Robert De Niro to Be Honored at the GLAAD Media Awards in NYC

Great pick. I'd love to see his "King of Comedy" costar Sandra Bernhard deliver the award!

From a release:

Robert De Niro will receive GLAAD's Excellence in Media Award, which is presented to media professionals who have made a significant difference in promoting equality and acceptance. De Niro is a two-time Academy Award-winning actor and a longtime ally to the LGBT community. Most recently, he shared with audiences the story of his gay father in Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr., a 2014 HBO documentary directed by Perri Peltz and Geeta Gandbhir. In it, De Niro movingly recounted his father’s struggle with self-acceptance, not living openly until the latter part of his life. In addition to his outspoken advocacy in support of marriage equality, De Niro has brought LGBT storylines to broader audiences. In 2002, he co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival, which has made LGBT inclusion a hallmark of its annual film line-up. He produced and starred in the 1999 film Flawless, which told the story of a man and his friendship with a transgender woman. In 2007, De Niro portrayed an openly gay character in Stardust, which received a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Wide Release.

All proceeds of the GLAAD Media Awards support GLAAD's work with the media to bring culture-changing stories of LGBT people to millions of homes and workplaces every day in an effort to increase understanding and accelerate acceptance of LGBT people everywhere.

 Tickets available HERE.

Unnecessary 'King of Comedy' Musical Adaptation Coming to Broadway

"The King of Comedy" -- Martin Scorsese's 1982 film starring Robert DeNiro and Sandra Bernhard (in an Oscar-worthy performance) as obsessed fans of a talk show host played by Jerry Lewis -- is one of the darkest and most brilliant movies of all time. What it needs desperately is to be available to stream on Netflix and Hulu so more people can appreciate it. (It was, however, issued ON BLU-RAY for its 30th anniversary in 2012.) What it most definitely DOES NOT need is to be made into a Broadway musical. Guess which one is actually happening. Read HERE.

UPDATE: Sandra seems to agree with me.

Sandra, oh!

Don't mess with perfection

Robert De Niro: Me & My Gay Dad

Via Out.com:

It’s been more than 20 years since Robert De Niro Sr.’s death from cancer, but his memory is fresh for his son, who has preserved his father’s final home and studio in New York City’s SoHo. Filled with books, paintbrushes, and hundreds of canvases, some of which he never finished, it looks like pop stepped away for a coffee and should be back to finish another still life before dinner. The loft remains a quiet shrine to an artist that few recognize, perhaps mistaking his figurative paintings for a late Matisse or another French master. “It was the only way to keep his being, his existence alive,” De Niro explains. “To me, he was always a great artist.” Now 70, the Academy Award-winning actor has decided to reveal this hidden sanctum and his own struggle with his late artist father’s memory in a new documentary that premieres June 9 on HBO, "Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr."

Read HERE.

 

The Queen of Comedy

 I just re-watched "The King of Comedy" -- Martin Scorsese's dark and unsettling look at celebrity -- the other month, and boy does it hold up beautifully. (I tricked Michael into watching it by telling him it was a "comedy," when in fact it is one of the most disturbing and depressing films of all time.) To celebrate its 30th anniversary, star Robert DeNiro -- aka Rupert Pupkin -- will close his Tribeca Film Festival later this month with a screening of the newly restored version of the classic, which won over far more critics than theatergoers. Dave Itzkoff of Arts Beat caught up with costar Sandra Bernhard -- who played the hypnotically unhinged Masha -- to ask about the role that launched her offbeat career. Fascinating to hear that Ellen Barkin, Debra Winger and every other actress in Hollywood was up for the role of Masha, who Sandra now says was a lot closer to who she really was at the time than she would like to admit. (And it wouldn't be an interview with Sandra Bernhard if she didn't "accidentally" get a jab in at someone -- this time Chelsea Handler.) Read HERE.

She also talks Madonna on National Geographic's '80s special HERE.