Danny Puff

By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pulitzer-Prize winning film critic Roger Ebert died on Thursday, the Chicago Sun-Times said, two days after he said his cancer of 10 years ago had returned.

"It is with a heavy heart we report that legendary film critic Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) has passed away," the newspaper where Ebert worked for decades said on Twitter.

"There is a hole that can't be filled. One of the greats has left us. Roger Ebert has passed away at the age of 70," the Chicago Sun-Times added.

Ebert gained national prominence with fellow Chicago film critic Gene Siskel on the television show "At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert," coining the phrase "Two Thumbs Up." After Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert teamed with critic Richard Roeper, but later quit for health reasons.

Ebert, one of the most widely read movie critics in the United States, lost his ability to speak and eat after surgeries for thyroid and salivary gland cancer in 2002 and 2003.

On Tuesday, he posted a blog entry saying he was taking a "leave of presence" from his more than 40-year career and scaling back his work after doctors diagnosed his cancer had returned.

It was discovered by doctors after he fractured his hip in December.

The 'painful fracture' that made it difficult for me to walk has recently been revealed to be a cancer," Ebert said in the blog posting, giving no further details about the type of cancer or diagnosis.

"I am not going away," he added. "My intent is to continue to write selected reviews ... What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review."

Ebert's reviews were syndicated to more than 200 newspapers and he had been reviewing films for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975.

Forbes magazine dubbed Ebert the most powerful pundit in America in 2007.

(Additional reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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NEW YORK (AP) The TLC network is making a movie about some of the 800,000 condolence letters that were sent to the widow of former President John F. Kennedy after his 1963 assassination.

"Letters to Jackie" will air this fall, as the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's killing approaches on Nov. 22.

The film revisits the aftermath of the assassination to examine the former first lady's role in helping the nation through its grief as she suffered through her own.

Twenty celebrities will read the letters, including Zooey Deschanel, Kirsten Dunst, Anne Hathaway, Mark Ruffalo, Betty White and Michelle Williams.

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MADRID (Reuters) - Telefonica, Europe's biggest telecoms operator by revenue, has received a 200 million euro ($257 million) financing facility from the Canadian export agency to buy BlackBerry smartphones and services.

Export Development Canada (EDC) said the credit line to Telefonica would be used to provide BlackBerry products and services across Telefonica's international operations.

Telefonica operates in more than a dozen fast-growing Latin American markets as well as its depressed home market of Spain and other European markets.

BlackBerry's iconic devices, often used by business people, once dominated the smartphone market. But in recent years the company has suffered as phones powered by Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems have eaten away at its market share across the globe.

Government export credit agencies tend to support big deals that involve exports to emerging economies and provide a boost to local manufacturing. EDC provided financing for Telefonica to buy equipment from BlackBerry as well as other suppliers in 2006.

Telefonica secured a $1 billion credit line from Sweden's export agencies last month to buy infrastructure from Ericsson.

"EDC's financing is really about making the transactions between BlackBerry and Telefonica easier, helping to enhance and broaden the relationship between these two major global players," Lewis Megaw, EDC's regional vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said in a statement.

In a bid to reinvent itself and claw back market share, BlackBerry launched a wholly re-engineered new line of devices powered by its new BlackBerry 10 operating system this year.

The first of these, a touchscreen device dubbed the Z10, is already on sale in over 25 countries across the globe. A new device with BlackBerry's traditional physical keypad is set to begin hitting store shelves later this month.

($1 = 0.7783 euros)

(Reporting by Clare Kane in Madrid; Additional reporting by Euan Rocha in Toronto; Editing by Clelia Oziel)

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The Rock is ready to roll into WrestleMania as a dual champion.

He's the reigning king of the box office after "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" stormed to $40.5 million over the weekend to become the No. 1 movie.

And in the ring, he's walking tall as WWE champ.

Everything Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson touches these days turns to gold, from the film franchises he whips into blockbusters to the diamond-encrusted WWE championship belt he drapes over his shoulder before he hits the ring to lay the smack down one more time in his triumphant return to the company.

Johnson is set for his latest starring role when he defends his title against John Cena at WrestleMania 29 on Sunday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. The main event rematch is the pinnacle for the sports entertainment powerhouse and one of the most popular spectator sports in America.

"It's the biggest show of my career," the 40-year-old Johnson said.

Johnson has the sequel market cornered, flexing his box office muscle in franchise films as "Fast Five," ''The Mummy Returns," ''Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" and now "G.I. Joe: Retaliation."

He's ready to prove another one of his sequels can top the original when he faces Cena on Sunday.

In his first singles match since 2004, Johnson defeated Cena last year at Sun Life Stadium in Miami in a WrestleMania main event billed as "Once in a Lifetime."

Well, that tagline may as well be "Once a Year."

Hard to believe a professional wrestling company would stretch truth in advertising, but the two became set for a return bout once Rock beat C.M. Punk at January's Royal Rumble to win the championship and Cena won the 30-man Rumble to become the No. 1 contender.

Johnson said the rematch made sense because it was still the biggest money match the promotion could offer in the Super Bowl of sports entertainment.

He had the numbers to back it up. With one full year of hype, Rock-Cena drew 1.217 million pay-per-view buys last year and another 78,363 packed Sun Life Stadium on the strength of the match. Much like the Final Four or World Series, the WrestleMania brand is almost guaranteed to fill a stadium before a match is announced. It's getting fans at home to plunk down at least $59.95 for the standard definition broadcast that can truly stuff the coffers.

"Rock means revenue. Rock means ratings," WWE Hall of Famer Booker T said. "The Rock is great, not just a great performer, but he is a great ambassador for this business."

With shows tailored around The Rock, the last two WrestleManias have topped 1 million buys. The WWE expects to hit that mark again Sunday.

The Rock had a wrestling ring set up wherever he was on location filming movies, his private training camps a part of the grind necessary to keep his spot as the biggest dual threat in entertainment.

"I always knew he loved the business," Cena said. "He loves it so much now that he really is the busiest person in the history of the WWE. He's everywhere at once. He can do everything and still compete as WWE champion."

Rock was in position to call his shots and he picked Cena for his return feud over Punk or any other superstar on the roster. For all the trash talking in the ring, there's a deep respect in real life between two wrestlers who know how to carry the global sports entertainment empire.

"He's been the No. 1 guy in the company for many years now, and has managed to maintain a genuine, optimistic love for the business," Johnson said. "Often times, inherently, what the business creates is pessimism over time, and unhappiness. John has been able to stay above that, not get lost in the garbage, and not get lost in the noise. He's very focused, very committed. There's an X-factor about John that moves an audience."

Rock is among four key stars including Brock Lesnar, The Undertaker and Triple H who work a scaled back schedule with main event slots waiting for their returns. The four have combined for five pay-per-view matches since last year's WrestleMania, the kind of work-rate wrestlers on a punishing 200-day-a-year schedule could appreciate more than any five-star match. Amid gripes Rock takes a headline position that could go to a full-time wrester, Cena said Johnson has earned that spot.

"I wish we had one guy with 10 percent of his vision and his aspiration," he said. "When he gets a small opportunity, he kicks the damn door down and owns the horse. Often times here, we have superstars that remind me of a hamster on the treadmill and those are the guys that usually complain. I don't take too kindly to them. I'm fortunate Rock's here and I'm glad he's here. He can show up whenever he wants."

Johnson said he hasn't decided if he'll participate in WrestleMania 30 next year in New Orleans. With a loss Sunday, the anniversary card could set up an epic rubber match. Then again, the WWE would be foolish to leave a Rock-Brock Lesnar bout on the table without a payoff at a major pay-per-view event.

If Rock returns, he'll need to set up that ring for training camps in Budapest, where he'll head after WrestleMania to start shooting "Hercules."

Not a wrestling fan? Hate action movies? Well, you've probably seen Johnson pop up the last six months everywhere from a starring role in a Super Bowl milk commercial, or on TV hosting his new reality show, or maybe on your mobile device with the game, "Rockpocalypse."

The Rock sure does know his role to entertain in every available forum.

"I never feel that it's too much because I'm aware of the plan. I put the plan together," he said, laughing. "But in that, comes really incredible challenges that require a lot of people to embrace the vision of it, to support it.

"It was one of those things where you take a risk and, fortunately, it's paid off."

He has the WWE title belt around his waist and a No. 1 movie to prove it.

_____

Follow Dan Gelston at www.Twitter.com/APGelston

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By Michael Roddy

LONDON (Reuters) - Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen dislikes musical anniversaries but he is celebrating so many this year he failed to notice one - the 20th anniversary of the death of the anarchic American rock innovator Frank Zappa.

It isn't often that "Mothers of Invention" founder Zappa's rock-and-orchestral score for his film "200 Motels" is revived, but Salonen, 54, will conduct it in October with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he served as Music Director from 1992 until 2009, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the orchestra's acoustically exquisite Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The fact that this year also is the 20th anniversary of the 1960s cult rock star's death was something Salonen hadn't realized until it was brought to his attention during a recent interview, but he said he was captivated by the idea of reviving Zappa's complex, multi-faceted piece the minute he saw it.

"I opened the score and the first line I saw was that this town (LA) is 'a sealed tuna sandwich'. I said, 'Okay, you can't say that's not a good match.' I realized this is the LA piece I want to conduct before I die."

From conducting "200 Motels" to Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" might seem a stretch, but not so for Salonen, who will be leading Stravinsky's ground-breaking 1913 masterpiece in the same Paris concert hall only a few days after the evening a century ago that its premiere caused a near riot.

Salonen doesn't much like cultural anniversaries: "Very often these anniversaries, it seems like a duty, we play an awful lot and then after the year is over we've done that." But he's observing none with more relish than "The Rite of Spring".

"The miracle of that piece is the eternal youth of it. It's so fresh it still kicks ass and how many 100-year-old pieces do that? There's such powerful vitality in that music it's almost scary," he said over coffee in London.

"LANDED ON THIS PLANET"

"The thing about 'The Rite of Spring' is that it just landed on this planet, there are no predecessors, there are no models. Stravinsky didn't work off of any models. So it's like a perfect egg that drops."

Lack of models is not something that can be said for the works of another of Salonen's anniversary composers, the Pole Witold Lutoslawski whose birth centenary is this year.

Lutoslawski wrote in the 20th-century modernist idiom, with extreme craftsmanship and polish that sometimes makes his pieces seem a bit distant or, at other times, deeply gloomy.

But that's not at all that Salonen finds when he conducts Lutoslawki's symphonies, all four of which have been reissued in a two-CD set by Sony. He recently concluded a Lutoslawski cycle in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra and will make the case for the composer again in Madrid in May.

"I realized apart from a few pieces that seemed to have kept place in the repertoire many of his pieces have kind of disappeared, including some pieces that I found absolutely powerful and fascinating. So I thought I would use this anniversary in such a way that I could shed light on that repertoire to allow people to hear it again and then, of course, the rest is up to the people."

The importance of connecting with people is something that Salonen, both as a conductor and as a composer, which takes up an increasing amount of his time, says he learned in LA.

He became Music Director in Los Angeles at what he considers a ridiculously young age, running a multi-million-dollar cultural institution in his early 30s and having brought with him what he calls his "suitcase full of European superior knowledge of everything".

"In a European way of thinking...we always focus mostly on the intention of the composer...and very little attention is focused on the actual effects, the interface when the music hits the listener - what is that process, what does it do to me?

"And I realized that perhaps my focus had been soft, instead of being primarily interested in the methods I should be more interested in the actual effect.

"What I learned in LA is you cannot actually separate the mind from the body. It's impossible, and it would be meaningless."

He says that attitude has carried over into his music which at times sounds like it belongs to the "spectral" school of composition, with its intense focus on sound and timbre, but at other times turns lushly romantic and poignant, as in his Violin Concerto, which was recorded by American violinist Leila Josefowicz and won the prestigious University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2012.

"It has to do with getting older, because I realized...somebody will always conduct concerts, there are a lot of good guys and women who can do it very well...but only I can write my music, nobody else can do it for me," Salonen said.

"If I don't write the music I want to write it's a dramatic loss to me."

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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WASHINGTON (AP) Yikes! It seems "The Daily Show" and diplomacy don't mix.

That's the lesson the U.S. Embassy in Cairo is learning the hard way after being rebuked by both the Egyptian government and the State Department for causing an international incident. The embassy tweeted a link to a Jon Stewart monologue that mocked Egypt's president offending the Egyptians and then deleted its entire Twitter account before restoring it without the post in question, irritating Washington.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's office called the tweet "inappropriate" and unbecoming of a diplomatic mission while the State Department said the unusual affair was the result of "glitches" in the embassy's social media policies that are now being corrected.

The imbroglio over the tweet comes at a time of rising tensions between Cairo and Washington, which has expressed deep concerns that Morsi's government is backsliding on human rights protections.

And, it underscores the pitfalls of allowing individual American embassies to control the messages they disseminate through social media.

The trouble began Tuesday when the embassy posted a link to Stewart's monologue on his Comedy Central show the night before. Stewart took savage aim at Morsi for the arrest and interrogation of Egyptian comic Bassam Youssef, who has frequently criticized the president on a popular TV program that has been likened to Stewart's own.

In the clip, Stewart accused Morsi of being petty, undemocratic and ignoring more pressing problems like Egypt's economic crisis and violent crime to go after satirists who are critical of his government. He pointed out that he has made a living by poking fun at political leaders and that such activity is harmless and should be protected.

Morsi's office responded to the embassy's post on its own Twitter feed, saying: "It's inappropriate for a diplomatic mission to engage in such negative political propaganda."

The embassy responded on Wednesday by deleting its entire Twitter account, drawing the wrath of State Department headquarters in Washington, which was already peeved by the initial post. The account was then restored minus the Stewart tweet.

"Embassies and consulates and their senior leadership manage the content that is on their feeds and they are expected to use good policy judgment in doing that," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

On Monday, Nuland had made comments similar to Stewart's, although more nuanced and couched in diplomatic terms, about Youssef's arrest.

She declined to say if the State Department agreed with the Egyptian government's criticism of the tweet. But she suggested the embassy had erred by posting a link to a video that is already widely available on the Internet.

"I can't speak to the decision to re-tweet Jon Stewart to start with," she said. "But Jon Stewart is a comedy show in the U.S., as you know. It is publicly available content."

She said the "glitches" she referred to were "the fact that they obviously put up something that they later took down, that they took down the whole site, which should not probably have been the way that went, and that in the past there have been differences between the Twitter team and senior post management."

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo last year engaged in a public spat with Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood over the breach of the embassy's walls by protesters upset over an anti-Islam film produced in the U.S. and posted on the Web.

Steve Albani, spokesman for Comedy Central, declined to comment on the flap.

Nuland stressed that the U.S. position on the arrest of Youssef, whom she described as Egypt's "Jon Stewart counterpart," remained unchanged since Monday when she referred to it as part of a "''disturbing trend" of growing restrictions on freedom of expression in Egypt.

"There does not seem to be an evenhanded application of justice here," she said, adding that the Egyptian government has been slow to investigate police brutality or attacks on anti-Morsi protesters and journalists.

On Tuesday, the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party denounced Nuland's comments as "blatant interference" in Egypt's internal affairs.

Hours later, Secretary of State John Kerry jumped into the fray saying that Washington has "real concerns about the direction Egypt appears to be moving in," adding that the country is at a "tipping point."

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By Chris Michaud

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jimmy Fallon will take over from veteran Jay Leno next year as host of the NBC flagship talk program "The Tonight Show," NBC said on Wednesday, bringing a younger feel to the competitive late-night landscape on U.S. television.

Leno, 62, will wrap up what will be 22 years as host of "The Tonight Show" in the spring of 2014 - some seven months before his contract was officially due to end.

Fallon, 38, the current host of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" will "transition into new hosting duties on 'The Tonight Show'" after Leno ends his run, NBC said in a statement.

The network also said it was moving "The Tonight Show" from its Burbank studio, outside Los Angeles, to New York, where it began in 1954.

No specific date was announced, but the change will take place in conjunction with NBC's broadcasts of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, next February.

Wednesday's announcement ended months of speculation and followed a skit on Fallon's show by him and Leno on Monday night in which they played down reports of rivalry and made fun of the rumor mill.

Leno, who was replaced by Conan O'Brien in 2009, only to return a few months later in a public relations debacle for the network, congratulated Fallon.

"I hope you're as lucky as me and hold on to the job until you're the old guy," he said in a statement.

Fallon, who started out on the long-running "Saturday Night Live" comedy show in 1998, said, "I'm really excited to host a show that starts today instead of tomorrow," referring to his current program's post-midnight start time.

"We are purposefully making this change when Jay is number-one, just as Jay replaced Johnny Carson when he was number-one," said Steve Burke, NBCUniversal's CEO.

RATINGS LEADER

"The Tonight Show" has maintained a hold on U.S. popular culture for decades, offering a forum for celebrities to promote their latest ventures and a springboard to fame for many standup comedians.

The program currently leads its three late-night rivals in overall audience, attracting about 3.5 million viewers, compared with about 3 million for CBS rival David Letterman.

But the average age of viewers for Leno and Letterman, 65, is in the mid-50s - higher than the 18-49 demographic preferred by advertisers.

ABC upped the stakes in January by moving Jimmy Kimmel, 45, to the late-night slot in a bid to grab a younger audience. Kimmel's ratings have challenged both Letterman and Leno in the 18-34 age group, while his overall audience is about 2.6 million, according to the most recent Nielsen data.

Kimmel proffered a winking posting via Twitter on Wednesday, saying, "congratulations to my dear, sweet @jimmyfallon - a formidable rival and an incredible lover."

NBC said "Saturday Night Live" and "30 Rock" producer Lorne Michaels would serve as executive producer of the relocated show. It will be broadcast from NBC headquarters in New York's Rockefeller Center.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the state's governor, Andrew Cuomo, welcomed the show's return to New York.

"We couldn't be happier that one of New York's own is bringing the show back to where it started - and where it belongs," Bloomberg said in a statement referring to Fallon's Brooklyn roots.

Carson, who hosted the program from 1962 to 1992, moved the show to Southern California in 1972.

NBC said that programming plans for the 12:35 a.m. time slot now filled by Fallon's show would be announced soon.

NBC is a unit of Comcast Corp, ABC is a unit of Walt Disney Co and CBS is part of CBS Corp.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Peter Cooney)

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(Reuters) - Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. film critic Roger Ebert says he is battling cancer again and that he will scale back his writing by taking a "leave of presence" from his more than four-decade career.

Ebert, 70, known for his rhetorical power and prolific output, said he will undergo radiation treatment that will force him to take time away from his job.

"I must slow down now, which is why I'm taking what I like to call 'a leave of presence,'" Ebert said in a blog entry posted late on Tuesday, adding that he would scale back his workload.

Ebert, who had lost his ability to speak and eat after surgeries for thyroid and salivary gland cancer in 2002 and 2003, said the cancer was discovered by doctors after he fractured his hip in December.

"The 'painful fracture' that made it difficult for me to walk has recently been revealed to be a cancer," Ebert said, giving no further details about the type of cancer or diagnosis.

"I am not going away," Ebert said. "My intent is to continue to write selected reviews ... What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review."

The Chicago resident said he also would take time to write about his illness.

Ebert, whose reviews are syndicated to more than 200 newspapers, has been reviewing films for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975.

He gained national prominence with the late Gene Siskel on the television show "At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert," coining the phrase "Two Thumbs Up," until Siskel's death in 1999. He later teamed with critic Richard Roeper but quit for health reasons.

Forbes dubbed Ebert the most powerful pundit in America in 2007.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Paul Simao)

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By Tim Kenneally

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - John Travolta's attorney is lashing out at Gawker over a report suggesting that the "Grease" star shelled out more than $84,000 to settle sexual assault claims, calling the story "outrageous" and "false."

Gawker published the storyTuesday, along with a document that the site claimed is an "internal report" of insurance claims indicating that the actor's insurer paid out a total of $84,500 to two parties after they issued attorney demand letters alleging sexual assault.

In a statement Wednesday, Singer said the amounts listed in the Gawker story are "consistent with legal fees being paid in connection with the defense of lawsuits that were filed.

"Gawker's outrageous false story claims that a purported insurance document supposedly shows that $84,500 was paid out in sexual assault settlements, but that alleged document does not show that a single penny was paid for settlements," Singer said. "The document (which has not been shown to be authentic) shows costs and expenses incurred, consistent with legal fees being paid in connection with the defense of lawsuits that were filed. Gawker's reckless publication of this absurd story has once again shown that the website is more concerned about page clicks than accuracy."

According to the Gawker story, Travolta's insurer paid out $3,850 to a former employee of Travolta's, identified as Mark Higgins, and $80,750 to an unidentified party. (Travolta was sued in 2012 by two plaintiffs identified as John Doe #1 and #2, who claimed that Travolta sexually assaulted them during massage sessions. Both suits were ultimately dropped.)

The site went on to insinuate that the dollar amounts smelled an awful lot like settlements over the sexual assault claims.

"All of which is to say that despite Marty Singer's public insistence that no settlement offer was made in the John Doe case, Travolta's insurance company tells a different story," article author Camille Dodero wrote.

Gawker, which did not offer specific comment to TheWrap on Singer's statement, has updated its post with a strike-through of the above sentence.

Travolta has been besieged by accusations of sexual misconduct, with multiple lawsuits filed against him.

Singer has denied the accusations leveled against Travolta.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, who has done stints in rehab for problems with alcohol, has dropped out of the current leg of the band's tour for "personal issues," the band said on its website on Wednesday.

"Due to personal issues, Richie Sambora will not be performing on this upcoming leg. All shows will go on as scheduled," the posting said, offering no other details or when Sambora might resume performing.

Sambora, 53, spent time in rehab in 2007 and 2011, and the band did its 2011 North American and European tour without him.

Bon Jovi is scheduled to perform this week in Edmonton, Alberta, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, and St. Paul, Minn. on Sunday.

The "Because We Can" tour's April dates include Los Angeles, Denver, Las Vegas and other cities before international appearances kick off on May 7 in Capetown, South Africa.

The band is set to play in Sweden, Germany, Britain, Spain, Poland and Italy among others before returning to the United States in July.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Paul Simao)

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