Category: Entertainment

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Actor Peter Cullen, voice of Optimus Prime and Eeyore, dies aged 85

Peter Cullen, the actor behind the voice of characters including Eeyore in Disney’s Winnie the Pooh franchise and Optimus Prime in Transformers, has died aged 85.

He died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, a statement said.

The Canadian actor began his biggest role – as Optimus Prime, the honourable leader of the Autobots – for the Transformers TV series in 1984. He returned for seven Hollywood Transformers films from 2007 to 2023 and other spinoffs.

Cullen voiced the melancholic donkey Eeyore in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh TV series from the late 1980s as well as numerous related shows, films and games.

His other notable roles included the roars of King Kong for the 1976 remake, and KARR – Knight Automated Roving Robot, the evil counterpart to KITT – in the Knight Rider series in 1982 and 2009.

The actor is also credited with coming up with the eerie clicking sounds that emerged from the mouth of the monster in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Predator in 1987.

His family said: “Peter Cullen passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loving family – and held in the hearts of his many friends and countless fans worldwide.

“His family asks that you honour his remarkable legacy by serving your communities and leading others with compassion, integrity, and loyalty and always remember, ‘be strong enough to be gentle’.”

The Montreal-born actor began his career on Canadian TV and radio and was then a regular on programmes including The Sonny & Cher Show and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour before deciding to concentrate on voice acting.

Cullen said Optimus Prime’s resonant and authoritative voice was inspired by his older brother Larry, a retired captain in the US Marine Corps who had served in the Vietnam war, who suggested he should play the character as “a real hero, don’t be a Hollywood hero”.

“He said, ‘Don’t go yelling and screaming. He’s strong enough to be gentle’,” Cullen recalled. “And that resonated with me, and I could hear his voice all the way to the audition. When he drops down, when he gets serious, is where I found Optimus Prime.”

Cullen gave Larry a cut of the wages he received for playing Optimus Prime until his brother’s death in 2011.

In a 2014 NPR interview, Cullen acknowledged that he initially approached playing Optimus Prime with puzzlement. “I auditioned like everybody else,” he said. “I was told it was a hero, and I was told it was a truck.”

The actor’s performance earned him a Daytime Emmy nomination for outstanding performer in an animated programme in 2011, and he was honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the Children’s & Family Emmy Awards in 2023.

When the director Michael Bay resurrected the Transformers franchise for a film in 2007 starring Shia LaBeouf, Cullen told IGN: “I describe it as kind of slipping into an old pair of very comfortable shoes that you haven’t worn for a while. I just slipped right into them, and they felt as good as the last time I put them on.” (Guardian)

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Ogogo used his talent to tell Nigerian stories, Tinubu mourns veteran actor

President Bola Tinubu has mourned veteran Nollywood actor, filmmaker and screenwriter, Taiwo Hassan, popularly known as Ogogo, describing his death as a great loss to the Yoruba film industry, Nollywood and Nigeria’s creative community.

Tinubu, in a statement issued on Monday by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, extended his condolences to the actor’s family, friends and colleagues.

The President described Ogogo as a distinguished artiste whose career spanned several decades and whose contributions helped shape the growth of Yoruba-language theatre and Nigerian cinema.

He said Ogogo’s distinctive acting style, powerful screen presence and dedication to his craft enabled him to entertain generations of Nigerians while promoting Yoruba culture and Nigeria’s diverse cultural heritage.

“Alhaji Taiwo Hassan was a gifted artiste who used his talent to tell Nigerian stories, preserve our cultural heritage and entertain audiences at home and abroad.

“His passing is a great loss to his family, the Yoruba film industry, Nollywood and the entire Nigerian creative community.

“On behalf of the Federal Government, I extend my heartfelt condolences to his family, colleagues, friends and millions of admirers. I pray that Almighty Allah will grant him eternal rest and give his loved ones the strength to bear this irreparable loss,” Tinubu said.

The President said Ogogo’s body of work would remain an important part of Nigeria’s cultural history, while his mentorship and influence on younger artistes further demonstrated his enduring legacy in the creative industry.

Tinubu urged members of the creative industry and Nigerians to honour Ogogo’s memory by preserving and building on the cultural values and artistic traditions to which he devoted his life.

He also prayed for the peaceful repose of the late actor’s soul.

Before gaining fame as an actor, Ogogo worked as a mechanic at the Ogun State Water Corporation for about 13 years.

He began acting in 1981 while combining the profession with his mechanic job before leaving the employment in 1994 to pursue acting full-time.

Ogogo died on Sunday at the age of 66 after battling stage-four cancer.

His remains were taken to his hometown, Ilaro, Ogun State, where he was buried on Monday according to Islamic rites. (Punch)

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Country Music Legend Dolly Parton dies at 80

Dolly Parton, the American country music singer who rose from poverty in Tennessee to become a US cultural giant with hits like “Jolene” and “Coat of Many Colours”, has died at 80, her family said Tuesday.

“Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus,” her nephew Bryan Seaver said in a video on social media.

He said the multiple award-winning artist had “opened doors for generations of singers, songwriters, musicians, and dreamers from every walk of life.”

The family did not give a cause of death, but the singer-songwriter — who was also an actress, philanthropist, and extraordinarily successful businesswoman — had spoken about her recent ill health. Her husband Carl Dean died last year.

President Donald Trump ordered the lowering of American flags to half-staff across the United States for a week for Parton, calling her passing a “true loss for millions of people”.

“There has never been anyone like her, and never will,” Trump posted on his Truth Social network.

In May, Parton had announced the cancellation of a series of Las Vegas concerts, citing ongoing health concerns. In videos posted to her social media accounts, she said that while treatment for an unspecified illness was going well, she was not ready to be performing on stage.

Parton lived her entire adult life in the heart of Americana, folk and country music. The day after graduating from high school, she struck out for the country music capital Nashville.

By 1967, at age 21, she was among the most recognised figures in American music, having joined Porter Wagoner’s syndicated country music television show that broadcast her voice and face into millions of US homes.

Parton was prolific in a career spanning six decades, during which she penned some 3,000 tunes.

They included the soundtrack smash hit “9 to 5”, “Islands In the Stream”, and the iconic ballad “I Will Always Love You”, which became an international success for Whitney Houston.

Releasing 49 studio albums and more than 100 compilation and collaboration albums, she earned the title of “queen of country music”.

“By her example, we believed that anything was possible. She never saw a door she couldn’t open, and the doors she opened made and changed history,” her nephew said.

Parton — never one to downplay her striking looks — essentially wrote the book on how a woman can rule the airwaves in a male-dominated industry, ultimately becoming an American treasure whose songs were covered by the likes of Shania Twain, Sinead O’Connor and the White Stripes. (Channels)

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“Spider-Man: Brand New Day’’ becomes Sony’s highest-grossing film

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has continued its strong box-office run, becoming Sony Pictures’ highest-grossing film after topping the North American charts for a third consecutive weekend.

The Tom Holland and Zendaya-led superhero film earned $70 million domestically over the weekend, bringing its North American total to $785.8 million after 17 days in cinemas.

The latest figure pushed the film past Avatar, which finished its domestic run with $785.2 million, placing Brand New Day fourth on the all-time North American box-office chart.

The film also crossed the $2 billion mark globally, becoming only the eighth movie to reach the milestone and the second-fastest after Avengers: Endgame. Its worldwide earnings currently stand at $2.022 billion.

The achievement also saw Brand New Day overtake Spider-Man: No Way Home, which grossed $1.9 billion worldwide following its 2021 release, making the new film Sony’s biggest title ever.

Brand New Day also recorded the second-highest third weekend in domestic box-office history, behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which earned $90.2 million during its third weekend. (Leadership)

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US Actress Hayden Panettiere dies at 36

Hayden Panettiere, an actress known for her roles in popular TV series “Heroes” and “Nashville,” has died aged 36, according to media reports.

Her father confirmed the actress’ death in a statement to ABC News.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden. She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her — and to the millions who watched her onscreen,” he said.

He asked that her family be given privacy while they “process this unimaginable loss.”

Details about her death were not immediately given, but news outlet TMZ said there was an “open investigation” into the cause.

Born in 1989, Panettiere became a child star and went on to have numerous roles in both film and TV.

Her credits include “Remember The Titans,” “Ice Princess,” “Scream 4” and “Scream VI.”

She wrote a memoir titled “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” which was released in May.

In that book, she wrote of the pressures of being a child star and her experiences of addiction and recovery.

She had also spoken of estrangement from her mother, who managed her career as a child and later criticized her daughter’s book. (Channels)

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Tems and Ayra Starr feature in ‘‘Children of Blood and Bone’’

Temilade Openiyi, popularly known as Tems, has her hit single, ‘Me & U’, featured in the first official teaser for the Hollywood fantasy film, Children of Blood & Bone.

Oyinkansola Aderibigbe, popularly known as Ayra Starr, also appeared in the teaser, marking her Hollywood acting debut.

The behind-the-scenes teaser, shared on Monday by director Gina Prince-Bythewood on her Instagram page @gpbmadeit, features scenes from the film’s production, including costume preparations, action sequences and brief appearances by cast members

Its caption reads: “So excited to share a peek behind the scenes of our incredible journey to Orisha. CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE TRAILER drops TOMORROW! And in theaters Jan 15!”

Tems’ Me & U soundtracks the teaser, while Ayra Starr appears briefly alongside other cast members in the Paramount Pictures adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s bestselling novel.

The film stars Viola Davis, Idris Elba, Cynthia Erivo, Damson Idris, Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amandla Stenberg and Ayra Starr.

The plot follows Zélie Adebola as she seeks to restore magic to her people after it was violently taken from them, in a world inspired by West African mythology.

The plot follows Adebola, a young woman who seeks to restore magic to the West African-inspired kingdom of Orïsha after it was violently taken from its people.

Children of Blood & Bone is based on Tomi Adeyemi’s 2018 novel, the first book in the Legacy of Orïsha series. (Vanguard)

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Actor Sam Neill, known for “Jurassic Park” and “The Piano,” dies at 78

Sam Neill, a smoothly elegant and versatile actor whose career moved from art film to blockbuster as he dodged velociraptors in “Jurassic Park” to playing Holly Hunter’s husband in “The Piano,” has died. He was 78.

In 2023, Neill disclosed he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Neill died on Monday in Sydney, according to a statement posted to the actor’s social media page.

His death was “sudden and unexpected,” the statement said, adding that he “remained cancer free” when he died. A cause of death wasn’t specified.

“Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life,” his family wrote.

Neil was one of a host of actors and directors who achieved international fame after an explosion of Australian films that began in the late 1970s, a list that includes Paul Hogan, Mel Gibson, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Jane Campion, Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong. His range was remarkable, playing opposite Helena Bonham Carter in the Alan Ayckbourn comedy “Sweet Revenge” to chopping off Hunter’s finger in “The Piano” to poking his own eyes out in the sci-fi horror “Event Horizon.”

In “Omen III: The Final Conflict,” he played Damien the Antichrist and he also played Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in “The Tudors.”

The actor first came to the attention of international audiences in Armstrong’s 1979 film “My Brilliant Career,” which also introduced Judy Davis. He later appeared in Phillip Noyce’s “Dead Calm,” a classy thriller set at sea and co-starring the then-relatively unknown Nicole Kidman.

Neill twice co-starred with Meryl Streep, in Australian director Fred Schepisi’s “Plenty” and — again for Schepisi — in “A Cry in the Dark,” a film about the sensationalized aftermath of a dingo killing a baby in the Australian outback. He earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the title role of the 1998 mini-series “Merlin” and another as narrator of 2017’s “Wild New Zealand.”

But perhaps he achieved his highest level of fame in “Jurassic Park” playing paleontologist Alan Grant, who is summoned to an island off Costa Rica where a theme park has been built to house herds of cloned dinosaurs. He co-starred alongside Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough.

His character was thoughtful and reasonable, a scientist who warned the mastermind of the theme park before the chaos: “Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?”

Grant survived the harrowing events when the creatures get loose, but didn’t return for “The Lost World: Jurassic Park II” in 1997. He came back for the third episode in 2001 and “Jurassic World: Dominion” in 2022.

“It’s probably a little late to learn these things,” he told the Daily New of New York in 2001, “but I finally feel I’ve worked out how to be an action hero. I’m happier with Grant this time. He’s gnarly and grizzled, but he looks like he knows what he’s doing.”

Born in 1947 in Northern Ireland, Neill emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 7. His family settled in Dunedin on the South Island and he was sent to boarding school in Christchurch. After college, he took the lead in “Sleeping Dogs” in 1977, the first feature made in New Zealand in more than a decade.

Neill’s other film roles included playing a Soviet submarine officer who memorably dreams of a home in Montana in “The Hunt for Red October” and an investigator in director John Carpenter’s “In the Mouth of Madness.”

On the small screen, Neill played the malign Chester Campbell in TV’s “Peaky Blinders” and Thomas Jefferson in the four-hour CBS miniseries, “Sally Hemings: An American Tragedy.” On Apple TV+, he was on “Invasion,” playing Oklahoma Sheriff John Bell Tyson, a man late in his career searching for his purpose. In 2024 he starred opposite Annette Bening in the Peacock series “Apples Never Fall.”

Neill was also a vintner and under his Two Paddocks brand, he produced pinot noir and riesling wines from his winery in the Central Otago region of New Zealand’s South Island.

On social media, he often posted images of his farm animals, many of them affectionately named after celebrities and friends, like Laura Dern the chicken, Kylie Minogue the duck and Helena Bonham Carter the cow.

On social media, he often posted images of his farm animals, many of them affectionately named after celebrities and friends, like Laura Dern the chicken, Kylie Minogue the duck and Helena Bonham Carter the cow.

His memoir “Did I Ever Tell You This?” came out in March 2023 and he was awarded a knighthood in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to film,” a title approved by the late Queen Elizabeth II.

“I can’t pretend that the last year hasn’t had its dark moments,” Neill told The Guardian in 2023, referring to his cancer diagnosis and treatment. “But those dark moments throw the light into sharp relief, you know, and have made me grateful for every day and immensely grateful for all my friends.” (JapanToday)

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Bonnie Tyler, who topped charts with epic “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” dies at 75

Bonnie Tyler, the gravelly voiced, Grammy-nominated Welsh pop star whose 1983 chart-topping power ballad “Total Eclipse of the Heart” enchanted succeeding generations with its bombastic charms during solar and lunar eclipses, has died. She was 75.

Tyler died unexpectedly in a hospital in Portugal where she was being treated for an illness, her family said Thursday in a statement on her website. She was hospitalized in May in Faro, where she had a home, for emergency intestinal surgery. She had been placed in an induced coma for a period but was reportedly improving last month and expected to make a good recovery.

“Bonnie’s family and team are heartbroken to announce that Bonnie unexpectedly passed away last night in hospital in Portugal as a result of the illness that she was being treated for,” her family said.

Tyler earned three Grammy nods and in 2013 represented Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest, where she came in 19th. She was honored as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2022 for her services to music by Queen Elizabeth II, thanks mainly to “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which has had more than 1 billion streams, boosted by real eclipses in 2017 and 2024.

The song spent four weeks at No. 1, and when Stereogum reevaluated it in 2020, the music outlet declared it an “extinction-level event rendered in musical form.”

“It’s pop music as heart-pounding, chest-thumping, blood-gargling, heavens-falling passion explosion. It’s sheer spectacle. It’s fireworks and lasers and lightning and thunder. It soars and swoops and barrel-rolls,” the site said.

The song has never really gone away: it was covered by the English singer Nicki French in 1995, and the band Westlife in 2006. Cate Blanchett sang it while hitting Billy Bob Thornton with her car in 2001’s “Bandits,” it appeared in a wedding scene in 2003’s “Old School” and One Direction sang it in 2010 on a U.K. version of “The X Factor.”

Tyler was born — as Gaynor Hopkins — a coal miner’s daughter in public housing with an outside toilet in Skewen, Wales, about 7 miles (11 kilometers) outside Swansea. She grew up with three sisters and two brothers.

She adored the Beatles and her first album was “A Hard Day’s Night.” The first song she bought, at 13, was “Hippy Hippy Shake” by the Swinging Blue Jeans and she watched “Top of the Pops” religiously, according to her memoir, “Straight From the Heart.”

She would record “Top of the Pops” on a reel-to-reel two-track recorder and write down the lyrics of songs she loved. Her favorites were by Janis Joplin, Nina Simone, Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding.

“I used to sing them into my hairbrush for hours and hours, and that’s how it all started for me. I fell in love with singing just from doing that. Looking back, even then my voice had a husky tone to it, but I didn’t think much of it. I thought everyone’s voices were different from each other’s,” she wrote.

In 1976 she had to have surgery to remove nodules on her throat, leaving her with that trademark vocal sound. Changing her name to Sherene Davis, she was fronting a soul band when she was discovered by talent scout Roger Bell, who brought her to London for demo sessions. Then she waited for a label until RCA said it was interested.

Under her new RCA-sanctioned name Bonnie Tyler, her debut album “The World Starts Tonight” in 1977 contained her first chart hit, “Lost in France,” and she was nominated for a breakthrough artists award at the Brit Awards. She then had a No. 3 hit in 1978 with “It’s a Heartache,” but soon drifted. She then signed with Sony and saw Meat Loaf perform “Bat Out of Hell” on the BBC. Impressed, she requested to work with Meat Loaf songwriter and producer Jim Steinman.

Steinman introduced her to his song “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which would become the debut single for her fifth studio album, “Faster Than the Speed of Night.” He borrowed one of the song’s lyrics — “Turn around, bright eyes” — from his 1969 musical “The Dream Engine,” written when he was a student at Massachusetts’ Amherst College. He told her the song was from a prospective musical version of “Nosferatu.”

“Jim liked to put down a basic rhythm track, do nine takes of the song, choose the best one and then put the kitchen sink on there, like Phil Spector used to,” Tyler told The Guardian in 2023. “He gave me a cassette to listen to in my hotel and we both preferred take two.”

Featuring E Street Band members Roy Bittan on piano and Max Weinberg on drums, “Total Eclipse” is a rumination on lost love: “Once upon a time there was light in my life/But now there’s only love in the dark,” she sings.

The video, a staple of early-days MTV, was shot in a frightening gothic former asylum in Surrey, where the guard dogs apparently wouldn’t set foot in the rooms downstairs where they used to give people electric shock treatment. The visuals included slow-motion tossed doves, candles, dancing ninjas, dancing greasers, Tyler in frighteningly big shoulder pads, fencers, gymnasts, wind machines and shirtless boys wearing swim goggles being doused with water.

“Faster Than the Speed of Night” earned a Grammy nomination for best rock vocal performance — losing to Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield” — and Tyler got another nod for “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in the best pop vocal performance category, losing to Irene Cara’s “Flashdance — What a Feeling.”

Tyler never reached such dizzying heights again but stayed current with such movie soundtrack singles as “Holding Out For a Hero” — from 1984’s “Footloose” — and “Here She Comes” from “Metropolis” also in 1984.

Her 2019 disc “Between the Earth and the Stars” featured duets with Rod Stewart, Cliff Richard and Status Quo’s Francis Rossi, and she ended that year performing a Vatican Christmas concert before Pope Francis. (JapanToday)

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Hollywood powerhouses bring AI fight to Europe

Cate Blanchett brought Hollywood starpower to Brussels on Tuesday as she launched a free tool to give people the right to decide how their image can be used by AI firms.

Blanchett announced the Human Consent Registry was live at the European Parliament also attended by Hollywood directing heavyweight Steven Soderbergh.

The public tool available online will allow anyone to register how they want their identity — name, image, voice, likeness, movement and/or other personal attributes — to be used by artificial intelligence systems.

They will have three options: allowed, allowed with terms, or prohibited.”Human consent is not an impediment to progress.

Human consent does not diminish the struggles and the joys of technological innovation or inhuman creativity,” Blanchett said at the event in the parliament’s library.

She insisted the issue did not just affect public figures like herself, but for anyone who has been photographed “or simply lived some part of their life online”.

The registry has been launched by RSL Media, co-founded by Blanchett, a non-profit organization focused on ensuring consent in AI use.

RSL Media hopes AI companies will voluntarily consult the registry.

Blanchett has been a staunch proponent of protecting rights in the age of generative artificial intelligence.

She was among over 800 creatives including fellow actor Scarlett Johansson as well as director Guillermo Del Toro, who published an open letter accusing AI giants of “theft” in January this year.

Hosting Tuesday’s event was EU lawmaker Eva Maydell who hailed the new tool.

The registry “represents an ambitious attempt to turn the principles into practice and make consent more accessible and feasible, to make rights more transparent, and to make trust more scalable”, Maydell said. (JapanToday)

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Clive Davis, music industry starmaker, dies at 94

Clive Davis, the record company lawyer who became one of the music industry’s most powerful figures, launching or resurrecting the careers of such superstars as Janis Joplin, Whitney Houston, Carlos Santana and Alicia Keys, has died, his family confirmed. He was 94.

Earlier this year, Davis was hospitalized following an upper respiratory issue and was released a few days later. His death, in his Manhattan apartment, was confirmed by his publicist Aliza Rabinoff, who also shared a statement from his family.

“To the world, our father was the iconic music legend whose vision, instincts, and relentless pursuit of excellence shaped the soundtrack of countless lives. He discovered, mentored, and championed the greatest artists in modern music history, leaving an indelible mark on culture that will endure for generations,” the statement read.

Unlike other record moguls whose influence waned as they got older, Davis’ might only seemed to grow, spanning multiple genres and labels. Into his later years, he was directing the careers of everyone from Barry Manilow to “American Idol” winners Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson. And his exclusive pre-Grammys gala, held the Saturday night before the Sunday award show every year since 1975, continued to be an institution.

“Clive’s talent has always been seeing and hearing what other people don’t,” former President Barack Obama said in a video message played at this year’s gala.

Clive Jay Davis was born on April 4, 1932 in Brooklyn, New York, where he grew up in the Crown Heights neighborhood. His father was an electrician and traveling salesman. He attended New York University and then Harvard Law School, eventually landing a job as an in-house lawyer at Columbia Records.

Davis always had a knack for business, and by 1967, became president of the company, just seven years after being hired as an attorney. He cited attending the Monterey International Pop Festival that year as pivotal; it eventually led him to bringing Bruce Springsteen, Chicago, Neil Diamond and many other groups to the label — bringing a counterculture spirit to a company that had resisted rock ‘n’ roll.

Davis took big swings in the music industry, particularly in his support for Black artists, beginning when he signed Gamble and Huff’s Philadelphia International Records in 1971.

In 2015, the NAACP recognized Davis for his groundbreaking work by presenting him with the Vanguard Award. And last summer, Davis was presented with the Apollo Theater’s Apollo Legacy Award and inducted onto its Walk of Fame.

His success stories were staggering, with Houston a crowning achievement and devastating tragedy: Davis signed her to his Arista record label when she was just a teen and turned her into America’s reigning pop princess.

Houston racked up multiple No. 1 hits and became one of the top-selling artists in pop history before drug abuse hobbled her career. She died in a Los Angeles hotel room in 2012, just hours before she was to appear at the annual pre-Grammy Awards gala hosted by Davis, who had been convinced she was turning her life around.

“Maybe I should have been more skeptical,” Davis wrote in his 2013 memoir, “The Soundtrack of My Life,” “but I’ve always been optimistic, and I felt hopeful. It felt like old times.”

He also launched the career of multi-platinum, multiple-Grammy winner Keys — and was quick to note other talents he signed, including Joplin and Billy Joel, Blood Sweat & Tears and other “all-timers,” as he so often put it.

“I signed Patti Smith, the great Renaissance woman … I signed Lou Reed … I signed the Grateful Dead,” he proudly touted in an interview with The Associated Press in 1999.

He also signed the then up-and-coming producer Sean “Diddy” Combs to a label deal with his Bad Boy Records. Under Davis, the label would have some of its biggest successes, most notably with late rap icon the Notorious B.I.G. That was long before the hip-hop mogul Diddy would be incarcerated, convicted of violating the federal Mann Act, which bans transporting people across state lines for any sexual crime. (JapanToday)