daughter

Renate Reinsve is the new face of Scandinavia: depression with a smile. Standing 5 feet 10 with open, friendly features, the Norwegian talent has a grin that makes her appear at once like an endearing everywoman and a large, unpredictable child. Reinsve zoomed to international acclaim with her Cannes-winning performance in Joachim Trier’s 2021 “The Worst Person in the World,” a dramedy tailor-made to her lanky, likable style of self-loathing. Now, Trier has written his muse another showcase, “Sentimental Value,” where Reinsve plays an emotionally avoidant theater actor who bounces along in pretty much the same bittersweet key.

“Sentimental Value” gets misty about a few things — families, filmmaking, real estate — all while circling a handsome Oslo house where the Borg clan has lived for four generations. It’s a dream home with red trim on the window frames and pink roses in the yard. Yet, sisters Nora (Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) aren’t fighting to keep it, perhaps due to memories of their parents’ hostile divorce or maybe because they don’t want to deal with their estranged father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård, wonderful), who grew up there himself and still owns the place, even though he’s moved to Sweden.

Trier opens the film with a symbolically laden camera pan across Oslo that ends on a cemetery. He wants to make sure we understand that while Norway looks idyllic to outsiders jealous that all four Scandinavian countries rank among the globe’s happiest, it can still be as gloomy as during the era of Henrik Ibsen.

More impressively, Trier shifts to a fabulous, time-bending historical montage of the house itself over the century-plus it’s belonged to the Borgs. There’s a crack in it that seems to represent the fissures in the family, the flaws in their facade. Over these images, Reinsve’s Nora recites a 6th-grade school essay she wrote about her deep identification with her childhood home. Having grown up to become terrified of intimacy, today she’s more like a detached garage.

Nora and Agnes were young when their father, a modestly well-regarded art-house filmmaker, decamped to a different country. At a retrospective of his work, Gustav refers to his crew as his “family,” which would irritate his kids if they’d bothered to attend. Agnes, a former child actor, might note that she, too, deserves some credit. Played in her youth by the compelling Ida Atlanta Kyllingmark Giertsen, Agnes was fantastic in the final shot of Gustav’s masterpiece and Trier takes a teasingly long time to suggest why she retired from the business decades ago, while her older sister keeps hammering at it.

Gustav hasn’t made a picture in 15 years. He’s in that liminal state of renown that I’m guessing Trier has encountered many times: a faded director who’s burned through his money and clout, but still keeps a tuxedo just in case he makes it back to Cannes. Like Reinsve’s Nora, Gustav acts younger than his age and is at his most charming in small doses, particularly with strangers. Trier and his longtime co-writer Eskil Vogt have made him a tad delusional, someone who wouldn’t instantly recognize his graying reflection in a mirror. Sitting down at a cafe with Nora, Gustav jokes that the waitress thinks that they’re a couple on a date. (She almost certainly doesn’t.)

But the tension between Gustav and Nora is real, if blurry. He’s invited her to coffee not as father and daughter, but as a has-been angling to cast Nora as the lead of his next film, which he claims he’s written for her. His script climaxes with a nod to the day his own mother, Karin (Vilde Søyland), died by suicide in their house back when he was just a towheaded boy of 7. Furthering the sickly mojo, Gustav wants to stage his version of the hanging in the very room where it happened.

His awkward pitch is a terrific scene. Gustav and Nora are stiff with each other, both anxious to prove they don’t need the other’s help. But Trier suggests, somewhat mystically, that Gustav has an insight into his daughter’s gloom that making the movie will help them understand. Both would rather express themselves through art than confess how they feel.

When Gustav offers his daughter career advice, it comes off like an insult. She’s miffed when her dad claims his small indie would be her big break. Doesn’t he know she’d be doing him the favor? She’s the lead of Oslo’s National Theatre with enough of a social media following to get the film financed. (With 10 production companies listed in the credits of this very film, Trier himself could probably calculate Nora’s worth to the krone.)

But Gustav also has a lucky encounter with a dewy Hollywood starlet named Rachel (Elle Fanning) who sees him as an old-world bulldog who can give her resume some class. Frustrated by her coterie of assistants glued to their cellphones, Rachel gazes at him with the glowy admiration he can’t get from his own girls. Their dynamic proves to be just as complex as if they were blood-related. If Rachel makes his film, she’ll become a combo platter of his mother, his daughter, his protégée and his cash cow. Nora merely merits the financing for a low-budget Euro drama; Rachel can make it a major Netflix production (something “Sentimental Value” most adamantly is not).

It takes money to make a movie. Trier’s itchiness to get into that unsentimental fact isn’t fully scratched. He seems very aware that the audience for his kind of niche hit wants to sniffle at delicate emotions. When Gustav’s longtime producer Michael (Jesper Christensen) advises him to keep making films “his way” — as in antiquated — or when Gustav takes a swipe at Nora’s career as “old plays for old people,” the frustration in those lines, those doubts whether to stay the course or chase modernity, makes you curious if Trier himself is feeling a bit hemmed in.

There’s a crack running through “Sentimental Value” too. A third of it wants to be a feisty industry satire, but the rest believes there’s prestige value in tugging on the heartstrings. The title seems to be as much about that as anything.

I’ve got no evidence for Trier’s restlessness other than an observation that “Sentimental Value” is most vibrant when the dialogue is snide and the visuals are snappy. There’s a stunning image of Gustav, Nora and Agnes’ faces melting together that doesn’t match a single other frame of the movie, but I’m awful glad cinematographer Kasper Tuxen Andersen got it in there.

The film never quite settles on a theme, shifting from the relationship between Nora and Agnes, Nora and Gustav, and Gustav and Rachel like a gambler spreading their bets, hoping one of those moments will earn a tear. Nora herself gets lost in the shuffle. Is she jealous of her father’s attention to Rachel? Does she care about her married lover who pops up to expose her issues? Does she even like acting?

Reinsve’s skyrocketing career is Trier’s most successful wager and he gives her enough crying scenes to earn an Oscar nomination. Skarsgård is certainly getting one too. But Fanning delivers the best performance in the film. She’s not only hiding depression under a smile, she’s layering Rachel’s megawatt charisma under her eagerness to please, allowing her insecurity at being Gustav’s second pick to poke through in rehearsals where she’s almost — but not quite — up to the task.

Rachel could have been some Hollywood cliché, but Fanning keeps us rooting for this golden girl who hopes she’ll be taken seriously by playing a Nordic depressive. Eventually, she slaps on a silly Norwegian accent in desperation and wills herself to cry in character. And when she does, Fanning has calibrated her sobs to have a hint of hamminess. It’s a marvelous detail that makes this whole type of movie look a little forced.

THE apple doesn’t fall far from the tree for Heidi Klum and her daughter Leni.

The German-born supermodel, 53, posed with her 21-year-old to show off lingerie brand Intermissi’s latest collection.

The mother and daughter duo wore long sleeve pyjama tops and pants from the new range.

Back in 2023, Heidi and Leni caused controversy for posing in lingerie together.

Heidi wore a lacy nude bra and matching panties while Leni donned a fuchsia version in the snaps.

At the time, Heidi was 50 and Leni was 19.

HEIDI-WEEN

Heidi Klum drops NSFW clue about highly-anticipated Halloween costume

RED HOT

Heidi Klum rocks see-through lingerie as she stands against Las Vegas hotel window

Earlier this year, Project Runway star Heidi told People: “A lot of people are like, ‘Oh, I don’t know about mom and daughter doing this together’.

“But for us? I’m proud of my daughter. She’s fine with me like that.

“She’s fine with me like that.

“I’ve always been very open with my body.

“When I’m suntanning in the backyard, I might not have a top on.

“I’m European… my kids don’t know me any other way.”

Many believe Leni is a “nepo baby” because she was born into riches and has gone on to follow in her mother’s modeling footsteps.

Her biological father, Flavio Briatore, is a big name in Italy, leading various sporting teams into championships.

She’s also the adoptive daughter of singing superstar, Seal.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Political stars often rise and fall but few have had a more dramatic trajectory than Dick Cheney in his home state of Wyoming.

Hours after Cheney died Tuesday at 84, the state lowered flags at the Republican governor’s order. Some politicians in the state offered at times measured praise of the former vice president.

But among a large majority of voters in Wyoming, Cheney has been persona non grata for more than five years now, his reputation brought down amid President Trump’s withering politics.

Trump has criticized Cheney for the drawn-out and costly Iraq war, and his daughter, former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, for saying Trump should never be allowed back in the White House after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

This resonated with many residents, including Jeanine Stebbing, of Cheyenne, whose last straw was the idea that Trump shouldn’t be reelected.

“There was no open-mindedness. Nothing about how, ‘We understand that our neighbors here are supportive of Trump.’ Just the idea that we were all stupid, is what it felt like,” Stebbing said Tuesday.

The final blow for the Cheney family in Wyoming came in 2022, when Trump supported ranching attorney Harriet Hageman to oppose Liz Cheney for a fourth term as the state’s U.S. representative.

Hageman got two-thirds of the vote in the Republican primary, a decisive win in a state with so few Democrats that the general election is considered inconsequential for major races.

Trump’s biggest gripe, ultimately, was that Liz Cheney voted to impeach him, then co-led the congressional investigation into his role in the attack. In Wyoming, a prevailing belief was Liz Cheney seemed more focused on taking down Trump than on representing the state.

“I was very disappointed that, you know, somebody who came from this state would be so adamantly blind to anything other than what she wanted to do. And he joined in as well,” Stebbing said.

Not even Dick Cheney’s endorsement of his daughter over Hageman — and of Kamala Harris over Trump last year — made a difference, as Trump’s appeal in Wyoming only grew. Trump won Wyoming by more than any other state in 2016, 2020 and 2024, the year of his biggest margin in the state.

Some expressed sadness that George W. Bush’s vice president would not be remembered well by so many in the state.

“On the 16th anniversary of my own father’s death today, I can appreciate a father who stood by his daughter, which he did loyally and truthfully,” said Republican state Sen. Tara Nethercott, who is Senate majority floor leader. “He stood by his daughter during those difficult times.”

Nethercott wouldn’t speculate if Liz Cheney might yet have a political future. Wyoming’s support of Trump “speaks volumes,” she said.

Liz Cheney has continued to live in Jackson Hole, near her parents, while traveling back and forth to Charlottesville to teach at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

For Brian Farmer — who, like Dick Cheney, grew up in Casper and went to the University of Wyoming — Cheney’s legacy will be his service to the state, no matter where people stand on issues.

“He was always somebody whose path I looked at, sought to follow. Very quiet, soft-spoken at times, Very bombastic and loud at others,” said Farmer, executive director of the Wyoming School Boards Association.

Cheney had a 30-year career in politics, from serving as President Gerald Ford’s young chief of staff to representing Wyoming in Congress in the 1980s. He rose to a top GOP leadership role in Congress — one his daughter, too, would later fill — before being named President George H.W. Bush’s defense secretary.

After his time in office, the CEO of oilfield services company Halliburton kept active in state politics, voicing support and even stumping for Republican candidates.

And yet Cheney was so low-key and unassuming, his mere presence was the whole point — not the nice things he had to say, for example, about former Gov. Jim Geringer, who handily won reelection in 1998.

“You talk about people walking into a room and commanding it. That man did it without even speaking a word,” said state Rep. Landon Brown, a Cheyenne Republican who met him several times including at University of Wyoming football games.

“He’s going to be sincerely missed in this state,” he said. “Maybe not by everybody.”

Gruver writes for the Associated Press.

Gabby Logan has been a mainstay of the BBC Sport presenting team for many years, but she was given a reality check by her daughter when she tried to push her into certain sports

Few individuals could be better suited to front BBC Sport than self-proclaimed sports fanatic Gabby Logan.

Gabby, who competed for Wales in rhythmic gymnastics at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, has remained a familiar face for decades through her contributions to ITV and BBC, presenting World Cups, Olympic Games, Six Nations and countless other sporting occasions.

Following Gary Lineker’s exit from the corporation’s premier football programme, Match of the Day, she has joined the presenting roster tipped to succeed him. However, Gabby was decisively “put in her place” by her daughter Lois when she tried to guide her towards the sports she herself was most passionate about.

She explained to The Telegraph: “I always used to say to Lois, when she first got into horses at the age of nine: ‘Oh, if you played golf, I would play with you every night. If you played tennis, I’d play with you all the time.’

“And she’s like: ‘Mummy, those are your dreams, not mine.’ So I was very much put in my place… I used to tell Clare Balding that I’d had her love child.”

Gabby’s Clare Balding reference proved rather fitting.

Now aged 20, Lois works as a show jumper and recently took part in her first horse race as a jockey.

Lois’s twin brother Reuben has also inherited the family’s athletic streak, featuring as a back-row forward for Sale Sharks.

As a mum, Gabby admits she finds it challenging watching both her children pursue physically demanding and potentially dangerous sports. “They’ve not made it easy for me, have they?” she quipped.

“Or for Kenny, in terms of a nice, sedate sport – something a little less frenetic and potentially fraught with danger.

“Still, for me it was important that they had a passion and did something they wanted to do in life, and they both love sport.”

Reuben may have regretted his choice to go into professional rugby on one particular occasion, though.

One of his regular gym sessions at the club turned into a toe-curlingly embarrassing experience when one of his mum’s podcasts was played over the PA system.

It happened to be the episode in which Gabby, 50, was discussing changes in her sex life since her husband – former rugby international Kenny Logan – had his prostate removed following a cancer diagnosis in 2022.

Gabby has been outspoken about reconnecting with intimacy after menopause. She told The Sun: “Taking HRT saw my libido returning. I started with a very small dose of oestrogen and testosterone gels, and progesterone in tablet form. I noticed massive changes within a few weeks. It was a lovely feeling – like myself again.

“My libido came back within about a week. I felt a massive improvement there, and that was important to me and also to Kenny. Once I was on HRT and my libido returned, our sex life was back on track – even to the extent of having daytime sex. There are plus points to becoming empty nesters!”

Diane Ladd, the Oscar-nominated actor who received acclaim for her work in films including “Rambling Rose,” “Wild at Heart” and “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” has died. She was 89.

Oscar winner Laura Dern, Ladd’s daughter with Oscar-nominated actor Bruce Dern, announced her mother’s death in a statement shared Monday. “My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother, Diane Ladd, passed with me beside her this morning, at her home in Ojai,” Dern wrote. A cause of death was not revealed.

“She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created,” “Marriage Story” star Dern said in her statement. “We were blessed to have her.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Unto every generation, and fraction thereof, a sitcom is born, in which the young people of the moment state their case, self-mockingly. FX recently gave us a State of New York Youth in “Adults,” and here we are now, closer to home with “I Love L.A.,” premiering Sunday on HBO, the network of “Girls” (your guide to the 20-teens), still the most prestigious slot on linear television.

As a native of this fair city, who will never call downtown “DTLA” — let alone #DTLA — I miss the days when the rest of the country wanted nothing to do with us. (Real conversation from my life: Person: “Where are you from?” Me: “Los Angeles.” Person: “I’m sorry”). I can get a little cranky when it comes to the gentrihipsterfication of the city by succeeding hordes of newly minted Angelenos. (The place-name dropping in “I Love L.A.” includes Canyon Coffee, Courage Bagels, Jumbo’s Clown Room, Crossroads School and Erewhon.) I’m just putting my cards on the table here, as I approach characters whose generational concerns are distinct from mine, even as they belong to a venerable screen tradition, that of Making It in Hollywood, which runs back to the silent era. (The heroine of those pictures, stardom escaping her, would invariably return to the small-town boy who loved her. No more!)

Created by and starring Rachel Sennott (“Bottoms”), “I Love L.A.” takes its title from a Randy Newman song written well before Sennott or any of her co-stars were born. (To tell us where we are, as regards both HBO and the location, the series opens with a sex scene in an earthquake.) As in many such shows, there is a coterie of easily distinguishable friends at its center. Sennott plays Maia, turning 27 and in town for two years, working as an assistant to talent/brand manager Alyssa (the wonderful Leighton Meester, from “Gossip Girl,” that 2007 chronicle of youth manners) and hungry for promotion. Back into her life comes Tallulah (Odessa A’zion, the daughter of Pamela Adlon, whose throatiness she has inherited), a New York City It Girl — does any other city have It Girls in 2025? — whose It-ness has lately gone bust, as has Tallulah herself, now broke and rootless. She is one of those exhausting whirlwind personalities one might take to be on drugs, except that there are people who really do run at that speed, without speed — Holly Go-Heavily.

Also starring in the series are Jordan Firstman, left, True Whitaker and Odessa A’zion.

(Kenny Laubbacher / HBO)

Charlie (Jordan Firstman) is a stylist whose career depends on flattery and performative flamboyance. (“What’s the point of being nice,” he wonders, “if no one that can help me sees it?”) Alani (True Whitaker) is the daughter of a successful film director who has presumably paid for her very nice house, with its view of the Silver Lake Reservoir, and whatever she needs. (She has a title at his company even she admits is fake.) Since she wants for nothing, she’s the least stressful presence here, invested in spiritual folderol in a way that isn’t annoying. Attached to the quartet, but not really of it, is Maia’s supportive boyfriend, Dylan (Josh Hutcherson), a grade-school teacher and the only character I came close to identifying with. Do the kids still call them “normies”? Or did they ever, really?

That I find some of these people more trying than charming doesn’t prevent “I Love L.A.” from being a show I actually quite like. (The ratio of charm to annoyance may be flipped for some viewers, of course; different strokes, as we used to say back in the 1900s.) If anything, it’s a testament to Sennott and company having done their jobs well; the production is tight, the dialogue crisp, the photography rich — nothing here seems the least bit accidental. The cast is on point playing people who in real life they may not resemble at all. (My own, surely naive, much contradicted assumption is that all actors are nice.)

Desperation, in comedy, is pathetic but not tragic; indeed, it’s a pillar of the form. Maia, Tallulah and Charlie are to various degrees ruled by a need to be accepted by the successful and famous in the hope of becoming famous and successful themselves. (Alani is already set, and Dylan is almost a hippie, philosophically.) At the same time, the successful and famous come in for the harshest lampooning, including Elijah Wood, in an against-type scene reminiscent of Ricky Gervais’ “Extras.” On the other hand, Charlie’s unexpected friendship with a Christian singer he mistakes for gay is quite sweet; comedy being what it is, one half-expects the character to be taken down. Miraculously, it never happens. You can take that as a recommendation.

MICHAEL Douglas stepped out with his daughter in New York City – and she proved the spitting image of his wife Catherine Zeta Zones.

Glam nepo baby Carys Zeta Douglas, who recently turned 22, oozed the elegance of her movie star mother as she donned a classic LBD for the night out with her father.

She styled her brunette locks into natural waves over her shoulders and accessorised her classy look with black point-toe heels and drop earrings.

Carys currently enjoys a career as a social media influencer as well as having stepped into the modelling world.

She stood with a proud arm around 81-year-old father Michael’s back, with the Hollywood actor posing in a black suit paired with white shirt and purple tie.

The pair attended the PAC NYC ICONS OF CULTURE Gala held at the Perelman Performing Arts Centre.

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Catherine Zeta Jones has barely aged a day as she steps out with Michael Douglas

Carys’ look-a-like mum Catherine, 56, married Basic Instinct star Michael at the Plaza Hotel in New York on November 18, 2000, in a high-profile ceremony that cost an estimated £1.5million.

The couple share two children, a son Dylan Michael (born August 2000) as well as daughter Carys Zeta (born April 2003).

NEPO BABY STATUS

Carys studied at Brown University in Rhode Island and studied International and Public Affairs, spending many months overseas in Europe as part of a placement.

Carys had a first brush with fame when she was chosen by fashion brand, Fendi, to appear in a 2019 campaign alongside her mother.

Yet having showed off her acting skills in the short film,  F**k That Guy, Catherine admitted both Carys and Dylan were keen to be pro actors.

Speaking in 2021, Catherine said on The Drew Barrymore Show: “Their love of the craft of acting is so strong that even when their brains are doing politics and history in school, their passion is acting.

“And they’ve never done anything professional, but they would like to go into acting.”

FAMILY LIFE

Previously, we reported how the Hollywood pair have been determined to keep their kids grounded and leading an ordinary life away from the spotlight – even making sure they spend at least two weeks a year with their grandparents in Wales.

This year, Wednesday actress Catherine revealed the very normal destinations she and hubby Michael enjoy their downtime.

Welsh screen star Catherine, who shot to fame in 1991 when she starred in The Darling Buds Of May alongside David Jason, recently told of their family summer holidays.

She said of her brood: “They’ve been to Butlin’s, Legoland, seen the sights in London, up to Scotland, over to Ireland.”

She added to Radio Times: “They’ve even been to the Isle of Man, I think.”

Catherine told the publication her kids also spend two weeks a year in her home country, Wales, with her parents David James Jones and Patricia Fair.

Previously, the Mask of Zorro actress spoke about their Swansea trips after being given the Freedom of the City.

MUM TAKE

Catherine candidly spoke out about her parenting role ahead of the new Wednesday series, aired and available on Netflix.

She said: “Wednesday Addams and Morticia Addams’ relationship is beautiful, it’s encouraging, it’s contentious, it’s fraught.

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“It’s all those things a mother-daughter relationship goes through, which is a wonderful experience as a mother and not so much as a daughter. I speak from experience.”

The star, who plays Morticia Addams, added: “To be able to play those in Wednesday is something that’s very important and something that’s very real.”

AT the grand old age of 70 most men are settling down and enjoying retirement, not knee deep in nappies after welcoming their EIGHTH child. 

But nothing about Frasier actor Kelsey Grammer’s life has ever followed a normal playbook – even up to his fourth wife demanding five weddings. 

He weathered three failed marriages – one was physically abusive, another sexless and the other ended after just 12 months – prior to falling for Virgin Atlantic air stewardess Kayte Walsh. 

The daughter of Bristol City footballer Alan Walsh and 24 years his junior, she tamed the “wild man of American comedy”, who had long battled drug and alcohol addiction.

She gave him the one thing he was missing – cosy domesticity – after endless family heartache including his sister being raped and murdered, two half brothers dying in a freak accident and his estranged dad being gunned down when he was just 13.

The couple already had a brood of three – Faith, 13, Gabriel, 10, and Auden James, eight – prior to Kelsey announcing “we’ve just had our fourth” on yesterday’s episode of Pod Meets World.

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New arrival Christopher, born on Friday, takes the actor’s baby tally to eight with four different mums.

And a source told the Mail he’s “thrilled to finally have time to fully enjoy being a father all over again… [and] embracing the hands-on parenting he missed in the past”.

There’s no doubt Kayte put an end to Kelsey’s turbulent years in the wilderness, which were plagued with tragedy, heartache and more faux pas than his pompous, gaffe-prone character Dr Frasier Crane.  

Yet their romance got off to a bumpy start – as the actor was still married to ex-Playboy pin-up and future Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Camille Meyer. 

Kelsey would later claim his third-wife only “married me because I was Frasier”. At his peak, he raked in more than £1million per episode for the show, which ran for 11 seasons. 

He also described their marriage, which spanned 14 years until 2011, as being “so broken” that they “had not had sex in a decade” and claimed she asked for a divorce the day of his mother’s funeral in 2008.

For a long time Kelsey knew the relationship was on the rocks, admitting it was “over as soon as it began” yet he stayed with her as a “self-imposed sentence”, mainly out of stubbornness and for the sake of their two children, Mason, 24, and Jude, 21.

He met Kayte in 2009 as she showed him to his seat on a Virgin Atlantic Upper Class flight from Los Angeles to London, where he was due to appear in a play.

She claimed it was “love at first sight” – dismissing the much-joked about claim of cabin crew being on the “lookout” for wealthy suitors – and noticed “this golden glow around him”. 

They chatted about music, England and life at the plane’s bar before he slipped her his number and told her the hotel he was staying at. 

Kayte was “blown away by how lovely he was” but uncertain and “indecisive” about whether to call him. 

She told the Mail: “I said, ‘God, if I’m meant to call him, I want a sign.’ I looked out the bus window and saw a sign reading, ‘Frasier Suites’. I was like, ‘OK, that’s not enough.’ 

I was her big brother, I was supposed to protect her – I could not. I have never gotten over it… It very nearly destroyed me

Kelsey Grammer

“Four minutes later, we passed an art store called Crane and a few moments later, we drove past the hotel where he was staying.”  

Secret mistress

Two days later they went for a coffee, where he confided he was “in a situation he wasn’t happy in and I needed to be patient”. She claimed they spent months only kissing and holding hands.

It wasn’t long before Camille discovered Kelsey’s mistress. Allegedly when she arrived at the couple’s New York apartment to be told by the doorman ‘Mrs Grammer’ was already inside.

Fire and fury followed. The former Playboy bunny claimed she was dumped by text, sniped about his bedroom skill and made another lurid claim he liked to dress in women’s clothes.

At the time Kelsey responded: “Never been a cross-dresser but I have been very sexually adventurous. I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done in the bedroom.” 

He considered the slings to be “pathetic” attempts to remain famous – yet as a “parting gift” to give her a new direction, he helped to secure her a spot on Real Housewives and even appeared in a single episode.

The couple married just 15 days after Kelsey’s £30million divorce from Camille was finalised in February 2011. It followed a stern demand before Kayte accepted his proposal. 

She recalled: “Because he’s been married so many times before I said, ‘You have to marry me more times.’ I’m his fourth wife, so I said, ‘You have to marry me at least five times.’”

Lavish nuptials followed – the first was New York, followed by an Elvis officiated Viva Las Vegas do, another at their LA home and the final, an especially romantic service in Giverny, France.

The last was inspired by Kayte’s favourite artwork Monet’s Bridge Over a Pond of Lilies. He took her to the bridge the painter used, got down on one knee and proposed.  

She recalled: “It was a complete shock. Kelsey had arranged everything with the Mayor so we got to say our vows in French. It was lovely.”

Serial killer slayed sister

The romance with Kayte has undoubtedly given Kelsey the peace and stability he has lacked throughout his turbulent life.

He was born to parents Sally, a dancer, and Allen, a coffee shop owner, in Saint Thomas, US Virgin Islands, but raised in New Jersey by his mum after they divorced when he was two.

At the age of 12, his grandad died of cancer and the following year his estranged dad was murdered during a wave of racial violence after Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968. 

Seven years later, his younger sister Karen, 18, was kidnapped, raped and murdered by serial killer Freddie Glenn, who killed three women.

Glenn, now 68, who Kelsey remarkably forgave many later years, was sentenced to die in the gas chamber only for the death penalty to be scrapped.

“I was her big brother, I was supposed to protect her – I could not,” he said at the murderer’s 2009 parole hearing. “I have never gotten over it… It very nearly destroyed me.”

And just five years after losing Karen, two of his half-brothers were killed in a freak scuba diving accident. 

Unsurprisingly, that amount of trauma caused unbridled chaos in his personal life – with him stating they were “the catalyst that got me into a really big problem for at least the next 15 years”.

‘Chaos, insanity, mayhem’

He consistently battled cocaine and alcohol abuse – especially while filming Frasier and Cheers – and was known for being difficult to work with, one colleague described him as “one of the biggest jerks” he had ever met.

Kelsey was described as “oozing” onto set with “glazed over eyes, half asleep, going through whatever he was going through” yet when the director yelled ‘Action’, he was “pitch perfect”.

Because he’s been married so many times before I said, ‘You have to marry me more times’…You have to marry me at least five times

Kayte Grammer

He was regularly in trouble with the law too. Kelsey was charged at least four times for crimes including cocaine possession, drink driving and violating parole conditions.

The crimes, which spanned 1988 to 1996, resulted in 30 days jail time, more than 300 hours of community service, 90-day house arrest, fines in the thousands and a 30-day court mandated rehab stint. 

His relationships weren’t going well either. Kelsey’s first marriage to dance instructor Doreen Alderman lasted eight years until 1990, despite their relationship being over after less than 12 months. They share a daughter Spencer. 

Two years later Kelsey had a second child, Greer, who later appeared on MTV show Awkward, with make-up stylist Barrie Buckner.

He married former stripper Leigh-Anne Csuhany, who was three months pregnant, seven months after that. But their romance wouldn’t last. 

Kelsey filed for an annulment and evicted her from his home, alleging she was physically abusive to him. 

He claimed she once fired a gun at him and even on their wedding day, he was seen sporting a black eye from one of her violent attacks. 

In his autobiography, Kelsey claimed she convinced him he was “nothing, unattractive, untalented, undeserving of love and incapable of being loved by anyone but her” to ensure he would never leave. 

“She’d spit in my face, slap me, punch me, kick me, break glasses over my head, break windows, tear up pictures of my loved ones, threaten to kill me or herself,” he wrote. 

Shortly after the split, Leigh-Anne tried to kill herself. She suffered a miscarriage. 

Kelsey had a string of short-lived flings after, including with Playboy model Tammi Alexander, before his third marriage to fellow top-shelf mag pin-up Camille.  

Five weddings

Ultimately, it has been with Kayte where he has finally found happiness. But that contentment could have easily been derailed due to the tragedies they have faced as a couple.

Two of their pregnancies ended in miscarriage and Faith’s unborn sibling died in utero. Heartbreakingly, this often requires a mum to undergo labour to birth the deceased child.

Kayte admitted it was “devastating” for them but the blows further strengthened their relationship. Each baby has reminded them “life is a miracle” and to count their blessings.  

There was the other part of me that wanted to surrender to it and go, ‘Let it mess you up a little bit. Let it hurt.

Kelsey Grammer

His ever expanding brood has also given him a second chance at parenting, after admitting he took his eye off the ball with the older kids.

He said: “I have neglected a couple of the kids in my life, especially the first two,” he said. “I’m trying to make up for a little of it now. I’m still their dad, so you can always have [a] chance to show up.”

With a stable, loving home Kelsey’s addiction issues appear to have been kept at bay – despite in 2016 admitting he stopped attending AA because he likes to “enjoy a drink”. 

It’s known he was sober for years after his 1996 car crash while under the influence, which resulted in him being sent to rehab by the courts.  

Previously, Kelsey’s calling toward “chaos, insanity, mayhem” was spurred on by “running away from uncomfortable feelings” and being unable to “forgive myself” for his sister’s death.

He acknowledges having “a self-destructive part of me” that encouraged his addiction, which worsened his health and contributed to a near-fatal heart attack in 2008.

Kelsey added: “I always had something in the back of my head saying, ‘Okay. That’s enough now. Cut it out. You know why you’re doing this.’

“But there was the other part of me that wanted to surrender to it and go, ‘Let it mess you up a little bit. Let it hurt.’”

But now thanks to Kayte, he lives a calmer life – when not changing nappies at 5am – and previously she said their “favourite place is our sofa”.

There they snuggle up, eat popcorn while watching films and eventually fall asleep in each other’s arms. It’s a far cry from the decades of debauchery before. 

FOOTBALLER GONE

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CHA-CHA-CHAOS

Strictly’s Amber Davies breaks silence after pro Nikita pictured kissing her

Kayte says: “As a general rule I try to operate from love. I always wanted to find a family and the love of my life. That was my dream. I feel blessed.”

No doubt Kelsey feels it’s he who has been blessed, after finding the woman who saved his life and drastically changed his future for the better. 

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara” is the most famous line from 1968’s revolutionary “Night of the Living Dead.” It’s a mean taunt that comes from a sibling, unaware that civilization is crumpling around him. In a few moments, his sister will be fleeing across a field barefoot from an undead zombie (terms that are never used in the movie because it’s so ahead of its time) and any Boris Karloff impressions will quickly be forgotten.

The line also sounds remarkably comfortable coming out of the mouth of a drag queen — one of the many sides of shade served in the generously funny and sharp “Queens of the Dead.” Directing and co-writing the film is 42-year-old Tina Romero, daughter of George Romero, “Night’s” original progenitor, whose death in 2017 was met with the kind of belated cultural praise usually reserved for Oscar winners.

Tina Romero understands the legacy of her father better than most. It’s not just a matter of gathering a bunch of bickering survivors inside a besieged location — here it’s a converted Bushwick warehouse — while the outside world goes to hell. (Adding to the film’s bona fides, legendary makeup artist Tom Savini makes a cameo as the city’s mayor on TV: “This is not a George Romero movie,” he warns.) Shrewdly, “Queens of the Dead” also foregrounds the deeper meanings that gore-obsessed knockoffs sometimes miss: the idea that working together across differences is harder than it seems and maybe the monster is already calling from inside the house.

Pink-hued and queered so aggressively that only a prig won’t be able to find some RuPaul-adjacent enjoyment in it, “Queens” stars Katy O’Brian, last seen as Kristen Stewart’s sculpted lust object in “Love Lies Bleeding.” Here O’Brian has much more to do emotionally as Dre, a wanna-be impresario with big dreams for her drag event, Yum, even if her attractions keep bailing and her target audience of influencers is in the process of turning into lumbering flesh-eaters. (They still clutch onto their cellphones, a nice touch.)

Within the makeshift club — a dressing room, a bar, some dance cages that will figure later — tensions flare and Dre has her hands full. Ginsey (Nina West), a hardworking diva, holds down the fort while unreliable protégé Sam (Jaquel Spivey) chooses this moment to show up and ruffle feathers. Unhappy with second billing, a younger queen (Tomás Matos) insists on being called Scrumptious while a gruffly accommodating handyman named Barry (Quincy Dunn-Baker, a smart inclusion of George Romero’s blue-collar streak) tries to keep all the pronouns straight.

Confidently, Tina Romero makes room for a wonderfully dumb makeover montage and a daring escape via Pride Parade float. If the comedy overcompensates at the expense of landing every gag, then good on her. It’s long overdue and there’s something touching to the idea that the end of the world might unleash leadership qualities in those who’ve had a rough time existing in the old one.

But a film this well-made and cut (the pacy editing by Aden Hakimi calls back to the elder Romero’s own cutting of his major titles) shouldn’t be relegated to just one kind of audience. Anyone who appreciates horror should find something to smile at here. Maybe it’s the side plot — as satisfying as a worn-in pair of shoes — of Dre’s wife, Lizzie (Riki Lindhome), a hospital nurse, racing across town in an old Impala.

Or, true to zombie movie form, there’s the mid-film arrival of a game-changing character, the synthesizer music pumping. Here it’s Margaret Cho on a motor scooter, cruising through a cloud of exhaust. “You all look healthy enough,” she tosses off, an action hero in the making. And yes, that’s as thrilling as it sounds.

Oct. 25 (UPI) — Due process rights were violated when federal officers detained the father of a girl who has cancer without a bond hearing pending deportation to Mexico, a federal judge in Chicago ruled.

U.S. District of Northern Illinois Judge Jeremy Daniel on Friday ordered Ruben Torres Maldonado, 40, to be given a bond hearing no later than Oct. 31 while he faces deportation as his 16-year-old daughter undergoes cancer treatment, WBBM-TV reported.

He remains in custody at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility pending the outcome of the bond hearing, which Daniel said should have been done already to uphold his right to due process.

His attorneys sought an immediate release, but Daniel said the “appropriate remedy” to his detainment is to hold a bond hearing as soon as possible.

“While sympathetic to the plight the petitioner’s daughter faces due to her health concerns, the court must act within the constraints of the relevant statutes, rules and precedents,” Daniel said.

Daniel was appointed to the court by former President Joe Biden.

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary. Tricia McLaughlin called the legal challenge a “desperate Hail Mary attempt to keep a criminal in our country,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

He “did not comply with instructions from the officers and attempted to flee in his vehicle and backed into a government vehicle,” she explained.

McLaughlin, in a prepared statement, said “U.S. Border Patrol conducted a targeted immigration enforcement operation that resulted” in his arrest in Niles, Ill., on Oct. 18, according to WLS-TV.

“He has a history of habitual driving offenses and has been charged multiple times with driving without insurance, driving without a valid license and speeding,” she said. “He will remain in ICE custody pending removal.”

Moldonado, 40, has illegally resided in the United States since entering in 2003 and has lived in the greater Chicago area with his partner for the past 20 years.

He has worked as a painter for the same company over the past 20 years.

The Trump administration is calling for the immediate detention of all people when encountered and who are suspected of illegally entering or otherwise residing in the United States.

The detention mandate is based on a federal law that Maldonado’s legal team says only applies to “non-citizens who recently arrived at a border or port of entry.”

Daniel agreed that the law does not apply to Moldonado and ordered his bond hearing to ensure due process in his case.

CHICAGO — The detention by immigration authorities of a Chicago man whose 16-year-old daughter is undergoing treatment for advanced cancer is illegal, and he must be given a bond hearing by Oct. 31, a federal judge has ruled.

Attorneys for Ruben Torres Maldonado, 40, who was detained Oct. 18, have petitioned for his release as his deportation case goes through the system. While U.S. District Judge Jeremy Daniel said in an order Friday that Torres’ detention is illegal and violates his due process rights, he also said he could not order his immediate release.

“While sympathetic to the plight the petitioner’s daughter faces due to her health concerns, the court must act within the constraints of the relevant statutes, rules, and precedents,” the judge wrote Friday.

Torres’ attorney took the ruling as a win — for now.

“We’re pleased that the judge ruled in our favor in determining that ICE is illegally detaining Ruben. We will now turn the fight to immigration court so we can secure Ruben’s release on bond while he applies for permanent residence status,” his attorney, Kalman Resnick, said in a statement Friday night.

Torres, a painter and home renovator, was detained at a suburban Home Depot store. His daughter, Ofelia Torres, was diagnosed in December with a rare and aggressive form of soft-tissue cancer called metastatic alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma and has been undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

Torres entered the U.S. in 2003, according to his lawyers. He and his partner, Sandibell Hidalgo, also have a 4-year-old son. The children are both U.S. citizens, according to court records.

“My dad, like many other fathers, is a hardworking person who wakes up early in the morning and goes to work without complaining, thinking about his family,” Ofelia said in a video posted on a GoFundMe page set up for her family. “I find it so unfair that hardworking immigrant families are being targeted just because they were not born here.”

The Department of Homeland Security alleges that Torres has been living illegally in the U.S. for years and has a history of driving offenses, including speeding and driving without a valid license and insurance.

“This is nothing more than a desperate Hail Mary attempt to keep a criminal illegal alien in our country,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “The Trump administration is fighting for the rule of law and the American people.”

At a hearing Thursday, which Ofelia attended in a wheelchair, the family’s attorneys told the judge that she was released from the hospital just a day before her father’s arrest so that she could see family and friends. But since his arrest, she had been unable to continue treatment “because of the stress and disruption,” they said.

Federal prosecutor Craig Oswald told the court that the government did not want to release Torres because he didn’t cooperate during his arrest,

Several elected officials held a news conference Wednesday to protest Torres’ arrest. The Chicago area has been at the center of a major immigration crackdown dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” which began in early September.

In Megha Majumdar’s new novel “A Guardian and a Thief,” a cataclysmic climate event in the Bengali city of Kolkata has wiped out shelter and food supplies, leaving its citizens desperate and scrambling for survival. Among the families beset by the tragedy are Ma, her young daughter Mishti and Ma’s father Dadu. They are some of the fortunate ones, with approved passports to travel to the U.S., where Ma’s husband awaits them in Ann Arbor, Mich. But a brazen theft threatens their very existence.

“A Guardian and a Thief” is Majumdar’s follow-up to her critically acclaimed bestselling debut “A Burning.” We chatted with the author about white lies, the pleasures of anthropology and teaching as a form of learning.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

✍️ Author Chat

“A Guardian and a Thief” by Megha Majumdar

(Knopf)

Your novel takes place in Kolkata, which is your hometown. Why?

It’s one of the cities in the world which is most severely affected by climate change. I was reading about all of these grim predictions. Kolkata has grown significantly hotter and is predicted to endure more storms in the coming decades. Reading all of that was really sad, and it was really alarming. The book really grew out of these predictions about the future of the city.

Your character Boomba makes life very difficult for your family, yet he is really a victim of circumstance, right? Calamities can make good people do bad things.

This is the kind of question that got me into this book, which is, are there good people and monsters or do we contain elements of both in us? And is this revealed in a circumstance of scarcity and crisis? That’s the kind of question that I was very interested in. Boomba came to me initially as the thief of the title, but as I started writing more about him, I realized that it wouldn’t be truthful or interesting to simply make him the thief. He was more complex and I needed to write him with all of his complicated motivations and wishes and worries and regrets.

Everyone in the novel lies to some extent, whether it’s for self-preservation, or to protect their loved ones from being hurt.

I think it’s coming from love, actually, the loving function of lies and falsehoods. Anybody who has lived far away from home might find that this resonates with them: This feeling that when you are really far away from your loved ones, you need to assure them that you are OK, that things are all right. It’s a kind of love that you can offer them, because they cannot do anything to help you from so far away. So offering them falsehoods about how your circumstances are fine and they have nothing to worry about is an expression of love for them.

You studied anthropology in college. How did you move into fiction?

Anthropology is about the effort to understand [other people] while acknowledging that you can never fully know, that there are limits to how much any of us can understand another person’s life. That training, in listening for complexity in somebody else’s life story, and honoring the contradictions and intricacies of their life, and maintaining the humility to acknowledge that there are things about other people which will always remain mysterious to us — that space is so rich for a fiction writer.

You teach writing in the MFA program at Hunter College in New York. How does that feed into your work?

It’s what I loved about working as a book editor. Teaching feels beautifully related to editorial work, because, once again, I am close to other writers. I’m close to their text, I am thinking with them through the questions of what this text is accomplishing. And I love having the opportunity to think through failures of prose with other incredibly smart and creative and ambitious writers. When I say failure, there’s nothing bad or stressful about it. I fail in my writing all the time. Failure is part of the process. Being able to look at those failures and ask, what is happening here is very useful.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Twenty-five years after “Almost Famous” put his origin story on movie screens, Cameron Crowe (left, with Robert Plant) reflects on his roots as a teenage music journalist.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Valorie Castellanos Clark writes that “The Radical Fund,” John Fabian Witt’s book about a Jazz Age millionaire who gave his money away is a “meticulous” story of “the ways a modest fund endowed by a reluctant heir managed to reshape American civil rights in less than 20 years.”

Nine years after “Go Set a Watchman” published, Robert Allen Papinchak reviews Harper Lee’s latest, “The Land of Sweet Forever,” a collection of stories and essays from the late author, calling it “a rewarding addition and resource to the slim canon of her literary legacy.”

Leigh Haber is entranced with Gish Jen’s new novel “Bad Bad Girl,” about a fraught mother-daughter relationship, calling the book “suffused with love and a desire to finally understand.”

Finally, Mikael Wood chatted with filmmaker Cameron Crowe about his new memoir, “The Uncool.” Says Crowe of his journalism days, “I did an interview with Bob Dylan for Los Angeles magazine, and I got it so wrong that they didn’t publish it.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

Vroman’s Bookstore is on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Nine months after the Eaton fire, Vroman’s Bookstore continues to be a cherished haven for local residents. The store still vibrates with bookish energy as it continues its ambitious fundraising outreach campaigns for fire victims. We chatted with the store’s chief executive, Julia Cowlishaw, about how things are going at the beloved Pasadena institution.

Nine months after the fire, how is business?

Business has been steady this year and we’re pleased with that, given all the variables in the world.

What books are selling right now?

The new releases this fall are fabulous, and we are seeing a broad range of interests. In nonfiction there’s a lot of interest in trying to understand current events from historical perspectives and Jill Lepore’s “We the People” is one example on our bestseller list. Since it is fall, the list of cookbooks is amazing and Samin Nosrat’s new cookbook “Good Things” along with her older book “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” make great gifts. In fiction, Ian McEwan, Kiran Desai, Thomas Pynchon and Lily King’s new novels are popular, so literary fiction is alive and well.

How important has the store been for the community in such a challenging year?

Bookstores, including Vroman’s, have long been recognized as a third place in their communities. A third place gives people a space to come together with friends and family over a shared interest and a fine sense of community. That sense of community became even more important after the fires, and it was so important for us to be more than a bookstore and give back to our community in every way we could. Our community really responded by helping us raise money for several community foundations, and collect books and supplies for people impacted by the fires.

Vroman’s Bookstore is at 695 E. Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena.

Throughout the spring and summer of 2020, across the U.S. and the world, millions of quarantined citizens appeared nightly at their windows and balconies, offering thanks to the healthcare workers whose lives were dedicated to saving theirs. In my little corner of Silver Lake, 7 p.m. commenced a daily cacophonous communal concert of pots and pans banging, trombones and trumpets blaring, dogs and coyotes howling: a grateful group roar. I was 67 with a history of respiratory illness: extra high risk. My younger neighbors, knowing this, grocery-shopped for me, sweetening my mornings with fresh milk and fruit during those long, grim days.

“Sacrament” is Susan Straight’s homage to a small fictional band of ICU nurses battling the 2020 COVID-19 surge at a San Bernardino hospital. Her 10th novel follows the beat she’s been covering, and living, since her first. “Aquaboogie,” her 1990 debut, was set in Rio Seco, a fictional stand-in for Riverside, where Straight grew up and still lives. The first in her bloodline to graduate high school, Straight earned an MFA at the University of Massachusetts and brought it home to UC Riverside, where she’s been teaching creative writing since 1988. Her twin passions for her homeland and lyrical artistry bloom on every page. “All summer, there had been fewer cars on the road in Southern California, and everyone remarked on how with no smog, the sunsets weren’t deep, heated crimson. Just quiet slipping into darkness.”

As Susan Straight’s work invariably does, “Sacrament” challenges the prevailing notion that the overlooked Californians she centers in her work and in her life are less worthy, less interesting, less human than their wealthier, whiter, more visible urban counterparts.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles Times dubbed Straight the “bard of overlooked California,” and “Sacrament” proves the praise. Straight’s African American ex-husband and three daughters; her Latino, Filipino, white, Native and mixed-race neighbors; and her immersion in overlooked California bring new meaning to the advice “write what you know.” Straight’s personal and literary missions extend to who she knows.

In “Sacrament,” Straight turns her singular focus to a handful of nurses camping in a wagon train of funky, sweltering trailers near the hospital they call Our Lady. Separated from their spouses and kids — “Six feet apart or six feet under,” Larette’s son Joey chants — Larette, Cherrise, Marisol and their colleagues are themselves underprotected from the virus, which they eventually contract, and from the domestic dramas that seep from home into their pressure-cooker days. Fearful that her mom will die, Cherrise’s teenage daughter, Raquel, convinces Joey to drive her to the hospital from the date farm where Raquel has been deposited into her Auntie Lolo’s care. The drive should take two hours, but the teens are MIA for two nightmare days. Having narrowly escaped a would-be captor, Raquel remains haunted by her near fate. “The fingers in her hair pulling so hard her scalp felt like it had tiny bubbles under the skin. Wait till I pull your hair for real, bitch. She heard him even now.”

Diving deeper than the quotidian insults of her characters’ loneliness, poverty and fear, Straight brings us inside their exhausted minds. Attempting a nap, Larette lies on the break room cot, eyes closed, to no avail. “Ghost fingers in her left palm. Her right hand holding the phone on FaceTime for the wives. The husbands. The children who were grown,” she writes. “All their faces. Stoic. Weeping. Biting their lips so hard.” Later, Larette tells her husband, “Everyone you see on TV, banging pots and pans, everyone doing parades, it’s so nice. But then I have to be all alone with — their breath. Their breath just — it slows down and it’s terrifying every time.”

Perhaps most painful among the nurses’ many miseries is their isolation: the secrets they keep in hopes of sparing their loved ones an iota of extra suffering. “None of us are telling anyone we love about anything, Larette thought. She hadn’t told [her husband] anything true in weeks.”

As Straight’s work invariably does, “Sacrament” challenges the prevailing notion that the overlooked Californians she centers in her work and in her life are less worthy, less interesting, less human than their wealthier, whiter, more visible urban counterparts. Programmed to equate “rugged independence” with success, many advantaged Americans first appreciated human interdependence (berries in our cereal, test kits on our porches) in lockdown. In Straight’s world, raising each other’s kids, feeding each other’s elders, keeping each other’s secrets, mourning the dead and fighting like hell for the living is not called exigence. It’s called life.

“Sacrament” broadens the reader’s understanding of community beyond flesh-and-blood friends, family and neighbors. The love and care that flow within her community of characters draws the reader into their bright, tight circle, making the characters’ loved ones and troubles feel like the reader’s own.

Spoiler alert: The nurses’ sacrifices, strengths and foibles; their families, robbed not only of their moms and wives and daughters but also of any shred of safety; and their patients — who have tubes stuffed into their urethras and down their throats, blinking their desperate last moments of life into iPads as they take their final breaths — will likely make the reader see and respect and love not only these characters, but the consistently brilliant author who gave them life on the page of this, her finest book.

Maran, author of “The New Old Me” and other books, lives in a Silver Lake bungalow that’s even older than she is.

Nancy Pelosi’s plan to seek reelection extends one of San Francisco’s longest-running, most-fevered political guessing games: Who will succeed the Democrat when she finally does step aside?

The announcement Tuesday by the 81-year-old congresswoman was utterly predictable. Her decision augurs an election that will be thoroughly pro forma.

Pelosi will attract, as she always does, at least one candidate running to her left, who will insist — in true San Francisco fashion — that she is not a real Democrat. There will also be a Republican opponent or two, who may raise many millions of dollars from Pelosi haters around the country acting more out of spite than good sense.

And then, in just about nine months, she will be handily reelected to Congress for an 18th time.

Nob Hill may crumble. Alcatraz may tumble. But Pelosi, who hasn’t bothered running anything remotely resembling a campaign in decades, will not be turned out by her constituents so long as she draws a breath and stands for election.

There was speculation she might step aside and not run again. But Pelosi knows better than anyone the power and influence — not to mention prodigious fundraising capacity — that would diminish the moment she indicated the rest of the year would be spent marking time to her departure.

In an October 2018 interview, while campaigning in Florida ahead of the midterm election that returned her to the speakership, Pelosi allowed as how she didn’t envision staying in office forever. (It was a signal to those impatient Democrats in the House that their aspirations wouldn’t die aborning and helped her secure the votes she needed to retake the gavel.)

“I see myself as a transitional figure,” Pelosi said at a downtown Miami bistro. “I have things to do. Books to write; places to go; grandchildren, first and foremost, to love.”

But, she quickly added, she wasn’t imposing a limit on her tenure. “Do you think I would make myself a lame duck right here over this double espresso?” Pelosi said with a raised eyebrow and a laugh.

She won’t, of course, live forever, and so for many years there has been speculation — and some quiet jockeying — over who will eventually take Pelosi’s place.

To say her seat in Congress is coveted is like suggesting there’s a wee bit of interest in the city in a certain sporting event this weekend. (For those non-football fans, the San Francisco 49ers will be playing the Rams in the NFC championship game for a ticket to the Super Bowl.)

In nearly 60 years, just three people have served in the seat Pelosi now holds. Two of them — Phil Burton and Pelosi — account for all but a handful of those years. Burton’s widow, Sala, served about four years before, as she lay dying, she anointed Pelosi as her chosen replacement.

So succeeding Pelosi could be the closest thing to a lifetime appointment any San Francisco politician will ever enjoy. And given all the pent-up ambition, there is no shortage of prospective candidates.

One of the strongest contenders is state Sen. Scott Wiener, 51, who has built an impressive record in Sacramento in a district that roughly approximates the current congressional boundaries.

Another prospect is Christine Pelosi, 55, the most politically visible of the speaker’s five children and a longtime activist in Democratic campaigns and causes. If she ran, to what length — if any — would the speaker go in hopes of handing off the seat to her daughter?

Republicans seem exceedingly likely to win control of the House in November. It seems exceedingly unlikely that Pelosi would happily settle into the role of minority leader, much less fall back as a workaday member of a shrunken, enfeebled Democratic caucus.

Would she time her departure to benefit her daughter by, say, requiring a snap election that would take advantage of Pelosi’s brand name? Or would she avoid choosing sides and allow the election to play out in San Francisco’s typically brutal, free-for-all fashion?

The intrigue continues.

EMINEM’S daughter Alaina Scott has been spotted bumping along in her first sighting since announcing her pregnancy- making the rap legend a grandfather for the second time.

Alaina was adopted by Eminem and his ex-wife Kim Mathers as a baby after the death of her mom Dawn, Kim’s twin sister.

The rapper’s eldest daughter married her longtime boyfriend, Matt Moeller, in a Great Gatsby-themed ceremony in 2023, and they will soon welcome their first child.

Eminem walked her down the aisle and they have always had a close relationship.

Alaina made her pregnancy announcement on Instagram, and has since been seen out and about close to her home in Michigan.

Focusing on her health amid her new chapter, she was photographed leaving a Pure Barre class in Shelby Township, looking as though she’s on cloud nine.

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REAL KIM SHADY

Eminem’s rarely-seen ex Kim Mathers looks totally different with pink hair

Alaina was makeup free for the workout dressed in a gray T-shirt and pink leopard print yoga pants with black sandals.

She had her hair tied back and was seen beaming as she looked at her cell phone while clutching a bottle of water.

NEW CHAPTER

The U.S. Sun can also reveal the first photographs of her new house build for her growing family in New Baltimore.

Snaps show construction appears to be nearly complete as workers add windows and doors to the home.

Records obtained by The U.S. Sun show Alaina, an esthetician, and husband Matt, a drummer, took out a loan for $350,000 in February 2025 to pay for the land.

Alaina posted photographs from a gender reveal party this week, revealing she is having a girl.

“You’re everything I’ve ever dreamed of, sweet child of mine,” she wrote alongside videos of a pink confetti canon.

“I can already see her little hand in his, the way he’ll look at her, the way she’ll have him wrapped around her tiny finger. Watching him become a girl dad is going to be the greatest love story yet, and he doesn’t even know it.”

Looking glowing in a mid-length black dress, she previously posted some cute photos holding a tiny white babygrow with ‘Baby Moeller, coming 2026’ written on it.

She penned: “THE BEST OF YOU + ME.”

“For months, I’ve carried a tiny heartbeat inside me, one that has already changed mine in every possible way.

“There’s something indescribable about knowing there’s a little life growing, dreaming, and becoming, all while you go about your day, whispering prayers and hopes only they can hear.”

Alaina continued: “I’ve never felt more grateful for this gift and to grow our family, something we’ve wanted for so long. 

“Thank you God for this blessing. Baby M, we can’t wait to meet you, little one.”

BLENDED FAMILY

The heartwarming photos captured the moment Alaina surprised her husband — leading a blindfolded Matt into a room at the couple’s new home-in-progress, decorated with a giant gold “Baby M” balloon.

She then presented him with a shoebox containing a positive pregnancy test and a pair of tiny sneakers.

The baby girl will be Eminem and Kim’s second grandchild after the birth of their daughter Hailie Jade’s son, Elliot, in March this year with her husband, Evan McClintock.

Kim, 50, was also seen in new photographs this month looking healthy and happy after her previous health struggles.

The mother-of-four and rapper married in 1999 but divorced in 2001. 

They later reconciled and tied the knot a second time in 2006 before finally parting ways and are now on good terms.

Alaina’s mother, Dawn, who was Kim’s sister, died of a drug overdose in 2016 after years of addiction problems.

Kim is also mom to Stevie Laine, 23, who identifies as non-binary, and was also raised by Eminem, 52, while she also has a son, Parker, who is believed to be in his teens. 

Both Stevie and Parker are from different relationships.

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TMZ revealed this week that Eminem, real name Marshall Mathers, has now found love with a new woman – his longtime stylist, Katrina Malota.

Katrina is a stylist and makeup artist based in Michigan who has been in his circle for many years.

A BBC star’s nepo daughter has revealed her addiction battle on her new single.

The singer has opened up for the first time about struggling with addiction, ADHD and substance abuse.

Line of Duty star Adrian Dunbar‘s daughter, Madeleine Dunbar, 37, whose artist’s name is Minx has explored her past in her new music video.

The artist took to Instagram with an image of herself spread across a lime satin bedspread with beer cans rolled into her hair as curlers

In the image she is surrounded by lines of fake white powder, pill packets and bottles.

The artist said: “My name is Madeline Dunbar, My artist name is Minx.

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“I am a recovering addict. I am a NeuroSpice.

“Messy, Messy ADHD Queen and I am writing songs about it.

The camera then flips to Madeline’s cat and she jokes: “Oh that’s my cat Tony. I think he thinks I’m relapsing.

“Don’t worry baby boy we are not going back there. That is just my ADHD medication crushed up on a golden plate.”

Madeline then bursts into laughter and adds: “Anyways if any of this stuff resonates with you in the right place.

“I’m about to release a track called Dopamine on the 1st November.

“I think you’re gonna f**k with it.”

The singer describes her music as “high-energy pop rap with hip hop, house and Latin influences”, drawing inspiration from Madonna, Lady Gaga, Janelle Monae and Rosalia.

Lyrics from the song include: “And every time I think that I’m in control / You serve another cocktail of chemicals / And it’s nice, but I wonder”

In an earlier post the singer wrote: “Fully clean and sober writing songs about addiction is cathartic but sitting in front of my favourite vices (albeit fake substitutes) was a bit triggering.

“It also made me feel a great sadness for the person I once was and the people still suffering.

“This track is a foray into the desperation felt by anyone suffering with adhd or addiction or like me, both!

“The frenzied need to feel better to feel different to feel normal.

“The futile necessity of instant gratification because that low dopamine is REAL and makes you feel so f***ing empty and unenthused.

“If you or a loved one are struggling speak out and seek help. It can be done, we do recover.”

Madeline’s father Adrian is best known for his starring role in Line of Duty as Superintendent Ted Hastings, the head of an anti-corruption squad.

But the Northern Irish actor has actually enjoyed a varied acting career, which also includes movies.

Line of Duty has run for six seasons so far, with fans begging for a seventh series of the hit BBC One cop drama.

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Adrian is wed to his Australian actress wife Anna Nygh, after they got married in 1986 – as well as Madeline he also has a stepson with Anna.

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Trigger warning for any daughter who has ever had a fraught relationship with their mother: Gish Jen’s remarkable and heartbreaking latest book, “Bad Bad Girl,” may prompt a flood of feelings not felt since adolescence. This marvel of a mash-up — part novel, part memoir, part effort to reconnect with a dead parent who never uttered an “I love you” — has as many pain points as life lessons. Quite a few of the latter — mostly delivered in the form of Chinese proverbs — are dropped by the author’s parents, Chinese immigrants who met in New York as graduate students. Among the pearls of wisdom that stick with Jen, their eldest girl and a keen observer of her parents: “When you drink the water, remember the spring.”

In this, Jen’s 10th book, she wistfully, unsparingly commemorates that “spring” — a punishing mother she nevertheless credits for “biting my heel.” A master of the art of withholding when it came to praise or affection, her mother had no compunctions about delivering ego-shattering put-downs and physical punishments to Jen for being “too smart for her own good.” And yet, Jen writes: “I have thrived.”

Gish Jen has brilliantly structured “Bad Bad Girl” so that invented exchanges with her mother keep returning us not only to the relationship between mother and daughter, but to the present.

(Basso Cannarsa)

Still, she is not at peace. Even after her mother’s death in 2020 at 96, that censorious voice remained “embedded in my most primitive responses, in my very limbic system.” “You were a mystery Ma,” Jen writes. “Why, why, why were you the way you were?” The writer’s instinct kicks in: “If I write about you, if I write to you, will I understand you better?”

“Bad Bad Girl” constitutes a heroic effort to do just that. But soon after Jen embarks on that quest, she realizes that while many mothers want their daughters to show interest in them and listen to their stories, “they were not my mother.” Without much to go on in the way of shared memories or documentary evidence, Jen decides to recalibrate. Instead of writing a straight memoir, she’ll chronicle what she can and construct a fictional narrative around the rest. The result is a heart-piercingly personal work that also imparts universal truths about the immigrant experience — and what it is to be a daughter, a mother and a woman in a world where men are the more valued of the sexes. If there is such a thing as an intimate epic, this is it.

Jen’s mother Agnes — Loo Shu-hsin, as she was originally named — was born in 1925 Shanghai to a wealthy and prominent banker and his much younger wife. In Part I, we are introduced to the lush beauty and extraordinary privilege Agnes was born into, sequestered in a mansion situated in the “international” section of Shanghai, staffed by maids, cooks, nursemaids, chauffeurs and bodyguards. “Proper though she may have been,” Agnes’ mother “did smoke opium.” Apparently, it was good for cramps.

Agnes was the firstborn child, a disappointment in her gender. As tradition dictated, her placenta was hurled into the Huangpu River; when it floated away, it was deemed that she too “would be raised and fed, only to drift away.” Agnes’ mother never bonded with her daughter and showed her little attention except to object to her daughter’s clear intelligence and closeness with her nursemaid. (By age 6 and beginning to read, Agnes still hadn’t been weaned.) By contrast, her father delighted in his daughter’s zeal for learning. The prevailing view was that “to educate a girl was like washing coal; it made no sense.” Still, her father enrolled her in an elite Catholic school where she was nurtured by Mother Greenough, a nun with a doctorate. She praised Agnes for her intellect and encouraged her to be ambitious. After completing her undergraduate studies amid the Japanese invasion and World War II, in the fall of 1947, after peace had finally descended, Agnes declared her intention to leave for the United States to pursue a PhD. Her father embraced that decision, in part because the communist takeover loomed and he hoped at least his eldest child could escape what was to come. “My favorite daughter, so smart and brave,” he pronounces, as the ship she boards sets sail for San Francisco.

Jen has brilliantly structured “Bad Bad Girl” so that invented exchanges with her mother — post-death, printed in bold type and interspersed throughout — keep returning us not only to the relationship between mother and daughter, but to the present. That dialogue is conversational and often funny, in contrast to the unfolding chronicle of Agnes’ journey as a stranger in a strange land. She finds her new countrymen puzzling in nearly every way. For example, “That was how lonely Americans were,” she observes, “that they should not only feed their dogs but walk them every day, rain or shine.”

Initially, Agnes’ spirits are bolstered by her privilege and her parents’ checks. Soon after arriving in New York City to begin graduate school, though, the money stops coming. The communist takeover is complete and, as she gradually discovers through their letters, now they seek financial support from her. Agnes, who’s never boiled an egg, sets to work typing and translating for her still-rich Chinese classmates. She meets and marries fellow student Jen Chao-Pe, and together they move into a dilapidated walk-up in Washington Heights, where Agnes learns to scrimp and save and paint her own walls. Her husband teaches her to cook. When she gets pregnant with her son, Reuben, she is laid low and takes a temporary leave of absence from school. Soon she is pregnant with Lillian, later nicknamed “Gish” for the silent film actor, and motherhood overwhelms her. Three more children come. Of the five, Gish is her least favorite, a girl every bit as clever as she was — a reminder of what she’s permanently put on the back burner. Whatever maternal feelings she has for her other children are missing when it comes to Gish, who becomes her mother’s scapegoat and punching bag.

Miraculously, Gish appears to have been mostly a happy child who excels socially and academically. After being accepted to every university she applies to, she chooses Harvard. She attends graduate school at Stanford and begins to pursue a writing career. She meets her husband, David, to whom she’s been married ever since — for 42 years. They have a son, Luke, and a daughter, Paloma. Jen’s children know how difficult their grandmother has been, and Paloma offers this to her mother by way of consolation: “The effects of trauma can’t be washed away in a generation,” something she’s read in a book. “You can’t get rid of it all, but you did a good job,” she adds.

How rich this book is, and how humane. Unlike, for example, Molly Jong-Fast’s merciless “How to Lose Your Mother,” “Bad Bad Girl” doesn’t read like a hit job. It’s suffused with love and a desire to finally understand. “You shut me out the way you shut your mother out. … What was my crime?” Jen challenges her mother in one of their imagined exchanges. “You were a pain in the neck,” Agnes observes, in another.

“She does not say ‘I love you’ back; she never has,” Jen writes. She doesn’t put those words in Agnes’ mouth here, even when she has the chance. But Jen does venture this about her mother: “I like to think (she) would finally agree both that this book is a novel and that there might be some truth to it.” And then in their final imagined exchange: “Bad, bad girl! Who says you can write a book like that?” Jen laughs. “That’s more like it.”

Haber is a writer, editor and publishing strategist. She was director of Oprah’s Book Club and books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine.

Diane Keaton, the actor who made film history — and won an Oscar — as the title character in Woody Allen’s beloved 1977 romantic comedy “Annie Hall,” died Saturday. She was 79. Tributes poured in from those who worked with and admired Keaton, including Bette Midler, Kate Hudson, Steve Martin and Josh Gad.

Here are some notable social media posts:

Bette Midler, the actor, singer and comedian who starred with Keaton and Goldie Hawn in the 1996 comedy “The First Wives Club,” about three divorced women who seek revenge on their ex-husbands: “The brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary Diane Keaton has died. I cannot tell you how unbearably sad this makes me. She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was …oh, la, lala!”

Kate Hudson: “We love you so much Diane ❤️🕊️”

Steve Martin, who co-starred as Keaton’s husband in the “Father of the Bride” films, reposted an exchange between Keaton and Martin Short:

Short: “Who’s sexier, me or Steve Martin?

Keaton: “I mean, you’re both idiots.”

Martin then commented on the post: “Don’t know who first posted this, but it sums up our delightful relationship with Diane.”

Josh Gad: “What a monumental loss. Diane Keaton in many ways defined my love of movies. From Annie Hall to the Godfather films, from First Wives Club to Baby Boom, from Father of the Bride to Something’s Gotta Give, here resume was nothing short of iconic and hall of fame worthy. I was very fortunate to work with her many years ago on an unproduced HBO pilot and what I found was one of the most humble, ruthlessly funny, and unbelievably talented human beings I’ve ever come across. In many ways, this year will be defined by the loss of a Hollywood we will never again see. There simply are no replacements for a Gene Hackman or a Robert Redford or a Diane Keaton. They were the mavericks who helped redefine movies for a generation. … My heart goes out to Diane’s entire family during this impossible moment. RIP”

Kimberly Williams-Paisley, the actor, author and director who played Keaton’s daughter in the “Father of the Bride” films: “Diane, working with you will always be one of the highlights of my life. You are one of a kind, and it was thrilling to be in your orbit for a time. Thank you for your kindness, your generosity, your talent, and above all, your laughter. 🙏🏻🕊️💔❤️❤️❤️”

Rosie O’Donnell: “oh this breaks my heart – love to her children- what style what grace – she will be missed #ripdianekeaton”

Octavia Spencer: “Today we lost a true original. @diane_keaton wasn’t just an actress: she was a force. a woman who showed us that being yourself is the most powerful thing you can be. From Annie Hall to Something’s Gotta Give, she made every role unforgettable. But beyond the screen, she brought joy, laughter, and style that was all her own… Thank you, Diane, for reminding us that authenticity never goes out of fashion.”

Elizabeth Banks: “She was beloved in her industry. Every one of us idolizes her. Her influence on culture, fashion, art and women can’t be overstated. She was a delight. I am proud I have a career that allowed me to meet her and breathe her air.”

Viola Davis: “No!! No!!! No!! God, not yet, NO!!! Man… you defined womanhood. The pathos, humor, levity, your ever-present youthfulness and vulnerability — you tattooed your SOUL into every role, making it impossible to imagine anyone else inhabiting them. You were undeniably, unapologetically YOU!!! Loved you. Man… rest well. God bless your family, and I know angels are flying you home”

When it was first published in 1975, “Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ‘n’ Roll Music” was immediately recognized as something new. In six taut, probing, far-ranging essays about certain popular or otherwise forgotten musicians, author Greil Marcus cracked open a world of sojourners, tricksters, killers and confidence men — the lost subterranean underlife of America as inflected in the music itself.

“Mystery Train” was a landmark in cultural criticism that took on Rock ‘n’ Roll as a subject of intellectual inquiry. In 2011, Time magazine named “Mystery Train” one of the 100 greatest nonfiction books of all time. For the book’s 50th anniversary, a new edition has been published, with a wealth of new writing from Marcus that brings his book up to date.

On a recent Zoom call, I chatted with him on the 50th anniversary of his book about its lasting impact, the anxiety of influence and the staying power of criticism.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

✍️ Author Chat

Book jacket of “Mystery Train” by Greil Marcus.

(Penguin Random House)

Congrats on 50 years of “Mystery Train.” Could you have possibly imagined that it would still have a life in 2025 when you wrote it in 1975?

For this book to have this kind of a life, you can’t predict it. I had a miserable time writing it. I’d never written a book before. I rented a room at a house near our little apartment, and just stayed there all day, trying to write or not trying to write, as the case may be. I didn’t have any hopes or ambitions for it. I just wanted it to look good.

This is the thickest edition of “Mystery Train” yet. Your “Notes and Discographies” section, where you update the reader on new books and recordings about the artists, among other things, is longer than the original text of the book.

That’s what’s kept the book alive. I mean, I still think the original chapters read well. I’m glad they came out the way they did, but for me, they opened up a continuing story, and that has sort of kept me on the beat so that I obsessively would follow every permutation that I could and write them in the notes section.

“Mystery Train” changed the way popular music was written about. Who were your literary antecedents?

Edmund Wilson, Pauline Kael, D.H. Lawrence’s critical studies. Hemingway’s short stories, just as a way to learn how to try to write. There was another book that was important to me, Michael Gray’s “Song and Dance Man,” which was a rigorous examination of Bob Dylan’s music. It was totally intimidating. His knowledge of blues, novels, poetry — I thought there’s no way I can write something as good as this. So I started doing a lot more reading, and listening more widely.

For many readers of the book, it was the first time they came across artists like Robert Johnson or Harmonica Frank. How did you discover these artists?

I was an editor at Rolling Stone magazine in 1969 when the Altamont disaster happened, when people were killed at a free Rolling Stones concert. It was an evil, awful day. I was drained and disgusted with what rock ‘n’ roll had become, and I didn’t want to listen to that music anymore. I found myself in this little record store in Berkeley, and I saw an album by Robert Johnson that had a song called “Four Until Late” that Eric Clapton’s band Cream had covered, so I took it home and played it, and that was just a revelation to me. It led me into another world. It became the bedrock of “Mystery Train.”

Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger signs autographs at Altamont Speedway. Later, on Dec. 6, the Stones gave a concert where one fan was stabbed to death by a Hell’s Angel.

(Associated Press)

Your book explores how certain myths transfer across vastly disparate cultures. Had you read the great mythologist Joseph Campbell prior to writing the book?

I read a lot of Joseph Campbell in graduate school. Probably a half-dozen of his books. In some ways they cover the same territory as “Mystery Train.” Campbell makes the argument that myths persist, they don’t even need to be cultivated. They cultivate us, and they are passed on in almost invisible ways. That really struck a chord with me when reading Campbell’s work.

You’re very good at explaining what music sounds like. Are you influenced by fiction at all?

I’d say fiction is part of my work. One of the books that hovered over me when I was writing “Mystery Train” was “The Great Gatsby.” Certain lines, they sang out.

What is the purpose of criticism?

My next book is about Bryan Ferry, the leader of the band Roxy Music. Now, you listen to a song like Roxy Music’s “More Than This” and you say, what makes this so great? How did that happen? What is going on here? That’s what criticism is, just wrestling with your response to something. That thing where someone has captured a moment so completely that you sort of fall back in awe. That’s what I’ve been doing my whole life as a writer. There is this urge to, not exactly take possession of something, but to become a part of it to some small degree.

Your book plumbs the murky depths, exploring the mysterious dream life of America as transmuted through certain music. Are there any mysteries left for you?

Oh, yes, absolutely. I remember when I met Bob Dylan in 1997. He was getting an award, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, and I was to give a talk. We met and he asked what I was working on. I had just published a book called “Invisible Republic,” about his “Basement Tapes.” He said, “You should write a sequel to that. You only just scratched the surface.” Now, I’m not saying I did a bad job. He said that to me because certain music has infinite depth. So, yes, there are certainly more mysteries to think about.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Valerie Castallanos Clark loves Jade Chang’s new novel, “What a Time to Be Alive,” calling it “equal parts love letter to Los Angeles, narrative about being a first-generation Asian American, exploration of grief and love and a found-family novel featuring an adoptee that doesn’t put reunion as the emotional climax.”

With “Shadow Ticket,” Thomas Pynchon has delivered a late-career gem, according to David Kipen: “Dark as a vampire’s pocket, light-fingered as a jewel thief, ‘Shadow Ticket’ capers across the page with breezy, baggy-pants assurance — and then pauses on its way down the fire escape just long enough to crack your heart open.”

Finally, Cerys Davies chats with Mychal Threets about his new gig as host of the long-running TV show “Reading Rainbow.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

Stories Books & Cafe is on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park.

(Claudia Colodro)

Ever since it opened its doors in 2008, Stories Books & Cafe has been a community cornerstone. A snug yet carefully curated store, with loads of obscurantist art books and choice indie press titles, Stories also has a cafe tucked in the back that is always bustling. Owner Claudia Colodro runs the store as a creative cooperative with her five co-workers. I talked to the team about the shop on Sunset.

What’s selling right now?

“Mother Mary Comes to Me” by Arundhati Roy, “Martyr!” by Kaveh Akbar, and Thomas Pynchon’s “Shadow Ticket” are a few of our recent big sellers.

Stories is small, yet I always see titles in there I don’t see anywhere else.

Stories prides itself on its painstaking curation, influenced by every employee’s area of expertise. Much like the community we have garnered, Stories leans toward the eclectic, esoteric and even fringe. Over our 17 years in existence, Stories has been a bookstore that loves our local authors and independent publishers, and encourages readers to come in with an open mind more than a predetermined list.

Remarkably, you have endured in a neighborhood that has seen a lot of store closures, post-COVID.

In a world predominantly automatized and authoritative, we like our people and books to be a countermeasure to the mainstream creature comforts — in hopes to push people out of the path of least resistance and into the unseen abundance.

Stories Books & Cafe is at 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.

LIAM Gallagher has become a grandfather for the first time after his daughter Molly Moorish gave birth to a baby boy.

The Oasis frontman, 53, had Molly, 27, in 1998 following a short-lived romance with her mum Lisa.

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The pair were estranged for 19 years but have become close and now Molly has given the rocker his first grandchild.

Molly shared the news of her son Rudi’s arrival on Instagram on Saturday, although it appears she gave birth a few weeks ago in September.

One picture featured her long term partner – footballer Nathaniel ‘Nat’ Phillips – holding their son while he wore a little red jumper with a big R initial on the back.

Another snap showed Rudi in his Moses basket facing the window with the sun coming in in front of him.

She also showed off some of the monogrammed items she had around the house for her baby boy.

She captioned the images: “a message to you, rudy.”