Hollywood Beltway

Michael Jackson finally got a Lifetime Achievement Award yesterday from the Grammys. No one from his family showed up to accept it. The Grammy board invited all the Jacksons. Sources say they never heard a word from anyone. At one point there was talk of Marlon Jackson showing up. He didn’t. Michael’s faithful friend and longtime manager Frank [...]

Rihanna returned to Clive Davis’s annual pre-Grammy party last night, 51 weeks after her calamitous exit from the party with Chris Brown in 2009. She looked great, and seemed to have shed the past like an old coat. It was a bold move and one to be applauded. Can it be almost a year ago that [...]

Jamie Foxx and Justin Timberlake have a “Split Personality.” That’s the name of the single they’re going to release soon from Jamie’s next album, coming in May. The pair actually recorded two duets, each of which is set for the album. Very quietly, Jamie has become a solid music star. He’s had two hit albums in the last [...]

The great Roy Orbison finally got his star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame on Friday. It was about time! Thanks to the persistence of his widow, the intrepid and beautiful Barbara, Orbison has lived on well after his death at age 52 in 1989. The star was unveiled on Vine Street, right in front of the Capitol [...]

Last night, the 20th annual MusiCares Person of the Year dinner produced several memorable comments, not the least of which came from 83-year-old Tony Bennett, at whose table I was lucky to sit. Upon hearing the Red Hot Chili Peppers launch into a dissonant version of honoree Neil Young’s “A Man Needs A Maid,” Bennett [...]

Ex spouses Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman now, oddly, have the same publicist: 42 West, formerly the Dart Group. It’s a company started by Leslee Dart, the dynamic ex-partner of Lois Smith and Pat Kingsley of PMK fame. If only the bloggers who huff and puff on subjects about which they know very little had stopped [...]

This Sunday’s Grammy Awards is set to open with a tribute to Michael Jackson. There will be the 3D “Earth Song” from Michael’s canceled “This Is It” concert. Then a selection of pop stars including Smokey Robinson, Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson, Carrie Underwood and Usher is scheduled to perform a medley of Michael’s hits. But what [...]

Clive Davis‘ annual pre-Grammy shindig is my favorite party of the year. It’s the best of the season, a tie maybe with Vanity Fair’s Oscar party. Everyone in Hollywood wants to be in the Beverly Hilton Hotel ballroom this Saturday night. Not all of them will make it. Yesterday I spent party of the morning observing [...]

J.D. Salinger died yesterday. He was just past his 91st birthday. The author of “The Catcher in the Rye” lived life on his own terms. He didn’t want celebrity. He shunned it despite the many attempts by fans to see him, touch him, feel him. Salinger is thought of as a recluse, but he just didn’t [...]

GRAMMY NOTES: “Soul Man” Sam Moore, the 74-year-old Grammy winner, has been asked to be the star performer at the official Grammy after party at the L.A. Convention Center following Sunday’s Grammy telecast. “American Idol” judge and famed musician Randy Jackson, who produced Moore’s “Overnight Sensational” album, will be a special guest star on guitar in Moore’s [...]