting won over fans worldwide. She was given a special juvenile Oscar in 1935, when she was just six years old. To this day, she is still the youngest person to receive an Academy Award.
With the nickname "America's little darling", she was ranked as Hollywood's biggest draw for four years running from 1935 to '38 in an annual poll of US cinema owners.
She was credited with cheering the nation during the Great Depression and helping save 20th Century Fox from bankruptcy.
Temple starred in a total of 43 feature films - but found it difficult to sustain her career in adulthood and retired from Hollywood in 1950.
Figure skater Yulia Lipnitskaya used music from Schindler's List in her gold-medal-winning routine, writes Ben Milne. Was she guilty of bad taste?
The 15-year-old has won gold at Sochi, with her interpretation of the score to Stephen Spielberg's famous movie about the Holocaust. It's prompted debates across social media. "Schindler's List: On Ice!" is one tweeter's ironic reaction. Another asks whether routines based on The Diary of Anne Frank will be next. Others think differently: "Absolutely flawless," writes one.
Lipnitskaya's decision to perform the routine in a red jacket attracted the most comment. Schindler's List is shot almost entirely in black-and-white but in a couple of scenes a small girl is spotted in the middle distance wearing a red coat - first in the Jewish ghetto, then later on a pile of bodies. The sight signals a quiet turning point for the hero, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), and his mission to save his "list" of prisoners from the gas chambers.
The UK-based Russian journalist Dmitri Linnik says there is nothing wrong with the choice of music: "I don't see how it trivialises [the Holocaust] or is in bad taste," he says, adding that the same question wouldn't be asked of music from Cabaret, a musical set in Nazi Berlin.
John Williams's soundtrack of violin music (played by the Israeli violinist Itzhak Perlman) has actually been popular with skaters since the film's release in 1994. Paul Wylie performed a routine to the music that year, as did the German champion Katarina Witt (who also wore red and made headlines). It's not hard to see why dancers love the score - Williams spares no effort in attempting to match the sadness of the film with the tempo of his music, and its romantic melancholy lends itself perfectly to the dramatics of an ice dance.
It's an opinion that the judges at Sochi obviously share. However, the music has not always been an Olympic winner. In Atlanta 1996, the French synchronised swimming team proposed a Holocaust-themed routine to the same soundtrack, beginning with the nose-clipped swimmers goose-stepping into the pool. The plan was quietly abandoned before the Games - probably wisely.
Julia Lipnitskaia competes in the women’s team short program figure skating competition on Saturday in Sochi.
The Associated PressSOCHI (AP)—Like old times, Russia is dominating Olympic figure skating.
The host nation’s disappointment over not winning a gold medal in Vancouver will fade quickly if its skaters’ performances in the new event of team figure skating carry on throughout the Sochi Games.
Fifteen-year-old Julia Lipnitskaia had the look of an Olympic champion on Saturday night, dazzling the home crowd with a near-perfect routine in the women’s short program. Then it was Russia’s backup pair, Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov, earning cheers as they routed the field in the free skate.
With only the men’s and women’s free skate and the free dance left to contest in Sunday’s finale, Russia has 47 points to Canada’s 41 and the United States’ 34. Italy has 31 and Japan has 30.
With her countrymen chanting her first name, Lipnitskaia put on a mature presentation that had fans stomping their feet and showering the ice with flowers and dolls. Her flexibility and rapid rotation on her spins and jumps were reminiscent of Tara Lipinski when she won the 1998 Olympic gold.
And Lipinski, who was the same age at those games in Nagano, was on hand to see it.
“I have been saying the whole year that she is a dark horse,” Lipinski said of Lipnitskaia—yes, the names are nearly the same. “I loved the energy and the fight in her.”
Lipnitskaia easily outskated far more experienced competitors Carolina Kostner of Italy, who is in her third Olympics, and Japan’s Mao Asada, in her second. The moment wasn’t too big for her in any way.
“My trainers told me people would cry,” she said. “They told me they would be clapping to the music. But I didn’t think the spectators would be so loud. But it helped me to perform really well.”
Just like her comrades.
In the new event, Russia has finished no lower than third in any of its four disciplines. The nation that for decades held a stronghold on figure skating medals as the Soviet Union and then as Russia—51 in all—appears ready to hog the podium again after winning just two in Vancouver.
There was nothing ghastly about the performance of Stolbova and Klimov to music from “The Addams Family.” Stepping in for world champs Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov, who won the short program, Stolbova and Klimov had the audience in the Iceberg at Sochi’s Olympic Park on its feet well before they finished their routine.
“We feel a great amount of responsibility for our country and, of course, [had] the fans on our side,” Klimov said through a translator. “We did believe we have to be ready for that and do our best.”
It was a good night for the Americans, too. The team was seventh heading into Saturday, but thanks in great part to world champion ice dancers Meryl Davis and Charlie White, it got back into contention for a medal. The 2010 ice dancing silver medalists quickstepped to the rescue by winning the short dance.
A severe snow storm warning has been issued in the Japanese capital, Tokyo, with residents urged to stay indoors.
Correspondents say it is the first such warning for the city in 13 years.
Hundreds of flights have been cancelled, roads closed and some train services suspended.
Local media has reported that at least 43 people have been injured because of snow-related accidents, with as much as 4cm (1.6in) of snow recorded on Saturday morning in Tokyo.
Public transport has been severely disrupted by the bad weather
The snow has resulted in treacherous conditions on Tokyo's footpaths and roadways
Weather forecasters have warned that with a rapidly developing low pressure front heading towards eastern Japan, more snow can be expected.
Last year parts of northern Japan had as much as 5.5m (18ft) of snow - a record-breaking amount that caused buildings to collapse under its immense weight.
Many flights were cancelled at Tokyo's Haneda airport
Local media has reported that at least 43 people have been injured because of snow-related accidents
Mamoru Samuragochi in Hiroshima, Japan, in December at a performance of a symphony he had supposedly composed.Jiji Press, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
TOKYO — He was celebrated as a prolific musical genius whose compositions appeared in popular video games and the competition routine of a top figure skater in the coming Sochi Olympics. His deafness won him praise as Japan’s modern-day Beethoven.
It turns out his magnum opus was his own masquerade.
On Thursday, Japan learned that one of its most popular musical figures, Mamoru Samuragochi, 50, had staged an elaborate hoax in which someone else had secretly written his most famous compositions, and he had perhaps even faked his hearing disability.
Across a nation long captivated by Western classical music, people reacted with remorse, outrage and even the rare threat of a lawsuit after Mr. Samuragochi’s revelations that he had hired a ghostwriter since the 1990s to compose most of his music. The anger turned to disbelief when the ghostwriter himself came forward to accuse Mr. Samuragochi of faking his deafness, apparently to win public sympathy and shape the Beethoven persona.
The scandal began on Wednesday, when Mr. Samuragochi publicly confessed that someone else had written his most famous works. These include Symphony No. 1 “Hiroshima,” about the 1945 atomic bombing of his home city, which became a classical music hit in Japan; the theme music for the video games Resident Evil and Onimusha; and Sonatina for Violin, which the Japanese Olympic figure skater Daisuke Takahashi is scheduled to use in his short program performance at the Winter Games in Sochi.
The Japanese Olympic figure skater Daisuke Takahashi performed to Sonatina for Violin last year.Video by doradorax2
The timing could hardly have been worse for Mr. Takahashi, a potential medalist who won the bronze in the Vancouver Olympics four years ago. He said in a statement that he would continue to skate to the musical piece — he really had little choice with scant time left before the competition — and hoped the revelations would not overshadow his performance.
“Takahashi and the people involved with him did not know about this incident,” the statement said. “This is a crucial time just before the Olympics.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Samuragochi expressed remorse for the deception, though did not reveal why he chose to come forward at that particular moment.
“Samuragochi is deeply sorry as he has betrayed fans and disappointed others,” said the written confession, released by Mr. Samuragochi’s lawyer. “He knows he could not possibly make any excuse for what he has done.”
The reason for this sudden repentance became clear on Thursday when the ghostwriter revealed himself to be Takashi Niigaki, 43, a hitherto largely unknown part-time lecturer at a prestigious music college in Tokyo. Mr. Niigaki said he had written more than 20 songs for Mr. Samuragochi since 1996, for which he received the equivalent of about $70,000.
He said he felt so guilty about the deception that he had threatened to go public in the past, but Mr. Samuragochi had begged him not to. He said he finally could not take it anymore when he learned one of his songs would be used by the Olympic skater. He told his story to a weekly tabloid, which went on sale Thursday.
Launch media viewer
Takashi Niigaki, Mr. Samuragochi’s ghostwriter since the 1990s, spoke at a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday.
Kimimasa Mayama/European Pressphoto Agency
“He told me that if I didn’t write songs for him, he’d commit suicide,” Mr. Niigaki told a crowded news conference. “But I could not bear the thought of skater Takahashi being seen by the world as a co-conspirator in our crime.”
Perhaps just as shocking was Mr. Niigaki’s assertion that Mr. Samuragochi was never deaf. Mr. Niigaki said that he had regular conversations with Mr. Samuragochi, who listened to and commented on his compositions. Mr. Niigaki said the deafness was just “an act that he was performing to the outside world.”
Repeated calls and faxes to Mr. Samuragochi’s lawyers after Mr. Niigaki’s news conference were not answered.
It was unclear exactly how Mr. Samuragochi duped the world since asserting he went deaf in the late 1990s. No one, it seemed, suspected the one-time child music prodigy had not composed his own work. But in past interviews with the news media, Mr. Samuragochi gave an explanation that might explain why no one ever doubted his hearing loss: He said he was completely deaf in one ear, but had some hearing in the other that was assisted by a hearing aid.
The scandal has brought an abrupt fall from grace for Mr. Samuragochi, a man who looked the part of a modern-day composer with his long hair, stylish dark suits and ever-present sunglasses.
Much of Mr. Samuragochi’s appeal seemed to lie in his inspiring life story, especially for a country so fascinated by classical music. Japan was the birthplace of the Suzuki string method, and international superstars like the conductor Seiji Ozawa and the pianist Mitsuko Uchida are the source of great pride there. Tokyo alone has some 10 professional orchestras, and the Japanese in the past have been among the biggest buyers of recorded classical music.
The public adored Mr. Samuragochi, who appeared to have overcome a serious physical disability, the loss of almost all of his hearing at age 35 because of a degenerative condition, to achieve music greatness. In a 2007 autobiography titled “Symphony No. 1,” Mr. Samuragochi described himself as the son of an atomic bomb survivor and able to play Beethoven and Bach on the piano by age 10.
Mr. Samuragochi seemed to reach the height of his popularity last year, when Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK, aired a documentary titled “Melody of the Soul: The Composer Who Lost His Hearing” that followed him as he met survivors of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan.
He regularly appeared in many major news media, including Time magazine, which quoted him in a 2001 interview as saying that the loss of hearing turned out to be “a gift from God.”
“I listen to myself,” he told the magazine. “If you trust your inner sense of sound, you create something that is truer. It is like communicating from the heart.”
The disclosure of his deception brought a wave of apologies by major Japanese news media outlets, which expressed regret about failing to uncover Mr. Samuragochi’s deceit.
“We want him to explain his behavior,” said the Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s second-biggest-selling newspaper, in a mea culpa published Thursday, “but the media must also consider our own tendency to fall for tear-jerking stories.”
The episode also shook Japan’s struggling music industry, for whom Mr. Samuragochi had offered a rare respite from declining sales of classical CDs. The Hiroshima symphony sold 180,000 copies in a classical music market where sales of 10,000 constitute a hit.
The music company Nippon Columbia said in a statement that it was “appalled and deeply indignant” and would stop selling his CDs. Orchestras across Japan said they were canceling concerts that featured Mr. Samuragochi’s music. One, the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra, said it was considering a lawsuit to retrieve lost ticket sales, an extreme expression of anger in nonlitigious Japan.
The mayor of Hiroshima also threatened to strip Mr. Samuragochi of a “citizen’s award” that the city had given him for promoting the city’s message of opposing nuclear weapons.
“We never imagined this,” the mayor, Kazumi Matsui, was quoted as telling the daily Yomiuri Shimbun. “We are aghast.”
The star accepted the Screen Actors Guild Awards life achievement award in 2006
