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I am back east after a hectic last few days in Hollywood—sorry for not posting, but there was just no opportunity. I could get into details now... but I won't. Suffice it to say that I have returned with not only a number of exciting new interviews/interview commitments, but also a significantly better understanding of the landscape of the upcoming awards season.

Among the sadder things I learned during one meeting is that the health of the great actress-dancer Cyd Charisse has taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks, leaving her many friends and husband, Tony Martin, gravely concerned. Charisse, who is best known for her work in classic M-G-M musicals such as Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953), Brigadoon (1954), and Silk Stockings (1957), is no spring chicken (she turned 87 in March), but she and Martin (who she married in 1948, and who is 95) have remained quite active in recent years, and she seemed to be in very good form when she gave me a wonderful interview for my aforementioned book project just a few years ago. Anyway, here's hoping she's back on those famous million-dollar legs very soon.

Additional thoughts go out to Jackie Cooper's wife of nearly fifty-five years, Barbara Kraus, who is also ailing.

And, finally, of course, to the family of the great Tim Russert, whose weekly Q&As on NBC's Meet the Press were must-see TV and helped to shape our national dialogue (as well as my own love of politics and interviewing style) for the past seventeen years. The universal praise and outpouring of grief over his untimely passing strikes me as comparable only to that which followed the death of another beloved analyst of our society, humorist Will Rogers, who perished in a plane crash in 1935, and of course the trio of 1960s political-assassination victims, President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968, exactly forty years ago this week.

ALSO: In completely unrelated news, I just wanted to mention that I spotted, of all people, Sid Ganis leaving a meeting at my hotel on Friday afternoon... I didn't run into any stars this trip, but I ran into the president of the Academy... how appropriate!