A French surgeon to the stars said Friday he plans to take rocker Johnny Hallyday's manager to court after he accused him of botching an operation on the singer's back. "We plan to file suit for libel against Jean-Claude Camus, Johnny Hallyday's manager, because he had the harshest words against me," Stephane Delajoux told Le Parisien newspaper. "This whole affair has caused me enormous prejudice," he said. Delajoux operated on Hallyday in Paris on November 26 to correct a slipped disc, but... Read Full Story
Kool & the Gang, the venerable US rhythm and blues group, played Havana to a rapturous welcome in the first concert by a US group in the communist nation since 2005. "They just bring back so many memories. Their music influenced a whole generation of Cubans, my generation," glowed Ana Estevez, 50, who turned out and got down with her whole family including her two-year-old grandson. About 30,000 Cubans boogied to Kool & the Gang, which has been getting down on it since the 1960s, at an open... Read Full Story
Veteran French rocker Johnny Hallyday has cancelled his farewell tour in order to recover after emergency surgery in the United States, his production company said Wednesday. The 160,000 fans who bought tickets for the 24 concerts across France that had been due to start January 8 will be reimbursed, Jean-Claude Camus Productions said in a statement. The 66-year-old known as the French Elvis was hospitalized last week in Los Angeles after complications from a back operation performed in... Read Full Story
French rocker Johnny Hallyday, recovering from surgery in Los Angeles, will not be fit for his scheduled farewell tour next month, the singer's insurer was quoted as saying on Tuesday. "It is now certain that the first concerts in 2010 will not take place," Francois Chiesa, a director with Pont Neuf insurance brokers, told the Internet edition of the Le Point news magazine. When asked when Hallyday's tour would go ahead, he replied: "I don't know...we will see." Dr Francois Zuccarelli, one... Read Full Story
French rock legend Johnny Hallyday awoke from an induced coma and was talking to family and friends, a fellow singer who visited his bedside said on Tuesday. Charles Aznavour said he had visited Hallyday at the Los Angeles clinic after the veteran rocker came round from a coma that he was placed in to ease his recovery from emergency back operations. Aznavour told the television station iTele that Hallyday said to his wife Laetitia: "All right, let's go now," shortly after waking up. "He's... Read Full Story
French rock legend Johnny Hallyday awoke from an induced coma and was talking to family and friends, a fellow singer who visited his bedside said on Tuesday. Charles Aznavour said he had visited Hallyday at the Los Angeles clinic after the veteran rocker came round from a coma that he was placed in to ease his recovery from emergency back operations. Aznavour told the television station iTele that Hallyday said to his wife Laetitia: "All right, let's go now," shortly after waking up. "He's... Read Full Story
French rock legend Johnny Hallyday awoke from an induced coma and was talking to family and friends, his spokesman said. The veteran rocker was placed in a coma over the weekend to help his recovery from emergency back operations. "Johnny Hallyday has come out of the artificial coma. Everything is going well, he is talking and is surrounded by close friends and relatives," a spokesman told AFP on Monday. The 66-year-old singer fell seriously ill last Monday and was taken to Cedars Sinai... Read Full Story
An unprecedented exhibition opened in Moscow Friday of nude prints with scrawled comments apparently written by former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that make ribald references to his party comrades. Titled "Messages from the Great Leader: Stalin's Autographs," the week-long exhibition shows prints of 19th- and 20th-century art works that Stalin is said to have defaced with messages in coloured pencil. "Ginger bastard Radek, if he hadn't pissed against the wind, if he hadn't been angry, he... Read Full Story
A planned trade pact with China could not only boost Taiwan's economy but also help its film industry, a report said Saturday, citing a parliamentary study. The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement would allow Taiwan better access to the Chinese film market with the rights to co-produce and screen films on the mainland, the Central News Agency quoted the study as saying. The document cited Hong Kong as a successful example, saying Beijing loosened its restrictions on films from the... Read Full Story
There was a time when Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Austrian conductor who turns 80 on Sunday, was vilified by the musical establishment in Vienna. Harnoncourt is one of the pioneers of what in the classical music world is known as "historical" or "period performance practice". And back in the 1950s, when he set up his period instrument ensemble Concentus Musicus, his insistent questioning of the established norms of the classical music scene raised hackles in Europe's musical capital. The idea... Read Full Story
