NEWSMAKERS

March 8, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

NEWSMAKERS

Philip Langridge dies; British tenor was 70

LONDON

British tenor Philip Langridge, who won praise for his vocal versatility and subtle characterization, has died at the age of 70, the Royal Opera House said Sunday.

The company said Langridge died Friday after a short battle with cancer.

Composer Harrison Birtwistle said “his death leaves a large hole in the world’s music.”

Langridge was born in Hawkhurst, southern England, in 1939 and studied at the Royal Academy of Music.

He began his career as an orchestral violinist, but turned to singing, making his professional operatic debut in Richard Strauss’s “Capriccio” at the Glyndebourne festival in 1964.

One of his last roles was as the witch in Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in December.

He was praised for performances in operas by Benjamin Britten, including the title role in “Peter Grimes” and Aschenbach in “Death in Venice.”

Among his many prizes were two Grammy awards, for recordings of “Peter Grimes” and Arnold Schoenberg’s “Moses und Aron.”

He is survived by his wife, Ann Murray, their son and three children from a previous marriage, including the opera director Stephen Langridge.

Actor Richard Stapley dies of kidney failure

PALM SPRINGS, Calif.

Richard Stapley, the actor who appeared alongside Elizabeth Taylor in “Little Women” and with Gene Kelly in “The Three Musketeers,” has died. He was 86.

His publicist Alan Eichler says Stapley died of kidney failure Friday at a Palm Springs hospital.

Born in England, Stapley moved to Hollywood and appeared in a string of films in the 1940s and 1950s, including “King of the Khyber Rifles” with Tyrone Power and “The Strange Door” with Boris Karloff.

He took the name Richard Wyler when he moved back to Britain and starred in “Man From Interpol” and other television series.

Stapley was also a writer. His novel “Naked Legacy” was published in 2004.

Music museum to show Marley, Tosh

KINGSTON, Jamaica

Jamaica plans to open a music museum next year that officials say will feature rare pieces from the island’s music history, such as the sole album that the late reggae star Bob Marley produced before he gained international fame.

Artifacts will include a cassette tape in which another reggae great, Peter Tosh, jams a blues song with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, museum curator Herbie Miller said Sunday.

The tape was recorded in June 1977 in New York City, said Miller, Tosh’s former manager. It will be placed alongside the album “Escape from Babylon” by American singer Martha Velez that Marley produced in 1976.

3.1M customers without broadcast

NEW YORK

Cablevision subscribers were scrambling Sunday to hook up antennas or find live TV on the Internet in order to watch the Academy Awards after ABC’s parent company Walt Disney Co. switched off its signal in a dispute over fees.

The standoff affected 3.1 million subscribers to Cablevision Systems Corp. in parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

It was the first time in a decade that a major broadcast station went dark in a dispute with a cable company.

‘Alice’ earns $116.3M, a 3-D record

NEW YORK

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s trip down the rabbit hole drew huge crowds, as “Alice in the Wonderland” earned a whopping $116.3 million in its opening weekend — a record for a 3-D film.

The surprisingly huge total easily surpassed all other films in release and gave Walt Disney Studios an even bigger opening than that of the hugely popular 3-D film “Avatar.” It also marked the biggest opening weekend for a non-sequel.

The film beat forecasts that ranged between $65-$75 million, and the surprising results added some intrigue to Oscar Sunday.

Before the weekend, Disney and 20th Century Fox competed over the available 3-D ready screens; screens outfitted for 3-D are rapidly rising, but still amount to fewer than 4,000 in the U.S. and Canada.

The weekend’s second-best performer at the box-office was Overture’s “Brooklyn’s Finest,” Antoine Fuqua’s gritty police thriller, which earned $13.5 million in its first weekend, according to studio estimates.

Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” for Paramount followed closely with $13.3 million in its third week of release, bringing its cumulative total to $95.8 million. Warner Bros.’s comedy “Cop Out” came in fourth, adding $9.1 million for a two-week total of $32.4 million.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released today.

1. “Alice in Wonderland,” $116.3 million.

2. “Brookyn’s Finest,” $13.5 million.

3. “Shutter Island,” $13.3 million.

4. “Cop Out,” $9.1 million.

5. “Avatar,” $7.7 million.

6. “The Crazies,” $7 million.

7. “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” $5.1 million.

8. “Valentine’s Day,” $4.3 million.

9. “Crazy Heart,” $3.4 million.

10. “Dear John,” $2.9 million.