Cynthia Plaster Caster, artist who made penis casts of Jimi Hendrix, Jello Biafra and more, has died

NEW YORK -- Andy Warhol's “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” sold for a cool $195 million on Monday, making the iconic portrait of Marilyn Monroe the most expensive work by a U.S. artist ever sold at auction.The 1964 silkscreen image shows Monroe in vibrant close-up — hair yellow, eyeshadow blue and lips red — on a rich blue background.

Wilson Chapman editorJudith Light and Wilson Cruz were among the many honorees of the New York City GLAAD Media Awards on Friday.Now in its 33rd year, the annual GLAAD Media Awards celebrates television, film, music, comic books and journalism that have represented breakthroughs and advancements in LGBTQ+ representation. The New York ceremony announced the rest of the 30 recipients, after the April 2 ceremony in Los Angeles announced the initial group of honorees.

LOS ANGELES -- NYMV101-103 are time-releasedMaroon 5 and Usher will headline a benefit concert in Atlanta to honor the legacy of the late U.S. Rep.

EXCLUSIVE: Fantastic Beasts franchise star Katherine Waterston is boarding the drama thriller Black Flies opposite 2x Oscar winner Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle EditorWelcome to this week’s “Just for Variety.”Searchlight Pictures’ “Fire Island” doesn’t come out until June, but Matt Rogers, who plays Luke in the queer rom- com, has high hopes that it launches a big gay franchise.Joel Kim Booster and Bowen Yang star as friends who head to the iconic LGBTQ vacation locale ready to have the best summer of their lives. “‘Provincetown’ should be the sequel,” Rogers told me at the premiere of his Showtime show “I Love That for You.” “Let’s do ‘Palm Springs.’ Let’s do ‘Puerto Vallarta.’ This is going to be the ‘Fast & Furious for queers!”Then Rogers, who co-hosts the “Las Culturistas” podcast with Yang, cracks, “I’m the Michelle Rodriguez of the bunch, baby.” As I was the first to report, “Fire Island” will world premiere on June 2 at NewFest Pride in NYC.

Netflix announced today that Joel Kim Booster’s stand-up special Joel Kim Booster: Psychosexual will debut on the streamer on June 21st.

Alex Winter (Bill & Ted Face the Music), Alok Vaid-Menon (Random Acts of Flyness), Andy Allo (Chicago Fire), Désiré Mia, Jennifer Jajeh (Transparent), Juliana Joel (American Gigolo), Julie Ann Emery (Better Call Saul), June Carryl (Y: The Last Man), Junes Zahdi (Counterpart), Laith Ashley (Pose), Mario D’Leon (Power), Nora Armani (The Blacklist: Redemption), Oluniké Adeliyi (The Expanse), Patton Oswalt (I Love My Dad), Reagan Gomez (Queen Sugar) and Shawn Mousavi (Echo 3) will star in the action-drama Absolute Dominion, which Lexi Alexander wrote and is directing for Netflix and Blumhouse Television.

Chad Michael Murray is giving us hope of a “One Tree Hill” revival.

Wilson Chapman editorAfter a three-year hiatus, the Producers Guild of America’s Produced By Conference is returning to Los Angeles this June.First established in 2008, the Produced By Conference is an annual one-weekend event that brings producers from film, television, and other mediums for roundtables, panels and networking events. This year’s Produced By is the first since 2019, after the conference faced several cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Twitter exchange between actress Bethany Anne Lind and Tara Feldstein, the latter a principal at powerful southeastern U.S. company Feldstein|Paris Casting, has ignited a heated discussion on social media, releasing years of pent-up anger and frustration among actors in the region.

Rob Lowe and his brother Chad are sharing the screen!

Wilson Chapman editorHulu has released the first trailer for the new queer rom-com “Fire Island,” starring Joel Kim Booster and “Saturday Night Live” star Bowen Yang.A modern take on the classic Jane Austen novel “Pride and Prejudice,” “Fire Island” focuses on two gay best friends, Noah (Booster) and Howie (Yang), who take a trip to the Pines, a hamlet on New York’s Fire Island that’s a hotspot for queer culture. Over the course of their vacation, they party with friends and develop flirtations with two other, significantly wealthier vacationers, Will (Conrad Ricamora) and Charlie (James Scully).

Guitar Shorty, a blue great for more than six decades known for his stage antics and awesome guitar solos, died Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 87 and his death was attributed to natural causes by his representatives.

EXCLUSIVE: Miki Ishikawa (The Falcon And The Winter Soldier), Sierra McCormick (American Horror Stories) and Nick Sagar (The Princess Switch) have signed on to star in the indie horror-drama, I Don’t Want to Drink Your Blood Anymore, from writer-director Andrew Sullivan (Bokeh).

Cynthia Albritton, better known as "Cynthia Plaster Caster" for the plaster casts she made of rock star private parts, died after what her representatives said was a long illness. She was 74. Although unconventional and a self-described "recovering groupie," Albritton evolved as an artist, expanding from music stars to film directors, eventually adding females.

confirmed by her representative, Variety first reported.The native of Chicago’s South Side launched her plaster-casting career in the Windy City circa 1968 after meeting an unlikely patron: Iconoclastic rocker Frank Zappa found the 20-year-old’s artistic vision funny and creative — although he declined to, uh, sit for her — and helped her relocate to Los Angeles.Although guitar god Jimi Hendrix — she “met him” at the Chicago Hilton and Towers in ’68 — was her first cast, she later expanded her oeuvre to include male filmmakers — and eventually the breasts of female artists such as Peaches, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and many others. (Albritton famously revealed that she found many will assistants who helped prep her subjects for her art.)“I was trying to figure out a way to mold a penis so I thought, ‘Well, let’s get together a kit because that will make it even more absurd and ridiculous — and professional look, and create more laughs,” she said in a 2000 interview.

Cynthia Albritton, better known as “Cynthia Plaster Caster” for the plaster casts she made of rock star private parts, died today after what her representatives said was a long illness. She was 74.