“Searching for Sugar Man,” “First Cousin Once Removed” Win at International Documentary Festival

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Searching for Sugar Man” is continuing to find critical acclaim.

Malik Benjelloul‘s documentary about musician Rodriguez, who abandoned music only to find his career resuscitated after becoming hugely popular in South Africa, won the Best Music Documentary award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the festival said Friday.

“Sugar Man” also took home the Audience award.

Alan Berliner’s documentary “First Cousin Once Removed,” about his uncle’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, also scored big, winning for Best Feature-Length Documentary.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Agency Investigates Deaths and Injuries Associated With Bed Rails

Thomas Patterson for The New York Times

Gloria Black’s mother died in her bed at a care facility.

In November 2006, when Clara Marshall began suffering from the effects of dementia, her family moved her into the Waterford at Fairway Village, an assisted living home in Vancouver, Wash. The facility offered round-the-clock care for Ms. Marshall, who had wandered away from home several times. Her husband Dan, 80 years old at the time, felt he could no longer care for her alone.

Thomas Patterson for The New York Times

Gloria Black, visiting her mother’s grave in Portland, Ore. She has documented hundreds of deaths associated with bed rails and said families should be informed of their possible risks.

But just five months into her stay, Ms. Marshall, 81, was found dead in her room apparently strangled after getting her neck caught in side rails used to prevent her from rolling out of bed.

After Ms. Marshall’s death, her daughter Gloria Black, who lives in Portland, Ore., began writing to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Food and Drug Administration. What she discovered was that both agencies had known for more than a decade about deaths from bed rails but had done little to crack down on the companies that make them. Ms. Black conducted her own research and exchanged letters with local and state officials. Finally, a letter she wrote in 2010 to the federal consumer safety commission helped prompt a review of bed rail deaths.

Ms. Black applauds the decision to study the issue. “But I wish it was done years ago,” she said. “Maybe my mother would still be alive.” Now the government is studying a problem it has known about for years.

Data compiled by the consumer agency from death certificates and hospital emergency room visits from 2003 through May 2012 shows that 150 mostly older adults died after they became trapped in bed rails. Over nearly the same time period, 36,000 mostly older adults — about 4,000 a year — were treated in emergency rooms with bed rail injuries. Officials at the F.D.A. and the commission said the data probably understated the problem since bed rails are not always listed as a cause of death by nursing homes and coroners, or as a cause of injury by emergency room doctors.

Experts who have studied the deaths say they are avoidable. While the F.D.A. issued safety warnings about the devices in 1995, it shied away from requiring manufacturers to put safety labels on them because of industry resistance and because the mood in Congress then was for less regulation. Instead only “voluntary guidelines” were adopted in 2006.

More warnings are needed, experts say, but there is a technical question over which regulator is responsible for some bed rails. Are they medical devices under the purview of the F.D.A., or are they consumer products regulated by the commission?

“This is an entirely preventable problem,” said Dr. Steven Miles, a professor at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota, who first alerted federal regulators to deaths involving bed rails in 1995. The government at the time declined to recall any bed rails and opted instead for a safety alert to nursing homes and home health care agencies.

Forcing the industry to improve designs and replace older models could have potentially cost bed rail makers and health care facilities hundreds of million of dollars, said Larry Kessler, a former F.D.A. official who headed its medical device office. “Quite frankly, none of the bed rails in use at that time would have passed the suggested design standards in the guidelines if we had made them mandatory,” he said. No analysis has been done to determine how much it would cost the manufacturers to reduce the hazards.

Bed rails are metal bars used on hospital beds and in home care to assist patients in pulling themselves up or helping them out of bed. They can also prevent people from rolling out of bed. But sometimes patients — particularly those suffering from Alzheimer’s — can get confused and trapped between a bed rail and a mattress, which can lead to serious injury or even death.

While the use of the devices by hospitals and nursing homes has declined as professional caregivers have grown aware of the dangers, experts say dozens of older adults continue to die each year as more rails are used in home care and many health care facilities continue to use older rail models.

Since those first warnings in 1995, about 550 bed rail-related deaths have occurred, a review by The New York Times of F.D.A. data, lawsuits, state nursing home inspection reports and interviews, found. Last year alone, the F.D.A. data shows, 27 people died.

As deaths continued after the F.D.A. warning, a working group put together in 1999 and made up of medical device makers, researchers, patient advocates and F.D.A. officials considered requiring bed rail makers to add warning labels.

But the F.D.A. decided against it after manufacturers resisted, citing legal issues. The agency said added cost to small manufacturers and difficulties of getting regulations through layers of government approval, were factors against tougher standards, according to a meeting log of the group in 2000 and interviews.

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Thanksgiving weekend sales top $59B

More people hit the stores this Thanksgiving weekend than did last year, as big-box retailers opened their doors earlier than ever on Thursday.

Spending per shopper averaged $423 -- $25 more than last year -- from Thursday to Sunday, while total spending increased nearly 13 percent, to an estimated $59.1 billion, according to a survey the National Retail Federation released Sunday afternoon.

"I think the only way to describe the Thanksgiving openings is to call it a huge win," said Matthew Shay, the trade group's president and chief executive. Shopping, he said, "has really become an extension of the day's festivities."

About 35 million people visited stores and shopping websites Thursday, up from 29 million last year. More than double that number -- 89 million, up from 86 million -- shopped on Black Friday.

"There were more people shopping every single day of the weekend," Shay said. "Black Friday is a little bit different than historically, but it certainly is not dead."

But whether increased sales over the Thanksgiving weekend will translate to higher sales throughout the holiday shopping season remains to be seen. Analysts have been predicting mediocre sales this year, as shoppers remain uncertain about the broader economy.

Overall holiday sales are expected to increase 4.1 percent from 2011, compared with sales growth of 5.6 percent last year, the National Retail Federation said. Overall holiday sales are projected to total about $586.1 billion.

On average, Americans are expected to spend $749.51 this holiday season, up $9 from last year but still below 2006 figures.

In an effort to defy the stingy projections, some retailers opened at 8 p.m. on Thursday, while others offered to match the prices of their online competitors. But some analysts have projected that retailers would only succeed in prompting customers to buy gifts earlier in the holiday season, rather than to spend more.

Most of the weekend's shoppers -- roughly 58 percent -- bought clothing and accessories, whereas 38 percent bought electronics and 35 percent shelled out for toys.

Much of the weekend's shopping took place online, as consumers logged on to take advantage of Internet-only specials beginning early Thursday morning. The average shopper spent more than $172 online this weekend, which made up approximately 41 percent of the total weekend spending. That is up from 38 percent last year.

"There is no question that online is a real bright spot in the retail industry," Shay said. "For the first time, more than half of those who shopped this weekend said they shopped online."

Online sales are slated to pick up even more, as many retailers kick off Cyber Monday sales a day or two early. Wal-Mart began offering online discounts on Saturday, and Amazon.com started on Sunday with plans to offer deep savings for Internet shoppers all week.

The more successful retailers, analysts said, were companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Macy's Inc., which did better at combining physical stores with their online and mobile channels into a seamless shopping experience.

"The more you can make a shopper shop multiple channels, they are at least twice as likely to be a loyal shopper and spend tons of money," Patty Edwards, chief investment officer at investment firm Trutina Financial, said.

But shoppers also tried to stay disciplined during the onslaught of deals over the so-called "Black Friday" weekend, named for the day after Thanksgiving that traditionally kicks off the November-December holiday shopping season.

A total of 52 percent of Black Friday shoppers that answered a Reuters/Ipsos poll said they stayed on budget and 34 percent said they spent less than planned. Only 14 percent said they went over budget.

Of the 404 in the poll that shopped on Black Friday, 33 percent said the deals they found were better than last year and 39 percent found them to be the same, while 15 percent said the deals were worse.

While holiday shopping appeared to be off to a good start, analysts cautioned against reading too much into one weekend's numbers. Retailers have to sustain the initial burst through the November-December holiday season, which can account for a third of annual sales and 40 to 50 percent of profits for the year.

The impact on the U.S. economy is also sizeable as consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of all economic activity. U.S. employment has undergone a slow but steady recovery, but concerns remain about the "fiscal cliff" that threatens to produce tax increases and automatic spending cuts in January.

Staying open on Thanksgiving became more widespread this year as retailers such as Target, Sears Holdings Corp. and Toys R Us Inc. joined in, while others including Wal-Mart and Gap Inc either extended their operating hours or had more stores doing business.

One was Abercrombie & Fitch Co., where it looked like traffic "really slowed off on Friday afternoon and Saturday", Ken Perkins, president of data-monitoring firm Retail Metrics, said.

Several analysts criticized J.C. Penney Co. Inc.'s decision not to open until Friday morning, losing shoppers to competitors like Target and Macy's that opened hours earlier.

"They blew it," Edwards said.

There are two extra days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year and one more full weekend, so the opportunity for a lull between the holidays is greater.

"A big Black Friday, it's hard to read too much into that for the rest of the season," Scott Tuhy, vice president at Moody's Investors Service, said.

Retailers may have to discount more than they want sooner to help spur more shopping, which could cut into margins, Liz Ebert, retail lead at consulting firm KPMG LLP, said.

The National Retail Federation still expects sales in November and December to rise 4.1 percent this year, below last year's 5.6 percent increase.

- The Washington Post and Reuters contributed to this report

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Three hurt in early-morning shootings

Early-morning shootings in the Chinatown, South Chicago, and West Rogers Park neighborhoods today left three men injured, police said.

At 4:20 a.m., a 25-year-old man was shot while riding in a vehicle in the 2400 block of South Archer Avenue in Chinatown, Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Amina Greer said.

A dark-colored vehicle pulled up next to the man's vehicle, and one or more people inside fired shots, Greer said.

A bullet struck the 25-year-old man in the leg, and he was taken to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, where he was listed in good condition.

Earlier, about 1:20 a.m., a 19-year-old man was shot in a building hallway in the 2700 block of East 80th Street in South Chicago, Greer said.

Early reports suggested four assailants followed the 19-year-old into the building from the street and that one of them opened fire, Greer said.

The 19-year-old was struck in the back and the buttocks and taken to Stroger, where he was listed in guarded condition, Greer said.

At 12:10 a.m. this morning, a 25-year-old man was shot in the right thigh during a sidewalk fight in the 2800 block of West Howard Street, News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said.

The man was taken to Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston, where his condition was stabilized, Alfaro said.

No one is in custody in the shootings as detectives investigate.

asege@tribune.com

Twitter: @AdamSege

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Saudi telco regulator suspends Mobily prepaid sim sales

(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia‘s No.2 telecom operator Etihad Etisalat Co (Mobily) has been suspended from selling pre-paid sim cards by the industry regulator, the firm said in a statement to the kingdom’s bourse on Sunday.

Mobily’s sales of pre-paid, or pay-as-you-go, sim cards will remain halted until the company “fully meets the prepaid service provisioning requirements,” the telco said in the statement.

These requirements include a September order from regulator, Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC). This states all pre-paid sim users must enter a personal identification number when recharging their accounts and that this number must be the same as the one registered with their mobile operator when the sim card was bought, according to a statement on the CITC website.

This measure is designed to ensure customer account details are kept up to date, the CITC said.

Mobily said the financial impact of the CITC’s decision would be “insignificant”, claiming data, corporate and postpaid revenues would meet its main growth drivers.

The firm, which competes with Saudi Telecom Co (STC) and Zain Saudi, reported a 23 percent rise in third-quarter profit in October, beating forecasts.

Prepaid mobile subscriptions are typically more popular among middle and lower income groups, with telecom operators pushing customers to shift to monthly contracts that include a data allowance.

Customers on monthly, or postpaid, contracts are also less likely to switch provider, but the bulk of customers remain on pre-paid accounts.

Mobily shares were trading down 1.4 percent at 0820 GMT on the Saudi bourse.

(Reporting by Matt Smith; Editing by Dinesh Nair)

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Indian Prostitutes’ New Autonomy Imperils AIDS Fight

Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times

Sex workers in Mumbai’s long-established red-light district, where brothels are dwindling.

MUMBAI, India — Millions once bought sex in the narrow alleys of Kamathipura, a vast red-light district here. But prostitutes with inexpensive mobile phones are luring customers elsewhere, and that is endangering the astonishing progress India has made against AIDS.

Indeed, the recent closings of hundreds of ancient brothels, while something of an economic victory for prostitutes, may one day cost them, and many others, their lives.

“The place where sex happens turns out to be an important H.I.V. prevention point,” said Saggurti Niranjan, program associate of the Population Council. “And when we don’t know where that is, we can’t help stop the transmission.”

Cellphones, those tiny gateways to modernity, have recently allowed prostitutes to shed the shackles of brothel madams and strike out on their own. But that independence has made prostitutes far harder for government and safe-sex counselors to trace. And without the advice and free condoms those counselors provide, prostitutes and their customers are returning to dangerous ways.

Studies show that prostitutes who rely on cellphones are more susceptible to H.I.V. because they are far less likely than their brothel-based peers to require their clients to wear condoms.

In interviews, prostitutes said they had surrendered some control in the bedroom in exchange for far more control over their incomes.

“Now, I get the full cash in my hand before we start,” said Neelan, a prostitute with four children whose side business in sex work is unknown to her husband and neighbors. (Neelan is a professional name, not her real one.)

“Earlier, if the customer got scared and didn’t go all the way, the madam might not charge the full amount,” she explained. “But if they back out now, I say that I have removed all my clothes and am going to keep the money.”

India has been the world’s most surprising AIDS success story. Though infections did not appear in India until 1986, many predicted the nation would soon become the epidemic’s focal point. In 2002, the C.I.A.’s National Intelligence Council predicted that India would have as many as 25 million AIDS cases by 2010. Instead, India now has about 1.5 million.

An important reason the disease never took extensive hold in India is that most women here have fewer sexual partners than in many other developing countries. Just as important was an intensive effort underwritten by the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to target high-risk groups like prostitutes, gay men and intravenous drug users.

But the Gates Foundation is now largely ending its oversight and support for AIDS prevention in India, just as efforts directed at prostitutes are becoming much more difficult. Experts say it is too early to identify how much H.I.V. infections might rise.

“Nowadays, the mobility of sex workers is huge, and contacting them is very difficult,” said Ashok Alexander, the former director in India of the Gates Foundation. “It’s a totally different challenge, and the strategies will also have to change.”

An example of the strategies that had been working can be found in Delhi’s red-light district on Garstin Bastion Road near the old Delhi railway station, where brothels have thrived since the 16th century. A walk through dark alleys, past blind beggars and up narrow, steep and deeply worn stone staircases brings customers into brightly lighted rooms teeming with scores of women brushing each other’s hair, trying on new dresses, eating snacks, performing the latest Bollywood dances, tending small children and disappearing into tiny bedrooms with nervous men who come out moments later buttoning their trousers.

A 2009 government survey found 2,000 prostitutes at Garstin Bastion (also known as G. B.) Road who served about 8,000 men a day. The government estimated that if it could deliver as many as 320,000 free condoms each month and train dozens of prostitutes to counsel safe-sex practices to their peers, AIDS infections could be significantly reduced. Instead of broadcasting safe-sex messages across the country — an expensive and inefficient strategy commonly employed in much of the world — it encircled Garstin Bastion with a firebreak of posters with messages like “Don’t take a risk, use a condom” and “When a condom is in, risk is out.”

Surprising many international AIDS experts, these and related tactics worked. Studies showed that condom use among clients of prostitutes soared.

“To the credit of the Indian strategists, their focus on these high-risk groups paid off,” said Dr. Peter Piot, the former executive director of U.N.AIDS and now director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A number of other countries, following India’s example, have achieved impressive results over the past decade as well, according to the latest United Nations report, which was released last week.

Sruthi Gottipati contributed reporting in Mumbai and New Delhi.

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Rosenthal: Big Ten getting too big for its own good?

There's a lesson the empire builders at Big Ten Conference headquarters in Park Ridge would do well to heed if they can be convinced to stop peering out to the distant horizon:

Growth through acquisition is fraught with peril.

"In the business world you acquire new companies and you have to deal with different corporate cultures, different priorities and so forth," Robert Arnott, chairman of Research Affiliates LLC, an investment firm, said in an interview. "Merging them is often very messy and often fails. Here you're merging two teams into an existing conference and it creates risks. … Even college football teams have different cultures, different ways of thinking about how to win and different standards."

There undoubtedly was a logic behind each acquisition as the old Sears sought to expand and diversify its corporate profile. By the time the Chicago-area company's portfolio grew to include Allstate insurance, Coldwell Banker real estate and Dean Witter Reynolds stock brokerage, it was clear the increase in size was in no way matched by an increase in strength.

Rather than an all-powerful Colossus astride many sectors at once, it was reduced to an unfocused blob, bereft of identity, covering plenty of ground but hardly standing tall. Years after shedding its far-flung holdings, Sears has yet to regain its muscle, mojo or market share.

"It's hard to find a better example of a company that lost its mission and focus in the quest for growth," Arnott said.

"(Growth) may be partly a defensive move. It may be ego driven. In the corporate arena, you certainly see that in spades," he said. "When growth is through acquisition, you have to figure out what the real motivation is. Is it synergy, the most overused word in the finance community, or is it ego?"

Adding the University of Maryland and New Jersey's Rutgers University in 2014 will push the Big Ten to 14 schools and far beyond the Midwestern territory for which it's known. But doing so may not achieve what its backers envision.

Rather than spread the conference's brand, it may merely dilute it. The fit may be corrosive, not cohesive.

There is a school of thought that this is but the latest evidence that the Big Ten is not about athletics, academics or even the Midwest. Instead, it is just a television network, the schools content providers and student-athletes talent.

As it is, the overall TV payout is said to give each of the 12 current Big Ten schools about $21 million per year. They point to the Big Ten's lucrative deals with ESPN and its own eponymous cable network, a partnership with News Corp. They note that public schools Rutgers and Maryland are near enough to New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., to drive a better bargain with cable carriers.

To Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, a New Jersey native, the addition is more the result of a paradigm shift that has redrawn the college sports map over the past decade. Some conferences splinter. Others seize new turf. The result: Idaho's Boise State football team is poised to join the Big East Conference next year.

"Institutions that get together for academics or athletics have got to be cognizant that they are competing for students, they are competing for student athletes, they are competing for research dollars," Delany told reporters.

"When you see a Southern conference in the Midwest or you see a Southern conference in the Plains states or whether you see other conferences in the Midwest or Northeast, it impacts your recruitment. ... It impacts everything you do," he said. "At a certain point you get to a tipping point. The paradigm has shifted, and you decide on a strategy to basically position yourself for the next decade or half-century."

Big has always meant more than 10 in the Big Ten, an intercollegiate entity formed by seven Midwestern universities that now boasts 12 with the bookends of Penn State and Nebraska added in 1990 and last year, respectively. Last week's announcement of adding schools 13 and 14 was just a reminder that the conference has only had 10 member schools for 70 of its 116 years and won't again for the foreseeable future.

Rutgers President Robert Barchi said his school looked "forward as much to the collaboration and interaction we're going to have as institutions as we do to what I know will be really outstanding competition on our field of play."

But make no mistake, the Big Ten was born out of sports, specifically football. A seven-school 1896 meeting at Chicago's Palmer House had Northwestern among those still stinging from a scathing Harper's Weekly critique of college sports abuses, the Tribune reported at the time.

A prohibition on allowing scholarship and fellowship students to compete was shot down. But "a move towards the coordination of Faculty committees" in terms of standards and enforcement passed and the precursor to the Big Ten was born.

Along the way, the conference has added member schools and come to recognize that the Big Ten's image has much to say about how those institutions are perceived. Scandals already are no stranger to the Big Ten. But whether you play in a stadium or on Wall Street, the bigger one gets, the bigger target one becomes.

"Whoever's biggest draws scrutiny," said Arnott, co-author of a research paper, "The Winners Curse: Too Big to Succeed." "That means politicians, regulators, the general public generally don't root for the biggest. They look to take them down a notch, so it's harder to succeed as the largest. It's also harder to move the dial and move from success to success as you get really big."

Everyone talks about becoming too big to fail, but there's also too big to scale, companies that are unable to capitalize on the efficiencies of their increased size ostensibly because they are so big that they cannot be managed adequately.

"People talk about economies of scale. There are also vast diseconomies of scale, mostly in bureaucracies," Arnott said. "The more people you have involved, the more people you have who feel they have to have their views reflected in whatever's done. So you wind up with innovation by committee."

That's deadly. That's why companies break up, citing the need to get smaller so they can grow.

"If you break up companies into operating entities that are more nimble," Arnott said, "the opportunities to grow are no longer hamstrung by centralized bureaucracies that have to pursue synergies that don't exist."

Size matters in all fields of play. Sometimes smaller is better.

philrosenthal@tribune.com

Twitter @phil_rosenthal

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Hector 'Macho' Camacho dies at age 50

Former boxing champ Hector "Macho" Camacho, who was shot in the face this week, died on Saturday after being removed from life support, Rio Piedras Medical Director Ernesto Torres told reporters. He was 50.

Camacho had been declared brain dead on Thursday after being struck in the face in a drive-by shooting earlier in the week.

Two gunmen opened fire on Camacho and a friend, Adrian Mojica Moreno, 49, on Tuesday as they sat in a car outside a liquor store in the San Juan suburb of Bayamon, Camacho's birthplace.

Police are investigating the shooting and no arrests have been made.

Mojica Moreno, the driver of the car, was killed and Camacho was shot in the jaw. The bullet fractured two vertebrae and lodged in his shoulder, damaging the arteries that carried blood to the brain, doctors said.

Police found nine small bags of cocaine in the driver's pockets and one open in the car.

Camacho, a left-handed fighter who grew up in New York's Spanish Harlem neighborhood, had a record of 79-6-3 with 38 knockouts. His three-decade career featured fights with a "who's who" of boxing and a flamboyant style that included entering the ring in an outfit based on the Puerto Rican flag.

Camacho's body was taken to the hospital's pathology section and brought to the Institute of Forensic Sciences as required by law, Torres told reporters.

El Nuevo Dia newspaper reported the family was planning a funeral in New York, where Camacho grew up, and possibly a public wake in Puerto Rico.

(Reporting by Reuters in San Juan, Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Sandra Maler)

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App of the Week: Instead

App Name: Instead

Price: Free

Available Platforms: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad (requires iOS 5.0 or later), Android

What does this app do? With Black Friday and Cyber Monday bookending the holiday weekend it is hard to imagine getting through the next few days without spending money in the spirit of the season. Whether you dole out your dollars for gifts or in some other way, such as a post-turkey cocktail with friends, likely you will be reaching into your pocket and opening up your wallet at some point. For those who want to donate some of their hard-earned money as opposed to spending it, there’s an easy way to give in a small, manageable way.

Instead, a micro-donation app developed by Ovenbits, LLC, gives consumers an opportunity to donate money from their mobile device to their favorite non-profit instead of spending that $ 20 on lunch or that $ 3.00 on a latte while out and about with friends.

Once you launch the app, Instead walks you through three steps on how it works: pick something to give up – that second cup of coffee, for example – choose how much to give, and then select a non-profit to which to donate. Tap on the “About” button, select “Donation Transparency,” and the app explains exactly how your money is parceled out: 95 percent of your donation goes to the charity you select, and the remaining 5 percent goes to credit and debit processing fees as well as operational fees such as server maintenance and application hosting. Your donation, according to website, goes first to instead, inc, a registered 501(c)3, and from there the company sends a check to your chosen non-profit.

Select the “Give” button, choose the amount you wish to donate, and even type in what you’re giving up in place of your donation. The app provides a list of charities to choose from, such as The American Cancer Society. You can also suggest an organization to be added to Instead’s database. Submissions are reviewed by a volunteer committee.

Is it easy to set up? This is a lightweight app that allows you to log in with your Facebook account. The app makes a point of stating your donations through Facebook can remain private. However, you can skip that step and proceed without logging into Facebook, too.

Should I try it? Instead encourages you to develop your charitable giving muscle by showing you how easy it is to make small donations from time-to-time by giving up things you likely won’t miss anyway. Your payment, in the end, is processed through your browser, not the app itself, and therefore requires an extra step. If you’ve already sacrificed an impulse buy or gave up splurging on a night out at the movies, however, the hard part is over.

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AP PHOTOS: TV icon Larry Hagman through the years

Larry Hagman, whose masterful portrayal of the charmingly loathsome J.R. Ewing on “Dallas” brought him his greatest stardom, has died at the age of 81. That role on CBS’ long-running nighttime soap opera was a ratings bonanza for the network, particularly the “Who shot J.R.?” story twist.

Years before “Dallas,” Hagman gained TV fame as a nice guy with the fluffy 1965-70 NBC comedy “I Dream of Jeannie.” He played Capt. Tony Nelson, an astronaut whose life is disrupted when he finds a comely genie, portrayed by Barbara Eden, and takes her home to live with him.

He also starred in two short-lived sitcoms, “The Good Life” (NBC, 1971-72) and “Here We Go Again” (ABC, 1973). His film work included well-regarded performances in “The Group,” ”Harry and Tonto” and “Primary Colors.”

Here, in images, are some of Hagman’s memorable moments:

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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