However, the Ava DuVernay-directed "When They See Us," in which Huffman stars as a prosecutor, will still be released May 31 on Netflix.
The Department of Justice revealed on Monday that Huffman was one of the 11 defendants, who was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, and have agreed to plead guilty pursuant to plea agreements.
"I am in full acceptance of my guilt, and with deep regret and shame over what I have done, I accept full responsibility for my actions and will accept the consequences that stem from those actions," Huffman said in a statement Monday.
She continued, "I am ashamed of the pain I have caused my daughter, my family, my friends, my colleagues and the educational community. I want to apologize to them and, especially, I want to apologize to the students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices to support their children and do so honestly."
The Associated Press and Fox News' Mariah Haas and Sasha Savitsky contributed to this report.
Turner Classic Movies, the last cable channel launched by Ted Turner as an independent media mogul, is hitting its silver on-air anniversary this month. But the TCM brand is well positioned to enter a golden age as the tide turns in the marketplace for cable TV channels.
TCM has spent 25 years building up a community of film fanatics who love the channel itself, not just the movies it screens. The Turner Classic Movies seal of approval draws thousands of attendees annually to the TCM Classic Film Festival, which kicks off its 10th edition in Los Angeles this week, and to TCM-branded screenings in theaters around the country.
Since 2011, TCM has offered film-focused cruises in partnership with Disney and other luxury ship operators. Three years ago, it launched an official fan club — the Backlot — that now has 34 chapters, creating a grassroots network for local promotions such as the “TCM in Your Hometown” contest events.
The channel’s vibrant profile and dominance of the classic movie category makes it a must-have in a skinny-bundle world. That parent company WarnerMedia owns most (but not all) of the titles that unspool on the channel is fuel for the conglom’s plans to launch a broad-based streaming platform.
“TCM is a brand, not just a TV network,” says Jennifer Dorian, exec VP and general manager of TCM. “Much of our future growth will come from fan engagement initiatives.”
TCM’s 25th birthday arrives April 14, just a month after the Atlanta-based operation made a significant shift amid a broader shake-up of AT&T’s management of WarnerMedia properties. Oversight of TCM has shifted from Turner, which has largely been dismantled, to Warner Bros. For TCM, a closer alignment with the Warner Bros. shield that graces so many of its movies is a natural fit. After all, Warners is home to TCM’s most-screened movie to date — 1942’s “Casablanca” — with 150 runs and counting.
“We’re really energized by the new structure,” Dorian says. “Being in the Warner Bros. fold will put us closer to the movies and to creative ideas. There are new opportunities for fans, for consumer products that will really add to our business.”
TCM has a gold-plated brand because it was designed to appeal to movie devotees rather than a mass audience. The decision was made early on to keep it commercial-free, and the mantra of “no edits and no interruptions” has held firm through successive regimes at Turner, and now Warner Bros.
“Context and curation is what we’re known for,” says Charlie Tabesh, senior VP of programming for Turner Classic Movies. “We’ve never programmed the channel with ratings in mind. If we did, we wouldn’t be playing silent films or 1930s black-and-white movies.”
The decision to keep TCM commercial-free had financial consequences, but the executive team that developed the channel — authorized by a vote of Turner Broadcasting System’s board of directors on June 4, 1993 — knew it would be more valuable in the long run to cater to its core audience. Cable operators agreed. It didn’t hurt in the push to launch TCM that Turner at the time counted Time Warner Cable, Comcast and John Malone’s Tele-Communications Inc. among its sizable equity investors. (Time Warner swallowed up all of Turner in September 1996.)
CREDIT: Courtesy of TCM
A movie channel for Turner was a no-brainer given founder Ted Turner’s prescient move in the mid-1980s to acquire the pre-1948 MGM library, the early RKO library and broad rights to Warner Bros.’ golden age films. With that vault, the Turner team knew it would not be hard to best the primary competition, Cablevision’s American Movie Classics.
“This was not going to be a channel to celebrate old Hollywood,” says Brad Siegel, who headed Turner’s entertainment arm at the time TCM was conceived. “We wanted it to be something completely unique, like a magazine that was a smart read for people who love film.” TCM from the get-go has also shelled out to license movies from other studios and sources. “We wanted to lay claim to offering the best mix of classic movies — with a definition of ‘classic’ as something that was really good, not by a chronological time period,” Siegel says. “To do that we had to have more than just the movies we owned.”
Robert Osborne was Siegel’s first choice to be the face of TCM as its principal host. Siegel had tried to hire Osborne a few years before when Siegel was working at AMC, but his recruiting effort was blocked by a management turf war. Osborne, a former actor turned columnist and Hollywood historian, set the perfect tone for TCM. He remained with the channel until he retired in 2016, the year before he died, at age 84.
“We put together a team of people who lived, ate and breathed classic movies,” Siegel says. “Robert was a definitive expert on classic movies.”
Osborne and Ted Turner did the honors in Times Square when the network held its launch event, complete with an oversize switch to pull when the channel went live at 7:10 p.m. ET. The April 14, 1994, date was timed to sync with the 100th anniversary of the first commercial exhibition of a motion picture in the U.S. — a nickelodeon theater in Times Square playing a Thomas Edison-produced Kinetoscope production.
Osborne launched the channel with a three-minute introduction, explaining TCM’s mission to present “the finest films ever made, 24 hours a day.” A nine-minute Chuck Workman documentary titled “100 Years at the Movies” played, followed by “Gone With the Wind.”
Writer-producer Ben Mankiewicz was only the second person to serve as TCM host when he signed on with the channel in 2003. He’s now the main primetime host, although he shares duties with Dave Karger and Alicia Malone. Mankiewicz credits Osborne’s style — a mix of scholarly knowledge and a fan’s enthusiasm for obscure gems and long-forgotten shorts — for allowing TCM to establish a “meaningful connection” with viewers.
“Context and curation is what we’re known for. We’ve never programmed the channel with ratings in mind. If we did, we wouldn’t be playing silent films or 1930s black-and-white movies.” Charlie Tabesh
“It’s the only fan-driven network like this on television,” says Mankiewicz, who brings a Hollywood pedigree as part of the Mankiewicz clan of writers. (His grandfather, Herman Mankiewicz, wrote “Citizen Kane.”) “It is so satisfying to be part of that connection,” Mankiewicz says. “I’ve had discussions with some of the biggest artists in this business, who tell me that the channel is always on somewhere in their house.”
The TCM vault is stocked with so many thousands of titles and obscurities that even 25 years later, “detective work” is still required to keep on top of everything there is to offer, according to Tabesh. To wit, eight 1930s titles from the RKO days recently surfaced that have never played on the channel. To Tabesh, that’s a big score.
“Even when you think you’ve gone through everything, you start finding things,” he says.
One of the biggest challenges in recent years has been grappling with the march of time and changing cultural attitudes and social norms. There are plenty of films with material that is viewed through a contemporary lens as at worst offensive or unenlightened. Notable examples are the depiction of slavery in “Gone With the Wind” and the use of blackface in films of the 1920s and ’30s.
TCM has sought to tackle some of these issues with its original documentary series and themed programming initiatives such as the “Race and Hollywood” series presented by African-American film historian Donald Bogle. As a mirror of the times in which they were made, movies offer a kind of road map to how attitudes evolve.
D.W. Griffith’s 1915 epic “The Birth of a Nation” is a landmark film, but it presents a horrifyingly racist view of African-American life in the post-Civil War era. TCM runs “The Birth of a Nation” and movies with similar backgrounds, but only with appropriate introduction, context and, when necessary, warnings to viewers.
“We don’t want to deny history. We don’t want to pretend that certain movies were never made,” Tabesh says. “We want to educate.”
Mankiewicz says considerations about how to handle problematic material, particularly in important works like “Gone With the Wind,” are part and parcel of the mandate to help audiences’ frame their viewing experience.
“We care about putting these movies in the context of their times. We tell you that this would never get made in 2019,” Mankiewicz says. “This is when the job is most challenging and most exciting.”
The couple is among the slew of parents who have been offered plea deals in the case, sources told TMZ.
Prosecutors gave the allegedly crooked parents the same ultimatum — take a deal or potentially face extra charges, like money laundering, from a federal grand jury.
The plea-deal sentences are determined, in part, by the amount of bribes paid and acceptance of responsibility — and prosecutors are said to only be accepting pleas that call for prison time.
Loughlin, the former star of “Full House,” and Giannulli are accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to get their decidedly unathletic daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose, into the University of Southern California as rowing recruits.
Giannulli and Loughlin following their April 3 court appearance in BostonBoston Globe via Getty Images
The amount of bribes they allegedly paid raises the couple’s minimum sentence to two to two and a half years behind bars.
“Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman — who was charged with paying a college fixer at least $15,000 to fudge the answers on her daughter’s SAT test — announced Monday that she would plead guilty to charges and apologized for her role in the scheme.
Huffman could serve as little as four months in jail, TMZ said.
"USC determined which applicants in the current admissions cycle are connected to the alleged scheme and they will be denied admission. A case-by-case review of current students who may be connected to the alleged scheme is also underway. We will make informed decisions about those cases as the reviews are completed," the college wrote on its website.
“USC has placed holds on the accounts of students who may be associated with the alleged admissions scheme," the statement continued. "This prevents the students from registering for classes (until they have agreed to participate in the review of their case), withdrawing from the university, or acquiring transcripts while their cases are under review.”
USC would not go into specific cases publicly, pointedly noting, "USC, like other universities around the country, follows a federal law regarding the privacy of student records called the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, often referred to as FERPA. According to FERPA, personally identifiable information in an education record may not be released without prior written consent from the student."
Loughlin, 54, and Giannulli, 55, were arrested last month for their allegedly bribing their daughters' ways into USC for $500,000 each. The "Fuller House" actress and the fashion designer reportedly paid William "Rick" Singer to get daughters Isabella and YouTube star Olivia Jade recruited to the USC crew team despite neither girl being a rower.
In terms of college athletics bribes, USC writes, "An internal investigation is continuing, including a thorough review of the student-athlete admissions process; we are continuing to update our procedures related to admissions review of student-athletes."
He was joined by Lukas Graham, lovelytheband, Cynthia Erivo, Ben Harper, Julia Michaels and Chris Isaak as the all-star duet partners. And we got some of the best duets of the season out of them.
Lukas really worked hard with his partners, helping to bring out new sides and new levels of confidence from both Eddie Island and Dimitrius Graham. But it was Cynthia Erivo who created the night's most magical moment.
Bobby proved a capable emcee, though he was surprisingly stiff and uncomfortable for a guy who does radio for a living. Maybe it was the teleprompter when he's used to just speaking from the heart, but it gave a sense of how talented Ryan is at doing what he does to shepherd this show forward.
Just like Sunday night, three acts got cut by the end of the show, including one who felt like they had the potential to really go far in this competition. And by the time the dust settled, the Top 14 stood revealed and ready to face America's vote next week.
Fair warning, since I'm safe at home, I'm probably going to be a little harsher than my colleagues Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan.
Just for giggles, I'm going to rank the performances from worst to first to see who emerges as my Top 7 for the night. Then we'll see if the judges agreed i.e., got it right).
Raquel Trinidad (f/ lovelytheband)
"Tiny Dancer," Elton John
That was kind of a mess. Raquel was all over the place and while runs can be good and fun in the right places, it created even more of a disconnect between her and Mitchy Collins. A partnership should be about creating art together, and Raquel was all about showing off what Raquel can do vocally. But even that isn't as impressive as several of the other contestants. She missed the connect with the song, with her partner and with the audience. It just didn't work at all.
Eddie Island (f/ Lukas Graham)
"7 Years," Lukas Graham
Eddie tried to rein in the goofy and he did so vocally, but his physical antics still betrayed his lighter side, which was a bit of a disconnect from the lyric. It does seem like he's masking some of his own pain through that silly persona and he needs to gain the confidence to really let it down as an artist if he really wants to draw people in and be vulnerable. If he doesn't, well there are plenty of artists who keep the party lit but it might not win a show like this. Vocally, he was stronger than anticipated and a pleasant surprise.
Logan Johnson (f/ Julia Michaels)
"What a Time," Julia Michaels (f/ Niall Horan)
He was better than anticipated but his voice was perhaps still a little too soft and timid. He also didn't quite switch the tone as the song went from wistful to more angry. Julia took the lead and she was a stellar partner for him, but this definitely shined a spotlight on her more than Logan. He's a talented singer but it might just be a little early for him in his development as an artist. He needs to find his voice and his meaning behind who he is a little.
Evelyn Cormier (f/ Chris Isaak)
"Wicked Game," Chris Isaak
Evelyn sang this during her initial audition and really stood out on it, so now she's got to stand out beside the distinctive voice that wrote it. Unfortunately for Evelyn, this became a showcase for how incredible Chris still sounds on this track after all these years. She brought nothing new to it we didn't see the first time around and really missed an opportunity to find a place or way to shine. It's difficult because there were no surprises as we've already seen her do this. She has a nice quality to her voice, but was this too forgettable?
Ryan Hammond (f/ Cynthia Erivo)
"Hold On I'm Comin'," Sam & Dave
This was a bit of an odd choice for Ryan, but he really worked it out by the end. He actually seemed a bit hesitant the first time he had a big note but he was wailing by Cynthia's side come the close of the number. Ryan still has one of the biggest and strongest voices in the competition, but he's not always sure what to do with it. He's like a natural athlete with no training at all sometimes. All the tools are there, but he's still not always sure where to direct them. He just needs to settle into the groove of what he's doing and feel it inside and out.
Alyssa Raghu (f/ Julia Michaels)
"Issues," Julia Micheals
Julia picked up on the fact that Alyssa is still a bit too much of a head singer rather than a heart singer. And it was still a little bit too clinical. Julia was feeling her way through the performance, while Alyssa was technically flawless in hitting every note on point and even enunciating carefully. She was also following Julia's lead in stage performance. It made Alyssa look very young ... extremely talented but young. She'll probably get there in time as all she needs to add is connection.
Alejandro Aranda (f/ Ben Harper)
"There Will Be A Light," Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama
Alejandro doesn't need to show off at this point as we know how great he is, so this was basically a vanity duet with one of his own personal idols. It was a gentle and subtle song and performance with the pair complementing one another's vocals flawlessly. If we didn't know who Alejandro was as an artist, this would have been a huge risk, but instead it simply solidifies that we need him on this show as it moves forward. He was able to do so much with so very little.
Wade Cota (f/ lovelytheband)
"Broken," lovelytheband
Wade was getting into this performance and you could really feeling him connecting with the lyrics. It's a sign of someone who's learning how to channel his emotional experiences in life through his performances and it really elevates that artistry to the next level. Wade continues to have one of the most exciting voices in the competition, and while he was very different than his duet partner, they paired off well. The song didn't offer him the opportunity to really shine vocally but he brought it in every other way.
Dimitrius Graham (f/ Lukas Graham)
"Love Someone," Lukas Graham
The Grahams really brought the house down with the most heartfelt and connected duet probably across both nights. Lukas helped Dimitrius channel his own emotions through the lyrics and finally Dimitrius is living up to that potential he's shown since his first audition. There's something really special about his voice and his story and the strength it's given him, but he's been needing to put all the piece together. It came together beautifully just now.
Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon (f/ Cynthia Erivo)
"Time After Time," Cyndi Lauper
Now this was stunningly beautiful harmonies and a perfectly partnered duet. Cynthia and Jeremiah's voices complemented one another perfectly, they shared the burden of the lyrics and most importantly, we absolutely believed every word of their heartfelt performance. Plus, you could see the mutual admiration of two artists who love what the other is doing being in awe of sharing such a special moment.
RESULTS
Last night, the judges seemed to make a strategic decision to keep more female voices in the competition and it might happen again. Eddie Island and Raquel Trinidad genuinely feel like they've reached the end of their time, but we'd send Evelyn Cormier off with them.
The judges, however, love her. Last night, we had Logan Johnson joining Eddie and Raquel in our bottom three, but he stepped up and showed some real potential tonight. But we could see the judges giving him the boot anyway.
As they did Sunday night, the judges dragged things out by sending people through into the Top 14, leaving three finalists standing at the end and realizing that the journey ends for them.
Katy kicked things off by sending Evelyn through (which bodes poorly for Logan if our math adds up). She was joined by Dimitrius, Jeremiah, Alyssa and Wade, who couldn't believe it. He still doesn't know how special he is.
Finally, Eddie Island got the nod from Luke, which shocked him and everyone else. Alejandro Aranda was a no-brainer, so it just means that all the potential Ryan Hammond has as a voice just never connected properly. And yes, Raquel Trinidad and Logan Johnson were out the door as well.
Oh, and apparently that big surprise that Ryan Seacrest teased at the close of Sunday's show was his own sick day. That's a bit of a letdown, guy. We were hoping for a new twist!
"American Idol" airs Sundays and Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
Got a story or a tip for us? Email TooFab editors at tips@toofab.com.
Last month, Emilia Clarke revealed that she'd experienced several life-threatening brain aneurysms that started after the first season of Game of Thrones wrapped.
In an essay for the New Yorker, Emilia explained that she'd been rushed into urgent surgery in 2011 after being diagnosed with a subarachnoid haemorrhage — a stroke that one-third of patients can die from.
PA
She wrote: "I’d never experienced fear like that — a sense of doom closing in. I could see my life ahead, and it wasn’t worth living. I am an actor; I need to remember my lines. Now I couldn’t recall my name. In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug. I asked the medical staff to let me die. My job—my entire dream of what my life would be—centered on language, on communication. Without that, I was lost.”
Emilia went on to write that when she returned to work six weeks later, she thought she was about to die "every minute of every day."
HBO
She wrote: "I told my bosses at Thrones about my condition, but I didn’t want it to be a subject of public discussion and dissection. The show must go on! Season two would be my worst. I didn’t know what Daenerys was doing. If I am truly being honest, every minute of every day I thought I was going to die."
Well, during an appearance on CBS This Morning on Sunday, Emilia opened up further about her experiences and shared never seen before photos from her hospitalisation.
The images were taken during Emilia's recovery from her first brain aneurysm in 2011.
And during the interview, Emilia spoke in more detail about the aneurysm which happened while she was at the gym.
CBS
She said: "Basically, I was in the gym, the most excruciating pain, like an elastic band just went, like, snap in my head. I felt an enormous amount of pressure suddenly, and then very, very, very quickly I realised I couldn't stand and I couldn't walk, and in that moment I knew I was being brain damaged."
Emilia went on to reveal that she endured a second aneurysm two years later, and this one was life-threatening.
CBS
She said: "With the second one, there was a bit of my brain that actually died. If part of your brain doesn't get blood to it for a minute, it will just no longer work. It's like you short circuit. So I had that. There was a deep paranoia. I was like, 'What if something has short-circuited in my brain and I can't act anymore?' I mean, literally it's been my reason for living for a very long time."
Emily also spoke about the toll the aneurysms took on her mental wellbeing, but added that returning to work ultimately "saved" her from thinking about her own mortality.
HBO
Emilia said: "You go on the set, and you play a badass character, and you walk through fire and you speak to hundreds of people, and you're being asked to work as hard as you possibly can. And that became the thing that just saved me from considering my own mortality."
Lori Loughlin and HubbyFace 2 Years Minimum Prison Sentence.... If They Cop a Plea
4/9/2019 1:00 AM PDT
EXCLUSIVE
Lori Loughlin and her husband are in a way worse position than Felicity Huffman ... because the huge amount they allegedly paid in bribes to get their daughters into USC could land them in prison for 2 YEARSMINIMUM ... TMZ has learned.
Sources connected to the case tell us ... all of the parents in the college cheating scandal have been offered plea deals, but prosecutors will only accept pleas with prison time attached.
As we reported, Felicity copped a plea Monday, along with 12 other parents. The remaining 37 individuals charged -- including Lori and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli -- have been offered plea deals, with varying recommendations for prison sentences, largely determined by the amount they paid in bribes and whether they accept responsibility for what they did.
Felicity's plea would enable her to serve as little as 4 months in prison. The problem for Lori and Mossimo is that they paid $500,000 to allegedly bribe the crew coach, and the amount raises the MINIMUM PRISON SENTENCE IN A PLEA DEAL TO A RANGE OF 2 TO 2 1/2 YEARS.
Our sources say prosecutors have given all defendants an ultimatum ... reach a plea deal QUICKLY or else they will go to a Federal Grand Jury and add charges, including money laundering, which significantly raises the low end of prison time.
