father

Halle Berry has several loved ones in her corner amid her contentious custody case with ex-husband Olivier Martinez, who accused the Oscar winner of physically abusing their 12-year-old son. Among the actor’s supporters is Nahla Aubry, the 18-year-old daughter Berry has kept largely out of the public eye.

Aubry, whom Berry shares with ex-boyfriend Gabriel Aubry, spoke against her former stepfather Martinez and in support of her mother in a declaration filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court. In his request for a restraining order filed last week, Martinez accused Berry of physically abusing their son, Maceo, “putting her hands around his neck, and choking him” during a Sept. 26 incident. Martinez was granted the restraining order and is seeking sole legal and physical custody. Nahla Aubry said in her declaration, obtained by The Times, that Martinez’s allegations left her “shocked, very sad, and very upset.”

“The statements Olivier claims my mom made are wholly inconsistent with the values she has taught me my entire life,” Aubry said. She added elsewhere in her declaration: “I have never witnessed her act violently toward anyone.”

A legal representative for Martinez did not immediately respond on Thursday to The Times’ request for comment.

In her declaration, Aubry spoke about her experiences splitting time between her mother and father’s homes amid their separation and and said her mother “consistently provided me with stability, support, guidance” and that she “never heard” the actor speak negatively about her family or her ex-boyfriend. Aubry said she lived with her brother for most of her life and has “never heard my mom say anything about Olivier” to her brother, contradicting claims Martinez raised in his request for a protective order.

Martinez pointed to an alleged 2023 incident when Berry is accused of telling their son, then 9, that his father is “ ‘a white b— trying to rob a Black woman’ due to child support issues,” according to court documents. She added that Berry has “always” encouraged her children to keep “loving relationships with our fathers.” Aubry also said in her declaration that while Berry can be strict, she is also “warm, supportive and deeply involved in our lives.”

“I have never witnessed her act violently toward anyone, however, I do remember Olivier beating up my father in our driveway when I was little,” she said, referring to a 2012 brawl between Gabriel Aubry and Martinez.

In addition to denying the claims of abuse against her mother, Aubry spoke about her stepbrother’s behavior, writing in his declaration he can be “very impulsive” and “often acts without thinking and then refuses to take responsibility for his actions.” Aubry noted she last spoke to her brother a day after the alleged September incident and that he did not seem upset, and that the current restraining order prohibits her from contacting her brother.

Berry’s fiancé, Van Hunt, and her attorneys also filed declarations in favor of the “Monster’s Ball” actor. Attorney Marina Z. Beck in her declaration accused Martinez of refusing to provide information to Berry about their son and his education, of interfering with their son’s therapy and of refusing to follow therapist recommendations. The court documents also include screenshots of text message exchanges between Berry and Martinez and an email from their son’s school about his disruptive behavior days after the alleged incident.

Berry and Martinez were married from 2013 from 2015. Their divorce finally ended in August 2023, when they agreed to joint custody of their son and Berry agreed to pay Martinez $8,000 a month in child support.

In his request for a restraining order, Martinez also asked that Berry refrain from drinking or partaking in other substances during her visitation time and asked that she complete sobriety testing “before, during and after” her visitation, according to court documents. The judge denied those sobriety testing requests until a further hearing for the order on Oct. 16.

Patrick Baghdaserians, an attorney for Martinez, told The Times last week the welfare and safety of Berry and Martinez’s child remains paramount.

It never has been about the glory for Semaj Morgan.

Not the touchdowns. Not the name, image and license deals. And not even the 2024 national championship he won with Michigan.

For the UCLA wide receiver, all of that plays second fiddle to giving back to his community in Detroit and touching the lives of the people around him through the Semaj J. Morgan Foundation — an initiative he started when he was 17 years old.

“My foundation is definitely the best thing that I do. It’s great being a football player, but being able to give back and show people that I really care for others and not just about football and money, I want to be able to pour back into the people that support me and show me love,” Morgan said. “A lot of people don’t get to wake up every day and know that there’s going to be food around. A lot of people in the city of Detroit don’t even know if they’re going to eat at all.”

UCLA receiver Semaj Morgan is surrounded by children he has helped through his foundation.

(Courtesy of the Morgan family)

Morgan decided he wanted to start the foundation when he handed out toys with the Dream Team Male Mentoring group, telling his dad, Semaj T. Morgan, that community service was his calling. But at 17, he was too young to have his name on the paperwork, so his parents opened the foundation for him.

Since the foundation’s launch in February 2023, Morgan has hosted turkey drives, during which he gives away 2,000 turkeys, 2,000 food bags and 1,000 hot meals along with hats, coats, scarves and gloves, in an effort to tackle the health and food gaps in his community.

Morgan also has spearheaded back-to-school giveaways, handing out backpacks and supplies to children.

“We don’t do it just to do it. We do it because we’re trying to close the educational gap that our kids in Detroit suffer from,” Morgan’s father said.

“When you have a kid that’s going to school with the same notebooks and pens and highlighters and erasers that their counterparts have, now they have more confidence when they go to school.”

Morgan received a grant from the Ballmer Group, founded by Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and his wife, for the foundation’s DiscoverWorks Summer program. The initiative serves 250 families, giving students the opportunity to get their test scores up in the morning and go on field trips in the afternoon, alongside other enrichment activities such as robotics and mentoring.

UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava celebrates with Semaj Morgan after scoring a touchdown against Purdue at the Rose Bowl on Sept. 19.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

But the endeavor closest to Morgan’s heart is the foundation’s Mother’s Day and Father’s Day events.

“These are mothers and fathers who lost their sons to gun violence. Semaj is their son, and he takes his NIL money, and he takes them to dinner, buys them gifts as if their son was here,” Morgan’s father said. “These are parents that a lot of these children’s murders have not been solved, so this is a way for us to bless these parents, let them know that they’re not forgotten. There’s never a dry eye in the room.”

The events — which started out with 10 moms and five dads and are up to 35 moms and 20 dads — are particularly special to Morgan, who was friends with some of the sons of the parents involved. Morgan said that seeing the parents and hearing their testimonies puts everything in his life into perspective.

While Morgan is humble about the effect his foundation has had on the people around him, others are taking notice.

UCLA receiver Semaj Morgan holds up a Michigan state Senate certificate recognizing his foundation’s work to support people in Detroit.

(Courtesy of Morgan familiy)

Morgan was recognized on the Michigan House floor by state Sens. John DaMoose and Rosemary Bayer for the community service that he’s led in Detroit.

And during the 2024-25 academic year, Morgan was nominated for the inaugural Big Ten Jackie Robinson Community & Impact Award by his previous school, Michigan, for his philanthropic work.

“He understands his mission and call in life, and that’s to bless other people. He’s not about him; he’s about other people, and it’s very rare that you see individuals at such a young age understand their mission and cause in life,” Morgan’s father said.

“Football is one thing, but when he’s giving out turkeys, food bags, hats and coats, he has a bigger smile than getting in the end zone because he understands these people need help.”

Morgan’s desire to help others was inspired by Curtis Blackwell — Morgan’s travel football coach and president of Sound Mind Sound Body Sports Academy. Morgan’s father said Blackwell always urged players to give back to others.

Blackwell, who coached Arizona Cardinals cornerback Will Johnson, Buffalo Bills cornerback Maxwell Hairston and former Michigan safety Makari Paige alongside Morgan, stresses education before football and places an equal emphasis on academics, athletics and life skills.

And because Michigan does not get the same high school football exposure as Texas, Florida or California, Blackwell was keen on getting his players on college visits, leading to Morgan receiving more than 25 offers — a direct result of the travel the team made to raise players’ exposure.

“Growing up in a single-parent home, I was fortunate to get a scholarship to college, and it was because of my coaches. And had it not been for my coaches, I don’t know where I would be,” Blackwell said. “If we as coaches are the best people to really influence young people, they will listen to their coach more than their mom, their teacher. And so if we can get the coaches to be the teachers off the field, we could really change their attitude.”

Blackwell was astounded that Morgan was the pupil who took the program’s mission the furthest, surpassing the efforts of NFL players and affecting people well before he’s turned 21.

“You don’t have to wait till you get to the NFL to make an impact. You don’t have to wait till you retire to give back. You can do something every step along the way, and that’s what we teach to our kids — lift as you climb,” Blackwell said. “Semaj took that and ran with it. He has a really big heart and he’s a person that is a giver, not a taker. He’s going to give you the shirt off his back.”

UCLA receiver Semaj Morgan catches a touchdown pass against Purdue at the Rose Bowl Stadium on Sept. 19.

(Kevin Terrell / Getty Images)

Morgan earned his bachelor’s degree at Michigan and is working on his master’s degree at UCLA while playing football and running his foundation from the West Coast. But he may miss his first foundation event when UCLA travels to Ann Arbor to play his former school in November, although coach Bob Chesney already gave him permission to stay in Michigan after the team leaves.

Morgan’s greatest achievement that weekend may not involve the scoreboard at the Big House.

“I might not have done the best on the field last year, but being able to come home knowing that I’m touching people’s lives, that’s the biggest thing for me,” Morgan said. “To do this at such a young age, and grow so rapidly and touch so many lives, it’s great for me. After football, I want to continue to give back to people. I eventually want to be able to start football programs.”

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Rio de Janeiro in a student-led protest against presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro and the growing influence of Brazil’s far right.

The march happened on Wednesday, just days after far-right Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, earned the most votes in the first round of the country’s presidential race.

Bolsonaro won 47 percent, ahead of his closest rival, incumbent left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who gained 45 percent support.

Since neither candidate surpassed the 50 percent threshold, they will face each other in a run-off on October 25.

The results have triggered fears that Brazil could become the latest Latin American country to see its presidency switch from left to right.

Protesters marched through downtown Rio carrying signs reading “Never again Bolsonaro” and “No to the father, no to the son”. Others held banners reading “Dictatorship never again” and “Get out Bolsonaro”.

“I’m here because I believe in democracy. Because I’m scared,” said Alice Carneiro, 25, an administrator in maritime shipping who participated in the protests. She explained that, under a far-right government, she feared a backlash against her wife, who is transgender.

Jair Bolsonaro, the former president, led the country from 2019 to 2023. But his single-term tenure was marked by a series of controversies related to his far-right policies.

He voiced support for Brazil’s past military dictatorship, which was responsible for the disappearance and murder of hundreds of perceived dissidents. He also spread unfounded claims about the accuracy of Brazil’s election system, leading to a court ruling that barred him from holding office for eight years.

Currently, the former president is serving a 27-year sentence after being convicted of plotting to overturn his 2022 election defeat. After Lula’s inauguration in 2023, Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed government buildings in the capital, reportedly hoping to trigger a military uprising.

Critics have framed Jair Bolsonaro’s actions as a threat to Brazil’s democracy.

But Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has received his father’s endorsement, and he has backed amnesty for his father, a prospect that has raised concerns among protesters.

“I find this rise of the far right and the rise of Bolsonarism in Brazil very, very sad,” said Emmanuel Araujo, 19, who is preparing for university entrance exams.

“Lula might not be my preferred candidate,” Araujo added, “but amid this barbarism, we have to choose between someone we can keep criticising and someone who might take away our right to speak.”

Democrat Xavier Becerra, the frontrunner to become the state’s next governor, often invokes the story of his parents’ humble beginnings as immigrants from Mexico who, through hard work, built happy and productive lives in California.

“My parents came to California with $12 in their pocket. They lived the California dream,” Becerra said during last week’s gubernatorial debate with Republican rival Steve Hilton, aired nationally on CNN.

Becerra for years has described himself as the “son of immigrants” when talking about his upbringing, but that claim has come under scrutiny by Hilton and other critics who accuse Becerra of embellishing his family history. Becerra’s mother is from Guadalajara, Mexico, but his father was born in Sacramento and raised in Tijuana — making him a U.S. citizen and not a legal immigrant.

“Unlike Xavier Becerra, I am an immigrant. Unlike Xavier Becerra, my father was an immigrant. My stepfather too. My whole family,” Hilton wrote in a post on X.

Hilton is an immigrant from the United Kingdom and is the son of Hungarian immigrants who fled their homeland during a revolution in 1956.

Richard Grenell, a former Trump administration official, accused news outlets of letting a lie “continue for decades” throughout Becerra’s tenure as California attorney general and then as a Cabinet official in the Biden administration.

Becerra has openly discussed the details of his parents’ story, which unfolded on both sides of the border and in many ways reflects Mexican immigrant trajectories during the historical period of the 1920s and 1930s.

During speeches and in interviews Becerra has described how his father, Manuel, was born in Sacramento in 1928 and taken back to Tijuana as a young boy, with few jobs for Americans during the Great Depression, and even fewer jobs for Mexicans working in the U.S. His father traveled between the two countries often, and, as an older child, he would look for work in the U.S.

Becerra on Tuesday accused Hilton of “casting lies” about his family’s background, saying that the Republican failed to understand the struggle that many Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans faced in this county decades ago. He said his dad would tell of the days when he couldn’t walk into some establishments that had posted signs that read “No dog, Negros or Mexicans allowed.”

“This is what happens when people who don’t understand immigration start to pontificate,” Becerra said Tuesday after a morning rally against Proposition 39, a voter identification measure, at Guelaguetza, a Oaxacan restaurant in Los Angeles’ Pico-Union neighborhood.

“I am very proud of my parents, and I consider them immigrants because even though my dad was born in the U.S. — in a country that wouldn’t treat him the way it would treat other U.S. citizens — my dad was a proud immigrant,” Becerra said. “I am proud that I am their son. I am the son of immigrants.”

G. Cristina Mora, a UC Berkeley professor of sociology studying attitudes toward immigration, said Becerra’s critics misunderstand a common phenomenon at the time, when immigrants moved back and forth across a southern border that was much more porous — very different from the militarized border of today.

Beyond the dwindling jobs and precarious economics of the 1930s serving as a push factor for many Mexican families, a wave of xenophobia also helped send hundreds of thousands back to Mexico. A wave of mass deportations across the Southwest states resulted in more than 1 million Mexicans and their descendants being forced out of their homes and loaded on trains out. More than 60% were U.S. citizens.

Mora, who also serves as co-director of the UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, said “it was a time of very great anti-Mexican fervor.” Many sought to later return. Some were deported multiple times.

“There are many types of immigrants. There’s so much nuance,” Mora said. “To think there’s only one immigrant story would just be to not know California.”

Becerra’s campaign spokesperson Jonathan Underland in a statement accused Hilton of hypocritically attempting to capitalize on an immigrant narrative.

“Steve Hilton doesn’t seem to have a problem with immigrants who look like him — but openly attacks immigrants who look like Xavier Becerra,” Underland said. “Trump ignited a deep anti-immigrant animus among MAGA voters, and Hilton is tapping into that as he scrambles to distract from his bizarre ad campaign that alienated some of his closest allies.” Last week, Hilton’s campaign put out a provocative, sexually suggestive ad that drew criticism from his fellow Republicans.

Becerra, both on Tuesday and throughout his long political career, has often described his parents’ upbringing.

He said his father’s family moved back to Tijuana during the Great Depression. His father, he said, was the eldest child and was forced to leave school after the sixth grade to help support the family. He began working as a preteen, bouncing back and forth between the U.S. and Tijuana. He would tell stories about being a shoe shiner, at times of celebrities and movie stars. He also worked in the farm fields with his dad and sometimes with his uncles.

In the early 1950s he married Becerra’s mother, Maria Teresa, who lived in Guadalajara.

“When they decided to make a go of it outside of Guadalajara, they went to Tijuana. They didn’t have great success, so that’s when they decided to come to the U.S.,” Becerra said on Tuesday. “So when I say my parents came to California with $12 in their pocket, it’s because, Steve Hilton, my parents came to California with $12 in their pocket.”

Becerra’s father later began a construction career that lasted 30 years, while his mother worked as a clerical worker and later purchased rental properties.

Times researcher Cary Schneider contributed to this report.

On the set of CBS’ legacy soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful” at the Sunset Las Palmas Studios in Hollywood, two actors were caught in a fiery exchange.

“Do you want to know where Jack was last night?” actor Skyla Lynne asked with a sly grin. “He was with me.”

From behind a monitor displaying a vertically oriented feed, the director interjected: “Could you pause a bit more in between those lines? We might want to do an episode break there.”

The scene wasn’t for an episode of the famous soap opera. It was part of the 40-episode second season of “Hollywood Starlet,” a new microdrama series from “The Bold and the Beautiful” head writer Bradley Bell and his son Oliver.

“I’ve been doing soap operas my whole life, and it felt like there’s been a buzz about microdramas, and it really felt like a natural extension to the stories that we do,” Bradley Bell said. “[On soap operas] we build two cliffhangers usually on Fridays to keep the viewers over the weekend. Here, you do it every couple of minutes. It’s like speeding up the dance routine, but it’s really right in our lane of soap operas.”

Microdramas are the scrollable, cliffhanger-heavy stories built for phone screens. They are giving audiences a new way into the kind of stories that once belonged to traditional soap operas and telenovelas. The so-called vertical format originated in China a few years ago and has drawn a growing global audience thanks to its short, addictive nature. Hollywood names, including Issa Rae and Kevin Hart, are joining in.

Now, Bell is moving into the space. The 16-time Emmy winner and his son Oliver recently launched a production company called Red Flair Entertainment to capitalize on the format.

“Hollywood Starlet,” their first production, premiered Sept. 3 on aTwist, a new vertical series app founded by industry veterans Jana Winograde, former president of Showtime; Susan Rovner, former president of Warner Bros. Television; and Lloyd Braun, former chairman of WME.

Oliver Bell, founder of Red Flair Entertainment, is producing the micro series, “Hollywood Starlet,” being filmed at Sunset Las Palmas Studios in Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Bradley Bell says it was Oliver who hatched the idea.

“I saw this unique format and was fascinated by it,” Oliver Bell said. “I noticed some areas that we could quite easily improve on.”

Microdramas first came across Oliver’s social media feed around a year and a half ago when he was still in college. The 24-year-old said he quickly “fell down a rabbit hole” and became so obsessed with the format that he wrote his dissertation at the University of St Andrews in Scotland on soap operas and microdramas.

After he graduated in December, he and his father founded Red Flair Entertainment and started to develop “Hollywood Starlet,” with Oliver serving as an executive producer and his father as a producer.

The series — which costs about $175,000 to $220,000 a season to produce — is being financed by aTwist. Red Flair has a backend deal, allowing it to share in subscription revenue the show generates for the platform.

After filming two seasons of “Hollywood Starlet,” Red Flair plans several more vertical series across many different genres, like horror and romance, the Bells said.

Oliver grew up visiting sets and eavesdropping on writing meetings from under his father’s desk. The family’s storytelling line runs back to his grandparents, William Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, who created “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.” Oliver says he’s carrying on that legacy in a very Gen Z way.

“In a way, microdramas are just the natural evolution of the soap opera,” Oliver Bell said. “You could kind of trace the legacy through that and the modernization of serialized TV.”

His father, who was working on episode 9,911 of “The Bold and the Beautiful” while speaking with The Times, said the short-form stories can reach younger viewers who might be daunted by the soap’s decades of history.

“It’s like cracking open a book, and it’s hard for people to get into it to learn the history,” he said. “So having smaller, bite-sized pieces is appealing to us.”

“The Bold and the Beautiful” has aired continuously for 39 years, but it’s now one of American TV’s last soap operas. Until the 1980s, 10 to 12 soaps typically aired at once, said Elana Levine, a media professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who studies the genre. Today, five remain: four on broadcast TV and one, “Days of Our Lives,” is on streaming only.

“It makes sense to take this storytelling form that has been super popular and enduring in the U.S. and find a way to translate that into the mobile devices that we carry around us all of the time,” Levine said.

While soap operas historically targeted a mostly female audience, microdramas reach a much broader audience, said Michael Berry, director of UCLA’s Center for Chinese Studies, who has studied the rise of vertical series.

“It gives us essentially the main beats that we would get from a soap opera format, but it’s happening in a much more compact and addictive way,” he added.

Cameramen prepare for a scene on the set of the micro series, “Hollywood Starlet,” being filmed at Sunset Las Palmas Studios in Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Lou Trabbie, the soap’s production designer, had never heard of a microdrama before working on “Hollywood Starlet.”

“It’s all going in a different direction. You just adapt and move forward, and that’s what we see here,” Trabbie, who’s worked in the industry for 38 years, explained. “It’s really great to see how these are done with smaller crews. I feel like this is where the business is going.”

“Hollywood Starlet” shoots on the same Sunset Las Palmas soundstage as “The Bold and the Beautiful,” filming during the soap’s monthly dark week.

The first season, 45 short episodes, was shot in six days at the start of summer with a non-union cast and crew of 45. Less than a week after its release, much of the same crew was back to start working on season two.

Oliver Bell said the series used non-union crew due to “budgetary restrictions.”

At a time when major film and TV shoots are leaving the state, microdramas are one of the few areas of production that are growing locally.

Excluding China, vertical video is expected to generate $150 billion globally in revenue this year, according to consulting firm Owl & Co. Most of that comes from TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.

Sunset Las Palmas Studios, where “La La Land” and the first two seasons of “I Love Lucy” were filmed, dedicated an entire sound stage in June to standing sets for vertical series. The sets include a courtroom, a bar/restaurant, an apartment, an office and a hospital.

Paxton Fuller, left, executive producer of “Hollywood Starlet,” walks with Sean Griffin, Vice President of Sales and Business Development, for Las Palmas Studios, through a courtroom set on the stage meant specifically for microdramas.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Still, the Bells don’t think microdramas will replace soap operas. The two formats, they argue, can “coexist.”

“Coming into someone’s living room or bedroom, soap operas were almost like an extension of their family that they can count on for years and decades with the same actors. The same families that have watched since day one,” Bradley Bell said. “It’s a different type of viewer for microdramas.”

Oliver Bell added: “We’re trying to grab the scroller’s attention, not necessarily ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ viewer … Microdramas are unavoidable through social media. [It’s] conditioning our brains and how we process media.”

Actor Robert Kelker-Kelly, who was a familiar face in daytime dramas in the 1990s with turns in “Days of Our Lives” and “General Hospital,” has died.

Kelker-Kelly died Saturday evening at his home in St. Peters, Mo., the city’s Police Department confirmed Monday to The Times. Law enforcement officials responded Saturday evening to a report of an unconscious man who was not breathing. Police arrived at the actor’s home along with paramedics and “life-saving measures were administered but were unsuccessful,” police said.

Police said officers found nothing suspicious at the scene. A cause of death was not revealed, but police noted that Kelker-Kelly was said to have complained of chest pain before he became unresponsive. A spokesperson for the St. Charles County Ambulance District confirmed paramedics responded Saturday to a report of a man in cardiac arrest. Kelker-Kelly was 62.

Kelker-Kelly primarily acted in TV and was best known for his work in long-running daytime dramas, which also included “Another World.” Notably, he portrayed the rebellious heartthrob Beauregard “Bo” Brady in “Days Of Our Lives” from 1992 to 1995. He began his turn as Bo, which lasted for more than 586 episodes, following the departure of original actor Peter Reckell, who would return to the show off and on in the following decades.

During his tenure, Kelker-Kelly portrayed the spouse of Hope Brady and love interest of Lisa Rinna’s Billie Reed. She spoke negatively of that experience and called her co-star a bully in her memoir, released earlier this year. He did not respond to People’s request for a response at the time.

Kelker-Kelly made his official debut in “Another World” in 1987 and appeared in more than 400 episodes in a handful of roles until 1998, according to the actor’s IMDb page. He was also known for his work as Stavros Cassadine in “General Hospital” and its spinoff series “Port Charles.” John Martinuzzi originated the role. Kelker-Kelly’s “General Hospital” tenure lasted from 2001 to 2014 and was his final TV role. His television credits also include “Jack’s Place,” “Touched by and Angel” and “Rescue 77.”

The actor was born April 18, 1964, in Wichita, Kan. His mother was a nurse and his father a pathologist. Kelker-Kelly’s parents divorced when he was 7 years old, and he later moved in with his father. The actor was in and out of colleges but studied acting and grew fond of Shakespeare, according to People.

After his acting career, Kelker-Kelly became a professional pilot. He married production assistant Linda Ratner in 1988; they divorced four years later. Kelker-Kelly then married “Days of Our Lives” actor Miriam Parrish in 1997. That marriage ended in 2013. He is reportedly survived by a daughter, Amelia Rose Kelly.

The baseball world was captivated by left-handed pitching prospect Jim Abbott ahead of the 1988 major league draft mostly because he didn’t have a right hand. Seven teams passed on him before the Angels picked him.

Why? Largely because Angels scouting director Bob Fontaine Jr. ignored the potential limitations that others fixated on when evaluating Abbott. Rather than dwelling on the absence of a right hand, Fontaine saw something wondrous coming out of Abbott’s left hand — a cut fastball.

“He’s actually more suited to the pro game than the amateurs with the aluminum bats,” Fontaine told The Times after the draft. “He’s going to be breaking off a lot of these wood bats with that cut fastball.”

As usual, Fontaine, who died Saturday at age 73, was prophetic in his assessment. Abbott became the rare pitcher to go straight from college — he’d starred at Michigan — to the major leagues, skipping the minors entirely and enjoying a 10-year MLB career while inspiring numerous fans in disabled communities.

Bob Fontaine Jr. as director of player development for the Seattle Mariners.

(Seattle Mariners)

“I think every scout, if they scout for any length of time, is going to have one player that just is special to you. Jimmy Abbott was that,” Fontaine told JapanBall in 2022. “There were people that were even kind of saying, ‘Oh, they did it for a publicity stunt.’ I remember saying, ‘Yeah, we took the eighth player in the country for a publicity stunt? Give us some credit!’”

Fontaine was showered with plenty of posthumous credit over the weekend. He scouted for six teams, and a highlight of his resume was drafting the nucleus of the Angels’ roster that won the 2002 World Series.

“What a character … what a storyteller … and what a talent evaluator … there is no 2002 World Series title for the #Angels without Bob Fontaine Jr. … RIP,” wrote former longtime Times baseball writer Mike DiGiovanna on X.

“Crushed regarding Bob Fontaine Jr.’s passing, as he was a special man who I was lucky to work closely with three times @WhiteSox @Mariners, and @BlueJays. Fun as hell, elite evaluator, and phenomenal people skills. RIP, Robert,” added former Dodgers general manager Dan Evans.

“A gifted talent evaluator and mentor, Bob helped shape generations of Angels by overseeing the signing and development of numerous Halos, including Jim Abbott, Jim Edmonds, Garret Anderson, Tim Salmon and Darin Erstad,” the Angels said in a statement. “Bob left a lasting mark on baseball by devoting over five decades to the game. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones.”

The Angels frustrated Fontaine at times by declining to spend big on players from talent-rich Latin America. Rather than sulk, however, he scoured the globe, in 1992 signing three players from Russia and a fast-pitch softball player from New Zealand named Gus Leger.

Asked by The Times’ Bill Shaikin if he had ever played baseball, Leger responded, “I haven’t. Would it help?”

The experiment failed — none of the quartet advanced beyond Class A — yet Fontaine maintained the sunny outlook he inherited from his father. Bob Fontaine Sr. was a scout who worked under the legendary Branch Rickey with the Brooklyn Dodgers before becoming scouting director of the Pittsburgh Pirates for 18 years and the first scouting director of the expansion franchise San Diego Padres. He also served as general manager of the Padres from 1977 to 1980.

“[My father] told me when I got started, ‘Don’t you ever, ever not appreciate where you are and what you’re doing, because you’re lucky. You’re going to a ballpark to make a living, so your bad days aren’t that bad,’” Fontaine Jr. said. “I never forgot that, I never forgot how lucky I am.

“Hey, you’re looking at a guy that barely squeaked through high school, who doesn’t have any ability, and I lasted almost 50 years. It’s because in baseball, if you listen, and you’re not afraid to take a chance once in a while, even somebody with my lack of ability can stay around for a while,” he said.

Fontaine got his foot in the door through his father. His first job as a teenager was as a minor league bat boy with the Pirates. Next he became a peanut vendor at Forbes Field. By age 19, he caught on with the Padres as an area scout.

Both Fontaines were scouts well ahead of the deep empirical and objective analysis of baseball data — sabermetrics is the catchall term — that some believe has made scouts obsolete. Fontaine maintained the best evaluations come when scouting is utilized along with numbers.

“What the traditional scout gives you is personal reference, like with things I learned on players that I missed on,” he said. “Analytics didn’t do that. I’m a firm believer that the best video camera is your eyes, the best model is your brain, and the best way to make a tough decision is with your heart.”

Fontaine’s methods produced results. Under his guidance in 1977, the Padres drafted future Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith in the fourth round. Four years later Fontaine plucked another future Hall of Famer, taking outfielder Tony Gwynn in the third round.

And when Fontaine moved to the Montreal Expos in 1985, he took a 6-foot-11 left-handed pitcher out of USC named Randy Johnson in the second round — another Hall of Famer.

Fontaine co-authored a memoir in 2021, “In Search of Millionaires (The Life of a Baseball Gypsy): The Accounts of Bob Fontaine Jr.”

“Baseball has provided me with a fabulous opportunity to see the world and work in an industry that most people envy,” he wrote in the book. “I didn’t get rich, except in experiences. To meet and work against so many fine people, as well as some great general managers and owners, has been a privilege.”

Times sports columnist Bill Shaikin contributed to this story.

It was Disney Day at Sierra Canyon High, so standout sophomore linebacker Eli Zamorano showed up at football practice wearing Mickey Mouse ears atop his head on Monday.

Walking past, teammates either stared or smiled at the ears.

“He’s a kid who beats to his own drum,” coach Jon Ellinghouse said.

It makes perfect sense, for it was Zamorano as a freshman who was walking in rain and freezing temperatures last November on the field two hours before Sierra Canyon’s playoff game against Santa Margarita going through his pregame routine listening to music from Nirvana and not letting any elements disrupt him.

“I’m not gonna let the weather determine my pregame,” he said. “And I’m actually used to the cold experience. My dad taught me to swim in cold water. That’s who I am.”

At 6 feet 2, 205 pounds, Zamorano is showing signs of becoming one of the best linebackers in the state for a 5-0 Sierra Canyon team that opens Mission League play on Friday against Loyola. He can be the player who’s in on every tackle up the middle or the player covering running backs out of the backfield. He watched his brother, Roman, now at Air Force, play for the Trailblazers last season at middle linebacker and has been taught by his father, Antonio, a former Garfield football player, to focus on toughness and fundamentals.

“It’s the mental toughness our dad taught both of us,” he said. “He played old-school football.”

Linebacker Eli Zamorano wearing his Mickey Mouse ears on Disney Day at Sierra Canyon.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

His father became a doctor, his mother a lawyer. They’ve shown their boys a path to success but each must find their own way, though having a doctor in the family while playing football is pretty neat.

“When we were little, 7 or 8 years old, he would take us to see his patients at the hospital,” Zamorano said. “So we learned a lot there. It’s like we have free health care. He walks in our room and feels the [ankle]. He knows what the risks are.”

Zamorano can play the ukulele, listens to music created years ago and doesn’t pay attention to what others think.

“I would like to say I’m a very enthusiastic kid,” he said. “I still like to live life to its fullest. I’m not going to let any outside voices determine what makes me, me. I kind of don’t listen to the music that people do nowadays, and a lot of people call me out. It makes me Eli. And you know, it’s just who I am.”

When he was 15, he spent nearly three months living in Rapa Nui, one of the world’s most remote Polynesian islands. His grandmother was born there. It’s also known as Easter Island and is a special territory of Chile. There’s wilderness, beautiful beaches, amazing sunsets and time for a teenager to reflect on the future.

“I was down there training hard, learning more about my culture, where my family’s from,” he said. “I actually did dancing. It was a really fun experience.”

Whether walking in freezing rain without an umbrella or wearing Mickey Mouse ears around campus, Zamorano always knows what he’s doing.

“A couple girls said they were cute,” he said of his borrowed ears.

Who’s going to question Zamorano’s choices now?

Pittsburgh Penguins forward Andrei Kuzmenko has returned to Russia before the start of the NHL season after his father was killed by a bear.

Kuzmenko’s father Alexander, who was an ice hockey coach in Russia, was on a fishing trip along the Krasnaya River in Southern Siberia with a group of seven others when a bear attacked from the trees.

The 62-year-old suffered severe facial injuries in the attack.

A member of the fishing party called for an ambulance but the dense forest made it difficult for emergency services to reach the area.

Kuzmenko was taken by river downstream for four hours before then being airlifted to hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

Penguins president Kyle Dubas said the team was “deeply saddened” by the death.

“Our deepest thoughts and sympathies are with the Kuzmenko family and their loved ones as they grieve the loss of Alexander. We ask that the privacy of Andrei and the Kuzmenko family be respected at this time,” the team said in a statement.

“Andrei chose to be surrounded by his team-mates and practice with the team this morning before returning to Moscow to be with his family this afternoon. Andrei and the Kuzmenko family have the full support of the Penguins organisation during this time.”

The 30-year-old signed a one-year contract with the Penguins this summer and is about to compete in his fifth season in the NHL, following previous stints with the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, Philadelphia Flyers and Los Angeles Kings.

The NHL season begins on 29 September.

Duncan Sheik, who earned a Grammy nomination for his ubiquitous 1990s hit “Barely Breathing” and won a Tony Award for composing the music for “Spring Awakening,” died Thursday. He was 56.

“It is with profound sadness that we confirm the passing of Duncan Sheik,” a statement posted Friday on Sheik’s Instagram account read. “The world has a lost a singular talent, and deeply influential voice in music and theater…. Duncan’s artistry touched many and leaves an indelible mark on the cultural landscape.

“Duncan was a father, husband, son, brother, and friend. He will be remembered for his sensitivity, wit, inteligence, and depth of spirit he brought to those who knew and loved him.”

The statement added that “Duncan passed away last night surrounded by love.”

His mother, Suzanne Sheik, told the New York Times that her son died of organ failure. A statement posted to his Instagram account Thursday said that Sheik was “receiving medical care and remains in critical but stable condition.”

Sheik, a New Jersey native, went to Brown University, where he played in an early band with singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb. His 1996 self-titled debut LP was a hit on the strength of “Barely Breathing,” an exemplar of the upbeat coffeeshop rock that emerged in the wake of grunge on the pop charts. The single stayed on the Hot 100 for over a year, and the album went gold, earning earned him a Grammy nomination for male pop vocal performance.

Sheik’s followup, 1998’s “Humming,” featured rich orchestration, but he already had an eye on Broadway (his sister Kacie Sheik is a stage actor who has appeared in “Hair,” “American Idiot” and “Because of Winn-Dixie,” for which Duncan wrote the score).

He wrote his 2001 album “Phantom Moon” with poet and playwright Steven Sater, whom he’d again collaborate with on the score for the musical “Spring Awakening” — based on the play by German Expressionist Frank Wedekind, which won him a Tony Award — and “Alice by Heart.” His 2009 album “Whisper House” yielded a companion musical of the same name. He also composed the score for the 2004 film “A Home at the End of the World.”

While Sheik sought treatment for alcohol addiction after canceling a tour in 2011, his stage and studio career never slowed. Other major stage credits include hit productions of “American Psycho,” “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” the thriller “Noir” and “The Secret Life of Bees,” along with Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and “The Taming of the Shrew.” His last album, “Claptrap,” came out in 2022.

With a boisterous laugh, Giselle Bonilla recalls her introduction to Hollywood at the age of 12: on the set of “Freedom Writers,” the 2007 drama about at-risk high school students in Long Beach. She played a young version of Eva, one of the film’s main characters.

“I remember the first thing we shot was an initiation scene where I get the s— beat out of me,” she tells De Los, sitting at a coffee shop in Silver Lake on Sept. 11 (more on this date later). “They put this candy blood in my mouth, and I thought it was so fun.”

In retrospect, Bonilla, 31, finds great irony in how that initial foray into professional acting fictionally materialized her Mexican immigrant parents’ worst nightmare.

“We don’t come from money. They hustled all their lives and put my sister and I in private education, because they had this irrational fear that I would join a gang … then the first thing I ended up booking as an actor was getting initiated into a gang,” she says grinning.

Since that unique formative experience, Bonilla has traveled a winding path in and out of the industry, which ultimately led her to direct her first feature: the dark comedy “The Musical,” in theaters Friday.

The movie’s antihero, Doug (Will Brill), is a middle school theater teacher plotting his revenge against his ex-girlfriend Abigail (Gillian Jacobs), also a teacher — and her new boyfriend, the more charming Principal Brady (Rob Lowe).

Doug’s plan? To secretly persuade his young students to put on a musical about the horrors of 9/11 and its aftermath that’s certain to cause controversy and get the principal in trouble.

“I feel like you can be more honest with comedy,” says Bonilla about why this genre appeals to her. “You can get away with everything that you’re angry about and want to yell about. If you make them laugh first, people tend to listen.”

Left to right, back row: Alex Heller (screenwriter), Will Brill (center row) Gillian Jacobs, Giselle Bonilla (director) and Rob Lowe (on the floor) from “The Musical” at the Los Angeles Times 2026 Sundance Film Festival studio presented by Chase Sapphire in Park City, Utah on Jan. 24.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Though the actual show is only a small element of the narrative, it turned off distributors, who argued they wouldn’t be able to market a comedy that involved such a delicate subject.

Still, “The Musical” is making it to the big screen as a self-released title thanks to its executive producers, who believed in the film enough to put in more money for a release.

“I’m going to make sure people watch it regardless,” Bonilla says about being very involved in the marketing. “Even though it didn’t sell at Sundance, we still found a way, which is how we made the whole movie. It was nonstop fighting against the universe just to make a comedy.”

Less than a week before production started, Bonilla lost the actors who were originally playing Principal Brady and Abigail. As her film fell apart, she reached out to the industry contacts she had made after working as an assistant for a few years. Miraculously, the screenplay piqued Lowe’s interest. He came on board, essentially saving the project.

Will Brill and Rob Lowe star in “The Musical.”

(Blue Harbor Entertainment)

As a student at the AFI Conservatory, Bonilla had directed a short film version of “The Musical” that writer Alexander Heller, aware of her affinity for comedy, had conceived for Bonilla to direct. The core group of artists who made the short also worked on the feature.

And though she has always pushed for diversity on screen — including in her short films “Virgencita” and “Bullfighter” — for “The Musical,” Bonilla believed the adults had to be white.

“It would be way more damaging if I had pinned a brown person to be behind the staging of a musical about 9/11,” she explains. “It was very clear to me that this was a comedy about white liberalism and how people weaponize tragedy for their own agenda.”

When it came to the kids in Doug’s class, Bonilla wanted to reflect the multicultural mosaic that is the Los Angeles Unified School District. To be able to see herself in “The Musical,” Bonilla wanted a Latina girl as the child with the most ambition to succeed in the arts. That character became Lata: played in the feature by Melanie Herrera in her first acting credit.

“She’s a dancer. But she’s very precocious and has a really confident, type-A personality,” Bonilla says of the young actor. “Melanie gives Reese Witherspoon in ‘Election,’ like, ‘I will do whatever I have to do for the part,’ and I recognized that in myself as a kid.”

Filmmaker Giselle Bonilla on the set of “The Musical.”

(Peter McCollough)

An L.A. native raised in North Hollywood, Bonilla started doing improv at a young age encouraged by her father, Art Bonilla, who grew up in Tijuana and has worked as an actor in the U.S. for over 40 years.

Her mother, originally from Sinaloa, does workers’ compensation insurance, which provided a stable income and allowed her partner to pursue acting.

“It was tough seeing him struggle and not have any agency over work,” Bonilla says of her father. “He’s such a great actor and he’s really funny, but he’s always getting cast in these very small bit parts as a gardener or an immigrant crossing on the border.”

Unsurprisingly, when Bonilla began auditioning for roles as a teenager, similarly one-dimensional and stereotypical characters from a “troubling perspective” came her way.

“They always make the main character in those stories a white person,” she says. “And then we’re painted as these puppies that just keep getting beat up. I didn’t want to contribute to that.”

Bonilla’s interest in being on the other side of the camera solidified after playing an illiterate South Central high school student in the Byron Allen sitcom “Mr. Box Office.” She attended Pasadena City College, where she studied film production, then used the residuals from the show to help pay for her tuition at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Attending film school on the East Coast was, as she puts it, a necessary experience, because she grew up rather sheltered.

“I’m a first-gen Mexican American woman and I was supposed to live at home until I get married,” she explains; but it also exposed her to the concept of impostor syndrome.

“I always had this impostor syndrome at NYU, because that was where I first really confronted wealthy people,” she explains. “I had never been in a predominantly white institution before. And that was really eye-opening.”

It was only when COVID restrictions were lifted that Bonilla decided to apply to the AFI Conservatory, where she regained her confidence and met her now close collaborators.

She has, however, never forgotten her biggest and earliest supporters. Since she started directing, Bonilla has cast her father in many of her short films. And in “The Musical,” you can see both of her parents in the audience during the culminating school show.

“My dad is the one that yells at Rob Lowe at the end in slow motion. He’s pissed that I cut his line, but it was a union film, and we couldn’t afford to give my dad a line,” she says. “But he will be the first one to tell you that he’s not an extra. He did a ‘cameo!’”

“The Musical” director Gisella Bonilla poses at the Los Angeles Times 2026 Sundance Film Festival studio presented by Chase Sapphire in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 24.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Bonilla’s next project takes inspiration from her memories attending a Catholic school run by nuns in Sun Valley, where a teacher was discovered to be a pedophile. She describes it as “an erotic thriller told from the perspective of virgins.”

Once again, she’ll tackle an unsavory topic and figure out how to bring it to fruition; then distribute it come what may, because she refuses to be boxed in by the industry’s expectations.

“Identity stories are very important. If someone wants to do that, they should be able to do that,” Bonilla says. “But I don’t think our opportunity as Latinos should be limited to painting ourselves as victims against the supremacists.”

Four days before they’re set to play the first-ever concert by their new band, Dhani Harrison and Nigel Godrich sit down to enjoy a post-rehearsal libation in the parking lot of a North Hollywood practice space.

“Is there an opener?” asks Godrich, who holds a bottle of fancy root beer. Harrison, who’s clutching a Sapporo, grabs his friend’s drink and neatly pops the top off using his own bottle.

“I went to Brown,” he says with a little smile. “That’s what they teach you in the Ivy League.”

Harrison, 48, is the son of the late Beatles legend George Harrison; long before college, he got a priceless musical education from his father, whose final solo album — 2002’s Grammy-winning “Brainwashed” — Dhani helped complete after George’s death in 2001. Godrich, 55, made his name working in the studio with Radiohead on game-changing records like “OK Computer” and “Kid A”; he’s also produced for Beck, Paul McCartney and Roger Waters and played with Thom Yorke and Flea in Atoms for Peace.

Now the two have teamed up in Dragonflies, a spacey and atmospheric art-rock duo with a self-titled debut album due Friday from Dark Horse Records, the label George Harrison founded in 1974 and Dhani Harrison relaunched in 2020. This weekend, Harrison and Godrich will celebrate the LP’s release with two shows at Hollywood Forever’s Masonic Lodge, where they’ll be joined by guitarist Nick Valensi (of the Strokes) and drummer Joey Waronker (who’s played with Beck, R.E.M. and Oasis).

Asked how exactly the group came together, Godrich and Harrison look at each other across a picnic table and shrug. “The real reason we did it was as a vehicle to hang out,” Godrich says of the two, who’ve been pals since both were living in Los Angeles in the early 2000s and who both found themselves back home in England a few years ago.

Yet “Dragonflies” has plenty to offer the rest of us: Built around Harrison’s high, sighing vocals, the music moves with a funky rhythmic propulsion rooted in Godrich’s signature tape loops; lush string arrangements by David Campbell (also known as Beck’s dad) add a touch of slightly spooked romance to songs about nature and friendship.

Harrison describes the band’s sound as “a bit creaky” and compares it to the feeling of being out on the water. “I always thought that’s a cool place to start — like you’re on a sinking ship,” he says.

Godrich laughs and adds, “Well, I hope not.”

For Harrison, working with Godrich provided a kind of full-circle moment nearly two decades after he caught one of Atoms for Peace’s first gigs at downtown L.A.’s Orpheum Theatre in 2009.

“I remember it made me want to quit music,” he says, which draws a frown from his bandmate.

“That’s not a great review,” Godrich says.

“No, that concert blew me away,” Harrison replies. “I went home and I was like, Oh, they’ve already done all the things I want to do. So I just went and sulked for a few days.”

Dragonflies began after Harrison returned to England, where he’d grown up on his father’s Friar Park estate, following the death of his grandmother, who famously raised George Harrison’s widow, Olivia Harrison, in Hawthorne. “I was still here basically to be around her,” says the musician, who formed the bands Thenewno2 and Fistful of Mercy while in L.A. “When she passed, that was the last of my grandparents. My mom was living in England, and so I just thought, Well, time to go.”

Harrison sought out Godrich for help on his 2023 solo album, “Innerstanding”; later, he lent the producer one of his dad’s old tape machines — “They did ‘Shankar Family & Friends’ on it,” he points out — which led to a series of casual jam sessions at Godrich’s studio in London’s Brixton neighborhood.

“It was like, ‘Hey, you want to get some Japanese food and make some tape loops?’” Harrison recalls.

Godrich notes proudly that “the way the record was made was completely mechanical,” meaning nothing was programmed on a computer but instead recorded “live on the fly” using older equipment.

“Fortunately, we both own a ridiculous amount of analog gear,” Harrison adds. “Because we’re nerds.”

“I’m not a nerd,” Godrich says. “I hate gear chat.”

“That’s true,” Harrison says. “He doesn’t nerd out about that stuff — I’m the nerd. He won’t even let me use six Kaoss Pads onstage.”

What’s a Kaoss Pad?

“You don’t want to know,” Godrich replies.

Gearhead or no, the producer was adamant that Dragonflies not rely on prerecorded backing tracks when it starts playing live.

“No computers were harmed in the making of this show,” Harrison says — thus the extra players.

(Brian Feinzimer / For The Times)

Waronker is an old friend of Godrich’s who played drums in Atoms for Peace and on Beck’s “Sea Change” and “Morning Phase” (not to mention Beck’s brand-new “Ride Lonesome,” which Godrich mixed); the producer has known Valensi since he “didn’t work with the Strokes,” as he puts it, in 2003, when Godrich tried a couple of sessions with the New York garage-rock band before deciding it wasn’t a good fit.

Godrich says he plays bass in the live group because it’s easy. But also: “Bass is such an important part of the sound that if somebody else was doing it, they would never do it the same as me, and it would annoy me.”

Top three bass players of all time, according to Dragonflies?

“McCartney’s good, isn’t he?” Godrich asks.

“Les Claypool,” says Harrison. “I’m a huge Primus fan.”

“I like David J from Bauhaus,” Godrich says. “He’s an incredibly innovative bass player — always did very interesting things. Stylistically, he’s someone that I probably copy a lot from. It’s just the root notes, but whoever’s in control of the root notes is in control of everything.”

“It really is a power move to be the bass player,” Harrison says.

“I don’t want to be at the front — that’s not my thing,” says Godrich. “I don’t want to be the guy.”

Does Harrison?

“It takes me a while to get warmed up,” he says. “I don’t really look at people when I’m playing a show. I’m not sure if that means I’m mildly spectoral. I took the test, actually — I scored highest in my old band. I know a lot of neurodivergent people who perform.” He shrugs. “Sometimes you don’t get to choose if you’re the guy, but you’re the guy.”

In addition to his father, one of Dhani’s mentors was George’s friend and latter-day creative partner Jeff Lynne, who for all his musical genius has never seemed particularly comfortable onstage.

“He’s brilliant at what he does, but you talk about in-ear monitors or the sound onstage or the lighting or something, and it’s over,” Harrison says. “It’s too much input. That’s why Jeff wears the Spider-Man goggles,” he adds, referring to the ELO frontman’s ever-present aviator shades. “He has too much Spider-Sense. My dad was the same way. He definitely was like, ‘Look at him — don’t look at me!’”

After Dragonflies’ Hollywood Forever shows, Godrich and Harrison have dates scheduled in Europe for November and hope to play more in the future, depending on when Godrich finishes a couple of records he’s producing. (To give a sense of the stress he’s under, he mimes putting a gun to his head.) The duo already has enough material for a second album too.

How much time does Harrison intend to dedicate to the project?

“As much as I can, really,” he says. “How much do you want to hang out with your mate? I got bored of being Dhani Harrison anyway — I like being Dragonflies now.”

Joe Buck will call his seventh Super Bowl in February. It will be his first with ESPN — and, it turns out, won’t be his last.

The “Monday Night Football” play-by-play announcer and the network agreed to a six-year, $108-million extension, according to the Athletic. Buck’s deal was set to expire following this season.

Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium will be broadcast on ESPN and simulcast on Disney sister network ABC. It will be the first Super Bowl on ESPN and the first on ABC since Super Bowl XL, which followed the 2005 season. The game is scheduled to rotate back to ESPN/ABC in February 2031.

While Buck seems locked in for that Super Bowl LXV broadcast, his longtime booth partner may not be — at least not yet. The Athletic reports that color commentator Troy Aikman remains unsigned beyond this season.

When asked about the contract situations for Buck and Aikman, an ESPN spokesperson directed The Times to a statement executive vice president of communications Josh Krulewitz gave to the Athletic.

“With this historic season for ESPN now underway, our entire focus is on bringing fans the best possible football coverage, culminating with our first Super Bowl,” Krulewitz said. “To that end, we won’t be addressing talent contract specifics publicly before the Super Bowl.”

Buck broke into broadcasting in 1989, calling games for the Louisville Redbirds, a minor-league affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. Two years later, he joined his father, Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Jack Buck, in the radio and TV booths for the Cardinals’ games.

In 1994, Buck was hired by Fox Sports. He eventually became the network’s top play-by-play voice for the NFL and MLB, calling 24 World Series and six Super Bowls for the network. Buck joined his father in the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2022.

Buck and Aikman have been calling football games together since 2002 and left Fox for ESPN together before the 2022 season. Last season, “Monday Night Football” averaged 15.8 million viewers per game, the second-best ratings in ESPN’s 20 seasons of broadcasting the franchise (it averaged 17.4 viewers in 2023).

After appearing last year on a contentious political panel discussion in Washington, D.C., Jessica Tarlov, co-host of the the popular Fox News show “The Five,” was approached by a transgender woman from Alabama.

Tarlov had said that Democratic candidates in tough races might have to concede that transgender collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas should not be competing against women assigned female at birth. But the matter never came up. Instead, the Alabama woman thanked Tarlov for making the case for Democrats against four conservatives on “The Five,” the most watched program in cable news and a favorite of family members who no longer speak to her.

“If more people talked like you, I might get my family back,” the woman said. “I’m just happy my parents can hear someone like you.”

Tarlov describes the encounter in her new book “I Disagree: Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends,” out Sept. 15. The part how-to book and part personal memoir is aimed at helping readers navigate the harsh political divisiveness in the culture. Her role on “The Five” has made her an advocate of going into not-so-friendly territory to debate issues rather than staying in comfort zones where views are unchallenged.

“I’m trying to show that a Democratic voice like mine can exist there, without an apology,” she writes of her Fox News position. “And that a person with strong liberal beliefs can bring that same perspective to a host of outlets and places.”

During a recent conversation at Fox News headquarters in Manhattan, Tarlov said the kind words of the fan from Alabama align with what she’s heard from children and grandchildren of the network’s loyal viewers. They are grateful their Fox News-loving families are exposed to a voice from outside the conservative media ecosystem.

Fox News co-host Jessica Tarlov is the author of “I Disagree.”

(Penguin Random House)

Tarlov, 42, has been a sturdy liberal counterweight at “The Five,” which averages 3.5 million viewers daily, according to Nielsen. She comes to the panel’s table highly prepared with data-based talking points, forcing her often intractable co-hosts to engage and listen. She often does it while deflecting the mocking remarks of rambunctious colleagues Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld, who try to throw off her arguments.

“Interruptions are an indication that you’re winning,” said Tarlov, evoking the pithy chapter summaries in “I Disagree.”

Tarlov games out numerous scenarios with recommendations on how to deploy statistics and when to lighten up. She also explains the necessity of allowing the other side to blow off steam as she did when “The Five” co-hosts became emotional and overwrought over the shooting of right wing activist Charlie Kirk.

Tarlov believes the key to the success of “The Five” is the camaraderie the panel has off-camera. While the co-hosts will battle it out on set over President Trump’s policies or the excesses of the socialist wing of the Democratic Party, they are supportive of each other once the show is over (three of them are represented by the same CAA agent).

“We don’t talk politics outside of work,” Tarlov said.

Tarlov has been an accepted part of the Fox News family, recently signing a three-year contract despite Trump’s suggestion that “The Five” would be better off without her.

But it has taken time for Tarlov to gain credibility among like-minded pundits and thought leaders on the political left. Most are dismissive of the network as its most popular hosts are unwavering Trump loyalists. Tarlov also resists being in lockstep with every Democratic position and trend. (She voted for Andrew Cuomo over New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, citing the former governor’s experience.)

“Even in the last year I’ve been at big liberal gatherings, very clearly hosts on other big podcasts or show were not interested in talking to me,” said Tarlov, who has had many conversations that start with the question “Why are you on that network?”

But with younger news consumers getting their news and information through social media platforms, Fox News clips of Tarlov scoring points for the Democrats are gaining attention. Tarlov said she has felt more welcome in left-leaning circles since the 2024 presidential campaign when the digital accounts of Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris put her commentary in heavy rotation. (Scott Galloway, the author and social critic, partnered with Tarlov on a podcast, “Raging Moderates,” after seeing her come up repeatedly in his feeds and then meeting her on the set of “Real Time With Bill Maher”).

Tarlov didn’t start out seeking a career as a TV personality, although her family background likely helped her understand media and communication. Her parents were attorneys who met while working on the Warner Bros. lot in New York, and raised their two daughters in the hip lower Manhattan neighborhood of Tribeca.

Her father, Mark Tarlov, was a onetime speechwriter for Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger who went on to produce two of John Waters’ films and direct projects of his own. Tarlov and her sister Molly, an actor who co-starred in the MTV sitcom “Awkward,” traveled the world with their father to shooting locations. (Tarlov pays tribute to her father, who died in 2021 of 9/11-related cancer, by wearing his nerd-chic Oliver Peoples eyeglass frames made of buffalo horn).

A graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the London School of Economics, Tarlov worked as a strategist on the London mayoral campaign of Boris Johnson. She talked Democratic pollster Doug Schoen into giving her a job. Schoen hired her and brought her to the attention of Fox News, which started using her as a guest on Sean Hannity’s program in 2016.

The ability to effectively volley with conservatives led Democratic Party leaders to approach Tarlov about running for Congress in the district representing Staten Island. (She has no desire to seek political office.)

Tarlov was named co-host on “The Five” in 2022. She and husband Brian McKenna, who works in finance, welcomed their first daughter in 2021, the other in 2024. She remains awed that the show’s viewers — most of whom don’t agree with her politics — have acknowledged her personal milestones with warm greetings and homemade gifts.

She is aware that she’s had a rarefied career. But in “I Disagree,” she goes beyond her impressive resume to reveal her insecurities — unusual in the ego driven TV news business — and tells readers how she’s tried to resolve them.

“I have a good amount of shyness to me,” she said. “I have a lot of imposter syndrome. I’m constantly in wonder that I ended up getting to do this and that hopefully, am the right person to do it.”

Long self-conscious about her raspy voice, which Trump once described as “grating and irritating,” she shares how a 2016 meeting with former Chief Executive Roger Ailes made her relax about it. He told her viewer criticisms were more aimed at her positions, at not how she sounded. “No matter what room the television is in, you want to make sure the person listening in the next room knows you’re on it,” he told her. “Don’t try to smooth your voice out. They may hate what you stand for and what you’re saying, but you want them to know it’s you on TV.”

Tarlov met with Ailes just months before he was ousted over sexual harassment allegations. While Tarlov was grateful for his advice, her book praises current Fox News Chief Executive Suzanne Scott for creating a workplace culture that is much more hospitable to women. Scott promoted Tarlov to co-host right before she was due to give birth to her first child.

“The knowledge that I’m supported allows me to take big swings and not be intimidated,” Tarlov writes. She knows that’s not the situation for all women; in her signature style, she presents the data and the narrative to back it up.