Motown Records marks its 50th anniversary

January 13, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

DETROIT — Get ready: The year of Motown memories has begun.

Monday officially started the 50th anniversary of Motown Records. That’s the date in 1959 that Berry Gordy Jr. secured an $800 loan to start the company that soon would spin out chart-topping hits by Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, the Four Tops, the Temptations and many others.

Monday was declared “Motown Day” by local, state and national politicians at the Motown Historical Museum, the former studio. They gathered there with numerous label veterans including the Four Tops’ Abdul “Duke” Fakir, and members of the Miracles, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and Rare Earth.

Winehouse’s husband will file for divorce

LONDON — A lawyer for Amy Winehouse’s jailed husband said Monday his client will be seeking a divorce on the grounds of the soul diva’s alleged infidelity.

Attorney Henri Brandman said he had been instructed by Blake Fielder-Civil “to commence divorce proceedings on the grounds of Amy’s adultery.”

Winehouse and Fielder-Civil married in Miami in May 2007, but he was arrested six months later over an assault. In July he was sentenced to 27 months in jail for beating up a bar manager and then offering him a bribe to keep quiet about it.

Fielder-Civil was released into a drug rehab center in November but sent back to prison weeks later for breaching his bail conditions.

Winehouse shot to stardom with the multi-Grammy-winning album “Back to Black” in 2006 and has a fortune estimated by the Sunday Times at $15 million. But her music has been overshadowed by reports of drug use, run-ins with the law and her tempestuous marriage.

During concert appearances last year, Winehouse often exhorted fans to call for the release of “my Blake.” But she has been linked by tabloid newspapers to other men and recently has been photographed on holiday in the Caribbean with an alleged new beau, Josh Bowman.

James Gandolfini takes Broadway role

NEW YORK — Get ready for Tony Soprano on Broadway.

James Gandolfini — from HBO’s classic mob series “The Sopranos” — will star with Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis and Marcia Gay Harden in “God of Carnage,” Yasmina Reza’s four-character play about the clash between two liberal, middle-class couples.

The play opens March 22 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. It begins preview performances Feb. 28.

“God of Carnage” was a hit last year in London with a cast that included Ralph Fiennes and Janet McTeer. The director is Matthew Warchus, who also directed Reza’s comedy “Art” in London and New York.

Today’s birthdays

Comedian Rip Taylor is 75. Actor Billy Gray (“Father Knows Best”) is 71. Actor Richard Moll (“Night Court”) is 66. Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfuss (“Seinfeld”) is 48. Country singer Trace Adkins is 47. Actor Patrick Dempsey is 43. Actress Nicole Eggert (“Baywatch,” “Charles in Charge”) is 37. Actor Orlando Bloom is 32.