Behind the Scenes with Amazon and Stephen Sondheim

STEPHEN SONDHEIM’S VIRTUAL PARTY WAS A BLAST, WITH GLITCHES: Stars gathered to virtually pay tribute to Stephen Sondheim on the Broadway virtuoso’s 90^th birthday Sunday, but the show had a few technical hitches. Meryl Streep, Patti LuPone and Lin-Manuel Miranda were there, but host Raul Esparza showed up late and then started chatting with Sondheim without realizing he was being broadcast. Later, Esparza’s remarks were muted, and then he walked off the camera and the link was turned off. Whoops! Still, the show as a success, with Miranda tweeting: “My heart hurts for Raul on the tech stuff, who has put together by all accounts an unforgettable show. I really can’t wait to see it. But the WORK WAITS… #Sondheim90Concert”

GENE DYNARSKI DIES: Seinfeld and Close Encounters of the Third Kind actor Gene Dynarski has died at age 86. His friend, playwright Ernest Kearney wrote on his website that he died after a “mild heart episode” last month. “I had visited Gene only a few days prior,” Kearney writes. “He seemed his old self, ranting on about me finding him a lawyer to sue the rehab-center…I could tell by the glances of the staff passing by his room that Gene had managed to piss them off. Dynarski had a genius for pissing people off. And generally, the very last people whom an actor in Hollywood should piss off.” Dynarski is beloved for character roles on shows like Starsky & Hutch, Kojak, Hill St. Blues, Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X-Files.

AMAZON GIFTS ONE YEAR OF FOOD NETWORK KITCHEN: On Monday, Amazon unveiled a deal to give Fire TV and Fire Tablet customers a one-year free subscription to Food Network Kitchen. The deal will give viewers access to cooking classes with Food Network personalities and chefs, including Bobby Flay, Rachael Ray, Giada De Laurentiis, Guy Fieri and Martha Stewart.

RIZ AHMED SHARES HEARTBREAK: Riz Ahmed, the British actor whose credits include Venom and HBO‘s The Night Of, tells GQ Hype that he has lost two family members to coronavirus. He said: “I have lost two family members to COVID. I just want to believe their deaths and all the others aren’t for nothing. We gotta step up to reimagine a better future.” Ahmed also shared concerns he has. “I’m looking at the fact it’s hitting African-Americans twice as hard; I’m looking at the fact that 50 per cent of NHS frontline workers – is it 50 per cent? – are ethnic minorities,” he said, referencing the UK’s national health service. “Who are the people who, for every moment of crisis in this country, have kept this country together? It’s the people at the bottom of the barrel; the people being hit hardest by this pandemic. We say we love the NHS more than the Royal Family, more than the army, but do we love the people who keep the NHS alive? Because every time we tell people to f*ck off back to where they came from, that’s not what we’re saying.”