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George Lowe, voice actor known and beloved for his irreverent Space Ghost, dies at 67

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George Lowe, voice actor known and beloved for his irreverent Space Ghost, dies at 67

George Lowe, the voice actor best known for the long-running cult-favorite Cartoon Network and Adult Swim series “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” died Sunday at age 67, a representative confirmed Tuesday.

The representative said a statement from the family would be forthcoming. No cause of death was given, though friend and radio host “Marvelous Marvin” Boone wrote Tuesday on social media that Lowe had died after “a long illness.”

“I’m beyond devastated,” he said on Facebook. “My Zobanian brother and best friend for over 40 years, George Lowe, has passed away after a long illness. A part of me had also died. He was a supremely talented Artist and Voice actor. A true warm-hearted Genius. Funniest man on Earth too. I’ve stolen jokes from him for decades. He stole some of mine. He was also the voice of Space Ghost and so much more.”

Casper Kelly, the writer-producer-director behind Adult Swim’s “Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell,” remembered Lowe on X, writing, “Wonderfully kind and funny man. Brilliant improvisor. Art collector. Raconteur. Space Ghost was genius and helped usher in a new wave of oddball tv.”

Voice-over actor Billy West said Tuesday on X that Lowe “was mighty and one of the best of the best VOs ever. Very generous of spirit and very kind… and funny funny funny. He will be missed.”

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“My heart is broken. George Lowe was one of the funniest people I’ve ever known and one of the nicest people to ever exist. You will be missed more than you know my friend. RIP,” Tim Frasier, an executive producer at iHeartRadio subsidiary Premiere Networks, said Tuesday on Facebook.

Michael Stipe of R.E.M. vibes with talk-show host Space Ghost — voiced by George Lowe — in an episode of “Space Ghost Coast to Coast.”

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“Incredibly heartbroken to learn that long time broadcasting buddy George Lowe (Official) has passed away,” radio host and voice-over artist Roy Hersey said, also on Facebook. “One of the most creative and funniest people I’ve ever known. We worked together at Power 99 in Atlanta before he became the voice of #spaceghostcoasttocoast on the Cartoon Network. … I visited with him just recently at his home in Lakeland, Florida. So glad I got to see him one last time. If there is a heaven, he’s got ’em in [stitches].”

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Lowe was born Nov. 10, 1957, in Dunedin, Fla., and worked in radio before moving to voice acting in the 1990s. He was also a visual artist and art collector, according to the American Visionary Art Museum, ultimately amassing hundreds of works including Pop Art prints by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and others.

Space Ghost, who originated in the 1960s on CBS (courtesy of Hanna-Barbera Productions), evolved in the 1990s from a serious fighter of outer-space supervillains into an irreverent talk-show host on a show that mixed animation and live-action.

“Space Ghost Coast to Coast” was billed as the first late-night show to feature a cartoon superhero as its host, and during its run from 1994 to 1999 and off and on until 2012, it welcomed guests including Björk, Adam Carolla, Conan O’Brien, Bob Costas and Michael Stipe of R.E.M., to name a few. The guests were filmed live and inserted into the animated show.

On the premiere, diet guru Susan Powter, comic Kevin Meaney and the Bee Gees were Space Ghost’s guests, accompanied by his TV band — led by former archenemies Moltar and Zorak.

Lowe took over the Space Ghost gig from “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” announcer Gary Owens, who voiced the superhero during his early, more serious stints in the 1960s and 1980s. Owens, who died in 2015, made a cameo appearance as Space Ghost replicant “Gary” in a Season 5 episode of “Coast to Coast.” In the episode, Lowe’s Space Ghost destroyed Owens’ replicant.

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“The great thing about Space Ghost is that he’ll be returning at a time when heroes like X-Men and Batman are especially popular,” former Cartoon Network executive Mike Lazzo told The Times in 1994. “Here we have a hero working with his former enemies and there’s a completely loopy, nutty spin, making something for both kids and their parents.”

Lowe voiced numerous roles on Adult Swim shows including “Robot Chicken,” “The Brak Show” and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” and in 2024 voiced Space Ghost in the Season 3 “Space Con” episode of “Jellystone!” The voice actor spent time in recent years meeting fans at various Comic-Cons and similar gatherings.

Art by Lowe is hung at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Georgia Museum in Athens, Ga., the Polk Museum in Lakeland, Fla., and the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, according to the latter museum’s website.

Former Times staff writer N.F. Mendoza contributed to this post.

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Lucas Museum to give free annual passes to South L.A. neighbors, host community preview day

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Lucas Museum to give free annual passes to South L.A. neighbors, host community preview day

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is moving at light speed toward its Sept. 22 opening, announced Thursday that it will give free annual passes to its South L.A. neighbors living in the 90037 ZIP Code. The 300,000-square-foot, $1-billion museum located in Exposition Park will also host a special community preview day on Sept. 13, more than a week before the general public gets to step inside.

The 90037 ZIP Code has a population of more than 65,000 and is bordered roughly by the 110 Freeway to the west, Slauson Avenue to the south, Central Avenue to the east and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the north. Residents can register for passes at lucasmuseum.org/lm37 and will be alerted in August when the program launches. Pass holders can reserve tickets for themselves and one guest.

Tickets for non-pass holders go on sale July 21. They cost $25 for adults and $21 for seniors. Kids 17 and under are free.

“Storytelling has the power to bring people together and create a sense of community,” said Lucas Museum Chief Executive Tracey Bates in a news release about the program. “Through LM37, we are inviting our South Los Angeles neighbors to make the museum part of their lives and take their own path of discovery through the art, programs and experiences that will help shape this new cultural hub for Los Angeles.”

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The community preview day is designed to give local business owners, community partners, civic leaders and registered LM37 pass holders a sneak peak of the 10,000 square feet of exhibition space, as well as the expansive gardens with 11 acres of park space.

The opening programming, curated by co-founder George Lucas, features 20 inaugural exhibitions across more than 30 galleries, including one titled “Star Wars in Motion,” containing vehicle designs, high-speed racers, flying vessels, props, costumes and illustrations from the first six films in the beloved franchise.

More than 1,200 objects will be on display from Lucas’ personal collection of narrative art. Highlights include work by Norman Rockwell and Dorothea Lange, as well as a variety of manga, children’s book illustrations and comics.

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Movie review: Supergirl is a blast

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Movie review: Supergirl is a blast

Last year’s “Superman” ended with Iggy Pop singing “Because I’m a punk rocker, yes I am” — an ironic coda for a superlatively square hero. But it rings straightforwardly true for Superman’s cousin.

Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El, or Supergirl, sports not a spandex suit but a Blondie T-shirt. When we meet her in Craig Gillespie’s “Supergirl,” she’s been on an interstellar bender for days. She’s more Courtney Love than Clark Kent.

Nonchalant and sarcastic, Kara is also a little Han Solo-ish, you might say, given that she moves capriciously through the galaxy in her junky spaceship while getting in fights in extraterrestrial bars. She’s a welcome, jagged riff on more buttoned-up superheroes, and Alcock is terrific in the role. If only “Supergirl” was as good as she is.

While the latest DC release, and second under James Gunn’s stewardship, has its moments, “Supergirl” struggles to match Kara’s punk-rock energy with an equally spirited supporting cast and story.

Skepticism seems to have gathered for “Supergirl” ahead of its release. Many fans have argued it wasn’t the right next step for DC Universe. But I’m not so sure. Alcock’s breezy cameo in “Superman” was one of that movie’s highlights. Handing the follow-up to her, and her faithful floating dog Krypto, strikes me as an extremely natural next step. When in doubt, follow the dog.

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And much of “Supergirl” is winning. It resides almost entirely in space, touching down only momentarily on Earth. In its consistently creative production design, clever needle drops and underdog story arc, “Supergirl” resides a little closer to Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies than other DC entries. Its outer space is filled with cosmic detritus, mean characters and cute critters. Seth Rogen as the voice of a tiny alien co-piloting a space bus is an inspired concoction, as is a shabbier sci-fi realm with rest stops along the intergalactic highway.

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Justin Baldoni and wife break silence after ‘It Ends With Us’ legal battle with Blake Lively

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Justin Baldoni and wife break silence after ‘It Ends With Us’ legal battle with Blake Lively

Justin Baldoni has broken his silence after reaching a settlement in a lengthy and highly publicized legal dispute with Blake Lively.

Baldoni and his wife, Emily Baldoni, presented a united front in an Instagram video the couple shared Wednesday that began, “So we have not spoken publicly for the better part of the last two years, and it’s not because we haven’t had anything to say, because Lord knows we have.”

The “It Ends With Us” actor and director said that although they’d wanted to address the debacle that involved dueling lawsuits with Lively, nearly two years of tit-for-tat fodder and culminated in a confidential settlement, “something was telling us not to.”

The couple said they prayed about when to make a public statement. “This feels like the moment,” Emily said.

“What does feel important,” she continued, “is that we can genuinely say that we are sitting here today feeling immense gratitude for so many things and so many people and so many things that have happened to us.”

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“Gratitude has saved us,” Justin added.

“I also feel that it’s important as we say that — in that gratitude — it doesn’t negate the injustice and the pain that we have also felt in the last few years, and we’ve had to wrestle with so many things and try to understand so many things,” Emily said. “How could something like this even happen? Let alone disguised as a fight for women. So much to unpack. And the truth is, reality is, is that there’s been a lot of trauma for us to move through as a family, which also makes it hard to speak.”

“We don’t even know this is the right thing to say, but we just know we need to share something,” Justin said. “What I will say is that there have been so many painful things that have been spoken into existence — “

“Untruthful,” Emily broke in.

“We didn’t want to add to the noise, so we just wanted to let the justice system run its course,” he said.

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“And the truth and the facts have spoken for themselves,” Emily said.

The couple’s statement comes a year and a half after Lively filed a bombshell lawsuit against Baldoni alleging sexual harassment, retaliation and several other charges on the heels of a messy “It Ends With Us” summer release and press tour that fueled rumors of on-set turmoil.

Less than a month after the allegations against Baldoni rallied Hollywood against him, he countersued Lively, her publicist Leslie Sloane and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for $400 million in damages, claiming they’d smeared his name in the press and wrestled away his control of the film. His suit was later dismissed.

In May, two weeks ahead of the trial, Lively and Baldoni reached an agreement to resolve their legal dispute, bringing an abrupt end to the contentious battle.

“The parties in the Blake Lively and Wayfarer Studios litigation have reached an agreement to resolve the matters,” lawyers for both sides said in a joint statement.

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“The end product — the movie ‘It Ends With Us’ — is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life. Raising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors — and all survivors — is a goal that we stand behind. We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard. We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.”

In June, a federal judge ordered Baldoni and his production company to pay Lively’s attorney fees related to his unsuccessful defamation lawsuit against her, but rejected her bid for additional damages.

“So, how are we doing?” the filmmaker said in the Instagram video. “We are healing, and if you’ve ever been through something traumatic, you know that healing isn’t linear. It lives different every day, and we have had to rethink for ourselves what is real. What matters, and it’s this. It’s our family. It’s our friends. It’s our community. It’s our faith.”

Times staff writer Josh Rottenberg contributed to this report.

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