{"id":74269,"date":"2016-04-15T03:13:24","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T07:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=74269"},"modified":"2016-04-15T03:13:24","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T07:13:24","slug":"74269","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/04\/15\/74269\/","title":{"rendered":"Aretha Franklin celebrates 74th birthday in Manhattan"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_74270\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-74270\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/11009100_10152599157012811_7057575654346968708_n.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-74270\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-74270\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/11009100_10152599157012811_7057575654346968708_n.jpg\" alt=\"(Photo: Aretha Franklin\/Facebook)\" width=\"650\" height=\"430\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/11009100_10152599157012811_7057575654346968708_n.jpg 650w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/11009100_10152599157012811_7057575654346968708_n-300x198.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-74270\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/arethafranklin\" target=\"_blank\">Aretha Franklin\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>NEW YORK\u2014Aretha Franklin was in the mood for celebrating, and not just because she had a birthday party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGood news, we&#8217;re ready to sign for the movie,\u201d Franklin said Thursday night of the biopic about her life she has been trying to arrange with \u201cStraight Outta Compton\u201d producer Scott Bernstein. \u201cWe&#8217;ve agreed on all the key points. There&#8217;s very little left now (to negotiate), very little. They have given me creative control and that&#8217;s all I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Plans for a biopic date back to at least 2011, when Franklin announced she wanted Halle Berry to star. Jennifer Hudson is now reportedly being considered for the lead.<\/p>\n<p>Franklin spoke to The Associated Press in the first floor lounge of the Ritz-Carlton hotel, where she has held parties before, as some 100 of her friends gathered Thursday to wish her a happy birthday. Franklin, who turned 74 on March 25, arrived in white fur and settled into a corner table alongside record executive Clive Davis and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others.<\/p>\n<p>There was music, of course, but little of Franklin&#8217;s. The singer of \u201cRespect,\u201d \u201cChain of Fools\u201d and other classics took the night off, content to smile and nod her head along to performances by the Dizzy Gillespie All Stars and Dennis Edwards of Temptations fame. Near the end, a multi-tiered vanilla cake was wheeled out, with a tape recording of Stevie Wonder&#8217;s \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d playing on the sound system.<\/p>\n<p>Davis, who has known Franklin for more than 30 years and worked with her on numerous recordings, told the AP he approached their collaborations with a sense \u201cthat everything she does is history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything will be studied centuries from now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK\u2014Aretha Franklin was in the mood for celebrating, and not just because she had a birthday party. \u201cGood news, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":74270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[10220,1595],"class_list":["post-74269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","tag-aretha-franklin","tag-birthday","mauthors-hillel-italie","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}