Oscar

Although she was an Oscar-nominated songwriter, Dory Previn was better known for ballads that spoke to wounded souls. A gifted lyricist, she mined her traumatic childhood and later mental illness to write confessional songs that found an audience — and helped her heal. In one song, "Beware of Young Girls," she expressed her outrage over being left in the late 1960s by her husband and songwriting partner, Andre Previn, for actress Mia Farrow: Beware of young girls Too often they crave to cry At a wedding and dance on a grave Soon after her marriage broke up, Dory Previn had a breakdown.

Gene Kelly on Film "An American in Paris" Kelly sings and dances to Gershwin tunes in this 1951 Oscar best picture winner "Anchors Aweigh" Kelly meets Tom and Jerry in this 1945 musical, for which he earned a lead actor Oscar nomination "Cover Girl" Kelly and Rita Hayworth dance up a storm in this 1944 musical-comedy

Cleo Trumbo, the widow of Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted for more than a decade as a member of the Hollywood 10, has died. She was 93. Trumbo died of age-related causes Friday at home in the Bay Area city of Los Altos, said her daughter Mitzi, with whom she was living. "She wasn't a person to be in the limelight at all," Mitzi Trumbo said of her mother. "She really devoted herself to the kids, in making sure that we were all OK, and in really keeping the family together."

Joyce Redman, a two-time Oscar-nominated Irish-born actress whose erotically charged dinner-eating scene opposite Albert Finney was a highlight of the bawdy 1963 British film comedy "Tom Jones," has died. She was 96. Redman died Thursday in Kent, England after a short battle with pneumonia, said her son, actor Crispin Redman. A veteran of the London and Broadway stage, Redman received her first Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress for "Tom Jones," which starred Finney as the incorrigible 18th century English title character who has a series of amorous adventures.

"Chimpanzee,"the latest Disney nature film, might as well be called "Simply Irresistible," because thanks to the mischievous monkeyshines of a baby chimp named Oscar, it comes pretty close. This is the most storified yet of Disney's True Life Adventure family films, which began with the release of "Earth" in 2009, and was followed by "Oceans" in 2010 and last year's"African Cats. "Classified as documentary, "Chimpanzee" feels more feature filmy as it follows a band of about 30 chimps, with tiny Oscar the breakout star.

The 83rd Academy Awards will be telecast live on ABC from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood starting at 5 p.m. PT on Feb. 27.

Grab your blankets and beach chairs, Oscar is going casual. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Monday the slate of movies for its first outdoor screening series, to be held at its new Oscars Outdoors venue in Hollywood. The lineup, which kicks off June 15 with a screening of "Casablanca," is a mixture of classics and contemporary films designed to appeal to a broad swath of the moviegoing public. Screenings will take place Friday and Saturday evenings through Aug. 18, with Saturday evenings devoted to family-friendly fare, such as "The Princess Bride" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

With the Oscars upon us on Sunday, Academy Awards buffs can check out several of the nominees at various symposiums this weekend. On Thursday, the academy presents the Oscar-nominated animated feature symposium; scheduled for Saturday morning is the foreign-language film award nominees' symposium, followed by the makeup artists and hairstylist symposium in the afternoon. All events are at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The latter two are sold out but there will be a standby line. www.oscars.

What late Oscar-winning actor's real name was Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones? Ray Milland

Three memorable Oscar-winning performances. Janet Gaynor The diminutive Gaynor won the first lead actress Oscar in 1928 for "Seventh Heaven," "Street Angel" and "Sunrise. " (The Oscar that year was given out for multiple roles, the only time that was done). Audrey Hepburn After "Gigi" on Broadway and a few films, Hepburn became an overnight sensation, winning a lead actress Oscar as a princess on the lam in 1953's delightful "Roman Holiday. " James Cagney Though he came to fame in the 1930s for his tough guy gangster roles, he returned to his song-and-dance man vaudeville roots in 1942's "Yankee Doodle Dandy," winning an Oscar as George M. Cohan.

Singer and actress Julie Andrews has listed the Brentwood house she owned with her late husband, director and screenwriter Blake Edwards , for $2.649 million. Less than a month after coming on the market, the tidy white home with gray shutters is already in escrow. The traditional-style house features a family room and living room with French doors opening to a fanciful garden that appears to be "practically perfect in every way" to borrow a phrase from "Mary Poppins. " The formal dining room has a cathedral ceiling and glass walls.

Grab your blankets and beach chairs, Oscar is going casual. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Monday the slate of movies for its first outdoor screening series, to be held at its new Oscars Outdoors venue in Hollywood. The lineup, which kicks off June 15 with a screening of "Casablanca," is a mixture of classics and contemporary films designed to appeal to a broad swath of the moviegoing public. Screenings will take place Friday and Saturday evenings through Aug. 18, with Saturday evenings devoted to family-friendly fare, such as "The Princess Bride" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

In the end, the Oscars just couldn't leave Hollywood. After entertaining multiple offers to relocate the event, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday that it would keep the Academy Awards at the theater at Hollywood & Highland, negotiating a new 20-year deal with the CIM Group, which owns the complex. CIM also announced that Dolby Laboratories had signed on as the new name sponsor for the complex's 3,400-seat theater, taking over from Kodak, which had filed for bankruptcy.

"Chimpanzee,"the latest Disney nature film, might as well be called "Simply Irresistible," because thanks to the mischievous monkeyshines of a baby chimp named Oscar, it comes pretty close. This is the most storified yet of Disney's True Life Adventure family films, which began with the release of "Earth" in 2009, and was followed by "Oceans" in 2010 and last year's"African Cats. "Classified as documentary, "Chimpanzee" feels more feature filmy as it follows a band of about 30 chimps, with tiny Oscar the breakout star.

In a world devoted to the instant and the new, Bob Marley, dead for more than 30 years, could be a dusty musical footnote. Instead, the enormous popularity of the transcendent reggae superstar shows no signs of abating, a situation"Marley," a moving and authoritative new documentary, takes as its mission to illustrate and explain. Only 36 when he died of cancer on May 11, 1981, Marley went from strength to strength as a recording artist and cultural figure, breaking out from early Jamaican success to enthrall a world of listeners in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.

Martin Poll, 89, a veteran producer best known for "The Lion in Winter," the Oscar-winning 1968 film that starred Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole, died Saturday in New York. He had pneumonia and kidney failure, according to his son, Jon. Hepburn won a best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The film was also honored for best musical score and best adapted screenplay. Poll produced a remake for television in 2003 with Glenn Close in the Hepburn role. During a five-decade career, Poll produced a dozen films with stars such as Elizabeth Taylor and Woody Allen.

'Cinderella Liberty' Marsha Mason earned her first best actress Oscar nomination for 1973's "Cinderella Liberty," playing a boozy prostitute with a heart of gold and a mixed-race son; her character is romanced by a shy, kind sailor (James Caan). 'The Goodbye Girl' Four years later, she received her second nomination for the "The Goodbye Girl," written by her then-husband Neil Simon, playing a struggling actress with a daughter. Richard Dreyfuss won best actor for the film as the thespian sharing her apartment.

Ozark waitresses turned boxers. Los Angelenos battling over racial and social inequality. Boston's criminal element and a do-gooder detective. A West Texas cowboy and a satchel of money. A slum kid from India and a game show. Bomb specialists in Iraq hooked on the drug of war. On the surface, these plots ? of "Million Dollar Baby," "Crash," "The Departed," "No Country for Old Men," "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Hurt Locker" ? have one thing in common: Oscars for best picture (in chronological order since 2005)

It's difficult doing what "Monsieur Lazhar"does, conveying the delicate reality of human emotions in a way that engages without being overdone, but this French-language Canadian film makes it look like child's play. The story of how an Algerian substitute teacher in French-speaking Montreal and his middle-school class help each other confront the presence of death in life, this film deals almost casually with a range of issues and themes, handling with a light and even affectionate touch weighty subjects like grief, guilt, community and love.

At this year's Oscars, Philippe Falardeau spotted his idol Steven Spielberg standing alone, firing off a text message. Falardeau panicked. How, the French-Canadian director fretted, could he break the ice and strike up a chat? "I was like, 'What do I do? What am I going to say to this guy?' So I just ran away," Falardeau, 44, recalled recently over breakfast at a Sunset Strip hotel. "I was just too shy. I blew my assignment. " Perhaps. But Falardeau seems to be making the most of an improbable career that was handed to him 20 years ago when he was picked for a TV-show filmmaking contest, and that reached a midlife apogee this year when he earned a foreign language film Oscar nomination for his fourth feature, the bittersweet classroom drama "Monsieur Lazhar.