July 10, 1995
Hugh Grant appears on Tonight Show after Hollywood
arrest.
On this day in 1995, Hugh
Grant appears on late-night television’s The Tonight Show less than two
weeks after being arrested with a Hollywood prostitute. The show’s host, Jay
Leno, famously asked the English actor, “What the hell were you thinking?”Grant, who shot to stardom with the 1994 hit British film Four Weddings
and a Funeral, was arrested on June 27, 1995, in a parked car near Sunset
Boulevard with a prostitute named Divine Brown and charged with lewd conduct in
a public place. At the time of his arrest, Grant, then age 34, was already
scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show to promote Nine Months,
his first major Hollywood movie. The actor kept his agreement and went on the
program, speaking publicly about the incident for the first time. “What the
hell were you thinking?” Leno asked him, to which Grant simply responded “I did
a bad thing.” The show garnered huge ratings (enabling Leno to beat his
late-night talk show rival David Letterman) and Grant was praised for
apologizing for his behavior, in contrast to other scandal-plagued celebrities
who went into seclusion or blamed their mistakes on others.
Grant pled no contest to the charges against him, paid a fine and received
probation. Although the arrest surprised many fans of the actor, who was known
for his charm and wit, his career did not seem to suffer in the end and he went
on to star in a number of films, most often romantic comedies, including Notting
Hill (1999), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), About a Boy
(2002), Love Actually (2003) and Music and Lyrics (2007). Though
Grant’s long-term girlfriend, the English model and actress Elizabeth Hurley,
stuck by him during the scandal, the couple announced their separation in 2000
after 13 years together.
July 12, 1990
Northern Exposure airs
its first episode.
The offbeat show, about
a Manhattan doctor contractually forced to work in the fictional of town
Cicely, Alaska for four years to repay a student loan from the
state. Rob Morrow stared as Dr. Joel
Fleischman. Most of Northern Exposure's story arcs are character-driven, with the plots revolving around the
eccentricities of the Cicely citizens. The show consistently ranked in the Top
20 most-watched TV shows until it was canceled in 1995.
July 13, 1985
Live Aid, a massive concert for African famine relief, takes place
simultaneously in Philadelphia and London.
In addition to 162,000 fans that attended the all-day event were 1.5
billion viewers worldwide who watched the show on MTV or other television
stations. An estimated 75 percent of all radio stations around the world
broadcast at least part of the concert.Irish musician Bob
Geldof, of the Boomtown Rats, organized the event. Among the participants were
Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, the Beach Boys, Carlos Santana, Madonna, Sting, and
Tina Turner. Several disbanded groups came together again for the day, including
Crosby, Stills and Nash; The Who; and surviving members of Led Zeppelin,
including Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones. All performers worked
for free, as did many other concert workers. The production, which ordinarily
would have cost $20 million to stage, cost only $4 million and raised more than
$70 million for famine relief.
Despite the number of
acts, the show ran surprisingly smoothly. Rotating stages allowed bands to set
up and dismantle their equipment while other bands were onstage. Acts from one
stadium were telecast across the Atlantic to the other. Such organization,
however, did not characterize the group's later charitable efforts: Live Aid
was later criticized for its disorganized and slow efforts to channel aid to
Africa.
July 10, 1995
Hugh Grant appears on Tonight Show after Hollywood
arrest.
Grant, who shot to stardom with the 1994 hit British film Four Weddings
and a Funeral, was arrested on June 27, 1995, in a parked car near Sunset
Boulevard with a prostitute named Divine Brown and charged with lewd conduct in
a public place. At the time of his arrest, Grant, then age 34, was already
scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show to promote Nine Months,
his first major Hollywood movie. The actor kept his agreement and went on the
program, speaking publicly about the incident for the first time. “What the
hell were you thinking?” Leno asked him, to which Grant simply responded “I did
a bad thing.” The show garnered huge ratings (enabling Leno to beat his
late-night talk show rival David Letterman) and Grant was praised for
apologizing for his behavior, in contrast to other scandal-plagued celebrities
who went into seclusion or blamed their mistakes on others.
Grant pled no contest to the charges against him, paid a fine and received
probation. Although the arrest surprised many fans of the actor, who was known
for his charm and wit, his career did not seem to suffer in the end and he went
on to star in a number of films, most often romantic comedies, including Notting
Hill (1999), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), About a Boy
(2002), Love Actually (2003) and Music and Lyrics (2007). Though
Grant’s long-term girlfriend, the English model and actress Elizabeth Hurley,
stuck by him during the scandal, the couple announced their separation in 2000
after 13 years together.
July 12, 1990
Northern Exposure airs its first episode.
The offbeat show, about a Manhattan doctor contractually forced to work in the fictional of town Cicely, Alaska for four years to repay a student loan from the state. Rob Morrow stared as Dr. Joel Fleischman. Most of Northern Exposure's story arcs are character-driven, with the plots revolving around the eccentricities of the Cicely citizens. The show consistently ranked in the Top 20 most-watched TV shows until it was canceled in 1995.July 13, 1985
Live Aid, a massive concert for African famine relief, takes place simultaneously in Philadelphia and London.
Irish musician Bob
Geldof, of the Boomtown Rats, organized the event. Among the participants were
Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, the Beach Boys, Carlos Santana, Madonna, Sting, and
Tina Turner. Several disbanded groups came together again for the day, including
Crosby, Stills and Nash; The Who; and surviving members of Led Zeppelin,
including Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones. All performers worked
for free, as did many other concert workers. The production, which ordinarily
would have cost $20 million to stage, cost only $4 million and raised more than
$70 million for famine relief.
Despite the number of
acts, the show ran surprisingly smoothly. Rotating stages allowed bands to set
up and dismantle their equipment while other bands were onstage. Acts from one
stadium were telecast across the Atlantic to the other. Such organization,
however, did not characterize the group's later charitable efforts: Live Aid
was later criticized for its disorganized and slow efforts to channel aid to
Africa.
Tony Figueroa
