DICK VAN DYKE

Sally Ann Howes, who played as a child actor before she later starred in the 1968 film “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” with Dick Van Dyke, has died.

Michael Constantine, an Emmy Award-winning character actor who reached worldwide fame playing the Windex bottle-toting father of the bride in the 2002 film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” has died.

It's a year of diversity and firsts in the nominations for the 73rd Emmy Awards.

The New York Philharmonic will resume subscription performances in September following a historic 18-month gap caused by the coronavirus pandemic, presenting a shortened schedule of 78 concerts in a season shifted from Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall while the orchestra’s home is remodeled.

This year’s Kennedy Center Honors may be a slimmed-down affair as the nation emerges from the coronavirus pandemic — but honoree Dick Van Dyke still says it’s “the capper on my career.”.

President Joe Biden spent Thursday morning in a star-studded meeting with this year’s Kennedy Center honorees.

(Photo by Brent N. Clarke/Invision/AP)WASHINGTON – Five months after they were postponed because of the coronavirus, the annual Kennedy Center Honors are coming back in May, possibly in a series of small events, organizers announced Wednesday. The centerpiece event for Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts normally happens in December, but it was postponed last year amid the pandemic. But even with COVID-19 vaccines gradually rolling out across the country, Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter knew the usual concert would not be possible in May. “It's normally such a festive event, and I'm sure that will come across.”Brooks is no stranger to the Kennedy Center Honors process. Trump and first lady Melania Trump generally stayed away from Kennedy Center events, but Rutter hopes to get President-elect Joe Biden involved this year.

The world also said goodbye to U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement who died in July. Other former political figures who died this year include Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, New York Mayor David Dinkins, Arizona Gov. Here is a roll call of some influential figures who died in 2020 (cause of death cited for younger people, if available):___JANUARY___David Stern, 77. The guitarist who supplied the scratching, seething sound that fueled the highly influential British punk band Gang of Four. He fused African rhythms with funk to become one of the most influential musicians in world dance music.

LOS ANGELES The annual Lucille Ball Comedy Festival is going virtual with help from Tiffany Haddish, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Margaret Cho, Weird Al Yankovic and more than two-dozen others working in the realm of humor. The festival, presented by the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York, will stream conversations with the artists over three weekends, starting Friday and running through Aug. 30. Other pairings include Cho with host and fellow comedian Judy Gold (10 p.m. EDT Friday); Haddish with comedian Flame Monroe (8 p.m. EDT Aug. 22); political satirist Mark Russell with Lewis Black (8 p.m. EDT Aug. 28). The 29th annual festival will pay tribute to Carl Reiner, the filmmaker and creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show who died in June. A rare Reiner interview from the center's archives will be shown at 8 p.m. EDT Aug. 30, with humorist Paula Poundstone hosting.

FILE - In this May 26, 1963 file photo, Carl Reiner shows holds two Emmy statuettes presented to him as best comedy writer for the "Dick Van Dyke Show," during the annual Emmy Awards presentation in Los Angeles. Reiner, the ingenious and versatile writer, actor and director who broke through as a second banana to Sid Caesar and rose to comedys front ranks as creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show and straight man to Mel Brooks 2000 Year Old Man, has died, according to reports. It starred Van Dyke as a television comedy writer working for a demanding, eccentric boss (Reiner) and living with his wife (Mary Tyler Moore in her first major TV role) and young son in suburban New Rochelle, New York. The Van Dyke show is probably the most thrilling of my accomplishments because that was very, very personal, Reiner once said. Reiner is the father of actor-director Rob Reiner.

(AP Photo/Harold Filan, File)NEW YORK Carl Reiner, who died Monday at 98, was the rare untortured genius of comedy, his career a story of laughter and camaraderie, of innovation and triumph and affection. Reiner died of natural causes at his Beverly Hills, California home, assistant Judy Nagy said. But CBS executives worried that Reiner would make Petrie seem too Jewish, so Van Dyke was cast instead. First lady Michelle Obama once joked that she preferred watching Dick Van Dyke to viewing her husbands debates. Reiner was the father of actor-director Rob Reiner, who starred as Archie Bunkers son-in-law on All in the Family and directed When Harry Met Sally... Rob Reiner said in a tweet Tuesday that his heart is hurting.