Avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham passed away July 26 at the age of 90, according to the Washington Post. With his Merce Cunningham Dance Company—founded in New York in 1953—Cunningham collaborated with composer John Cage ( with whom he was also romantically involved ) and painters Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol, among others. The father of "site-specific" events, Cunningham was an advocate of film, motion-capture and 3-D software as choreographic tools, the Seattle Times reported.
Gay actor Rupert Everett ( pictured ) has told British media that Michael Jackson is better off dead, according to DailyMail.co.uk. The star of My Best Friend's Wedding said, "I think it was fortuitous that he died. He was supposed to be doing 50 concerts in London. It wouldn't have mattered how good or bad he was." Also, Everett—who had a role in Shrek—told the Daily Mirror, "He was a freak. He looked like a character from Shrek. He was a black to white minstrel." In addition, Everett joked, 'I would have leapt at the chance of sleeping with Michael Jackson when I was 14."
The LGBT film festival Philadelphia QFest 09 ended with a bang as organizers named various award winners. Patrik 1, 5 won the Jury Award for Best Feature while Hannah Free, a movie filmed in Chicago that stars Sharon Gless, took the Audience Award for Best Feature. Among the celebrities present at the festival were Gless, actress Mink Stole and skater Johnny Weir, who stars in Pop Star on Ice ( which won the Audience Award for Best Documentary ) . Also, Training Rules director Dee Mosebacher received the first-ever Barbara Gittings Award.
Actor Terrell Carter, who has starred in several Tyler Perry stage productions, has been was outed after ex-boyfriend Alex Cortez posted photos of the two of them on the Internet, according to Advocate.com . Cortez started posting the pictures on various Web sites, including his MySpace and Twitter accounts, and then writing, "Hell yeah i'm angry!…there are fucked up ppl out there no matter how nice they seem to be & it's their fault, ppl they harm are bitter!"
Angelina Jolie recently spent time at a Veteran's hospital—quietly and without publicity, according to CrazyDaysAndNights.net . Jolie spent time with several patients and left them all gift bags that included a $1,000 gift certificate from Best Buy.
Members of Kansas' notoriously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church picketed outside the American Idol finalists' concert in San Jose, Calif., July 12, targeting singer Adam Lambert, who recently officially came out in Rolling Stone magazine, Examiner.com reported. Fellow finalist Michael Sarver wrote on Twitter, "Funny how people think it's a good idea to mess with a big Texan and his AI [ American Idol ] family. Adam is just fine, shakes it off and so should we."
Speaking of Lambert, Gene Simmons of the band Kiss feels that Lambert made a mistake by coming out of the closet, according to SFGate.com . Simmons told AOL, "He killed his career because now the conversation is not about his talent but about his sexual preference. He's done." Simmons added that he hopes he is "completely wrong" about that conclusion.
