Clarence O. Smith, who convinced skeptical mainstream advertisers of the power and worth of the Black female consumer market as a founder of Essence, the first general-circulation magazine directed at Black women, died on April 21. He was 92. Mr. Smith, who lived in Yonkers, N.Y., died in a hospital …
This year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s signature gala welcomed a host of top hats, pinstripes and impeccable suiting (and a fashionably late, pregnant Rihanna) in celebration of the Costume Institute’s new exhibition about the history of Black dandy fashion. But it’s the after-parties where politicians, athletes, celebrities and influencers, …
Jeff Bridges taught her how to drive in his Volkswagen bus. Steven Spielberg refused to flirt with her. She successfully talked the actor Rip Torn out of assaulting the director Nicolas Roeg on a movie set. While lying on a beach in Mexico with the painter Ed Ruscha, she was …
Sometimes, when I poll Oscar voters about the films and performances they plan to nominate, they turn the tables on me. “What do you want to happen?” they ask. Maybe they’re expecting me to advocate for an underseen movie or steer them toward a performance that hasn’t gotten its flowers. …
Charles Santore was in the middle of illustrating the children’s book he did not know would be his last when he began to feel weak. The book was “The Scroobious Pip,” Edward Lear’s nonsense poem about an uncategorizable creature: part beast, part bird, part fish, part insect. The man bringing …