Boyzone singer Stephen Gately, 33, died on Saturday while on holiday in Majorca off the coast of Spain, the Irish band said on its Web site.
“Stephen tragically died yesterday whilst on holiday with his partner,” the site said yesterday.
Boyzone members, including lead singer Ronan Keating, were heading to Majorca following news of the death.
The circumstances surrounding Gately’s death remained unclear but Britain’s News of the World reported he died after a night out.
Boyzone manager Louis Walsh
told the newspaper: “We’re all absolutely devastated.”
He said: “I’m in complete shock. I was only with him [last] Monday at an awards ceremony. We don’t know much about what’s happened yet ... He was a great man.”
Speaking to the newspaper late Saturday, band member Shane Lynch said: “Me and the boys are flying out in the morning.
“We just need to get over to where he’s passed and work out what we need to do.”
Gately, who married his partner Andrew Cowles in a civil union in 2006, sent ripples through the pop music world 10 years ago when he announced that he was gay.
He joined Boyzone in 1993 after answering an advert in Dublin to audition for Ireland’s first boy band.
The band went on to enjoy huge success with six number one singles in Britain, but split up in 2000.
They reunited seven years later, but their recent 19-date Better tour failed to fill stadiums, despite offers of free tickets.
Gately also starred in West
End musicals in London, including
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
He last posted a message on his Twitter page on Tuesday, writing: “Still busy, lots going on. Focusing on finishing my book next so may be quiet here.”
British actor and comedian Stephen Fry said on Twitter that he was shocked at the news.
“Just heard the very sad news about dear Stephen Gately. What a dreadful shock. He was lovable and sweet natured and will be hugely missed.”
Music producer Shelby Singleton, whose biggest hit was Harper Valley PTA in a career that spanned country and rhythm and blues, has died of brain cancer, friend Jerry Kennedy said on Thursday. Singleton, who passed away in a Nashville hospital on Wednesday at age 77, released the crossover hit written by Tom T. Hall and sung by Jeannie C. Riley in 1968 on his own small independent record label, Plantation Records. It sold millions of copies.
Indian movie mogul Yash Chopra was honored on Friday as filmmaker of the year by one of Asia’s top
film festivals.
Pusan International Film Festival director Kim Dong-ho presented the award to the 77-year-old veteran director and producer at a banquet in the South Korean beach resort city.
Chopra, who founded one of India’s foremost studios, Yash Raj Films, said awards are a great motivator because they force you to justify your laurels.
“You have to prove that you’re good once again. You’re only as good as your last film,” he said in a brief acceptance speech.
Asian cinema’s elite were on hand to pay tribute to the Indian filmmaker, including the Korean-American star of the US hit TV series Lost, Kim Yun-jin, 1989 Venice Film Festival winner Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) of Taiwan, Hong Kong director Johnnie To (杜琪峰) and South Korean actor Ahn Sung-ki.
Chopra made his debut with the 1959 film Blossom of Dust and in 1970 set up Yash Raj Films, which became one of the industry’s top production houses and distributes Indian movies abroad. Last year, Yash Raj Films teamed up with The Walt Disney Co to release the animated film Roadside Romeo. A pioneer in shooting Indian films abroad, Chopra and his company have worked with the industry’s biggest stars, including Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.
Past winners of the Asian filmmaker of the year prize include Hou, the late Taiwanese director Edward Yang (楊德昌) and veteran Hong Kong actor-singer Andy Lau (劉德華).
The Pusan festival is also screening four films directed by Chopra or made by Yash Raj Films — Lamhe, Dhoom 2, New York and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, a romantic comedy starring Khan and directed by Chopra’s son, Aditya.
A jumbo operation is moving 20 elephants across the breadth of India to the mammoth private zoo set up by the son of Asia’s richest man, adjoining a sprawling oil refinery. The elephants have been “freed from the exploitative logging industry,” according to the Vantara Animal Rescue Centre, run by Anant Ambani, son of the billionaire head of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The sheer scale of the self-declared “world’s biggest wild animal rescue center” has raised eyebrows — including more than 50 bears, 160 tigers, 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, according to
They were four years old, 15 or only seven months when they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald and Ravensbruck. Some were born there. Somehow they survived, began their lives again and had children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren themselves. Now in the evening of their lives, some 40 survivors of the Nazi camps tell their story as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the death camps. In 15 countries, from Israel to Poland, Russia to Argentina, Canada to South Africa, they spoke of victory over absolute evil. Some spoke publicly for the first
RSS