LOS ANGELES:&nbsp;A British-American dealer dubbed the &quot;Ketamine Queen&quot; who sold the drugs that killed &quot;Friends&quot; star Matthew Perry, and boasted she supplied an elite circle of Hollywood VIPs, was jailed for 15 years on Wednesday. Jasveen Sangha, 42, was one of five people charged over the death of the beloved Canadian-American actor, who was found unresponsive in the hot tub of his luxury Los Angeles home in 2023. Sangha, a dual citizen of the United States and Britain, ran a drugs emporium from her swanky apartment in Los Angeles, from where she dished out narcotics to wealthy customers in America&#39;s entertainment capital. &quot;To cultivate her business, (Sangha) marketed herself as an exclusive dealer who catered to high-profile Hollywood clientele,&quot; prosecutors wrote in sentencing papers. &quot;As she told one customer in 2020, &#39;I&#39;m really select with people,&#39; and &#39;it&#39;s a very VIP circle of celebs.&#39;&quot; Sangha worked with a middleman, Erik Fleming, to sell 51 vials of ketamine to Perry&#39;s live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa. Iwamasa repeatedly injected Perry with the ketamine that she had supplied, including on October 28, 2023, when he administered at least three shots of Sangha&#39;s drugs, which killed the actor. When Sangha heard news reports about Perry&#39;s sudden death, she tried to cover her tracks. &quot;Delete all our messages,&quot; she instructed Fleming. Sangha&#39;s actions &quot;show a cold callousness and disregard for life. She chose profits over people, and her actions have caused immense pain to the victims&#39; families and loved ones,&quot; prosecutors wrote. Investigators who raided Sangha&#39;s home in the aftermath of Perry&#39;s death found methamphetamine, ketamine, ecstasy, cocaine, and counterfeit Xanax pills, as well as a money counting machine, a scale, and devices to detect wireless signals and hidden cameras. DoctorsPerry, 54, had openly struggled for decades with addictions, but had appeared to colleagues to be beating his demons when he died. His death set off waves of grief among generations of &quot;Friends&quot; fans and sparked a police probe that uncovered a ring of suppliers and enablers, including medical doctors who were callously profiting from the pain of a man they should have been helping. Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who was admitted to four counts of distribution of ketamine in the weeks before Perry&#39;s death, was ordered to serve 30 months in jail when he was sentenced last year. Another doctor, Mark Chavez, was ordered to be confined at home and told to do hundreds of hours of community service. Plasencia bought ketamine off Chavez and sold it to Perry at hugely inflated prices. &quot;I wonder how much this moron will pay,&quot; Plasencia wrote in one text message. Prosecutors said addict Perry was paying over $2,000 per vial of ketamine; his dealers paid a fraction of that. Iwamasa and Fleming are scheduled to be sentenced later this month. Sangha admitted one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury. Her plea acknowledged that she also sold four vials of ketamine to another man, 33-year-old Cody McLaury, in August 2019. McLaury died hours later from an overdose. &#39;Mostly sober&#39;&nbsp;Perry had been taking ketamine as part of supervised therapy for depression. But prosecutors say that before his death, he became addicted to the substance, which is used as an anesthetic, but also has psychedelic properties and is a popular party drug. &quot;Friends,&quot; which followed the lives of six New Yorkers navigating adulthood, dating, and careers, drew a massive following and made megastars of previously unknown actors. Perry&#39;s role as the sarcastic man-child Chandler brought him fabulous wealth, but hid a dark struggle with addiction to painkillers and alcohol. In 2018, he suffered a drug-related burst colon and underwent multiple surgeries. In his 2022 memoir &quot;Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,&quot; Perry described going through detox dozens of times. &quot;I have mostly been sober since 2001,&quot; he wrote, &quot;save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.&quot;

Film & TV

Prosecutors said addict Perry was paying over $2,000 per vial of ketamine; his dealers paid a fraction of that; prosecutors say Sangha's actions "show a cold callousness and disregard for life." 




'Ketamine Queen' jailed for 15 years over Matthew Perry drugs

WASHINGTON: Actor Eric Dane, best known for his role as a plastic surgeon in the medical series &quot;Grey&#39;s Anatomy&quot; has died at age 53, US media reported Thursday. Last year, Dane announced that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, the neurological disorder also known as Lou Gehrig&#39;s disease. &quot;With heavy hearts, we share that Eric Dane passed on Thursday afternoon following a courageous battle with ALS,&quot; Dane&#39;s family said in a statement cited by CBS and other news outlets. Danes, who was born in San Francisco, made his TV debut in a 1991 episode of the series &quot;Saved by the Bell.&quot; His breakout role in &quot;Grey&#39;s Anatomy&quot; began in 2006, where he played the handsome surgeon Dr. Mark Sloan. He appeared in 139 episodes until 2021. He also featured in the HBO drama, &quot;Euphoria.&quot;

Eric Dane at Comic Con (File/Wikimedia Commons)

Entertainment

Diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) last year, the Grey's Anatomy star passed away after a prolonged battle, family confirmed Thursday.

'Grey's Anatomy' actor Eric Dane dies at 53

LOS ANGELES:&nbsp;Robert Duvall, who played the smooth mafia lawyer in &quot;The Godfather&quot; and stole the show with his depiction of a surfing-crazed colonel in &quot;Apocalypse Now,&quot; has died at the age of 95, his wife said Monday. His death on Sunday was confirmed by his wife, Luciana Duvall. &quot;Yesterday, we said goodbye to my beloved husband, cherished friend, and one of the greatest actors of our time. Bob passed away peacefully at home,&quot; she wrote. Blunt-talking, prolific, and glitz-averse, Duvall won an Oscar for best actor and was nominated six other times. Over his six-decade-long career, he shone in both lead and supporting roles and eventually became a director. He kept acting in his 90s. &quot;To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything,&quot; Luciana Duvall said. &quot;His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court.&quot; Duvall won his Academy Award in 1983 for playing a washed-up country singer in &quot;Tender Mercies.&quot; But his most memorable characters also included the soft-spoken, loyal mob consigliere Tom Hagen in the first two installments of &quot;The Godfather&quot; and the maniacal Lieutenant Colonel William Kilgore in Francis Ford Coppola&#39;s 1979 Vietnam War epic &quot;Apocalypse Now.&quot; &quot;It was an honor to have worked with Robert Duvall,&quot; Oscar winner Al Pacino, who acted alongside Duvall in &quot;The Godfather&quot; films, said in a statement. &quot;He was a born actor, as they say, his connection with it, his understanding, and his phenomenal gift will always be remembered. I will miss him.&quot; As Colonel Kilgore, Duvall earned an Oscar nomination and became a bona fide star after years playing lesser roles, in a performance where he utters what is now one of cinema&#39;s most famous lines. &quot;I love the smell of napalm in the morning,&quot; his war-loving character &mdash; bare-chested, cocky and sporting a big black cowboy hat &mdash; muses as low-flying US warplanes bomb a beachfront tree line where he wants to go surfing. That character was originally created to be even more over the top &mdash; his name was at first supposed to be Colonel Carnage &mdash;&nbsp;but Duvall had it toned down, demonstrating his meticulous approach to acting. &quot;I did my homework,&quot; Duvall told veteran talk show host Larry King in 2015. &quot;I did my research.&quot; Cinema giant Francis Ford Coppola &mdash; who directed Duvall in &quot;Apocalypse Now&quot; and &quot;The Godfather&quot; &mdash;&nbsp;called his loss &quot;a blow.&quot; &quot;Such a great actor and such an essential part of American Zoetrope from its beginning,&quot; Coppola said in a statement on Instagram. A &#39;vast career&#39;&nbsp;Duvall was sort of a late bloomer in Hollywood &mdash;&nbsp;he was already 31 when he delivered his breakout performance as the mysterious recluse Boo Radley in the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee&#39;s novel &quot;To Kill a Mockingbird.&quot; He would go on to play myriad roles &mdash;&nbsp;a bullying corporate executive in &quot;Network&quot; (1976), a Marine officer who treats his family like soldiers in &quot;The Great Santini&quot; (1979), and then his star turn in &quot;Tender Mercies.&quot; Duvall often said his favorite role, however, was one he played in a 1989 TV mini-series &mdash;&nbsp;the grizzled, wisecracking Texas Ranger-turned-cowboy Augustus McCrae in &quot;Lonesome Dove,&quot; based on the novel by Larry McMurtry. British actress Jane Seymour, who worked with Duvall on the 1995 film &quot;The Stars Fell on Henrietta,&quot; took to Instagram to share a heartfelt tribute to the star. &quot;We were able to share in his love of barbecue and even a little tango,&quot; Seymour captioned a photo of herself with Duvall. &quot;Those moments off camera were just as memorable as the work itself.&quot; US actor Alec Baldwin made a short video tribute to Duvall, speaking about the star&#39;s &quot;vast career.&quot; &quot;When he did &#39;To Kill A Mockingbird&#39;, he just destroyed you with his performance of Boo Radley, he used not a single word of dialogue, not a single word, and he just shatters you,&quot; Baldwin said. Film critic Elaine Mancini once described Duvall as &quot;the most technically proficient, the most versatile, and the most convincing actor on the screen in the United States.&quot;

Film critic Elaine Mancini once described Duvall as "the most technically proficient, the most versatile, and the most convincing actor on the screen in the United States."

'Godfather' and 'Apocalypse Now' actor Robert Duvall dead at 95

NEW YORK: A digital character named Tilly Norwood, promoted as Hollywood&rsquo;s first &ldquo;artificial intelligence actor,&rdquo; has ignited a heated debate in the US film industry, with unions and performers denouncing the move as a threat to human creativity. Tilly Norwood was created by Xicoia, a Dutch company that calls itself the world&rsquo;s first artificial intelligence talent studio. The project is spearheaded by producer and comedian Eline Van der Velden, who showcased the AI character last weekend at the Zurich Summit, part of the Zurich Film Festival. She said talent agencies were already expressing interest and hinted at a forthcoming representation deal. But not in a good way. Guilds, actors and filmmakers have met the Xicoia product with an immediate wave of backlash, protesting that artificial intelligence should not have a starring role in the acting profession. In a statement Tuesday, the Screen Actors Guild said that &ldquo;creativity is, and should remain, human-centered.&rdquo; &ldquo;To be clear, &lsquo;Tilly Norwood&rsquo; is not an actor, it&rsquo;s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers &mdash; without permission or compensation,&rdquo; the guild said. &ldquo;It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we&rsquo;ve seen, audiences aren&rsquo;t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience.&rdquo; Van der Velden, founder of the AI production studio Particle6, last weekend promoted Tilly Norwood at the Zurich Summit, the industry sidebar of the Zurich Film Festival. She said then that talent agencies were circling Norwood and that she expected to soon announce a signing. Many in Hollywood, though, hope that never happens. &ldquo;Hope all actors repped by the agent that does this, drop their a...,&rdquo; wrote actor Melissa Barrera (&ldquo;In the Heights,&rdquo; &ldquo;Scream&rdquo;) on social media. &ldquo;How gross, read the room.&rdquo; &ldquo;Any talent agency that engages in this should be boycotted by all guilds,&rdquo; wrote Natasha Lyonne on Instagram. The &ldquo;Russian Doll&rdquo; star is directing a feature titled &ldquo;Uncanny Valley&rdquo; that pledges to use &ldquo;ethical&rdquo; artificial intelligence in combination with traditional filmmaking techniques. &ldquo;Deeply misguided &amp; totally disturbed,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;Not the way. Not the vibe. Not the use.&rdquo; Artificial intelligence is often used as a tool in film production, though its implementation is hotly debated. It was a major bargaining point in the lengthy strike by SAG-AFTRA that concluded in late 2023 with some safeguards put in place to protect the use of actors&#39; likenesses and performances by AI. A yearlong strike by video game actors hinged on AI protections. In July, video game actors approved a new contract that mandates employers obtain written permission to create a digital replica. But there have been numerous controversies over the use of AI in acting. The Oscar-winning 2024 film &ldquo;The Brutalist&rdquo; used artificial intelligence for Hungarian dialogue spoken by Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones&rsquo; characters, the revelation of which prompted debate in the industry. Van der Velden responded to the stir around Tilly Norwood on Instagram. &ldquo;To those who have expressed anger over the creation of my AI character, Tilly Norwood, she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work &mdash; a piece of art,&rdquo; Van der Velden said on Sunday. &ldquo;Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity.&rdquo; Van der Velden didn&#39;t respond to interview requests Tuesday. In her post, she argued that AI characters should be judged as their own genre. &ldquo;Creating Tilly has been, for me, an act of imagination and craftsmanship, not unlike drawing a character, writing a role or shaping a performance,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;It takes time, skill and iteration to bring such a character to life.&rdquo; That statement was also shared on Tilly Norwood&#39;s own Instagram account. Posts include photos of the creation drinking coffee, shopping for clothes and preparing for various projects. As of Tuesday, the account had more than 33,000 followers. &ldquo;Had such a blast filming some screen tests recently,&rdquo; one post reads. &ldquo;Every day feels like a step closer to the big screen.&rdquo;

SAG-AFTRA picketers carry signs outside NBC in Rockefeller Center on July 17, 2023, in New York.

Artificial Intelligence

A digital character named Tilly Norwood, promoted as Hollywood’s first “artificial intelligence actor,” has ignited a heated debate in the U.S. film industry, with unions and performers denouncing the move as a threat to human creativity.

'AI actor' Tilly Norwood stirs outrage in Hollywood

WASHINGTON:US President Donald Trump on Monday renewed his threat of imposing steep tariffs on films made outside the United States, claiming his country&#39;s industry has been &quot;stolen&quot; by others. &nbsp;Trump&#39;s remarks come shortly after he threatened a slew of new tariffs to be imposed this week on branded pharmaceutical products, furniture, as well as heavy trucks respectively.&nbsp;On Monday, Trump returned his focus to the film industry, charging in a Truth Social post that other countries have taken business from the United States, &quot;just like stealing &#39;candy from a baby.&#39;&quot;&nbsp;He criticized California Governor Gavin Newsom as &quot;weak and incompetent,&quot; adding that the state has been heavily impacted.&nbsp;&quot;In order to solve this long time, never ending problem, I will be imposing a 100% Tariff on any and all movies that are made outside of the United States,&quot; Trump wrote.&nbsp;He did not provide further details on his plans, or a timeline for when these tariffs might be enacted.&nbsp;Trump&#39;s latest post echoes a threat he made in May, when he said the US movie industry was &quot;dying a very fast death.&quot;&nbsp;At the time, he said he was authorizing the Department of Commerce and US Trade Representative to start the process of instituting a 100-percent tariff.&nbsp;The implications for the movie industry remain unclear for now.&nbsp;Hollywood is a major sector of the US economy, generating more than 2.3 million jobs and $279 billion in sales in 2022, according to data from the Motion Picture Association.&nbsp;But in the wake of the Hollywood strikes and the Covid pandemic ,which changed how Americans consumed movies, opting to watch at home instead of in theaters, the industry has been struggling to regain momentum, industry insiders have said.&nbsp;Trump&#39;s posts did not mention if television series, an increasingly profitable and popular sector of production, would be impacted.&nbsp;Last Thursday, Trump said he would slap separate tariffs ranging between 25 percent and 100 percent on branded pharmaceutical products, kitchen cabinets, upholstered furniture and heavy trucks.&nbsp;These were to start on Wednesday, he added, with patented pharma products seeing 100-percent duties unless firms were building manufacturing plants in the United States.&nbsp;Trump reiterated his threat on imported furniture, saying North Carolina &quot;has completely lost its furniture business to China, and other Countries.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Trump renewed his threat to impose 100% tariffs on all foreign-made films, claiming other countries have “stolen” the US industry. He offered no timeline, echoing earlier similar threats amid broader tariff plans.

Articles tagged with "Hollywood"

'Ketamine Queen' jailed for 15 years over Matthew Perry drugs

'Grey's Anatomy' actor Eric Dane dies at 53

'Godfather' and 'Apocalypse Now' actor Robert Duvall dead at 95

'AI actor' Tilly Norwood stirs outrage in Hollywood

Trump renews tariff threat on movies made abroad