Hillsborough charity single takes U.K. Christmas No. 1 spot

A charity single honouring the victims of one of Britain's worst-ever sporting disasters has become the U.K.'s Christmas No. 1 on the pop music chart.

According to the Official Charts Company, the cover track He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother by the ensemble The Justice Collective captured the top spot on the pop music chart for the week of Christmas.

An annual tradition closely followed by British music fans, the Christmas No. 1 is based on sales and legal downloads during week of Christmas. He Ain't Heavy sold 269,000 copies to beat out Impossible, the debut single of James Arthur, the latest winner of the music talent show The X-Factor.

Paul McCartney, former Spice Girl Mel C., Robbie Williams and Mick Jones of The Clash are among the famous figures who formed The Justice Collective to perform the cover, which is a benefit track to raise money for the families of those who died in 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

The tragedy saw 96 soccer fans crushed to death at a stadium in Sheffield, in northern England. At the time, police characterized the victims as rowdy, drunken fans and blamed them for the crush. An inquest issued verdicts of "accidental death."

However, for years the families of those killed have campaigned to overturn the official accounts and restore the smeared reputations of their deceased relatives.

On Dec. 19, Britain's High Court quashed the original verdicts and ordered a new investigation. The government has also set up a new inquiry into the tragedy.

Winning singers of The X-Factor, Simon Cowell's TV music competition, have dominated the Christmas No. 1 slot in the past decade.

The exceptions have included an amateur choir of military wives, who took the No. 1 spot in 2011 for Wherever You Are (an original song inspired by poems they exchanged with their husbands stationed in Afghanistan), and U.S. band Rage Against the Machine, whose track Killing in the Name was pushed to the top of 2009's holiday chart through a grassroots online campaign.

With files from The Associated Press

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5 key developments in books in 2012

Millions of readers pushed the Fifty Shades trilogy into bestseller status. (Random House/Associated Press)

2012 was a strange year in publishing, with an erotic trilogy dominating the bestseller lists as other hit authors flailed. The publishing industry is finding its way through readers' newly developed taste for e-books, but this digital transition may have sparked a publishing upheaval that will continue well into the new year. CBC News outlines five key developments of 2012.

---

The "Mommy-porn" sensation

Who would have thought a book about a sexually inexperienced young woman and a man with a taste for sadism and bondage would pull millions of readers out of the woodwork? But that's exactly what Fifty Shades, the erotic trilogy from British writer E.L. James has done, selling more than 35 million copies to date. The series was, in part, linked to the rise of e-books — with myriad mild-mannered mommies able to surreptitiously read the series on the subway or with half an eye on the playground, no one the wiser about what they were reading.

British writer E.L. James dominated the bestseller list with her Fifty Shades trilogy, which was inspired by Twilight. (Associated Press)

Many of these Fifty Shades readers were people who had apparently skipped right over The Story of O or even Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty trilogy over the course of their reading career. Instead, they opted for a series openly modeled on The Twilight Saga, with its similarly helpless heroine and a repugnant, but handsome hero obsessed with control from the start. Ultimately, Fifty Shades has been so successful that Random House gave all of its staff $5,000 bonuses this Christmas.

Fifty Shades has also kicked open the door for scores of erotic fiction writers, among them Sylvia Day, Indigo Bloome, Vina Jackson and Justine Elyot. Cosmopolitan magazine and romance publisher Harlequin are even starting a new erotic e-book venture, with plans to release two e-books a month. Expect more publishers — and writers — to cash in on the trend in the coming year.

---

The sleeper hit: Secret Daughter

Shilpi Somaya Gowda, who was born and raised in Toronto but currently lives in Texas, first published her mother-daughter tale Secret Daughter in 2010. A readable, sometimes poignant debut novel, it features the parallel stories of an Indian woman who gives up her female child and an infertile couple in America hungry for a child. Secret Daughter hit a milestone in 2012, selling 500,000 copies in Canada in November.

Shilpi Somaya Gowda is a canny user of social media. (Shilpigowda.com)

Though HarperCollins initially issued Secret Daughter in Canada as a trade paperback — meaning it sold for a lower price than a hardcover — the publisher did very little promotion for the book by an unknown writer. The trade paperback version emphasized Gowda's Canadian roots, but it wasn't until an astute Costco buyer agreed to carry the novel that it seemed to catch on with Canadian readers. Its story reflects the immigrant experience, reflecting on issues of family loyalty, generational change and being torn between different cultures. Secret Daughter experienced the kind of word-of-mouth popularity that turns books into sleeper hits and became Canada's top-selling book of 2010.

HarperCollins took notice and finally put resources into promotion. Gowda manages her own social media persona, spending 10 hours a week taking part in book clubs via Skype and personally answering Facebook messages. The novel became a New York Times bestseller last year as well as a top seller in Norway, Israel, Poland, Germany and Malaysia, with rights sold in 22 countries.

---

The disappointment: The Casual Vacancy

J.K. Rowling 's record-smashing Harry Potter series was a godsend to its publishers worldwide, including Bloomsbury in the U.K., Scholastic in the U.S. and Raincoast Books in Canada. But with her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, the British writer changed publishers, part of the signal she was preparing something completely different. The book was kept under careful wraps to avoid leaks — since, naturally, it had received a great deal of advanced press. And then, Rowling did exactly as promised and delivered something completely different.

J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy received mixed reviews and surprised Harry Potter fans with its grim outlook. (Associated Press)

Anyone picking up The Casual Vacancy hoping for the quirky antics and magic of Harry Potter was sadly disappointed. The British press howled at the book's profanity. "J.K. Rowling and the Goblet of Filth" screamed the Daily Mirror. Critics and readers were divided on its literary merits. The novel, about the competition for a vacancy on a village council (one preparing to debate what to do about the local low-income housing estate), treads into serious territory. Some critics found it plodding, with no clever literary tricks to leaven the reading.

True to Rowling's Harry Potter legacy, The Casual Vacancy is long, with dozens of characters broadly drawn. And like her teen wizard series, her new novel has a definite moral centre. The story explores the impossible life of one teen living in the housing estate and attempting to raise her baby brother while keeping her mother off drugs — grim stuff for both Potter readers and publishers. Though the book sold a million copies in its first three weeks — a good result — the sales are nowhere close to those of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.. The final instalment of her wizard world series sold 12 million in its first week of release and 44 million in its first year. Still, The Casual Vacancy is being adapted into a BBC television drama for release in 2014.

---

Seismic shifts in publishing

This fall, Vancouver-based publisher Douglas & McIntyre, which also owns Greystone Books, filed for bankruptcy protection in October. The publisher of such noted titles as Carmen Aguirre's Something Fierce and Wayson Choy's The Jade Peony is seeking an investor or buyer. Meanwhile, German media company Bertelsmann announced it would merge its Random House subsidiary with Britain's Penguin, creating the world's largest trade publishing house.

Readers have embraced e-readers and publishers are racing to keep up. (Associated Press)

These moves follow a 2011 that saw Key Porter Books and H.B. Fenn disappear from the Canadian publishing scene. This wave of bankruptcies and mergers has book-lovers worried about the long-term health of Canadian publishing and who else might be facing a perilous situation. Still, there is a strong contingent of small presses publishing Canadian fiction and non-fiction.

The distribution of books, concentrated in a few hands, is still a problem. The pricing of e-books remains a huge question mark. While publishers race to embrace the digital format, it may change the entire book publishing model, perhaps compressing the time to market as well as the way titles are marketed to consumers. This year's changes mark a seismic shift that's only just beginning.

---

The unknown quantity

However, it's not all doom and gloom. One of the great unknowns in the changing publishing landscape is the impact of promising new forums like Wattpad and Byliner, which publish online only. How will they affect how authors write and how we read?

Wattpad, a Canadian site backed by Silicon Valley venture capitalists, aims to be the YouTube of storytelling. It holds out the hope of serialized fiction, as with Margaret Atwood's zombie tale, and also offers stories in fantasy, mystery, teen and other literary genres. It even has its own awards. The reader pays nothing — but then, the writer isn't paid either.

Margaret Atwood, left, is writing a Wattpad zombie novel with British author Naomi Alderman. With the pair passes the writing baton between chapters. (Rolex Mentor and Protégé Program)

Byliner, a social network that carries original short stories as well as long-form journalism, has a tighter control of what it accepts and publishes. Organizers curate the best stories from publications such as the Atlantic, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker while also accepting stories from selected writers. Hazlitt is following a similar approach in Canada. Like Wattpad, these services play best on all those Kindle, iPad and Kobo reader have snapped up in the past year, as well as those who read on their computers or mobile devices.

Yet another unknown quantity is how quickly readers might adapt to these new sources and how to charge for this new content. But that's a story for another year — most likely 2013.

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Jack Klugman, Oscar from The Odd Couple, dies at 90

Jack Klugman, the prolific, craggy-faced character actor and regular guy who was loved by millions as the messy one in TV's The Odd Couple and the crime-fighting coroner in Quincy, M.E., died Monday, a son said. He was 90.

Klugman, who lost his voice to throat cancer in the 1980s and trained himself to speak again, died with his wife at his side.

"He had a great life and he enjoyed every moment of it and he would encourage others to do the same," son Adam Klugman said.

Adam Klugman said he was spending Christmas with his brother, David, and their families. Their father had been convalescing for some time but had apparently died suddenly and they were not sure of the exact cause.

"His sons loved him very much," David Klugman said. "We'll carry on in his spirit."

Actor Jack Klugman arrives at the Tony Awards in 2008. Klugman split his time between TV, movies and the New York stage. (Peter Kramer/Associated Press)

Never anyone's idea of a matinee idol, Klugman remained a popular star for decades simply by playing the type of man you could imagine running into at a bar or riding on a subway with — gruff, but down to earth, his tie stained and a little loose, a racing form under his arm, a cigar in hand during the days when smoking was permitted.

He was an actor ideal for The Odd Couple, which ran from 1970 to 1975 and was based on Neil Simon's play about mismatched roommates, divorced New Yorkers who end up living together. The show teamed Klugman — the sloppy sports writer Oscar Madison — and Tony Randall — the fussy photographer Felix Unger — in the roles played by Walter Matthau and Art Carney on Broadway and Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the 1968 film. Klugman had already had a taste of the show when he replaced Matthau on Broadway and he learned to roll with the quick-thinking Randall, with whom he had worked in 1955 on the CBS series Appointment with Adventure.

"There's nobody better to improvise with than Tony," Klugman said. "A script might say, 'Oscar teaches Felix football.' There would be four blank pages. He would provoke me into reacting to what he did. Mine was the easy part."

They were battlers on screen, and the best of friends in real life. When Randall died in 2004 at age 84, Klugman told CNN: "A world without Tony Randall is a world that I cannot recognize."

Quincy 'two heroes in one'

In Quincy, M.E., which ran from 1976 to 1983, Klugman played an idealistic, tough-minded medical examiner who tussled with his boss by uncovering evidence of murder in cases where others saw natural causes.

"We had some wonderful writers," he said in a 1987 Associated Press interview. "Quincy was a muckraker, like Upton Sinclair, who wrote about injustices. He was my ideal as a youngster, my author, my hero.

"Everybody said, 'Quincy'll never be a hit.' I said, 'You guys are wrong. He's two heroes in one, a cop and a doctor.' A coroner has power. He can tell the police commissioner to investigate a murder. I saw the opportunity to do what I'd gotten into the theater to do — give a message.

"They were going to do cops and robbers with 'Quincy.' I said, 'You promised me I could do causes.' They said, 'Nobody wants to see that.' I said, 'Look at the success of 60 Minutes." They want to see it if you present it as entertainment." '

For his 1987 role as 81-year-old Nat in the Broadway production of I'm Not Rappaport, Klugman wore leg weights to learn to shuffle like an elderly man. He said he would wear them for an hour before each performance, "to remember to keep that shuffle."

"The guy is so vital emotionally, but physically he can't be," Klugman said.

"We treat old people so badly. There is nothing easy about 80."

Film credits include 12 Angry Men, Days of Wine and Roses

The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he was born in Philadelphia and began his acting career in college drama (Carnegie Institute of Technology). After serving in the Army during the Second World War, he went on to summer stock and off-Broadway, rooming with fellow actor Charles Bronson as both looked for paying jobs. He made his Broadway debut in 1952 in a revival of Golden Boy. His film credits included Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men and Blake Edwards' Days of Wine and Roses and an early television highlight was appearing with Humphrey Bogart and Henry Fonda in a production of The Petrified Forest. His performance in the classic 1959 musical Gypsy brought him a Tony nomination for best featured (supporting) actor in a musical.

He also appeared in several episodes of The Twilight Zone, including a memorable 1963 one in which he played a negligent father whose son is seriously wounded in Vietnam. His other TV shows included The Defenders and the soap opera The Greatest Gift.

In a 1987 interview in the New York Daily News, he said, "once I did three hourlong shows in 2½ weeks. Think we'd do that now? Huh! But then it was great. I did summer stock, played the classics. Me!"

Throat cancer took away his raspy voice for several years in the 1980s. When he was back on the stage for a 1993 revival of Three Men on a Horse, The Associated Press review said, "His voice may be a little scratchy but his timing is as impeccable as ever."

"The only really stupid thing I ever did in my life was to start smoking," he said in 1996. Seeing people smoking in television and films, he added, "disgusts me, it makes me so angry — kids are watching."

In his later years, he guest-starred on TV series including Third Watch and Crossing Jordan and appeared in a 2010 theatrical film, Camera Obscura.

Loved horse racing

Klugman's hobby was horse racing and he eventually took up raising them, too.

"I always loved to gamble," he said. "I never got close to a horse. Fate dealt me a terrible blow when it gave me a good horse the first time out. I thought how easy this is.

"Now I love being around them."

Klugman's wife, actress-comedian Brett Somers, played his ex-wife, Blanche, in the Odd Couple series. The couple, who married in 1953 and had two sons, Adam and David, had been estranged for years at the time of her death in 2007.

In February 2008, at age 85, Klugman married longtime girlfriend Peggy Crosby.

In 1997, Klugman was sued by an ex-girlfriend, Barbara Neugass, who claimed he had promised to support her for the rest of her life. But a jury rejected her claim.

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Charles Durning, king of character actors, dies at 89

Charles Durning grew up in poverty, lost five of his nine siblings to disease, barely lived through D-Day and was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge.

His hard life and wartime trauma provided the basis for a prolific 50-year career as a consummate Oscar-nominated character actor, playing everyone from a Nazi colonel, to the Pope to Dustin Hoffman's would-be suitor in Tootsie.

Durning, who died Monday at age 89 in New York, got his start as an usher at a burlesque theatre in Buffalo, N.Y. When one of the comedians showed up too drunk to go on, Durning took his place. He would recall years later that he was hooked as soon as heard the audience laughing.

He told The Associated Press in 2008 that he had no plans to stop working. "They're going to carry me out, if I go," he said.

Durning's longtime agent and friend, Judith Moss, told the AP that Durning died of natural causes in his home in the borough of Manhattan.

Although he portrayed everyone from blustery public officials, to comic foils to put-upon everymen, Durning may be best remembered by movie audiences for his Oscar-nominated, over-the-top role as a comically corrupt governor in 1982's The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Many critics marvelled that such a heavyset man could be so nimble in the film's show-stopping song-and-dance number, not realizing Durning had been a dance instructor early in his career. Indeed, he had met his first wife, Carol, when both worked at a dance studio.

The year after Best Little Whorehouse, Durning received another Oscar nomination, for his portrayal of a bumbling Nazi officer in Mel Brooks's To Be or Not to Be. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe as the harried police lieutenant in 1975's Dog Day Afternoon.

He won a Golden Globe as best supporting TV actor in 1991 for his portrayal of John (Honey Fitz) Fitzgerald in the TV film The Kennedys of Massachusetts and a Tony in 1990 as Big Daddy in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Career started on stage

Durning had begun his career on stage, getting his first big break when theatrical producer Joseph Papp hired him for the New York Shakespeare Festival.

He went on to work regularly, if fairly anonymously, through the 1960s until his breakout role as a small town mayor in the Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play That Championship Season in 1972.

He quickly made an impression on movie audiences the following year as the crooked cop stalking con men Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the Oscar-winning comedy The Sting.

Dozens of notable portrayals followed. He was:

• The would-be suitor of Dustin Hoffman, posing as a female soap opera star in Tootsie.
• The infamous seller of frog legs in The Muppet Movie.
• Chief Brandon in Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy.
• He played Santa Claus in four different movies made for television.
• He played the Pope in the TV film I Would be Called John: Pope John XXIII.

"I never turned down anything and never argued with any producer or director," Durning told The Associated Press in 2008, when he was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Actors Charles Durning, left, Eliott Gould, middle, and then Screen Actors Guild president Ed Asner are shown in March 1984 before the filming of the 50th Anniversary Special celebrating the guild in Santa Monica, Calif. (Heung Shing Liu/Associated Press)

Other films included The Front Page, The Hindenburg, Breakheart Pass, North Dallas Forty, Starting Over, Tough Guys, Home for the Holidays, Spy Hard and O Brother Where Art Thou?

Durning also did well in television as a featured performer as well as a guest star. He appeared in the short-lived series The Cop and the Kid (1975), Eye to Eye (1985) and First Monday (2002) as well as the four-season Evening Shade in the 1990s.

"If I'm not in a part, I drive my wife crazy," he acknowledged during a 1997 interview. "I'll go downstairs to get the mail, and when I come back I'll say, `Any calls for me?"'

Durning's rugged early life provided ample material on which to base his later portrayals. He was born into an Irish family of 10 children in 1923, in Highland Falls, N.Y., a town near West Point. His father was unable to work, having lost a leg and been gassed during World War I, so his mother supported the family by washing the uniforms of West Point cadets.

The younger Durning himself would barely survive World War II.

He was among the first wave of U.S. soldiers to land at Normandy during the D-Day invasion and the only member of his army unit to survive. He killed several Germans and was wounded in the leg. Later he was bayoneted by a young German soldier whom he killed with a rock. He was captured in the Battle of the Bulge and survived a massacre of prisoners.

Military left 'too many bad memories,' Durning says

In later years, he refused to discuss the military service for which he was awarded the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts.

"Too many bad memories," he told an interviewer in 1997. "I don't want you to see me crying."

Tragedy also stalked other members of his family. Durning was 12 when his father died, and five of his sisters lost their lives to smallpox and scarlet fever.

A high school counsellor told him he had no talent for art, languages or math and should learn office skills. But after seeing King Kong and some of James Cagney's films, Durning knew what he wanted to do.

Leaving home at 16, he worked in a munitions factory, on a slag heap and in a barbed-wire factory.

Durning and his first wife had three children before divorcing in 1972. In 1974, he married his high school sweetheart, Mary Ann Amelio.

He is survived by his children, Michele, Douglas and Jeannine. The family planned to have a private family service and burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

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Hillsborough charity single takes U.K. Christmas No. 1 spot

A charity single honouring the victims of one of Britain's worst-ever sporting disasters has become the U.K.'s Christmas No. 1 on the pop music chart.

According to the Official Charts Company, the cover track He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother by the ensemble The Justice Collective captured the top spot on the pop music chart for the week of Christmas.

An annual tradition closely followed by British music fans, the Christmas No. 1 is based on sales and legal downloads during week of Christmas. He Ain't Heavy sold 269,000 copies to beat out Impossible, the debut single of James Arthur, the latest winner of the music talent show The X-Factor.

Paul McCartney, former Spice Girl Mel C., Robbie Williams and Mick Jones of The Clash are among the famous figures who formed The Justice Collective to perform the cover, which is a benefit track to raise money for the families of those who died in 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

The tragedy saw 96 soccer fans crushed to death at a stadium in Sheffield, in northern England. At the time, police characterized the victims as rowdy, drunken fans and blamed them for the crush. An inquest issued verdicts of "accidental death."

However, for years the families of those killed have campaigned to overturn the official accounts and restore the smeared reputations of their deceased relatives.

On Dec. 19, Britain's High Court quashed the original verdicts and ordered a new investigation. The government has also set up a new inquiry into the tragedy.

Winning singers of The X-Factor, Simon Cowell's TV music competition, have dominated the Christmas No. 1 slot in the past decade.

The exceptions have included an amateur choir of military wives, who took the No. 1 spot in 2011 for Wherever You Are (an original song inspired by poems they exchanged with their husbands stationed in Afghanistan), and U.S. band Rage Against the Machine, whose track Killing in the Name was pushed to the top of 2009's holiday chart through a grassroots online campaign.

With files from The Associated Press

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5 key developments in books in 2012

Millions of readers pushed the Fifty Shades trilogy into bestseller status. (Random House/Associated Press)

2012 was a strange year in publishing, with an erotic trilogy dominating the bestseller lists as other hit authors flailed. The publishing industry is finding its way through readers' newly developed taste for e-books, but this digital transition may have sparked a publishing upheaval that will continue well into the new year. CBC News outlines five key developments of 2012.

---

The "Mommy-porn" sensation

Who would have thought a book about a sexually inexperienced young woman and a man with a taste for sadism and bondage would pull millions of readers out of the woodwork? But that's exactly what Fifty Shades, the erotic trilogy from British writer E.L. James has done, selling more than 35 million copies to date. The series was, in part, linked to the rise of e-books — with myriad mild-mannered mommies able to surreptitiously read the series on the subway or with half an eye on the playground, no one the wiser about what they were reading.

British writer E.L. James dominated the bestseller list with her Fifty Shades trilogy, which was inspired by Twilight. (Associated Press)

Many of these Fifty Shades readers were people who had apparently skipped right over The Story of O or even Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty trilogy over the course of their reading career. Instead, they opted for a series openly modeled on The Twilight Saga, with its similarly helpless heroine and a repugnant, but handsome hero obsessed with control from the start. Ultimately, Fifty Shades has been so successful that Random House gave all of its staff $5,000 bonuses this Christmas.

Fifty Shades has also kicked open the door for scores of erotic fiction writers, among them Sylvia Day, Indigo Bloome, Vina Jackson and Justine Elyot. Cosmopolitan magazine and romance publisher Harlequin are even starting a new erotic e-book venture, with plans to release two e-books a month. Expect more publishers — and writers — to cash in on the trend in the coming year.

---

The sleeper hit: Secret Daughter

Shilpi Somaya Gowda, who was born and raised in Toronto but currently lives in Texas, first published her mother-daughter tale Secret Daughter in 2010. A readable, sometimes poignant debut novel, it features the parallel stories of an Indian woman who gives up her female child and an infertile couple in America hungry for a child. Secret Daughter hit a milestone in 2012, selling 500,000 copies in Canada in November.

Shilpi Somaya Gowda is a canny user of social media. (Shilpigowda.com)

Though HarperCollins initially issued Secret Daughter in Canada as a trade paperback — meaning it sold for a lower price than a hardcover — the publisher did very little promotion for the book by an unknown writer. The trade paperback version emphasized Gowda's Canadian roots, but it wasn't until an astute Costco buyer agreed to carry the novel that it seemed to catch on with Canadian readers. Its story reflects the immigrant experience, reflecting on issues of family loyalty, generational change and being torn between different cultures. Secret Daughter experienced the kind of word-of-mouth popularity that turns books into sleeper hits and became Canada's top-selling book of 2010.

HarperCollins took notice and finally put resources into promotion. Gowda manages her own social media persona, spending 10 hours a week taking part in book clubs via Skype and personally answering Facebook messages. The novel became a New York Times bestseller last year as well as a top seller in Norway, Israel, Poland, Germany and Malaysia, with rights sold in 22 countries.

---

The disappointment: The Casual Vacancy

J.K. Rowling 's record-smashing Harry Potter series was a godsend to its publishers worldwide, including Bloomsbury in the U.K., Scholastic in the U.S. and Raincoast Books in Canada. But with her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, the British writer changed publishers, part of the signal she was preparing something completely different. The book was kept under careful wraps to avoid leaks — since, naturally, it had received a great deal of advanced press. And then, Rowling did exactly as promised and delivered something completely different.

J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy received mixed reviews and surprised Harry Potter fans with its grim outlook. (Associated Press)

Anyone picking up The Casual Vacancy hoping for the quirky antics and magic of Harry Potter was sadly disappointed. The British press howled at the book's profanity. "J.K. Rowling and the Goblet of Filth" screamed the Daily Mirror. Critics and readers were divided on its literary merits. The novel, about the competition for a vacancy on a village council (one preparing to debate what to do about the local low-income housing estate), treads into serious territory. Some critics found it plodding, with no clever literary tricks to leaven the reading.

True to Rowling's Harry Potter legacy, The Casual Vacancy is long, with dozens of characters broadly drawn. And like her teen wizard series, her new novel has a definite moral centre. The story explores the impossible life of one teen living in the housing estate and attempting to raise her baby brother while keeping her mother off drugs — grim stuff for both Potter readers and publishers. Though the book sold a million copies in its first three weeks — a good result — the sales are nowhere close to those of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.. The final instalment of her wizard world series sold 12 million in its first week of release and 44 million in its first year. Still, The Casual Vacancy is being adapted into a BBC television drama for release in 2014.

---

Seismic shifts in publishing

This fall, Vancouver-based publisher Douglas & McIntyre, which also owns Greystone Books, filed for bankruptcy protection in October. The publisher of such noted titles as Carmen Aguirre's Something Fierce and Wayson Choy's The Jade Peony is seeking an investor or buyer. Meanwhile, German media company Bertelsmann announced it would merge its Random House subsidiary with Britain's Penguin, creating the world's largest trade publishing house.

Readers have embraced e-readers and publishers are racing to keep up. (Associated Press)

These moves follow a 2011 that saw Key Porter Books and H.B. Fenn disappear from the Canadian publishing scene. This wave of bankruptcies and mergers has book-lovers worried about the long-term health of Canadian publishing and who else might be facing a perilous situation. Still, there is a strong contingent of small presses publishing Canadian fiction and non-fiction.

The distribution of books, concentrated in a few hands, is still a problem. The pricing of e-books remains a huge question mark. While publishers race to embrace the digital format, it may change the entire book publishing model, perhaps compressing the time to market as well as the way titles are marketed to consumers. This year's changes mark a seismic shift that's only just beginning.

---

The unknown quantity

However, it's not all doom and gloom. One of the great unknowns in the changing publishing landscape is the impact of promising new forums like Wattpad and Byliner, which publish online only. How will they affect how authors write and how we read?

Wattpad, a Canadian site backed by Silicon Valley venture capitalists, aims to be the YouTube of storytelling. It holds out the hope of serialized fiction, as with Margaret Atwood's zombie tale, and also offers stories in fantasy, mystery, teen and other literary genres. It even has its own awards. The reader pays nothing — but then, the writer isn't paid either.

Margaret Atwood, left, is writing a Wattpad zombie novel with British author Naomi Alderman. With the pair passes the writing baton between chapters. (Rolex Mentor and Protégé Program)

Byliner, a social network that carries original short stories as well as long-form journalism, has a tighter control of what it accepts and publishes. Organizers curate the best stories from publications such as the Atlantic, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker while also accepting stories from selected writers. Hazlitt is following a similar approach in Canada. Like Wattpad, these services play best on all those Kindle, iPad and Kobo reader have snapped up in the past year, as well as those who read on their computers or mobile devices.

Yet another unknown quantity is how quickly readers might adapt to these new sources and how to charge for this new content. But that's a story for another year — most likely 2013.

22.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Jack Klugman, Oscar from The Odd Couple, dies at 90

Jack Klugman, the prolific, craggy-faced character actor and regular guy who was loved by millions as the messy one in TV's The Odd Couple and the crime-fighting coroner in Quincy, M.E., died Monday, a son said. He was 90.

Klugman, who lost his voice to throat cancer in the 1980s and trained himself to speak again, died with his wife at his side.

"He had a great life and he enjoyed every moment of it and he would encourage others to do the same," son Adam Klugman said.

Adam Klugman said he was spending Christmas with his brother, David, and their families. Their father had been convalescing for some time but had apparently died suddenly and they were not sure of the exact cause.

"His sons loved him very much," David Klugman said. "We'll carry on in his spirit."

Actor Jack Klugman arrives at the Tony Awards in 2008. Klugman split his time between TV, movies and the New York stage. (Peter Kramer/Associated Press)

Never anyone's idea of a matinee idol, Klugman remained a popular star for decades simply by playing the type of man you could imagine running into at a bar or riding on a subway with — gruff, but down to earth, his tie stained and a little loose, a racing form under his arm, a cigar in hand during the days when smoking was permitted.

He was an actor ideal for The Odd Couple, which ran from 1970 to 1975 and was based on Neil Simon's play about mismatched roommates, divorced New Yorkers who end up living together. The show teamed Klugman — the sloppy sports writer Oscar Madison — and Tony Randall — the fussy photographer Felix Unger — in the roles played by Walter Matthau and Art Carney on Broadway and Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the 1968 film. Klugman had already had a taste of the show when he replaced Matthau on Broadway and he learned to roll with the quick-thinking Randall, with whom he had worked in 1955 on the CBS series Appointment with Adventure.

"There's nobody better to improvise with than Tony," Klugman said. "A script might say, 'Oscar teaches Felix football.' There would be four blank pages. He would provoke me into reacting to what he did. Mine was the easy part."

They were battlers on screen, and the best of friends in real life. When Randall died in 2004 at age 84, Klugman told CNN: "A world without Tony Randall is a world that I cannot recognize."

Quincy 'two heroes in one'

In Quincy, M.E., which ran from 1976 to 1983, Klugman played an idealistic, tough-minded medical examiner who tussled with his boss by uncovering evidence of murder in cases where others saw natural causes.

"We had some wonderful writers," he said in a 1987 Associated Press interview. "Quincy was a muckraker, like Upton Sinclair, who wrote about injustices. He was my ideal as a youngster, my author, my hero.

"Everybody said, 'Quincy'll never be a hit.' I said, 'You guys are wrong. He's two heroes in one, a cop and a doctor.' A coroner has power. He can tell the police commissioner to investigate a murder. I saw the opportunity to do what I'd gotten into the theater to do — give a message.

"They were going to do cops and robbers with 'Quincy.' I said, 'You promised me I could do causes.' They said, 'Nobody wants to see that.' I said, 'Look at the success of 60 Minutes." They want to see it if you present it as entertainment." '

For his 1987 role as 81-year-old Nat in the Broadway production of I'm Not Rappaport, Klugman wore leg weights to learn to shuffle like an elderly man. He said he would wear them for an hour before each performance, "to remember to keep that shuffle."

"The guy is so vital emotionally, but physically he can't be," Klugman said.

"We treat old people so badly. There is nothing easy about 80."

Film credits include 12 Angry Men, Days of Wine and Roses

The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he was born in Philadelphia and began his acting career in college drama (Carnegie Institute of Technology). After serving in the Army during the Second World War, he went on to summer stock and off-Broadway, rooming with fellow actor Charles Bronson as both looked for paying jobs. He made his Broadway debut in 1952 in a revival of Golden Boy. His film credits included Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men and Blake Edwards' Days of Wine and Roses and an early television highlight was appearing with Humphrey Bogart and Henry Fonda in a production of The Petrified Forest. His performance in the classic 1959 musical Gypsy brought him a Tony nomination for best featured (supporting) actor in a musical.

He also appeared in several episodes of The Twilight Zone, including a memorable 1963 one in which he played a negligent father whose son is seriously wounded in Vietnam. His other TV shows included The Defenders and the soap opera The Greatest Gift.

In a 1987 interview in the New York Daily News, he said, "once I did three hourlong shows in 2½ weeks. Think we'd do that now? Huh! But then it was great. I did summer stock, played the classics. Me!"

Throat cancer took away his raspy voice for several years in the 1980s. When he was back on the stage for a 1993 revival of Three Men on a Horse, The Associated Press review said, "His voice may be a little scratchy but his timing is as impeccable as ever."

"The only really stupid thing I ever did in my life was to start smoking," he said in 1996. Seeing people smoking in television and films, he added, "disgusts me, it makes me so angry — kids are watching."

In his later years, he guest-starred on TV series including Third Watch and Crossing Jordan and appeared in a 2010 theatrical film, Camera Obscura.

Loved horse racing

Klugman's hobby was horse racing and he eventually took up raising them, too.

"I always loved to gamble," he said. "I never got close to a horse. Fate dealt me a terrible blow when it gave me a good horse the first time out. I thought how easy this is.

"Now I love being around them."

Klugman's wife, actress-comedian Brett Somers, played his ex-wife, Blanche, in the Odd Couple series. The couple, who married in 1953 and had two sons, Adam and David, had been estranged for years at the time of her death in 2007.

In February 2008, at age 85, Klugman married longtime girlfriend Peggy Crosby.

In 1997, Klugman was sued by an ex-girlfriend, Barbara Neugass, who claimed he had promised to support her for the rest of her life. But a jury rejected her claim.

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Charles Durning, king of character actors, dies at 89

Charles Durning grew up in poverty, lost five of his nine siblings to disease, barely lived through D-Day and was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge.

His hard life and wartime trauma provided the basis for a prolific 50-year career as a consummate Oscar-nominated character actor, playing everyone from a Nazi colonel, to the Pope to Dustin Hoffman's would-be suitor in Tootsie.

Durning, who died Monday at age 89 in New York, got his start as an usher at a burlesque theatre in Buffalo, N.Y. When one of the comedians showed up too drunk to go on, Durning took his place. He would recall years later that he was hooked as soon as heard the audience laughing.

He told The Associated Press in 2008 that he had no plans to stop working. "They're going to carry me out, if I go," he said.

Durning's longtime agent and friend, Judith Moss, told the AP that Durning died of natural causes in his home in the borough of Manhattan.

Although he portrayed everyone from blustery public officials, to comic foils to put-upon everymen, Durning may be best remembered by movie audiences for his Oscar-nominated, over-the-top role as a comically corrupt governor in 1982's The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Many critics marvelled that such a heavyset man could be so nimble in the film's show-stopping song-and-dance number, not realizing Durning had been a dance instructor early in his career. Indeed, he had met his first wife, Carol, when both worked at a dance studio.

The year after Best Little Whorehouse, Durning received another Oscar nomination, for his portrayal of a bumbling Nazi officer in Mel Brooks's To Be or Not to Be. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe as the harried police lieutenant in 1975's Dog Day Afternoon.

He won a Golden Globe as best supporting TV actor in 1991 for his portrayal of John (Honey Fitz) Fitzgerald in the TV film The Kennedys of Massachusetts and a Tony in 1990 as Big Daddy in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Career started on stage

Durning had begun his career on stage, getting his first big break when theatrical producer Joseph Papp hired him for the New York Shakespeare Festival.

He went on to work regularly, if fairly anonymously, through the 1960s until his breakout role as a small town mayor in the Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play That Championship Season in 1972.

He quickly made an impression on movie audiences the following year as the crooked cop stalking con men Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the Oscar-winning comedy The Sting.

Dozens of notable portrayals followed. He was:

• The would-be suitor of Dustin Hoffman, posing as a female soap opera star in Tootsie.
• The infamous seller of frog legs in The Muppet Movie.
• Chief Brandon in Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy.
• He played Santa Claus in four different movies made for television.
• He played the Pope in the TV film I Would be Called John: Pope John XXIII.

"I never turned down anything and never argued with any producer or director," Durning told The Associated Press in 2008, when he was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Actors Charles Durning, left, Eliott Gould, middle, and then Screen Actors Guild president Ed Asner are shown in March 1984 before the filming of the 50th Anniversary Special celebrating the guild in Santa Monica, Calif. (Heung Shing Liu/Associated Press)

Other films included The Front Page, The Hindenburg, Breakheart Pass, North Dallas Forty, Starting Over, Tough Guys, Home for the Holidays, Spy Hard and O Brother Where Art Thou?

Durning also did well in television as a featured performer as well as a guest star. He appeared in the short-lived series The Cop and the Kid (1975), Eye to Eye (1985) and First Monday (2002) as well as the four-season Evening Shade in the 1990s.

"If I'm not in a part, I drive my wife crazy," he acknowledged during a 1997 interview. "I'll go downstairs to get the mail, and when I come back I'll say, `Any calls for me?"'

Durning's rugged early life provided ample material on which to base his later portrayals. He was born into an Irish family of 10 children in 1923, in Highland Falls, N.Y., a town near West Point. His father was unable to work, having lost a leg and been gassed during World War I, so his mother supported the family by washing the uniforms of West Point cadets.

The younger Durning himself would barely survive World War II.

He was among the first wave of U.S. soldiers to land at Normandy during the D-Day invasion and the only member of his army unit to survive. He killed several Germans and was wounded in the leg. Later he was bayoneted by a young German soldier whom he killed with a rock. He was captured in the Battle of the Bulge and survived a massacre of prisoners.

Military left 'too many bad memories,' Durning says

In later years, he refused to discuss the military service for which he was awarded the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts.

"Too many bad memories," he told an interviewer in 1997. "I don't want you to see me crying."

Tragedy also stalked other members of his family. Durning was 12 when his father died, and five of his sisters lost their lives to smallpox and scarlet fever.

A high school counsellor told him he had no talent for art, languages or math and should learn office skills. But after seeing King Kong and some of James Cagney's films, Durning knew what he wanted to do.

Leaving home at 16, he worked in a munitions factory, on a slag heap and in a barbed-wire factory.

Durning and his first wife had three children before divorcing in 1972. In 1974, he married his high school sweetheart, Mary Ann Amelio.

He is survived by his children, Michele, Douglas and Jeannine. The family planned to have a private family service and burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

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Most-read arts and entertainment stories of 2012

Prominent passings, nuptial news, stars behaving badly and literary phenoms were among the arts and entertainment stories that captured our collective attention in 2012.

Looking back over the past year, many of the most-read A&E news stories fell into five categories. CBC News looks into the stories that piqued our readers' interest in 2012.

1. Celebrity passings

As always, the deaths of prominent arts and entertainment world figures — whether surprising passings or the loss of aged celebrities — pulled readers in. Shocking deaths such as those of singer Whitney Houston and former Degrassi star Neil Hope as well as the loss of those who shaped popular music (like Davy Jones, Donna Summer, Adam Yauch and Dick Clark), had online audiences poring over every detail.

2. Nuptial news

The marital plans — and woes — of celebrities remained a fascination in 2012. Top contenders included the collapse of the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes marriage, chiming wedding bells for performers Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel ,and an impending walk down the aisle for surprising Canadian pair Chad Kroeger and Avril Lavigne.

3. Superstars at sporting events

Headlining the halftime show at a major sporting event can provide a signicant boost to an artist's career — or it can be a high-profile platform for controversy. Both Justin Bieber and Madonna got a taste of the latter in 2012. The Stratford, Ont. pop sensation sparked much chatter after being booed by some hostile CFL fans at the Grey Cup. Meanwhile, Madonna offered up a high-energy and entertaining Super Bowl halftime show, but her gig was ultimately tarnished by an on-camera, middle-finger salute from one of her invited guests: British rapper M.I.A.

4. Apologizing for bad behaviour

Perhaps it's schadenfreude or just plain curiosity, but readers are often lured in by stories of stars behaving badly and their subsequent mea culpas. Among this year's top-read examples? Actress Kristen Stewart's public apology to her Twilight co-star and boyfriend Robert Pattinson for infidelity and the foot-in-mouth fiasco that saw Angus T. Jones blasting Two and a Half Men, his vehicle to stardom, but backing off days later.

5. Blockbuster books

Post-Harry Potter, author J.K. Rowling proved she could still pique interest, this time for her first-ever book for adult readers, The Casual Vacancy. Meanwhile, a saucy new literary phenomenon took over the western world, as E.L. James became a household name for Fifty Shades of Grey, the first instalment of her erotic trilogy.

The 20 most-read stories from the arts world in 2012:

1. Degrassi's Wheels death announced, over 4 years later
2. Bieber booed, Lightfoot lauded during splashy Grey Cup halftime
3. Whitney Houston hailed as 'sweet miracle' at funeral
4. Green Mile actor Michael Clarke Duncan dies at 54
5. Pop queen Whitney Houston dies at 48
6. Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise head for divorce
7. Celebrity chef, author Anthony Sedlak dies at 29
8. Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes reach divorce settlement
9. Monkees singer Davy Jones dies at 66
10. Spy experts rate the best Bond villains
11. Ice Pilots' Arnie Schreder dies
12. Whitney Houston's body headed home to New Jersey
13. Madonna thrills Super Bowl halftime crowd
14. Top Gun director Tony Scott dead in apparent suicide
15. Disco queen Donna Summer dies at 63
16. Avril Lavigne to marry Nickelback's Chad Kroeger
17. J.K. Rowling reveals 1st post-Potter novel details
18. Kristen Stewart, Rupert Sanders apologize for affair
19. Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch dead at 47
20. Slash says Rock Hall of Fame overlooked Rush

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Quebec special effects artist acquitted in morals case

A Quebec special effects artist charged with corrupting morals has been found not guilty in a case that tested the boundaries of creative expression and Canadian obscenity laws.

Montreal artist Remy Couture says his aquittal in a morals case means he can continue to create his controversial art without infringement on his right to free expression. (Canadian Press)

Remy Couture received the verdict from the jury late Saturday after two days of deliberation.

"It's like a 400-pound weight has been lifted," Couture, 35, told reporters after hearing the verdict at the Montreal courthouse. "It's been the most stressful thing I've ever had to go through in my life."

Couture said the ruling means he can continue to create his art without infringement on his right to free expression. He was charged with three counts of corrupting morals by distributing, possessing and producing obscene material.

During the trial, Couture argued his gory works, roughly 1,000 images and two short videos that appeared on his website, Inner Depravity, should be considered art. The material in question depicts gruesome murders, torture, sexual abuse, assaults and necrophilia — all with young female victims.

The jury was asked to determine whether the material was obscene and dangerous enough to incite people to act on what they see, as the Crown contended.

The jurors were sequestered Friday and were asked to first decide whether they felt the images were obscene under the Criminal Code. If yes, they were asked to determine whether the works had artistic merit.

If they deemed it to be artistic, they had to find Couture not guilty. If they deemed the work to be obscene and gratuitous, they had to find him guilty.

'My objective was to create horror, plain and simple.'—Remy Couture

The website was part of a personal project by Couture designed to raise the bar of his make-up and special- effects work. Couture, who is self-taught, sought to bring a psychopathic killer character of his own making to life.

Couture described it as a sort of "fake diary of a serial killer," complete with his own universe inspired by horror movies and literature. But there was no victim in the case — all of the works were staged with willing actresses and a combination of fake blood, latex and silicone to create lifelike, horrific images.

Couture testified the reason behind the work was to highlight his skills and abilities as a master of special effects horror, and that the goal is to make his work look believable.

Crown argued work was violent pornography

Couture told the jury that his was a creation of horror and aimed to disgust. He denied the Crown's contention that he was making pornography with a violent twist. He argued the sexual nature of some of his work was secondary.

"My objective was to create horror, plain and simple," Couture told the court.

Defence experts testified that Couture's work was in line with other similar work in the genre. A university cinema professor testified that what was acceptable in the genre had changed greatly over the span of seven decades.

The trial heard that Interpol received a complaint in 2006 from a user in Austria. The scenes were deemed so realistic that a pathologist in Europe couldn't rule out that a homicide had actually been committed. Montreal police began their investigation in early 2009.

Police officers who testified had doubts that Couture's work was real homicide, but still engaged in an elaborate sting operation with police posing as clients looking to do a gory photo shoot around Halloween.

Couture, who has no criminal record, pleaded not guilty in 2010, arguing that the state has no business defining what art is, or infringing on his right to free expression.

The artist told reporters he was approached by a police detective about a pleading out and getting an absolute discharge in the case, but Couture has said that he went ahead out of principle. He said that pleading guilty or settling could set a dangerous precedent and raise questions about other kinds of work done by artists.

In her closing, Crown prosecutor Genevieve Dagenais said that Couture was not targeted by police and admitted the case is particular because there is no victim.

She also said the investigation took some time because it was a first for the Crown. But it was clear to the prosecutor's office that Couture's work should not have been displayed on the Web.

The Crown argued that there were risks associated with exposing such material, calling it violent pornography. Publishing the material "undermines fundamental values of Canadian society," prosecutor Michel Pennou argued.

Experts for the Crown testified that the material could push vulnerable members of society to act out what they see. They also took issue with the fact that the victims were all women.

Couture had said he'd planned to create a new video where the female victim turns the tables on his psychopath creation, but he never got to it as his special effects career began to take off.

A seven-woman, five-man jury heard the case with Quebec Superior Court Justice Claude Champagne presiding.

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