Ellen DeGeneres arrives at the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 21, 2015. DeGeneres said she has tested positive for COVID-19 but is “feeling fine right now.” The producer of her daytime talk show says production has been put on hold until January. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) --
Ellen DeGeneres says she has tested positive for COVID-19 but is "feeling fine right now."
Production on her daytime talk show has been paused until January, producer Telepictures said in a statement that followed DeGeneres' Thursday announcement.
In an Instagram post, DeGeneres said anyone who was in close contact with her has been notified, adding that she's following "all proper CDC guidelines," a reference to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"I'll see you all again after the holidays. Please stay healthy and safe," DeGeneres said in her post.
Reruns of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" were to air starting Thursday.
When the coronavirus outbreak hit in March, DeGeneres shifted to taping without a studio audience, as did other talk shows. When the series began its 18th season in September, her show added fans virtually into the seats, then said it would allow a few dozen people into the studio.
Actor Laurence Olivier, center, with his wife Joan Plowright, left, and actress Lauren Bacall at the U.S. premiere of Lord Olivier's only Shakespearean production made exclusively for television, "King Lear," in New York, May 3, 1983. (AP Photo/Carlos Rene Perez, File)
Award-winning British actor Joan Plowright, who with her late husband Laurence Olivier did much to revitalize the U.K.'s theatrical scene in the decades after World War II, has died. She was 95.
In a statement Friday, her family said Plowright died the previous day at Denville Hall, a retirement home for actors in southern England, surrounded by her loved ones.
"She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire," the family said. "We are so proud of all Joan did and who she was as a loving and deeply inclusive human being."
Part of an astonishing generation of British actors, including Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins and Maggie Smith, Plowright won a Tony Award, two Golden Globes and nominations for an Oscar and an Emmy. She was made a dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Plowright racked up dozens of stage roles in everything from Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" to William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." She stunned in Eugene Ionesco's "The Chairs," and George Bernard Shaw's totemic two female roles "Major Barbara" and "Saint Joan."
"I've been very privileged to have such a life," Plowright said in a 2010 interview with The Actor's Work. "I mean it's magic and I still feel, when a curtain goes up or the lights come on if there's no curtain, the magic of a beginning of what is going to unfold in front of me."
The esteem in which Plowright was held in London was evident with the news that theaters across the West End will dim their lights for two minutes at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in her honor.
Born Joan Ann Plowright in Brigg, Lincolnshire, England, her mother ran an amateur drama group and Plowright was... Read More
