GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. -- James Taylor is planning a benefit concert in Massachusetts to aid earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.
Proceeds from the concert scheduled for Friday at The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington will go to Partners in Health. The Boston-based group brings modern medical care to poor nations and has been working in Haiti for more than 20 years.
Singer-songwriter Taylor says in a statement that he and his wife, Kim, will match proceeds from sales of tickets. Prices range from $100 to $1,000.
Taylor lives in nearby Lenox. He will be joined onstage by his wife, singers Kate Markowitz and Arnold McCuller, and Boston Symphony Orchestra cellist Owen Young.
Dennis Hopper seeks end to 14-year marriage
LOS ANGELES -- Dennis Hopper, battling prostate cancer, wants out of his marriage.
The 73-year-old actor-director filed for divorce Thursday in Los Angeles, citing irreconcilable differences with Victoria Duffy, his wife of nearly 14 years.
Hopper has been battling prostate cancer and in October canceled all travel plans to focus on treatment.
Hopper is seeking joint custody of the couple's 6-year-old daughter and offering to pay spousal support to Duffy.
The "Easy Rider" star last year finished shooting the second season of "Crash," a TV version of the Oscar-winning 2004 film that airs on the Starz network. Hopper also has several film projects in the works.
Phone and e-mail messages left for Hopper's manager, Sam Maydew, have not been returned.
Prolific crime novelist Robert B. Parker dies at 77
BOSTON -- Robert B. Parker, the blunt and beloved crime novelist who helped revive and modernize the hard-boiled genre and branded a tough guy of his own through his "Spenser" series, has died. He was 77.
The cause of death was unclear. An ambulance was sent to Parker's home in Cambridge on Monday morning after reports of a sudden death, said Alexa Manocchio, spokeswoman for the Cambridge police department.
Parker's longtime agent, Helen Brant, said that the author's widow, Joan, called her Monday right after finding him dead at his desk.
"They had had breakfast together Monday, and he was perfectly fine," Brant said. "She went out to do her running and when she came back about an hour later, he was dead. We were in a complete state of shock and still cannot quite believe it."
Prolific to the end, Parker wrote more than 50 novels, including 37 featuring Boston private eye Spenser.
The character was the basis for the 1980s TV series "Spenser: For Hire," starring Robert Urich. Parker later said the only thing he liked about the program was the residual checks.
Parker admired Raymond Chandler and other classic crime writers and helped bring back their cool, clipped style in the first "Spenser" novel, "The Godwulf Manuscript," from 1973. Within a few years, with "Looking for Rachel Wallace" and "Early Autumn," he was acclaimed as a master in his own right.
Parker also was known for his Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone series. His other books included a novel inspired by the life of Jackie Robinson, "Double Play"; the Westerns "Appaloosa," "Resolution" and "Brimstone"; and "Perchance to Dream," a sequel to Chandler's "The Big Sleep."
Parker won two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and a Grand Master Edgar in 2002 for lifetime achievement. A new Jesse Stone novel, "Split Image," is scheduled to come out next month, according to Chris Pepe, his editor at G.P. Putnam's Sons.
