MIAMI -- Bill Cosby avoided his recent criticism of some segments of the black community, instead sticking to humor and praise for parents during a charity event for at-risk children.
Many in Saturday night's crowd had expected Cosby to continue his series of remarks urging blacks to stop blaming others for social problems such as teen pregnancy, poverty and academic underachievement.
Cosby appeared before a packed crowd at Zo's Summer Groove, which is organized by former Miami Heat center Alonzo Mourning.
Cosby, wearing a sweat shirt reading "Parent Power," joked that his parents and grandparents always knew exactly what he was up to.
"All day long, you were watched," he told the audience. "Even if there was a drawn shade, there was at least one eye peeking out of it. My mother knew everything I did."
In May, Cosby stunned an audience commemorating the landmark civil rights ruling Brown vs. Board of Education by citing elevated school dropout rates for inner-city black students and criticizing low-income blacks for not using the opportunities the civil rights movement won for them.
Cosby made similar comments this month at a gathering of black community activists in Chicago, when he said many young blacks are illiterate and "going nowhere."
On Saturday, he made an indirect allusion to those remarks, saying that television star Art Linkletter once told him, "'You know, Bill, as you get older, you're in sync with 5-year-old people and you don't really give a damn about what people think about what you say."'
Before Cosby's speech, Mourning said he did not hesitate to invite the entertainer.
"No, because it's the truth. The truth is confrontational," Mourning said.
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Perennially perky Sandy Duncan is slamming what she considers the sorry state of Broadway musicals.
Duncan stars in a two-week run of "The King and I" starting Tuesday.
The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical marked her professional debut as a 12-year-old in Dallas.
But now, at 58, she said an industry once run by producers with vision and heart has devolved into a business run by "money men who don't have an eye for the product."
"It used to be that producers would make a profit, with the idea that they would put that money into a new show," Duncan told the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
"Now, they want to make a killing, and so they're flogging these shows into 10-, 12-, 14-year runs. It hurts the whole creative community."
The result, she said, can be seen in the lack of new titles on Broadway and on the road. Her six-month tour as Anna in "The King and I," she said, just proves her point.
"Shows like this are being done to death because there's no new product," she said.
Duncan's Broadway credits include "Peter Pan," "My One and Only" and, most recently, "Chicago." She said audiences in the rest of the country are being cheated by productions that claim to be Broadway musicals but are pale imitations, with diminished technical qualities and less-experienced, nonunion actors.
"A lot of what's coming out of New York is dreck; they should be touring them in theme parks," Duncan said. "And then on top of that, they do it on the cheap so they can make more money. It's immoral, and it tricks the public."
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt is expanding his pornography empire to South Florida, opening an upscale sex shop despite opposition from this city's mayor and others.
Hustler Hollywood is supposed to open Friday, and Flynt is scheduled to visit on Aug. 3.
"In every city we open a store there is always some politician who needs to showboat before his religious or conservative constituents about keeping us out," said Flynt, 61, who's currently on a national 19-city book tour.
Mayor Jim Naugle and city Commissioner Dean Trantalis had spearheaded an attempt to block Flynt by changing a city zoning law.
Currently "less than half" of a store's inventory can be sexually oriented if it's within 500 feet of a residential area. Otherwise, the city can shut it down.
Naugle and Trantalis wanted the ordinance changed so a store could be closed if a "substantial" amount of its inventory was of a sexual nature. But, after Flynt threatened to sue, the Fort Lauderdale City Commission voted against the notion.
Naugle says he won't be rolling out the red carpet for Flynt.
"I am not happy about Flynt coming into town and opening his store," Naugle said. "If he sends me an invitation where I have to call and RSVP, his phone is not going to ring."
Trantalis declined to comment.
Flynt insists that politicians know his Hustler Hollywood stores are not sex stores in the traditional sense.
"These are upscale shops where sexuality is presented in a clean, healthy, natural way, which is why 50 percent of our customer base are women," Flynt said.
BOISE, Idaho -- Hundreds of fans gathered in front of the historic Egyptian Theater to catch a glimpse of Matt Damon and producer Frank Marshall at a benefit screening of "The Bourne Supremacy."
The sequel to the 2002 film "The Bourne Identity" opens nationally July 23.
Proceeds from Saturday's benefit went to the Boise Contemporary Theater, now in its fifth season.
Marshall said he began visiting Boise in the early 1970s and bought property here soon after. He started bringing his movies to Boise nearly a decade later, including "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."
"It's my favorite stop on the press tour," Damon told The Associated Press.
Contemporary Theater artistic director Matthew Clark said about half of the theater's $500,000 yearly operating fund comes from ticket sales, so the theater depends on donor contribution, federal grants and benefit screenings.
Damon, 33, is currently filming "Ocean's Twelve" - the sequel to the 2001 hit "Ocean's Eleven."
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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