Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 6, 2021, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE C2 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMC2 Wednesday, October 6, 2021 ALAN Kalter, the ginger-haired an- nouncer and crooked straight man who served as David Letterman’s sidekick for two decades on CBS’ Late Show, has died. He was 78. His wife, Peggy, confirmed his Monday death at Stamford Hospital in Connecticut to theHollywood Reporter. A cause of death was not given. Kalter took over as Late Show an- nouncer in September 1995 after Bill Wendell’s retirement and was there until May 20, 2015, Letterman’s final show. He not only announced the guests and the host but also acted in sketches and delivered a comic one- liner after every show as the logo for production company World Wide Pants flashed across the screen. “When our announcer of 15 years Bill Wendell retired, producer Robert Morton came to my office with an audio tape containing auditions for several announcers,” Letterman told theNew York Daily News in an email. “Alan’s was the first and only voice we listened to. We knew he would be our choice.” His comic bits on Letterman includ- ed Alan Kalter’s Celebrity Interview, a show-within-a-show that resulted in some hilariously awkward moments. Letterman nicknamed his sidekick with monikers such as “Big Red” or “TV’s Uncle Jerry,” amplifying the comic effect. Former colleagues paid tribute to the announcer and comic under the Twit- ter hashtag “RIPAlanKalter” as the news spread, with a favourite bit being that time he went off on his boss with a squirming Sarah Jessica Parker by his side as Kalter launched an expletive- laced takedown. In a riff aboutDancing With the Stars, Kalter spun literal comedic gold, swathed in lame and twirling madly in a faux failed bid to appear on the show. “RIP Alan Kalter,” tweeted Letter- man Show writer Bill Scheft along with a clip of one of Kalter’s bits on Letter- man. “A lovely man, and as my old boss might say, a ‘perfect stooge….’ “ “Whatever else, we always had the best announcer in television,” said Let- terman, who now hostsMy Next Guest Needs No Introduction on Netflix. “Did I mention he could sing? Yes, he could. He enthusiastically did it all. A very sad day, but many great memories.” —New York Daily New ARTS● LIFE I ENTERTAINMENT Wemake chutneys, masalas, seasonings & have online cooking classes getcheekyfoods.com getcheekyfoods Quick and easy, devilishly delicious, flavourful and fragrant— you will never have another omelet again. Prep time: 10 min I Cook time: 10 min I Cuisine: Indian I Servings: 2-3 Ingredients: 4 eggs | 1 green chili (minced) | 1 tbsp cilantro (minced) | 2 tbsp onion (minced) | 1/2 tbsp cheeky chana masala | 1/4 cup chopped spinach (optional) | 1 tsp salt instructions: 1.Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and whisk for 1 minute 2.Warm up 2-3 tbsp oil on a large pan in medium heat 3. Once the oil is warm, gently pour the mix into the pan - it should make a sizzling sound 4. Turn the heat between medium and simmer - cover with lid for 2-3 minutes 5. Flip when the omelet looks ready, cover with lid for 1-2 minutes 6.Make sure both sides are light golden brown cheekymasala omelet The Soyuz-2.1a rocket booster with Soyuz MS-19 space ship blasts off from Kazakhstan Tuesday carrying actor Yulia Peresild, film director Klim Shipenko and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov to the International Space Station to make a feature film in orbit. M OSCOW—ARussianactor and a film directorrocketed to space Tuesday on amission tomake theworld’s first movie in orbit, a project the Kremlin saidwill help burnish the nation’s space glory. Actor Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko blasted off for the In- ternational Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft together with cos- monaut Anton Shkaplerov, a veteran of three space missions. Their Soyuz MS- 19 lifted off as scheduled at 3:55 a.m. from the Russian space launch facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan and arrived at the station after about 3 1/2 hours. Shkaplerov took manual controls to smoothly dock the spacecraft at the space outpost after a glitch in an auto- matic docking system. The trio reported they were feel- ing fine and spacecraft systems were functioning normally. Peresild and Klimenko are to film segments of a new movie titled Chal- lenge, in which a surgeon played by Peresild rushes to the space station to save a crew member who needs an urgent operation in orbit. After 12 days on the space outpost, they are set to return to Earth with another Russian cosmonaut. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the mission will help showcase Russia’s space prowess. “We have been pioneers in space and maintained a confident position,” Peskov said. “Such missions that help advertise our achievements and space exploration in general are great for the country.” Speaking at a pre-flight news confer- ence Monday, 37-year-old Peresild ac- knowledged that it was challenging for her to adapt to the strict discipline and rigorous demands during the training. “It was psychologically, physically and morally hard,” she said. “But I think that once we achieve the goal, all that will seem not so difficult and we will remember it with a smile.” Shipenko, 38, who has made several commercially successful movies, also described their fast-track, four-month preparation for the flight as tough. “Of course, we couldn’t make many things at the first try, and sometimes even at a third attempt, but it’s nor- mal,” he said. Shipenko, who will complete the shooting on Earth after filming the movie’s space episodes, said Shkaple- rov and two other Russian cosmonauts now on board the station — Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov — will all play parts in the new movie. Russia’s state-controlled Channel One television, which is involved in making the movie, has extensively cov- ered the crew training and the launch. “I’m in shock. I still can’t imagine that my mom is out there,” Peresild’s daughter, Anna, said in televised remarks minutes after the launch that she watched teary-eyed. Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, was a key force behind the project, describing it as a chance to burnish the nation’s space glory and rejecting criti- cism from some Russian media. “I expect the project to help draw attention to our space program, to the cosmonaut profession,” Rogozin told reporters Tuesday. “We need a better visualization of space research. Space deserves being shown in a more profes- sional, artful way.” After congratulating the crew on a successful docking, Rogozin said he personally edited the film script to properly reflect the realities of the space flight. “We describe some real emergencies that may happen out there,” he said. According to the script, the cosmonaut character in the film needs an urgent surgery after being hit by space debris. Some commentators argued, howev- er, that the film project would distract the Russian crew and could be awk- ward to film on the Russian segment of the International Space Station, which is considerably less spacious compared to the U.S. segment. A new Russian lab module, the Nauka, was added in July, but it is yet to be fully integrated into the station. On the space station, the three new- comers joined the station’s commander Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency; NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur; Roscosmos cosmonauts No- vitskiy and Dubrov; and Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. After the hatches between the Soyuz and the station were opened, the trio floated in, beaming smiles and ex- changing hugs with the station’s crew. “I feel like I’m dreaming,” Peresild said during a brief televised hookup with Mission Control in Moscow. Shipenko echoed that feeling: “We have been waiting for that for such a long time, and indeed now we feel like in a dream.” Novitskiy, who will star as the ailing cosmonaut in the movie, will take the captain’s seat in a Soyuz capsule to take the film crew back to Earth on Oct. 17. Before Russia took the lead in feature filmmaking in space, NASA had talked to actor Tom Cruise about making a movie in orbit. NASA confirmed last year that it was in talks with Cruise about filming on the International Space Station with SpaceX providing the lift. In May 2020, it was reported that Cruise was devel- oping the project alongside director Doug Liman, Elon Musk and NASA. Last month, representatives for SpaceX’s first privately chartered flight said the actor took part in a call with the four space tourists who orbited more than 585 kilometres high. Liman told the AP that he was ap- proached for the “impossible” mission by producer P. J. van Sandwijk who asked him simply if he wanted to shoot a movie in outer space. Details have been largely kept under wraps and no updates have been provided on the sta- tus recently, but as of January Liman said they were forging ahead. “There’s just a lot of technical stuff that we’re figuring out,” Liman said. “It’s really exciting because when you make a film with Tom Cruise, you have to put stuff on the screen that no one’s ever seen before.” —The Associated Press VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV One small step forman, a giant leap for cinematography ROSCOSMOS SPACE AGENCY / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Russian actor Yulia Peresild, left, film director Klim Shipenko, right, and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov sit in the first row among other participants of the mission to the International Space Station Tuesday. Peresild and Klim Shipenko rocketed to space Tuesday on amission to make the world’s first movie in orbit. Letterman sidekick remembered for comic versatility THERESA BRAINE ALAN KALTER OBITUARY Alan Kalter visits the Late ShowWith David Letterman at the Ed Sullivan Theater on May 20, 2015, the date of Letterman’s last show. PURGE ● FROMC1 In June, the museum’s president and CEO, John Young, resigned early, open- ing the door for a replacement. Partnering organizations, including the LGBT Purge Fund and Pride Win- nipeg, were put in an awkward spot and had to reconsider their relation- ships with the museum. Pride Win- nipeg cut ties in June 2020, and the Purge Fund paused its work temporar- ily. “I was personally shattered to read about the allegations made against the CMHR,” Douglas said Tuesday. “So we undertook a very serious, deliberate ef- fort to consider what it would take for us to re-engage and reconcile.” In August 2020, human rights lawyer Isha Khan was named as Young’s replacement, though she applied to the post in the winter, long before the museum faced public scrutiny. The for- mer executive director of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission was tasked with righting the ship, and implement- ing the recommendations made in Harris’s report. On her first day, Khan phoned Doug- las to tell her she knew the challenges ahead and was ready to meet them, wanting to get started as soon as pos- sible. “That was important to us,” said Douglas. “We considered it a very good sign.” Conversations continued with the museum’s new senior leadership, as well as with museum staff, said Douglas, and soon, the fund reached a consensus that it could recommence the relationship and move forward on the exhibit and other educational op- portunities. A second report compiled by Harris was released last June, highlighting progress in certain areas of equity and diversity as well as per- sisting concerns over discrimination, accountability and representation. “I think we’re making progress,” Khan told the Free Press in June. “I think we’re making change and it takes time, and I knew that it would take time but I’m certainly not doing it alone. I’m doing it with a whole team of people, so the work for us is making sure everyone takes responsibility and everyone sees themselves in the work.” Douglas said her organization also hired an independent consultant to gauge community concerns, and drafted a letter to the institution high- lighting areas of concern. “We wanted to see a plan for the ex- hibit to be inclusive and for any council to reflect a diverse and inclusive mem- bership, and I think they’ve done just that,” Douglas said. The 19-member body features 10 survivors of the Purge, Douglas included, plus academics, elders, legal scholars, historians, and educators. Co-chairs are CMHR vice-president of external relations and community engagement, Riva Harrison, and Doug- las Elliot, an LGBT Purge Fund board member and the lead lawyer of the class action. Local members include U of M history professor David Churchill and two-spirit elder Albert McLeod. Harrison, who joined the museum earlier this year, said a lot of work has been going on to make amends over the past year, and the council is one part of it. “I think when it comes to what happened at the museum, we have to accept responsibility for our failings and acknowledge what went on. That includes apologizing, reaching out, having conversations about what can be done better,” she said, adding that the museum has boosted diversity hiring, set up a rainbow equity council, and implemented many of the recom- mendations. “It’s about saying never again to the things that happened,” she said. “I think we are working together on an extremely important project, but we still have trust to build.. We still have work to do and we’re honoured to be able to do it.” In the coming years, the council will use lived experience as a basis for the work museum staff do in developing curatorial and educational materials, an action Douglas said is needed to rebuild trust. By 2024, an exhibition on the Purge will open in the museum’s Level 1 gallery, previously the site of the well-received Mandela: Struggle for Freedom exhibition. Ultimately, she said, this work is vital in not only educating Canadians about the discrimination faced histori- cally by members of the LGBTTQ+ community, but today, in many fields and in different ways. “We know as victims of the purge that many of our neighbours, friends and people across the country don’t know these stories,” she said. “But we think they must.” ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca Michelle Douglas takes part in the Purge Legal Settlement Approval Hearing held in Federal Court at the Supreme Court of Canada building in July 2018. C_02_Oct-06-21_FP_01.indd 2 2021-10-05 6:41 PM ;