Oscar-Winning Director Jonathan Demme Dies

Ken Schwartz

Oscar-winning U.S. film director Jonathan Demme, who terrified audiences and also made them laugh, died Wednesday in New York at 73.

His family said Demme suffered from cancer of the esophagus.

Demme may be considered one of the most eclectic directors in Hollywood history — directing rousing comedies, horror, concert films and emotional dramas.

His 1991 thriller Silence of the Lambs featured Anthony Hopkins as a cannibalistic murderer with a terrifying mask who is restrained in a cage.

The film and Demme's close-ups of the criminal haunted audiences and won five Oscars, including one for Demme.

He followed it in 1993 with Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks as a lawyer dying from AIDS. The film is considered to be a landmark in the way gays are portrayed and the seriousness of the AIDS epidemic.

Critics called Demme's 1984 concert film starring the Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense, one of the greatest rock films ever made, using techniques that have set the standard for rock documentaries.

Demme also was heavily involved in the Florida-based charity Americans for Immigrant Justice, and his family has requested that fans honor Demme by making contributions to the fund.

(Photo: Demme at the 2015 Montclair Film Festival. Courtesy of Dan D'Errico / Montclair Film Festival.)

Fans Gather at Prince’s Home One Year After His Death

Fans are marking the anniversary of U.S. musician Prince’s sudden death from an accidental drug overdose with visits to his Paisley Park home, which has been turned into a museum.

The museum is hosting a four-day event that includes concert performances by Prince’s former band-mates and panel discussions.

It was a year ago Friday that the pop legend was found dead at Paisley Park, a recording complex outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Prince lived and created his music.

Fans come to grieve

Fans who came to the complex Friday included Mary Adams, who drove six hours from Kansas City, Missouri, with her 10-year-old daughter.

“I needed to come here. This is where it began. I needed to pay homage to the star,” she said.

Adams said Prince had a profound impact on her life.

“Prince is the person that helped me decide that is was OK to be me, because that’s who he was. And he did it his way, his music, his style,” she added.

Minneapolis landmarks in purple

Fans are also holding a street party Saturday outside First Avenue, the club Prince made famous in Purple Rain, the title track of his breakthrough 1984 album and movie.

Landmarks around Minneapolis are being lighted in purple for two nights in tribute to Prince, while the Minnesota History Center is holding a special exhibit of Prince memorabilia.

The anniversary was supposed to be celebrated by the release of new Prince music. However, a Minnesota district court this week issued a temporary injunction barring the release of the six-song EP Deliverance after Prince’s estate filed a lawsuit claiming the works were stolen by his former sound engineer.

Prince’s commercial legacy continues to be surrounded in controversy. The pop star died without a will or children, and dozens of people came forward after his death, claiming they were heirs.

Musical legacy

Prince died at 57 from an accidental overdose of powerful painkillers he was secretly using to ease the pain of hip surgery.

Prince was 19 when he released his first album, For You, in 1978. In the decades that followed, the multi-talented musician released 1999, Little Red Corvette and Purple Rain.

He sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, won seven Grammys and picked up an Oscar for Best Original Song score for Purple Rain. He was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.

Rhonda Soso said Friday that she came from California to Paisley Park “just to be a part of the purple family, the purple army, just be a part of just his spirit, just his energy.”

“It’s just still so difficult accepting that he’s no longer here,” she added.

(Photo courtesy of Bobak Ha'Eri.)

Kenyan Nobel Laureate Maathai Dies

Kenya's Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, has died. She was 71.

The organization she founded, the Green Belt Movement, said in a statement that Maathai died Sunday at a Nairobi hospital after a long struggle with cancer.

The Nobel Committee awarded her the peace prize in 2004, citing her stand against Kenya's former oppressive government and work to encourage women to improve their lives.

Maathai started the Green Belt Movement in 1977 to help poor women in rural communities meet their basic needs for firewood, food and clean drinking water through a tree-planting program. The effort later grew to include focusing on issues of democracy, human rights, women's rights and peace.

The organization says it has mobilized hundreds of thousands of men and women to plant more than 47 million trees.

Maathai also served as a member of the Kenyan parliament, and as the country's deputy environment minister.

She attended college in the United States during the civil rights era in the 1960s, and said that experience inspired her to return home and do something positive for the people of Kenya.

Maathai was one of the founding members of the Nobel Women's Initiative, joining other female peace prize winners to support women's rights advocacy around the world.

(Photograph of Wangari Maathai by Martin Rowe)