Tag: HollywoodReporter

Veteran TV director, writer, producer and showrunner Ralph W. Hemecker has died. He was 65.

Hemecker, whose work spanned three decades and included directing 31 episodes of Blue Bloods and 28 episodes of Once Upon a Time, died July 10 at his home in Glendale.

He also directed episodes of The X-Files, Millennium, Ghost Whisperer, Numb3rs, The Vampire Diaries, Nikita, V, Legends of Tomorrow, Quantico, Body of Proof, The Flash and Pacific Blue as well as the 2000 TNT TV movie Witchblade, going on to serve as showrunner, writer and executive producer of the Witchblade TV series across its two-season run from 2001 to 2002.

And he directed the pilot for Roar, starring a then little-known Heath Ledger, as well as the pilots for Lawless and Dead at 21.

Born on June 12, 1961, Ralph William Hemecker graduated from Bucknell University where he studied English, made short films and developed a passion for visual storytelling. He went on to take filmmaking courses at New York University and began his career in production and post-production.

Some of his earliest directing work was on America’s Most Wanted, helming dramatic reenactments of real-life crimes, and he directed episodes of Silk Stalkings, on which he worked behind the scenes, as well as Renegade.

“Some losses are impossible to put into words,” Once Upon a Time actress Lana Parrilla wrote in part on Instagram. “Ralph Hemecker was one of the kindest, most generous souls I’ve ever known. One of Once Upon a Time’s defining directors. A truly passionate, beautiful man and my dear friend. I was lucky enough to shadow Ralph as a director as he knew Once, behind the camera, best. He was always carrying a camera in hand, staying up all night in the director’s office putting his shots together, studying the scripts and endlessly visiting sets in preparation. His passion was infectious. We always knew if Ralph was directing, we were in good hands.”

Hemecker is survived by his two stepdaughters as well as his father, sister and brother; two nephews; one niece and one great-nephew.

Hemecker admired the Navy SEALs’ courage, discipline, resilience and commitment to service, and he was inspired by their leadership principles. As a result, in lieu of flowers, his family asks that memorial donations be made to the SEAL Future Foundation in Hemecker’s memory.

A celebration of Hemecker’s life will be announced at a later date.

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, The Hollywood Reporter may receive an affiliate commission.

The Monaco Grand Prix, the Rose Ball and the Red Cross Gala: the Monégasque social calendar’s trifecta of prestige.

Serving as the pinnacle of black tie elegance, Monaco‘s Red Cross Gala — or the Gala de la Croix-Rouge Monégasque, in French — is the yearly flagship fundraiser for the Monaco Red Cross, which, from 1958 to 1982, was presided over by none other than Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco. Cut to the evening of July 18, 2026: Even without the Oscar-winning movie star’s physical presence, the Old Hollywood glamour at the 77th annual charity ball was palpable.

On Saturday night at the Sporting Monte-Carlo, esteemed guests eagerly awaited the arrival of Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene, son and daughter-in-law of Grace Kelly and respective President and Vice-President of the Red Cross Society’s Monaco branch. Charlene, Princess of Monaco, statuesque as ever, channeled the timeless style of her late mother-in-law in a custom-made Elie Saab golden draped gown. The couple was joined by niece Camille Gottlieb, one of Kelly’s 11 grandchildren, plus the evening’s hosting duo, actress and model Estelle Lefébure and actor and comedian Michel Boujenah.

Following arrivals, guests glided through a sea of white tablecloths to dine on a multi-course meal imagined by three-Michelin-starred chef Marcel Ravin. And while only one lucky winner walked away with the gala’s grand prize, a Cartier Grain de Café jewelry set fit with 58 total diamonds, every guest in attendance went home with a generous parting gift from the luxury House, a supple leather cardholder stamped with the Double C emblem.

On the heels of an otherworldly fireworks show and ahead of the jazz-inspired after party, guests enjoyed the world premiere of SOUL! Where Legends Come Back. This dance-inducing live show, which traces the journey of African-American music, is the newest original production by Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer (SBM), the luxury hospitality and entertainment company that doubles as the annual gala’s organizer and venue host. In many ways, SBM feels like — and, quite honestly, is — the brain behind much of Monaco’s social, cultural and hotel scene, with the sovereign city-state sitting at under one square mile.

SBM’s crown jewel has to be the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo, a palatial escape located at Place du Casino in Monte Carlo, smack dab in the heart of Monaco. Widely regarded as one of the world’s most luxurious properties, Hôtel de Paris is every bit as breathtakingly lavish as you’d hope and expect. It, therefore, only makes sense that a conveyor belt of black cars promptly escorted guests from their accommodations and pre-event drinks to the main festivities at the Sporting Monte-Carlo.

So what’s next on the Principality of Monaco’s social calendar? Well, you’ll have to consult Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer’s extensive annual agenda. But for now, a few more highlights from the 77th annual Monaco Red Cross Gala.

Film crews on Hollywood and local productions shooting in Ontario are being urged to mask up as fast-moving wildfires sweep across the province’s far north and southwest, blanketing southern Ontario — and at times the U.S. Eastern Seaboard — in thick smoke.

So far, however, the provincial film sector has largely weathered what is shaping up to be Ontario’s worst-ever summer wildfire season.

Production hubs in northern Ontario cities like Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay are feeling the effects most acutely, with film crews sharing hotels with evacuees from neighboring communities. A massive blaze covering some 3,200 square kilometers (1,235 square miles) north of Thunder Bay in Wabakimi Provincial Park has been of particular concern for firefighters. As of Wednesday, around 146 wildfires remained active across the province.

“While Thunder Bay has been affected by the wildfires in several ways, the active fires remain approximately 150 to 250 kilometers from the city and at the moment we aren’t in danger of being evacuated,” a spokesperson for Thunder Bay, which is a two hour flight from Toronto, told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement.

Unlike the 2025 wildfires in and around Los Angeles that directly impacted Hollywood movie and TV production, the forest fires in Ontario and the ongoing devastation is mostly contained in sparsely-populated northern and southwestern regions of the province. That’s left fire crews to tamp down or attempt to put out destructive wildfires that have destroyed some communities in the province and led to the evacuation of others.

Even so, the distant spread of wildfire smoke has the province urging film crews to limit outdoor filming when air quality is poor. In addition, the Transport Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources departments have asked film and TV productions not to use drones during filmmaking as they may interfere with firefighting aircraft, including water bombers and helicopters.

In Sudbury, which is only an hour flight from Toronto, city officials tell THR forest fires have not impacted filming in the region, and local shoots are under no specific forest fire-related restrictions when cameras roll in the city.  

At the same time, the city adds in a statement sent to THR: “Typically, safety-related decisions of this nature are left to the discretion of the production team. We would recommend that they follow applicable public health guidance regarding air quality.”

Local soundstage and location shooting in Ontario by the major studios and streamers in recent years has become a major business for the province. So no cancellations or major disruption evident from the current spate of wildfires in the province has eased concerns over the long-term recovery of the Ontario production sector after major disruptions from the pandemic and the 2023 Hollywood strikes.

Cecilia Vega, the former 60 Minutes correspondent who was fired in May, is reflecting on her time with the newsmagazine, alleging that she felt pressure to insert political bias into segments that did not make it to air.

In an interview with ABC News’ John Quiñones at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference, Vega alleged that higher-ups requested specific changes to three of her segments from this year that she could did find evidence for, per The New York Times.

“I’ve gone head-to-head with editors for 25 years in this business,” she said at the Thursday conference. “But never in my career, until now, have I felt that those edits, that those suggestions, came from a place of misinformation or politics.”

Per the Times, Vega said executives asked her to add video of protestors attacking citizens whom they thought were Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in a January segment about ICE; she was also asked to add video of a police chief rolling his eyes during a news conference. Vega did not find video of either incidents, she said.

The ex-60 Minutes correspondent also said in a February segment about West Virginia poverty, she was asked to mention Vice President JD Vance, as he’d previously written about poverty in Ohio. “She said the piece was not focused on politicians or political voices,” the Times notes.

The third requested changed, Vega said per the Times, was to include a line saying Iran was outgunned by the United States and Israel in another segment. Vega described it as “an administration talking point.”

The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to CBS News for comment.

Vega previously claimed she had “experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories” in a statement after her firing. “Reporting teams have held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions,” she wrote at the time.

“Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both imposed and self-driven,” Vega added. “It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy.” At the time, a CBS News spokesperson said in response to her statement, “We respect Ms. Vega and her contributions, but her claims are not based in reality.”

Vega was fired from 60 Minutes as part of CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss‘ major overhaul that also saw the dismissal of executive producer Tanya Simon, Scott Pelley and Sharyn Alfonsi. Pelley was fired after an intense meeting with 60 Minutes‘ new EP, Nick Bilton, where he claimed that Weiss is “murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place; she was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.” He also told Bilton that he had “slender qualifications” for the job, and suggested he was not welcome at the flagship newsmagazine.

After the news was announced that he was let go from 60 Minutes, Pelley released a statement where he accused Weiss of “incompetence and unprofessionalism,” and claimed that CBS News management “instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.”

Weiss pushed back against Pelley during a morning call with staff shortly after, arguing that he broke “trust and mutual respect.”

Status newsletter was the first to report on Vega’s remarks at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference.

Alan Ritchson went there.

The Reacher and War Machine action star seemingly blasted President Trump over the Epstein files during an eye-opening f-bomb filled rant on Happy Sad Confused podcast this week.

“I think people are a little bit afraid of me because they’re like, ‘He’s a loose cannon,’ and I’m not,” Ritchson began, a bit ironically. “I’m just saying the shit that everybody should say if they give a shit about humanity. Everybody else should feel like I feel.”

“The world is on fire,” encouraged host Josh Horowitz.

“Yeah, about the way things are and the abuses that are happening — the Epstein files, the fucking Epstein files!” Ritchson continued, angrily but with a smile. “Goddamn it! Where are they? It’s a fucking law, bitch. Show it. You fucking pedophiles! I shouldn’t say ‘fuck’ because I’m a Christian, and people are gonna be like, ‘How can you say fuck?’ Because that is something that should make you want to say ‘fuck.’”

“Sorry, God, I’m sweating now,” he continued. “This is my fucking politics, dude. I would fucking railroad these fuckers. I would get those Epstein files out in two seconds. Fucking move out of the way. I don’t care what room they’re in, bitch move. Give me the fucking manila envelope. I will get you the Epstein files.”

“You got my vote,” Horowitz said. “Whatever you want to run for, you got it.”

“Don’t you want to see what’s in there so that we can hold people accountable?” Ritchson asked. “These fucking rapists. We’re just cool with it. That bitch has the keys to the nuclear codes. He’s like all up into 13-year-olds. Like dude, what? Go to jail.”

The Trump administration has released 3.5 million pages related to the late disgraced Jeffrey Epstein, though whether more files exist remains under scrutiny. Trump was directly mentioned roughly 1,000 times in the files released so far, though references in themselves do not equate to wrongdoing. The Epstein files contain an allegation that Trump sexually assaulted a minor, but the releases do not establish that the allegation was true, and Trump has not been criminally charged or found civilly liable for any Epstein-related abuse. Trump was separately found civilly liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll.

While Ritchson has become one of the hottest action stars in Hollywood and has two major releases coming this year — the action thriller Runner, which is released Sept. 11, and the holiday film The Man With the Bag, co-starring with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Awards have always been a bedrock of our coverage at The Hollywood Reporter. We devote an enormous amount of time, energy and ink to the Oscars, the Emmys and the many other statuettes that crowd the Hollywood calendar each year.

When I first arrived at THR a few years ago, fresh to the trades, I was struck by the money, manpower and near-religious fervor Hollywood devotes to awards. Was this simply another symptom of an industry endlessly fascinated with itself?

I’m no longer so sure.

At a moment of profound uncertainty — for Hollywood and for journalism — recognition from your readers and your peers can mean more than another trophy for the shelf. It can be a sign that the work is connecting, that it matters and that somebody out there is still paying attention.

Over the past few years, we’ve worked to make THR newsier, sharper and more ambitious: breaking the daily news of Hollywood while going deeper on the people and institutions reshaping it. We’ve launched popular newsletters devoted to style and the London entertainment industry, opened our pages to provocative new columnists and brought rigor, wit and urgency to everything from boardroom upheavals to the Taylor Swift nuptials.

The work is paying off. While AI and the collapse of social and search referrals have battered digital media, THR has bucked the trend, posting year-over-year audience growth in six months this year and replacing fleeting traffic from Google, Facebook and Instagram with something far more valuable: readers who seek us out and come to us directly.

Our peers have noticed, too. THR won the Webby People’s Voice Award for best website and an ASME for our “Stuck” cover. And just last month, we enjoyed a record night at the Los Angeles Press Club’s Southern California Journalism Awards, taking home 44 prizes — including 20 first-place honors, more than any other publication.

The honors reflected the remarkable range of the newsroom. Gary Baum was named print journalist of the year, Seth Abramovitch entertainment journalist of the year, David Rooney best film critic and Scott Feinberg best audio host. THR was also named best website, while creative director Ada Guerin took first place for cover art. Our video team won for both its Actresses Roundtable and a feature on the video-store owner defying the streaming era — and, just recently, Off Script With The Hollywood Reporter received a Daytime Emmy nomination.

And we’re not done. New video franchises, a provocative slate of podcasts and newsletters devoted to Canada, AI and music are all coming soon. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the extraordinary staff pictured here: journalists who are curious, experienced, fiercely competitive and, despite everything, still excited by the work. None of this happens without them.

After decades as a journalist, I still think there’s nothing more fun and rewarding than being first on a story, scoring that impossible interview, producing the cover that everyone’s talking about. But posing with 20 first-place prizes at the Biltmore ain’t so bad, either. It’s the kind of fun you can brag about to your mom or (tastefully!) show off in your office. And even a staff full of skeptics will find it hard to be blasé about that.

This story appeared in the July 22 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Bon Jovi abruptly ended their sold out Madison Square Garden concert 90 minutes in Thursday night, as frontman Jon Bon Jovi has been dealing with a sinus infection.

The rocker indicated he was OK and would try to reschedule the show.

“Don’t throw away your ticket stubs I’m going to figure something out, OK? Don’t [fear],” Bon Jovi told the audience, according to People and fan videos from the show. “Just hang onto it, I’m going to figure out how to reschedule.”

“I’m gonna have to cool it for a night,” he added, before exiting the stage, People reported. “I feel great, I’ll see you again soon, bye bye.” He had previously brought out Train singer Pat Monahan to join him on “Livin’ on a Prayer,” which was the last song of the shortened show.

A rep for Bon Jovi said in a statement, “Jon Bon Jovi spoke from stage and told fans he has been battling a sinus infection which led to the show’s early ending. As part of the Bon Jovi residency at Madison Square Garden, Jon has said numerous times that it has been a joy to return to live shows for the band. Updated information will be available shortly.”

Bon Jovi is in the midst of their Forever Tour, which kicked off with a nine-show run at Madison Square Garden. The group is slated to play their final MSG show of the tour on Sunday night before heading to the U.K. and Ireland at the end of August.

The tour, on which the eponymous frontman is joined by original members Tico Torres and David Bryan as well as Hugh McDonald, John Shanks, Phil X and Everett Bradley, is the first for Bon Jovi since the singer had surgery in 2022 to repair a damaged vocal cord, which was documented in the Hulu docuseries Thank You, Goodnight.

Though in 2024 he had expressed some concern about whether his voice was up to the rigor of performing live night after night, before the tour he told People he was “fully recovered.”

“It was longer than I’d ever expected, but it had to be right,” he added of his recovery. “We never lost faith.”

He told People that a doctor had told him the cord was “atrophying.”

Mary Kate Golding, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel set decorator, has died after being found stabbed. She was 34.

Golding was found dead on Tuesday in her apartment in Astoria, Queens, having suffered a stab wound on her back, an NYPD spokesperson told People.

Police were called to her residence after midnight and at roughly 6:39 a.m. they responded to a call of “an unconscious person in the vicinity of Astoria Park South and Shore Boulevard.” That person was Golding’s husband, Joseph Azzaretto, with the police telling People they believe the deaths were a “possible murder-suicide.”

Golding and Azzaretto’s 11-month old son was found at their residence unharmed.

The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to the NYPD for comment.

Golding is credited as the set decorator for the first six season-one episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. According to her Facebook, she graduated from New York University in 2015.

She has worked on a plethora of other television shows, including Gotham (2019); The Undoing (2020); The Flight Attendant (2020); season one of Harlem; the 2021 Marvel series Hawkeye; two 2024 episodes of Mr. and Mrs. Smith; Goosebumps (2025); and the Netflix documentary Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer.

On the film side, she served as a member of the art department on the 2022 rom-com Marry Me, which starred Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson. She is also credited as an assistant set director on Sean Durkin’s forthcoming feature Deep Cuts, starring Drew Starkey and Cailee Spaeny.

Years ago, Azzaretto’s younger brother, Nicholas Azzaretto, shot and killed his father at their Pennsylvania family home when he was 20. He pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in November 2021 and was sentenced to 10 years of probation.

Following much anticipation, Charli XCX is officially back with Music, Fashion, Film, her seventh album overall and her first since her seminal Brat took over the world in 2024.

While she hasn’t technically released a solo album since then, pop’s most trendsetting auteur has been certifiably, emphatically, Not On A Break.

“The second people are getting sick of you, that’s when you have to go even harder,” Kylie Jenner, playing a fictionalized version of herself, told Charli in one of the most-memorable parts of her mockumentary film The Moment, which came out back in January. Whether that was meant to be delivered with sincerity or irony, it certainly carries some level of poignancy of how Charli has operated since Brat summer started.

She released Brat’s deluxe version three days after the original album drop, then the Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat remix album in October. She embarked on two headlining arena tours — the Sweat Tour with Troye Sivan, and her eponymous Brat Tour. She’s had roles in seven different feature films: The Moment, where she starred and produced, as well as 100 Nights of Hero, Sacrifice, Erupcja, I Want Your Sex, The Gallerist and Faces of Death. She also created the soundtrack for Wuthering Heights and co-wrote the soundtrack for the Anne Hathaway-starring Mother Mary with Jack Antonoff.

That exhaustive resume alone certainly puts Charli firmly in contention as one of Hollywood’s hardest working stars, and with Music, Fashion, Film officially here, that’s not stopping any time soon. Charli is ramping up for another extensive tour, with festival headlining dates at Lollapalooza, Outside Lands and Reading and Leeds over the next month, then more arena dates starting in the fall.

“I was really, really ready to peace out and take a break and not make music,” she told Rolling Stone in the magazine’s June cover story. “I felt very creatively drained and not inspired to write anything new. Then suddenly, inspiration came.” 

Charli started the Music, Fashion, Film era seeking to distance herself from the dance floors where Brat held court, declaring that “the dance floor is dead” on the more polarizing lead single “Rock Music.” She followed that with the vibey, synth-y “SS26,” the equally summery, cheekier “Wink Wink,” and most-recent single “Camera,” which featured a music video starring Vincent Cassel.

With Music, Fashion, Film firmly in focus, the next few months present an interesting chapter into how Charli enters her most-anticipated era to date. Brat turned Charli XCX from niche iconoclast to mainstream icon. It’d be tempting to milk that well dry — it’s hard to imagine any artist replicating the moment Charli created with Brat anytime soon — but she’s never been one to dwell too long on the past with her work.

As she told Rolling Stone in June: “I knew when I was making it that I was never going to make that record again. It’s not creatively rewarding for me to make the same thing twice.”