#greg is not 'regular guy in billionaire world'

[biherbalwitch]

"shiv was the worst person" "roman was the worst person in the show" "logan was the worst perso-" NO! everyone is missing the opportunity to unite against the most truly vile character and that's cousin gr*g!!

[chick1996]

I'm so upset. Mitch and auston are in their prime and they have about 3 more years left to in it it, and the organization is wasting it away with below mediocre players. They didn't want to slightly overpay our ufas so now they're gone. They didn't fire keefe and get a better coach. They didn't hire a therapist who genuinely helped the team and the one who did(tom brady's Greg harden) they let him go. Literally after marmer had his most dominant season was the best player in the league for 2 months.

They don't hire skilled body guards to play on a line with marner. They stick him on a line with guys who can't protect him come playoff time bc tavares can't do too much without him and that lw on the first line is just a revolving door. The lw doesnt even go to a top player. If they don't win a cup, mitch reputation as a "failure" and "laughing stock" will be forever. And to be honest with you, I'm also a little mad at the core too. Fhe team cant afford them. Willy should get his money since he was overporducing at poverty wages. No way auston should be getting one of the highest paid contracts or even 13m when hw specializes in one thing and doesn't do too much in the playoffs. Mitch has the nebefit as he literally is the engine in the playoffs and regular season. But he should not be getting more than 11.5m right now bc of the lack of playoff success. I love the core and want them to stay together but if they want to get paid, they can't stay together bc the cap is too low. I wish they would look at the situation and take a little less and I hate to say that cause I sound like those nasty old men. But like, their world is falling apart. The home they made, their reputation/legacy, like their cap is hindering and its not their fault that the billionaires and tram want to capitalize off of them and give them scraps for their hardwork. But like come on. Something has to give. Willy is about to leave and auston and marner not telling management they want to take less to keep him is kind of upsetting. Ig I'm more upset that everyone is gonna thing the core is a cancer. They didn't before, but now they have things that exemplify the narrative.

[jbuffyangel]

Entertainment Weekly Arrow Article

We never get any big articles of Arrow, so yeah I am posting the whole damn thing. There were some interesting little tidbits and of course discussion around Emily Bett Rickards’ exit. Is it wrong that I am low key pissed that of course Arrow gets the cover of EW after she leaves? Is it also wrong that while I’m happy Arrow is getting some attention, I’m annoyed it wasn’t an Olicity cover? Cuz that’s where I am at. (X)

How Arrow saved the TV superhero — and why it had to end

As 'Arrow' prepares for the end, Stephen Amell and the producers reflect on its origin story and preview the 'Crisis'-bound eighth and final season. 

Stephen Amell is dreading the eighth and final season of Arrow, though you wouldn’t know it on this hot, sunny July day in Los Angeles. Wearing Green Arrow’s new suit, the CW star seems perfectly at ease as he strikes heroic pose after heroic pose on a dimly lit stage. But once he’s traded heavy verdant leather for a T-shirt, jeans, and baseball cap, his guard drops and the vulnerability starts to creep in as he contemplates Arrow’s last 10 episodes, which was set to begin production in Vancouver a week after the EW photoshoot took place and premieres Oct. 15.

“I’m very emotional and melancholy, but it’s time,” Amell — who is featured on the new cover of Entertainment Weekly — says as he takes a sip from a pint of Guinness. “I’m 38 years old, and I got this job when I was 30. I’d never had a job for more than a year. The fact that I’ve done this for the better part of a decade, and I’m not going to do it anymore, is a little frightening.”

Developed by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg, Arrow debuted in the fall of 2012. The DC Comics series follows billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (Amell), who, after years away, returned to now–Star City with one goal: to save his home-town as the hooded bow-and-arrow vigilante who would become known as Green Arrow (it would take him four seasons to assume the moniker). What began as a solo crusade eventually grew to include former soldier John Diggle (David Ramsey), quirky computer genius Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), lawyer-turned-hero Laurel Lance/Black Canary (Katie Cassidy Rodgers), and the rest of Team Arrow. Together they’ve defended their city from a host of threats — dark archers, megalomaniacal magicians, and the occasional metahuman — while Lost-like flashbacks revealed what Oliver endured in the five years he was away, first shipwrecked and then honing his skills around the world to become someone else, something else.

The premiere gave The CW its most-watched series debut since 2009’s The Vampire Diaries. But before they launched Arrow, Berlanti and Guggenheim had to suffer through a failure: 2011’s Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds. The duo co-wrote the script but lost creative control of the film, which flopped. So when Warner Bros. Television president Peter Roth approached them in late 2011 about developing a Green Arrow show, they were wary. After much deliberation, Berlanti and Guggenheim agreed, on the condition that they maintain control. Says Guggenheim, “As long as we succeed or fail on our own work, and not someone else’s work then maybe this is worth a shot.”

Their take on the Emerald Archer — who made his DC Comics debut in 1941 — was noteworthy from the beginning. Taking cues from films like The Dark Knight and The Bourne Identity and series like Homeland, the writers imagined a dark, gritty, and grounded show centered on a traumatized protagonist. “As we were breaking the story, we made very specific commitments to certain tonal things, such as ‘At the end of act 1, he has his hands around his mother’s throat.’ And, ‘At the end of act 2, he kills a man in cold blood to protect his secret,’ ” says Guggenheim.

A hero committing murder? That was practically unheard of then. Having Oliver suit up in a veritable superhero costume by the pilot’s climax was radical too. Sure, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was deep into Phase One when the producers were developing Arrow, but TV was traditionally more apprehensive about comic books. Smallvillefamously had a “no tights, no flights” rule and only introduced superhero costumes in the last years of its 10-season run, and there weren’t any masked avengers running around NBC’s Heroes or ABC’s No Ordinary Family, the latter produced by Berlanti (Let’s not even mention NBC’s The Cape, which was essentially dead on arrival and never did get its six seasons and a movie). But Arrow not only fully committed to the idea of someone dressing up like Robin Hood to fight crime with a bow and arrow, it introduced a second costumed rogue, the Huntress (Jessica De Gouw), in episode 7.

“It’s just comic book to the extreme and the fans seem to really love it,” says Batwomanshowrunner Caroline Dries, a former writer on Smallville. “They still maintain it very grounded, but it’s very different with everyone in costumes. The appetite for superheroes has changed in my mind in terms of like they just want the literal superhero [now].”

Not that the team wasn’t meticulous about creating Green Arrow’s cowl. “We had to have so many conversations to get it approved, but that’s why we got [Oscar winner] Colleen Atwood [Memoirs of a Geisha] at the time to [design] the suit,” says Berlanti. “We were determined to show we could do on TV what they were doing in the movies every six months.”

“It’s really easy to make a guy with a bow and arrow look silly. We sweated every detail,” says Guggenheim, who also recalls how much effort it took to perfect Oliver’s signature growl. “I actually flew up to Vancouver. On a rooftop during reshoots on [episode 4], Stephen and I went through a variety of different versions of, basically, ‘You have failed this city,’ with different amounts of how much growl he’s putting into his performance. [We] recorded all that, [I went] back to Los Angeles, and then sat with the post guys playing around with all the different amounts of modulation.”

That process took eons compared to the unbelievably easy time the team had casting Arrow’s title role. In fact, Amell was the first person to audition for the role. “It was Stephen’s intensity. He just made you believe he was that character,” says Guggenheim, recalling Amell’s audition. “We had crafted Oliver to be this mystery box character, and Stephen somehow managed to find this balance between being totally accessible in a way you would need a TV star to be, but he’s still an enigma.” After his first reading, Amell remembers being sent outside for a short time before being brought back into the room to read for a larger group: “I called [my manager], and I go, ‘I know this is not how it’s supposed to work, but I just got that job.’”

In the first season, the show’s chief concerns were maintaining both the “grounded and real” tone and the high quality of the stunts, and investing the audience in Oliver’s crusade. Beyond that, though, there wasn’t much of an over-arching plan, which allowed the show to naturally evolve — from introducing more DC characters, such as Deathstroke (Manu Bennett) and Roy Harper (Colton Haynes), sooner than they initially intended (the shot of Deathstroke’s mask in the pilot was meant as a harmless Easter egg), to promoting Emily Bett Rickards’ Felicity from a one-off character in the show’s third episode to a series regular in season 2 and eventually Oliver’s wife. Even the whole idea of a Team Arrow — which, over time, added Oliver’s sister Thea (Willa Holland), Rene Ramirez/Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez) and Dinah Drake/Black Canary (Juliana Harkavy) — was the result of the writers allowing the best ideas to guide the story. “Greg used to say all the time, ‘You have a hit TV show until you don’t, so don’t save s—,’ ” says Amell.

Also not planned: Arrow spawning an entire shared universe. “We went on record a lot of times during the premiere of the pilot saying, ‘No superpowers, no time travel.’ But midway through season 1, Greg started to harbor a notion of doing the Flash,” says Guggenheim. “I’m a very big believer that it’s great to have a plan, but I think when it comes to creating a universe, the pitfall is that people try to run before they can walk. The key is, you build it show by show.” And so they did. First, they introduced The Flash star Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen in the two-part midseason finale of Arrow’s second season. From there, Supergirl took flight in 2015, then DC’s Legends of Tomorrow in 2016, and Batwoman is due this fall. “It’s like the hacking of the machete in the woods and then you look back and you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s a path,” says executive producer and Berlanti Productions president Sarah Schechter. But even though Arrowis the universe’s namesake, Amell doesn’t concern himself with the sibling series outside of the now-annual crossovers. “I never think about any of the other shows,” he says. “I want all of them to do great, but they’re not my responsibility. My responsibility is Arrow, and to make sure everyone from the cast to the crew are good.” His sentiments are seconded by Flash’s Gustin: “I don’t understand how he does it — his schedule that he maintains with working out, the conventions he goes to, the passion he has for it, and the love he shows towards fans. He’s always prepared. He cares more about that show being high quality than anybody else on the set.”

That said, the universe’s expansion precipitated what is widely considered to be Arrow’s best season, the fifth one. After focusing on magic in season 4, the show returned to its street-crime roots as part of “a concerted effort to play not just to our strengths but what made the shows unique,” Guggenheim says of balancing their four super-series in 2016. “Because Arrow was the longest-running Arrowverse show, we were able to do something that none of the other shows could do, which is have a villain who was basically born out of the events of season 1,” he explains of introducing Adrian Chase/Prometheus (Josh Segarra), whose criminal father was killed by Oliver. “That gave the season a resonance.”

It was midway through season 6 when Amell realized he was ready to hang up Oliver Queen’s hood. “It was just time to move on,” the actor says of pitching that Oliver leave the series at the end of season 7. “My daughter is turning six in October, and she goes to school in L.A., and my wife and I want to raise her [there].” Berlanti persuaded him to return for one final season, which the producers collectively decided would be the end. “We all felt in our gut it was the right time,” says Berlanti. Adds Schechter, “It’s such a privilege to be able to say when something’s ending as opposed to having something just ripped away.”

But there’s one integral cast member who won’t be around to see Arrow through its final season. This spring, fans were devastated to learn Rickards had filmed her final episode—bringing an end to Olicity. “They’re such opposites. I think that’s what draws everyone in a little bit,” showrunner Beth Schwartz says of Oliver and Felicity’s relationship. “You don’t see the [love story of] super intelligent woman and the sort of hunky, athletic man very often. She’s obviously a gorgeous woman but what he really loves is her brain.” For his part, Amell believes the success of both Felicity and Olicity lies completely with Rickards’ performance. “She’s supremely talented and awesome and carved out a space that no one anticipated. I don’t know that show works if we don’t randomly find her,” says Amell, adding that continuing the series without Team Arrow’s heart is “not great. Arrow, as you know it, has effectively ended. It’s a different show in season 8.” And he’s not exaggerating.

The final season finds Oliver working for the all-seeing extra-terrestrial the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) and trying to save the entire multiverse from a cataclysmic event. “[We’re] taking the show on the road, really getting away from Star City. Oliver is going to be traveling the world, and we’re going to go to a lot of different places,” says Guggenheim. “Every time I see Oliver and the Monitor, it’s like, ‘Okay, we are very far from where we started.’ But again, that means the show has grown and evolved.” Adds Schwartz, “This is sort of his final test because it’s greater than Star City.” Along the way, he will head down memory lane, with actor Colin Donnell, who played Oliver’s best friend Tommy Merlyn in season 1, and Segarra’s Adrian Chase making appearances. “Episode 1 is an ode to season 1, and episode 2 is an ode to season 3,” teases Amell. “We’re playing our greatest hits.”

But season 8 is not just about building toward a satisfying series finale. “Everything relates to what’s going to happen in our crossover episode, which we’ve never done before,” says Schwartz. Spanning five hours and airing this winter, “Crisis on Infinite Earths” will be the biggest crossover yet and may see Oliver perish trying to save the multiverse from destruction, if the Monitor’s prophecy is to be believed. “Oliver [is told] he’s going to die, so each episode in the run-up to ‘Crisis’ has Oliver dealing with the various stages of grief that come with that discovery,” says Guggenheim. “So the theme really is coming to terms, acceptance.”

If there’s one person who has made his peace with Oliver’s fate, it’s Amell. “Because he’s a superhero with no superpowers, I always felt he should die — but he may also not die,” says Amell, who actually found out what the show’s final scene would be at EW’s cover shoot. “I cried as [Marc Guggenheim] was telling me. There are a lot of hurdles to get over to make that final scene.” Get this man some more Guinness!

[arrowdaily]

Stephen Amell is dreading the eighth and final season of Arrow, though you wouldn’t know it on this hot, sunny July day in Los Angeles. Wearing Green Arrow’s new suit, the CW star seems perfectly at ease as he strikes heroic pose after heroic pose on a dimly lit stage. But once he’s traded heavy verdant leather for a T-shirt, jeans, and baseball cap, his guard drops and the vulnerability starts to creep in as he contemplates Arrow’s last ten episodes, which was set to begin production in Vancouver a week after the EW photoshoot took place and premieres October 15.

“I’m very emotional and melancholy, but it’s time,” Amell—who is featured on the new cover of Entertainment Weekly—says as he takes a sip from a pint of Guinness. “I’m thirty-eight years old, and I got this job when I was thirty. I’d never had a job for more than a year. The fact that I’ve done this for the better part of a decade, and I’m not going to do it anymore, is a little frightening.”

Developed by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg, Arrow debuted in the fall of 2012. The DC Comics series follows billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), who, after years away, returned to now–Star City with one goal: to save his hometown as the hooded bow-and-arrow vigilante who would become known as Green Arrow (it would take him four seasons to assume the moniker). What began as a solo crusade eventually grew to include former soldier John Diggle (David Ramsey), quirky computer genius Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), lawyer-turned-hero Laurel Lance/Black Canary (Katie Cassidy-Rodgers), and the rest of Team Arrow. Together they’ve defended their city from a host of threats—dark archers, megalomaniacal magicians, and the occasional metahuman—while Lost-like flashbacks revealed what Oliver endured in the five years he was away, first shipwrecked and then honing his skills around the world to become someone else, something else.

The premiere gave the CW its most-watched series debut since 2009’s The Vampire Diaries. But before they launched Arrow, Berlanti and Guggenheim had to suffer through a failure: 2011’s Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds. The duo co-wrote the script but lost creative control of the film, which flopped. So when Warner Bros. TV president Peter Roth approached them in late 2011 about developing a Green Arrow show, they were wary. After much deliberation, Berlanti and Guggenheim agreed, on the condition that they maintain control. Says Guggenheim, “As long as we succeed or fail on our own work, and not someone else’s work then maybe this is worth a shot.”

Their take on the Emerald Archer—who made his DC Comics debut in 1941—was noteworthy from the beginning. Taking cues from films like The Dark Knight and The Bourne Identity and series like Homeland, the writers imagined a dark, gritty, and grounded show centered on a traumatized protagonist. “As we were breaking the story, we made very specific commitments to certain tonal things, such as ‘At the end of act one, he has his hands around his mother’s throat.’ And, ‘At the end of act two, he kills a man in cold blood to protect his secret,’” says Guggenheim.

A hero committing murder? That was practically unheard of then. Having Oliver suit up in a veritable superhero costume by the pilot’s climax was radical too. Sure, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was deep into Phase One when the producers were developing Arrow, but TV was traditionally more apprehensive about comic books. Smallville famously had a “no tights, no flights” rule and only introduced superhero costumes in the last years of its ten-season run, and there weren’t any masked avengers running around NBC’s Heroes or ABC’s No Ordinary Family, the latter produced by Berlanti (let’s not even mention NBC’s The Cape, which was essentially dead on arrival and never did get its six seasons and a movie). But Arrow not only fully committed to the idea of someone dressing up like Robin Hood to fight crime with a bow and arrow, it introduced a second costumed rogue, the Huntress (Jessica De Gouw), in episode 7.

“It’s just comic book to the extreme and the fans seem to really love it,” says Batwoman showrunner Caroline Dries, a former writer on Smallville. “They still maintain it very grounded, but it’s very different with everyone in costumes. The appetite for superheroes has changed in my mind in terms of like they just want the literal superhero [now].”

Not that the team wasn’t meticulous about creating Green Arrow’s cowl. “We had to have so many conversations to get it approved, but that’s why we got [Oscar winner] Colleen Atwood [Memoirs of a Geisha] at the time to [design] the suit,” says Berlanti. “We were determined to show we could do on TV what they were doing in the movies every six months.”

“It’s really easy to make a guy with a bow and arrow look silly. We sweated every detail,” says Guggenheim, who also recalls how much effort it took to perfect Oliver’s signature growl. “I actually flew up to Vancouver. On a rooftop during reshoots on [episode 4], Stephen and I went through a variety of different versions of, basically, ‘You have failed this city,’ with different amounts of how much growl he’s putting into his performance. [We] recorded all that, [I went] back to Los Angeles, and then sat with the post guys playing around with all the different amounts of modulation.”

That process took eons compared to the unbelievably easy time the team had casting Arrow’s title role. In fact, Amell was the first person to audition for the role. “It was Stephen’s intensity. He just made you believe he was that character,” says Guggenheim, recalling Amell’s audition. “We had crafted Oliver to be this mystery box character, and Stephen somehow managed to find this balance between being totally accessible in a way you would need a TV star to be, but he’s still an enigma.” After his first reading, Amell remembers being sent outside for a short time before being brought back into the room to read for a larger group: “I called [my manager], and I go, ‘I know this is not how it’s supposed to work, but I just got that job.’”

In the first season, the show’s chief concerns were maintaining both the “grounded and real” tone and the high quality of the stunts, and investing the audience in Oliver’s crusade. Beyond that, though, there wasn’t much of an over-arching plan, which allowed the show to naturally evolve—from introducing more DC characters, such as Deathstroke (Manu Bennett) and Roy Harper (Colton Haynes), sooner than they initially intended (the shot of Deathstroke’s mask in the pilot was meant as a harmless Easter egg), to promoting Emily Bett Rickards’ Felicity from a one-off character in the show’s third episode to a series regular in season 2 and eventually Oliver’s wife. Even the whole idea of a Team Arrow—which, over time, added Oliver’s sister Thea (Willa Holland), Rene Ramirez/Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez) and Dinah Drake/Black Canary (Juliana Harkavy)—was the result of the writers allowing the best ideas to guide the story. “Greg used to say all the time, ‘You have a hit TV show until you don’t, so don’t save s—,’” says Amell.

Also not planned: Arrow spawning an entire shared universe. “We went on record a lot of times during the premiere of the pilot saying, ‘No superpowers, no time travel.’ But midway through season 1, Greg started to harbor a notion of doing the Flash,” says Guggenheim. “I’m a very big believer that it’s great to have a plan, but I think when it comes to creating a universe, the pitfall is that people try to run before they can walk. The key is, you build it show by show.” And so they did. First, they introduced The Flash star Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen in the two-part midseason finale of Arrow’s second season. From there, Supergirl took flight in 2015, then DC’s Legends of Tomorrow in 2016, and Batwoman is due this fall. “It’s like the hacking of the machete in the woods and then you look back and you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s a path,” says executive producer and Berlanti Productions president Sarah Schechter. But even though Arrow is the universe’s namesake, Amell doesn’t concern himself with the sibling series outside of the now-annual crossovers. “I never think about any of the other shows,” he says. “I want all of them to do great, but they’re not my responsibility. My responsibility is Arrow, and to make sure everyone from the cast to the crew are good.” His sentiments are seconded by The Flash’s Gustin: “I don’t understand how he does it—his schedule that he maintains with working out, the conventions he goes to, the passion he has for it, and the love he shows towards fans. He’s always prepared. He cares more about that show being high quality than anybody else on the set.”

That said, the universe’s expansion precipitated what is widely considered to be Arrow’s best season, the fifth one. After focusing on magic in season 4, the show returned to its street-crime roots as part of “a concerted effort to play not just to our strengths but what made the shows unique,” Guggenheim says of balancing their four super-series in 2016. “Because Arrow was the longest-running Arrowverse show, we were able to do something that none of the other shows could do, which is have a villain who was basically born out of the events of season 1,” he explains of introducing Adrian Chase/Prometheus (Josh Segarra), whose criminal father was killed by Oliver. “That gave the season a resonance.”

It was midway through season 6 when Amell realized he was ready to hang up Oliver Queen’s hood. “It was just time to move on,” the actor says of pitching that Oliver leave the series at the end of season 7. “My daughter is turning six in October, and she goes to school in LA, and my wife and I want to raise her [there].” Berlanti persuaded him to return for one final season, which the producers collectively decided would be the end. “We all felt in our gut it was the right time,” says Berlanti. Adds Schechter, “It’s such a privilege to be able to say when something’s ending as opposed to having something just ripped away.”

But there’s one integral cast member who won’t be around to see Arrow through its final season. This spring, fans were devastated to learn Rickards had filmed her final episode—bringing an end to Olicity. “They’re such opposites. I think that’s what draws everyone in a little bit,” showrunner Beth Schwartz says of Oliver and Felicity’s relationship. “You don’t see the [love story of] super intelligent woman and the sort of hunky, athletic man very often. She’s obviously a gorgeous woman but what he really loves is her brain.” For his part, Amell believes the success of both Felicity and Olicity lies completely with Rickards’ performance. “She’s supremely talented and awesome and carved out a space that no one anticipated. I don’t know that show works if we don’t randomly find her,” says Amell, adding that continuing the series without Team Arrow’s heart is “not great. Arrow, as you know it, has effectively ended. It’s a different show in season 8.” And he’s not exaggerating.

The final season finds Oliver working for the all-seeing extra-terrestrial the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) and trying to save the entire multiverse from a cataclysmic event. “[We’re] taking the show on the road, really getting away from Star City. Oliver is going to be traveling the world, and we’re going to go to a lot of different places,” says Guggenheim. “Every time I see Oliver and the Monitor, it’s like, ‘Okay, we are very far from where we started.’ But again, that means the show has grown and evolved.” Adds Schwartz, “This is sort of his final test because it’s greater than Star City.” Along the way, he will head down memory lane, with actor Colin Donnell, who played Oliver’s best friend Tommy Merlyn in season 1, and Segarra’s Adrian Chase making appearances. “Episode 1 is an ode to season 1, and episode 2 is an ode to season 3,” teases Amell. “We’re playing our greatest hits.”

But season 8 is not just about building toward a satisfying series finale. “Everything relates to what’s going to happen in our crossover episode, which we’ve never done before,” says Schwartz. Spanning five hours and airing this winter, “Crisis on Infinite Earths” will be the biggest crossover yet and may see Oliver perish trying to save the multiverse from destruction, if the Monitor’s prophecy is to be believed. “Oliver [is told] he’s going to die, so each episode in the run-up to ‘Crisis’ has Oliver dealing with the various stages of grief that come with that discovery,” says Guggenheim. “So the theme really is coming to terms, acceptance.”

If there’s one person who has made his peace with Oliver’s fate, it’s Amell. “Because he’s a superhero with no superpowers, I always felt he should die—but he may also not die,” says Amell, who actually found out what the show’s final scene would be at EW’s cover shoot. “I cried as [Marc Guggenheim] was telling me. There are a lot of hurdles to get over to make that final scene.” Get this man some more Guinness!

[investmart007]

LAS VEGAS | Robin Leach of 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' dies

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/0kLpTZ

LAS VEGAS | Robin Leach of 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' dies

LAS VEGAS— Robin Leach, whose voice crystallized the opulent 1980s on TV’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” died Friday. He was 76

Leach’s family said through a public relations firm that he died in Las Vegas, where he made his home.

Leach had a stroke in November while on vacation in Mexico that led to a months-long recovery, much of which he spent at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio before returning to Las Vegas in June.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal, which ran Leach’s columns before he became ill, said he suffered another stroke Monday.

“Champagne wishes and caviar dreams” was Leach’s sign-off at the end of every episode of his syndicated show’s decade-long run that began in 1984.

The catchphrase captured excesses and sometimes gaudy style of the 1980s, a time before oil billionaires, titans of industry and Wall Street traders gave way to sneaker-wearing tech execs as the world’s richest people.

Leach appeared occasionally on the show, but he and his unmistakable English-accent narrated throughout, taking wishful viewers on tours of mansions with diamond-crusted chandeliers, yachts with Jacuzzis, and champagne that ran to four figures. It was much like rap videos would do in future decades.

Leach and producer Al Masini coined the catchphrase and conceived of the show.

“He asked me if I could get magnates T. Boone Pickens or Sam Walton to do the show,” Leach told The Huffington Post in 2016. “In my naivete, I said, ‘Of course.’ And thus, ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.'”

Leach said in later years that someone still shouted “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” at him almost daily. He was constantly parodied, and like other distinctive voices of the age like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Howard Cosell, everyone had a Leach impression.

“Saturday Night Live” consistently satirized him through the years, with Harry Shearer as a subdued Leach hosting “Lifestyles of the Relatives of the Rich and Famous” in the 1980s, and Dana Carvey as a brash, shouting Leach on “Weekend Update” in the 1990s.

Even decades later, in 2011, Snoop Dogg spotted Leach at a news conference in Las Vegas and was thrilled, rushing to grab the mic and breaking out his impression, touting his career earnings in an over-the-top English accent.

“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” was the core of Leach’s career that spanned six decades and included stints with CNN, People magazine, Entertainment Tonight and the Daily Mail, where he began as a writer in Britain at 18.

In the mid-1970s, he tried out TV as a regular contributor to “AM Los Angeles” with hosts Regis Philbin and Sarah Purcell, and found his calling. He became a regular on television’s morning news and entertainment shows, practicing a sort of tabloid journalism that was more celebratory and light-hearted than tawdry. He often became friends with the celebrities he covered.

Then, in 1984, he landed “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” and gained his own fame.

The gaudy show became wildly popular, but never with critics. “They wrote that television had reached an all-time-low,” Leach told The Huffington Post. “But I looked at the ratings every Monday morning, and I was rubbing my hands with glee.”

He was also an executive producer and occasional writer on the show, and hosted a brief spinoff, “Runaway with the Rich and Famous.”

For the show’s final year, with producers looking to liven up the aging property, he had a younger co-host, actress Shari Belafonte. The show was retitled “Lifestyles with Robin Leach and Shari Belafonte” but the new look didn’t save it.

In 1999, Leach went to Las Vegas to work with celebrity chefs at the Venetian casino-resort, and made the move permanent, becoming a fixture in the city as he covered the destination’s entertainment and lifestyles for America Online and his own website. He also wrote for the Las Vegas Sun and, most recently, for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

He made frequent appearances on the celebrity reality TV circuit, hosting VH-1’s “The Surreal Life: Fame Games” and appearing on the celebrity editions of “Wife Swap” and “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.”

He was among the founders of the Food Network, selling his equity for a big payday when the channel took off. Married once and divorced, Leach spent much of his later years in the company of his three sons, Steven, Rick and Greg, and several grandchildren.

“There is this image of a guy in a hot tub, drinking champagne with two buxom blondes,” Leach told the Las Vegas Sun in 2011. “But that is not the real me. I am a father, and I am a grandfather, too.”

By REGINA GARCIA CANO and ANDREW DALTON, Associated Press