Mandalit del Barco

Singer-songwriter Jesse Winchester made a name for himself in the '70s and counted among his fans Emmylou Harris and Elvis Costello. Winchester has died at 69 after a battle with cancer.

"I was very careful not to portray a saint that is unreachable," says the director of a new film about the farmworker advocate. "He was a simple man who did an extraordinary thing."

Sony Pictures Entertainment will reportedly lay off its entire interactive marketing team — more than 200 employees. It's part of a cost-cutting trend by the major film studios.

After days of heavy rain, the sun came out just as the 86th annual Academy Awards got underway in Los Angeles. The big acting awards went to Matthew McConaughey and Cate Blanchett.

Last summer, the organization behind the Oscars elected its first African American president: film marketing executive Cheryl Boone Isaacs. She's been working to diversify a monochrome membership.

Renowned concert pianist Alice Herz-Sommer, once thought to be the oldest living Holocaust survivor, has died at age 110. Her story is told in the Oscar-nominated film, The Lady in Number 6.

This season, Fox Searchlight has served audiences a three-course menu of movies with African-American casts and themes.

First, it served an appetizer in September, with the romantic comedy Baggage Claim, starring Paula Patton as a flight attendant looking for a husband in a hurry.

Then, in October, the studio set ...

Jazz drummer Chico Hamilton, a linchpin of the West Coast jazz scene in the 1950s and '60s, died yesterday evening of natural causes in New York City, according to his publicist April Thibeault. He was 92.

As a player, Hamilton's subtle colors and sensitive accompaniments made him emblematic of the ...

Celebrity editor Tina Brown announced Wednesday that she's leaving The Daily Beast to launch her own media company. She has been a regular guest on Morning Edition. Brown, 59, plans to produce live forums on news topics.

Brown has edited some of the most prestigious publications: Vanity Fair, The New ...

Adult film production in California is now suspended after a number of performers tested positive for HIV. Four cases have been reported in the past few months, including one on Monday.

If ever there was an "I told you so moment" for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, it's now. The organization ...

Novelist Sue Grafton is a real hoot. She's just as likely to talk, in that native Kentucky drawl of hers, about her prized silver-coin mint julep cups as about a juicy murder mystery. But she does have a crime writer's imagination.

"I always say to people, 'Don't cross me, OK? ...

Karen Black was oddly alluring, with that wide, sly smile and those slightly off-kilter eyes. The New York Times once called her "something of a freak, a beautiful freak." Her friend Peter Fonda says that's what made her so intriguing.

"She wasn't a conventional-looking woman," he tells NPR. "And she ...

Last week, the Univision Radio network suddenly canceled its popular, nationally syndicated morning show, Piolín Por La Mañana, hosted by Eddie Sotelo. Sotelo is known as 'Piolín,' or 'Tweety Bird' in Spanish, and his irreverent program was once the top radio program in Los Angeles.

For seven hours ...

For three consecutive weeks this summer, Spanish-language TV network Univision won the prime-time ratings among young adult viewers. The network is bragging about its prime-time ratings domination with full-page ads in the LA Times, New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Its English-language video exclaims: "For the first time ever, ...

The Lone Ranger has long been a fictional hero, taming the Wild West with his trusty Indian guide, Tonto. The faithful companion helps the white man fight bad guys, and does so speaking in pidgin English.

Tonto made his first appearance on the radio in the 1930s, voiced by a ...

NBC's singing competition The Voice dominated the ratings game this spring and last fall. Now, the Spanish kids' version has become the top-rated show for NBC's sister network, Telemundo. The show, taped before an audience in Miami, features Latino children from the U.S. competing for a scholarship and a recording ...

Twenty Feet from Stardom, filmmaker Morgan Neville's new documentary, is a reminder that most of pop music's catchiest hooks, riffs and refrains were sung by voices harmonizing in the background. Neville says he wanted to put backup singers — black, female and honed in church — front and center.

"I ...