newsmakers

newsmakers

Don Everly receives ‘spiritual message’

NASHVILLE, Tenn.

The infighting and hard feelings between the Everly Brothers were well-known, but surviving brother Don felt he had a special moment with his brother Phil before Phil’s passing Friday — even if the two weren’t together at the time.

“I was listening to one of my favorite songs that Phil wrote and had an extreme emotional moment just before I got the news of his passing,” Don Everly wrote in a statement to The Associated Press on Saturday morning. “I took that as a special spiritual message from Phil saying goodbye. Our love was and will always be deeper than any earthly differences we might have had.”

Phil Everly died Friday in California from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 74.

The Everly Brothers arguably were the most influential vocal duo in music history. They brought their love of country music to rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s and 1960s, transforming the pop charts of the day and inspiring legions of young proto rockers such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Byrds who would go on to change popular culture.

The two broke up amid quarrelling in 1973 after 16 years of hits, then reunited in 1983, “sealing it with a hug,” Phil Everly said.

There was a heavy outpouring on social media after Phil Everly’s death.

Critics group: ‘Llewyn Davis’ is ’13’s best film

NEW YORK

The National Society of Film Critics has chosen “Inside Llewyn Davis” as the best picture of 2013 at its annual meeting.

The society’s 56 voting members are movie critics from around the country. The critics had their 48th annual awards voting meeting at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on Saturday.

The group also presented its best-director award to Joel and Ethan Coen. They directed “Inside Llewyn Davis,” the story of a fictional folk singer in Greenwich Village in 1961.

The group named Oscar Isaac best actor for “Inside Llewyn Davis.” Cate Blanchett was named best actress for the Woody Allen film “Blue Jasmine.”

‘GWTW’ actress dies

CHARLESTON, S.C.

Alicia Rhett, an actress who played one of the sisters of Ashley Wilkes in “Gone with the Wind,” died Friday. She was 98.

Rhett died of natural causes at the Bishop Gadsden Episcopal Retirement Community in Charleston, said Gadsden spokeswoman Kimberly Farfone Borts.

Rhett was the oldest surviving cast member of the 1939 film, Farfone said.

Associated Press