newsmakers

newsmakers

‘Legend of Conan’ to star Schwarzenegger

LOS ANGELES

Arnold Schwarzenegger is coming back — as Conan the Barbarian.

Universal Pictures says California’s former governor will star in “The Legend of Conan,” an action film being developed for the actor. Deadline Hollywood was the first to report the news Friday.

The 65-year-old Schwarzenegger starred in two previous films about the mythic hero: 1982’s “Conan the Barbarian” and 1984’s “Conan the Destroyer.”

Museum uncovers early Inness work

DALLAS

An unsigned painting that has been in the Dallas Museum of Art’s collection for more than eight decades and was long-believed to have been composed by another artist likely was created by George Inness, one of America’s greatest landscape painters, a curator said.

Experts at the museum had thought the oil on canvas, “In the Woods,” from around 1850, was painted by Asher B. Durand, a leading figure of the Hudson River School painters in the mid-19th century who was an early influence on Inness.

But experts at the museum began to question the painting’s attribution, prompting American art curator Sue Canterbury to research the origin of the painting. As she considered artists who might stylistically fit, Canterbury turned to Michael Quick’s book, “George Inness: A Catalogue Raisonne,” where she noticed a pen and ink drawing by the artist that closely resembled “In the Woods.”

Gene Shalit cited after car hits pole

LENOX, Mass.

Television movie critic Gene Shalit faces a charge of driving to endanger after his vehicle struck a utility pole and came to rest against a home in western Massachusetts.

Lenox police say the 86-year-old Shalit told Chief Stephen O’Brien, who was first on the scene of Wednesday afternoon’s crash, that he fell asleep at the wheel.

Shalit has received a summons to appear before a clerk magistrate in Southern Berkshire District Court in Great Barrington at a future date.

Wire reports