Sarah Doole Dies: Respected British Exec & Former Fremantle Global Drama Boss Was 63

Anne Whitfield, who appeared at age 15 in the 1954 Hollywood Christmas chestnut White Christmas and went on to a prolific career in episodic TV throughout the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, died February 15 at a hospital in Yakima, Washington. She was 85.

Dave Myers, one of half of the Hairy Bikers TV presenting duo, has died aged 66. He has passed away two years after revealing a cancer diagnosis.

E. Duke Vincent, a naval aviator and novelist who also, with partner Aaron Spelling, produced some of the most popular shows in television history, died on February 10 in Montecito. That, according to his wife, actress Pamela Hensley. He was 91.

Lynda Gravátt, a mainstay of the New York stage, a seminal figure in the Washington D.C. theater community and a familiar presence on television through appearances in the Law & Order franchise shows, The Good Wife and the 1999 Showtime series The Hoop Life, died February 23 at a hospital in New Jersey. She was 77.

EXCLUSIVE: Sebastian Roché (1923) is making his K-drama debut in Netflix‘s Queen of Tears premiering March 9. He will portray Dr. Braun, a German doctor who has an interesting relationship with the two leads.

Kit Harington is heading back to the stage for the West End production of Broadway hit Slave Play!

Todd Longwell Charles D. King has an impressive list of accomplishments, including an Oscar nomination for best picture for his 2021 feature “Judas and the Black Messiah.” But his proudest moment came when he told his young sons that he was quitting WME, where he was the first Black partner, to launch Macro, a multi-platform media company amplifying the voices and perspectives of people of color. “They said to me, ‘Dad is going to be a boss!’ and started jumping up and down on their bed,” recalls King.

Paul D’Amato, the actor who played the gloriously vicious Tim “Dr. Hook” McCracken opposite Paul Newman in Slap Shot, has died, according to the Pittsburgh Film Office. He was 76.

BBC drama boss Lindsay Salt has candidly floated the notion that the industry has moved from “peak TV to peak caution,” as she details an ambition to “help reshape the drama landscape at a critical time.”

Apple TV's new prestige drama series The New Look features a soundtrack that's assembled and produced by Jack Antonoff, the in-demand pop savant who just won at the 2024 Grammys for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical (his third Grammy in that category and 10th overall). The soundtrack collects covers of classic songbook standards from modern pop giants, and today's track comes from Perfume Genius, the singer-songwriter born Mike Hadreas.

Robin Windsor, a popular former professional on the BBC‘s Strictly Come Dancing, has died. He was 44.

Rita McKenzie, known for staging the longest-running one-woman show in theatrical history, died Feb. 17 in Los Angeles days before her 77th birthday. She succumbed to what her family described as a long-term illness.

Meghan Markle's former Suits co-star has revealed there was a 'foul' stench at the Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry's wedding at Windsor Castle almost six years ago. 53-year-old actor Rick Hoffman has opened up on his viral expression after he was caught on camera with what he described as an 'awful face' reports the Mirror.

Chris Petrikin, a former Paramount, Fox and William Morris Agency communications executive, has joined consulting firm Actum LLC as a managing director.

A drama series inspired by the music of Grammy winner Usher about Black love in Atlanta is in development at UCP.

UPDATED: The companywide layoffs at Paramount Global on Tuesday impacted about 20 employees at CBS News, including correspondents Catherine Herridge and Jeff Pegues, several sources said.

Bob Edwards, a Peabody-winning National Radio Hall of Famer who anchored NPR’s Morning Edition for nearly a quarter-century before moving to satellite radio, died Saturday. He was 76. National Public Radio announced his death but did not provide details.

Tyler Perry is adding to his collection of first-look deals.

Angus Finney As the film industry braces for a colder-than-normal Berlinale, the indie sector faces a rising level of pain points, now exacerbated by leaner and meaner commercial terms on offer from territorial and domestic distributors for indie titles. Pre-pandemic overproduction, problems with minimum-guarantee payments (commonly referred to by the acronym MG), delays in payments, a decline in theatrical box office and even the deleterious effects of tastemakers ceding control to algorithms give international sellers headed to the European Film Market headaches — despite some giddy deals struck at Sundance. “It’s a complete shitstorm,” states a leading global financier of indie content. “Buyers have been trying to get out of paying the industry’s long-standing minimum-guarantee precedent of a 20% deposit, offering 10% and, in some cases, even zero.

EXCLUSIVE: Andrea Bang (Kim’s Convenience) will exec produce and topline Surrender, an indie drama marking the first feature from writer-director Jess Dang, which has entered production in Los Angeles. Co-starring Gilmore Girls‘s Keiko Agena, the film is one of ten in the fiction space to have recently been selected for fiscal sponsorship through Film Independent’s Fast Track Fellowship Program.