Jon Rosen, a longtime WME agent and executive who has represented some of TV’s best known news anchors and celebrity chefs, is leaving the Endeavor-owned agency to launch his own management firm, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Rosen, who represents NBC News’ Stephanie Ruhle, Willie Geist and Hallie Jackson as well as CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, is set to manage many of his current clients, according to one of these people, and they are expected to retain WME as an agency. A WME spokesperson did not respond immediately to a query seeking comment and Rosen could not be reached immediately for comment via a call Wednesday.
His exit comes as WME parent Endeavor has come under new scrutiny on Wall Street. The company, which recently helped create the combat-sports company Tko, suggested in October that it might consider going private.
Rosen, who has closed deals...
Rosen, who represents NBC News’ Stephanie Ruhle, Willie Geist and Hallie Jackson as well as CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, is set to manage many of his current clients, according to one of these people, and they are expected to retain WME as an agency. A WME spokesperson did not respond immediately to a query seeking comment and Rosen could not be reached immediately for comment via a call Wednesday.
His exit comes as WME parent Endeavor has come under new scrutiny on Wall Street. The company, which recently helped create the combat-sports company Tko, suggested in October that it might consider going private.
Rosen, who has closed deals...
- 1/3/2024
- by Brian Steinberg
- Variety Film + TV
Sarma Melngailis is returning to our small screens. On April 13, Peacock confirmed to E! News that an upcoming series, Pure—which follows the unbelievable true story behind Netflix's docuseries Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives—is in development. Based on the Vanity Fair article "The Runaway Vegan," by Allen Salkin, Pure will explore the rise and fall of the relationship between Melngailis and Anthony Strangis, "two people who fulfilled each other's desires to live in a world that existed outside of reality—which ultimately destroyed them," according to the series description. "A tragic, twisted love story, doomed from the...
- 4/13/2022
- E! Online
Exclusive: Peacock has put in development Pure, a one-hour drama based on Allen Salkin’s Vanity Fair article “The Runaway Vegan,” from Weimaraner Republic Pictures and Warner Bros. Television.
Written by Heather Regnier (Veronica Mars), Pure chronicles the rise and fall of the relationship between Sarma Melngailis and Anthony Strangis, two people who fulfilled each other’s desires to live in a world that existed outside of reality — which ultimately destroyed them. A tragic, twisted love story, doomed from the start.
The title of the series likely comes from Pure Food and Wine, Melngailis’ upscale New York City raw food restaurant, which made her famous. But falling under the influence of Strangis, who promised her everything, from financial prosperity to immortality for her and her dog if she obeyed him, Melngailis siphoned 2 million off her businesses and the two went on the run until they were arrested at a motel...
Written by Heather Regnier (Veronica Mars), Pure chronicles the rise and fall of the relationship between Sarma Melngailis and Anthony Strangis, two people who fulfilled each other’s desires to live in a world that existed outside of reality — which ultimately destroyed them. A tragic, twisted love story, doomed from the start.
The title of the series likely comes from Pure Food and Wine, Melngailis’ upscale New York City raw food restaurant, which made her famous. But falling under the influence of Strangis, who promised her everything, from financial prosperity to immortality for her and her dog if she obeyed him, Melngailis siphoned 2 million off her businesses and the two went on the run until they were arrested at a motel...
- 4/13/2022
- by Nellie Andreeva
- Deadline Film + TV
If you, like me, recently finished binging Netflix’s new docuseries sensation “Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives.” — with its pyramid scheme-esque layers of scams — you were perhaps left with a bad taste in your mouth.
Regardless of your interpretation of the narrative, carefully constructed by “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened” director Chris Smith, the four-part series attempts to trace a steady line through a truly bizarre sequence of events that enraptured New York circles — and beyond — several years ago.
“Bad Vegan” centers on Sarma Melngailis, once a lauded entrepreneurial chef and restaurateur on the cutting-edge future of raw vegan food at the turn of the aughts. Her buzzy establishment Pure Food & Wine, located in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan and co-founded in 2004, quickly became a hotspot for the likes of Owen Wilson, Alec Baldwin and Bill Clinton. Melngailis’ to-go health bar offshoot, One Lucky Duck, soon followed.
Regardless of your interpretation of the narrative, carefully constructed by “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened” director Chris Smith, the four-part series attempts to trace a steady line through a truly bizarre sequence of events that enraptured New York circles — and beyond — several years ago.
“Bad Vegan” centers on Sarma Melngailis, once a lauded entrepreneurial chef and restaurateur on the cutting-edge future of raw vegan food at the turn of the aughts. Her buzzy establishment Pure Food & Wine, located in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan and co-founded in 2004, quickly became a hotspot for the likes of Owen Wilson, Alec Baldwin and Bill Clinton. Melngailis’ to-go health bar offshoot, One Lucky Duck, soon followed.
- 3/25/2022
- by Natalie Oganesyan
- The Wrap
Netflix has once again found a criminal case whose oddity, extremity, and seeming delusion make for an interesting story. “Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives” — the director of which, Chris Smith, executive produced “Tiger King” and helmed “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened,” both previously on the streamer — certainly has that to its credit. Sarma Melngailis, a celebrated raw-food chef with a burgeoning restaurant under her control, fell from a perch atop the New York culinary establishment after draining her restaurant’s funds to pay her husband Anthony Strangis, eventually going on the lam with him before being discovered in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, after the couple ordered — irony alert — a Domino’s pizza.
From the enigma of what motivates us to a rise-and-fall narrative to — yes — the pleasures of schadenfreude, the materials for a fascinating tale are here. And Melngailis’ journey, culminating in her arrest for fraud, certainly bears the fascination of tragedy.
From the enigma of what motivates us to a rise-and-fall narrative to — yes — the pleasures of schadenfreude, the materials for a fascinating tale are here. And Melngailis’ journey, culminating in her arrest for fraud, certainly bears the fascination of tragedy.
- 3/16/2022
- by Daniel D'Addario
- Variety Film + TV
Pick any memorable detail at random from the overview montage at the beginning of “Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives.”: an immortal dog, an undercover operation, a circle of picketers. More notable than any of those individual pieces, though, is the whole itself.
Almost a tacit admission that a four-part documentary series with this title wouldn’t exist without things turning out badly, the show begins at the end, teeing up a tell-all conversation with Sarma Melngailis. In the ever-calcifying Netflix house style, there’s the former proprietor of trendy New York eatery Pure Food and Wine, looking straight into the camera and describing how on the verge of turning her restaurant into a blooming culinary empire, the arrival of one enigmatic individual helped to upend it all.
Much like the reputation of Pure Food and Wine in an enthralled subset of New York socialites, Sarma becomes the prism through...
Almost a tacit admission that a four-part documentary series with this title wouldn’t exist without things turning out badly, the show begins at the end, teeing up a tell-all conversation with Sarma Melngailis. In the ever-calcifying Netflix house style, there’s the former proprietor of trendy New York eatery Pure Food and Wine, looking straight into the camera and describing how on the verge of turning her restaurant into a blooming culinary empire, the arrival of one enigmatic individual helped to upend it all.
Much like the reputation of Pure Food and Wine in an enthralled subset of New York socialites, Sarma becomes the prism through...
- 3/14/2022
- by Steve Greene
- Indiewire
Before they realized we'd all be just as enthralled watching James Beard Award-winning chefs scramble to whip up something palatable with, say, squid ink and reindeer pâté, the masterminds behind Chopped cooked up a complicated conceit. The original idea, as outlined in Allen Salkin's 2013 book From Scratch: Inside the Food Network, was that the four professionals would compete for the privilege of catering a dinner party thrown by a silhouetted tycoon with his butler ("a snooty John Cleese type") serving as host. Following each round, one contestant would be "chopped" by a group of judges, and the rejected dish fed to the millionaire's chihuahua...
- 5/20/2020
- E! Online
Before Guy Fieri ever wrapped his mouth around the smoked-wing nachos or Nashville hot fried chicken he regularly nibbles on TV, he had to navigate the twists of the pretzel business.
When he was around ten years old, Fieri’s parents took him on a ski trip, and would essentially let him wander as he saw fit for most of the day. He would eat a big pretzel for lunch. “Have you ever had them?” he recalls asking his parents. “They are steamed. They’ve got salt on them.” He had never been to New York and “I never knew what a pretzel was. I thought a pretzel was crunchy,” he says in a recent interview outside a cluster of very busy Food Network kitchens in New York. “My dad says, ‘If you’re such a fan of these pretzels, why don’t you own a pretzel business when we get back home?...
When he was around ten years old, Fieri’s parents took him on a ski trip, and would essentially let him wander as he saw fit for most of the day. He would eat a big pretzel for lunch. “Have you ever had them?” he recalls asking his parents. “They are steamed. They’ve got salt on them.” He had never been to New York and “I never knew what a pretzel was. I thought a pretzel was crunchy,” he says in a recent interview outside a cluster of very busy Food Network kitchens in New York. “My dad says, ‘If you’re such a fan of these pretzels, why don’t you own a pretzel business when we get back home?...
- 4/1/2020
- by Brian Steinberg
- Variety Film + TV
Anthony Bourdain had a profound influence on television during his 16 years on the air, thanks to his immense talent and the fortuitous timing of his rise to prominence.
Bourdain parlayed the success of his 2000 memoir “Kitchen Confidential” into his first TV series just as the expansion of the cable TV universe created huge new demand for all manner of niche programming. Food Network and other lifestyle-focused cablers such as Bravo and TLC grew by leaps and bounds in the early 2000s, which helped to fuel mainstream interest in the culinary world and its stars. This expansion opened the door for Bourdain to thrive in his signature hybrid food-travelogue format.
“He shows you that there was a story behind the chef and a story behind every plate of food,” says Allen Salkin, a veteran food writer and author of the Food Network history “From Scratch.”
“Even a show like ‘Top Chef...
Bourdain parlayed the success of his 2000 memoir “Kitchen Confidential” into his first TV series just as the expansion of the cable TV universe created huge new demand for all manner of niche programming. Food Network and other lifestyle-focused cablers such as Bravo and TLC grew by leaps and bounds in the early 2000s, which helped to fuel mainstream interest in the culinary world and its stars. This expansion opened the door for Bourdain to thrive in his signature hybrid food-travelogue format.
“He shows you that there was a story behind the chef and a story behind every plate of food,” says Allen Salkin, a veteran food writer and author of the Food Network history “From Scratch.”
“Even a show like ‘Top Chef...
- 6/8/2018
- by Cynthia Littleton
- Variety Film + TV
Has Bobby Flay declared the end to his time on Iron Chef Showdown?
According to a post written by Vanity Fair food writer Allen Salkin, the culinary master is walking away from the show.
During the filming of an episode of the live cooking competition this past summer, Flay reportedly tore off his apron in the middle of the battle to show off his shirt that read “This Is My Last Iron Chef Battle Ever.” While the episode hasn’t aired yet, it’s likely the producers won’t be able to cut around his stunt, which Flay apparently knew,...
According to a post written by Vanity Fair food writer Allen Salkin, the culinary master is walking away from the show.
During the filming of an episode of the live cooking competition this past summer, Flay reportedly tore off his apron in the middle of the battle to show off his shirt that read “This Is My Last Iron Chef Battle Ever.” While the episode hasn’t aired yet, it’s likely the producers won’t be able to cut around his stunt, which Flay apparently knew,...
- 10/26/2017
- by Jessica Fecteau
- PEOPLE.com
Oops — Shia Labeouf’s new movie, “Man Down,” literally cannot fall any lower with critics — three days ahead of its release, the film currently has a score of 0 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. While critics are praising Labeouf’s performance, they are describing the film as a “clumsy experiment” directed by Dito Montiel. “‘Man Down ‘turns out to be – by turns – uninteresting, treacly and chock full of war-movie cliches,” wrote The Guardian’s Andrew Pulver, while New York Daily News writer Allen Salkin says that “walking out of the theater comes as an unbridled relief.” See Video: Shia Labeouf Adds Freestyle Rapping.
- 11/30/2016
- by Wrap Staff
- The Wrap
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