Hunting for Luxeury , Retail Giant Buys Saks

When the real estate scion Richard A. Baker acquired the department store chain Lord & Taylor at the market peak in 2006, retail industry players laughed. Mr. Baker, they snickered, was just the latest money guy who would get clobbered trying to break into the fashion business.

No one is snickering anymore.

On Monday, Mr. Baker’s Hudson’s Bay Company announced that it had agreed to buy Saks Inc., one of the oldest and most revered names in luxury retailing, for $2.4 billion in cash, uniting it with Lord & Taylor and the Canadian chain Hudson’s Bay.

The acquisition would create a behemoth in the retail world and cap an extraordinary run of deal making by Mr. Baker. The combined company would own 320 locations, 179 of which are full department stores. It had combined revenues of about $7 billion in the 2012 fiscal year.

Mr. Baker is a dapper businessman who, once he bought Lord & Taylor, swore allegiance to that chain’s Black Brown 1826 private-label suits. Even with that interest in fashion, though, he has largely avoided the follies that have plagued other investors who have gotten into the retail business. He brought in experienced managers (including a handful formerly of Saks), invested in store makeovers and left most of the merchandising decisions to merchants.

“He is more interested in the financials,” said Walter Loeb, a longtime retail analyst.

Under the terms of the deal, the Hudson’s Bay Company will pay $16 a share in cash, about 4.5 percent higher than Saks’s closing price on Friday and about 30 percent higher than its closing price on May 20, the last day before reports about a possible sale surfaced. In New York Stock Exchange trading on Monday, Saks shares rose 4.18 percent to $15.95.

Mr. Baker prevailed over a number of other Saks suitors. Among those who explored a deal were Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, which had floated the idea of injecting money into the chain and then merging it with its rival Neiman Marcus. The Qatar Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund of the Middle Eastern emirate, also took a serious look at the company.

Saks drew suitors because it continues to benefit from luxury shoppers who, after closing their wallets during the recession, have come back in force since. Its 2012 sales rose 4.4 percent, to $3.15 billion, and executives say it continues to benefit from foreign tourists, particularly from China, Russia and the Middle East.

While industry experts once questioned whether department stores would stay relevant given competition from the Internet, analysts said Saks’s prime locations, like Fifth Avenue in New York, had held up well.

“No tourist wakes up in New York and says: ‘You know what I’m going to do now? I’m going to log on to the Internet and shop,’ ” said Faye Landes, a retail analyst at Cowen.

Mr. Baker described the Fifth Avenue store as having tremendous financial results “in a neighborhood that has some of the highest rents in the world.”

But Saks also has a number of mall locations that are thought to be less profitable, and it is trying to build an outlet business with its Off Fifth concept.

Mr. Baker, 47, lives in Greenwich, Conn., where he grew up, the son of the shopping mall developer Robert C. Baker. In 2006, restless in the family business, Mr. Baker dove headlong into the retail trade. He teamed up with his father and two real estate investors, Bill Mack and Lee Neibart, to buy Lord & Taylor for $1.2 billion. A couple of years later, he acquired Hudson’s Bay and merged the two into a single business. Last year, he listed the combined company on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Mr. Baker said there was no overlap between Saks and Lord & Taylor, even though their flagship Fifth Avenue locations are just 11 blocks apart.

“Where Lord & Taylor ends is where Saks begins,” he said.

That is not entirely true; both carry items from midprice clothing brands like Catherine Malandrino, but while those goods, which generally cost $300 to $500, represent the top of Lord & Taylor’s offerings, they are near the bottom of Saks’ price range.

The Lord & Taylor shopper might pick up a Marc Jacobs perfume to own a piece of that brand for less than $100, while the Saks shopper might preorder a $4,395 Marc Jacobs python bag instead.

And Lord & Taylor carries middle-America brands like Jessica Simpson shoes and Kim Kardashian perfume that Saks does not, lest its aura of luxury be sullied.

With the acquisition, Mr. Baker says he plans to push the Saks brand into Canada, where there is only one luxury department store chain, Holt Renfrew. “There’s certainly room for a little competition up there,” Mr. Baker said. Canadian Saks stores will be “on the luxurious side of the U.S. Saks stores,” he said.

As in his previous deals for Lord & Taylor and Hudson’s, real estate is an important component of the Saks acquisition.

Mr. Baker told analysts on Monday that he planned to pool the valuable property of the three separate chains and form a real-estate investment trust, or a REIT, which receives preferential tax treatment. Then, by selling shares of the REIT to the public, Hudson’s can also raise money to help pay down debt.

Other retailers, including the American department store chain Dillard’s and the Canadian food retailer Loblaw, have had recent success executing a similar strategy.

Hudson’s is just the latest owner of Saks, which was founded in 1867 as a privately held company operating as a division of Gimbel Brothers, the now-defunct department store. Horace Saks and Bernard Gimbel opened the flagship Fifth Avenue store in 1924.

In 1973, British American Tobacco Industries acquired Saks Fifth Avenue when it purchased Gimbel Brothers, and then sold it in 1990 to Investcorp International, a Bahrain-based investment firm. Proffitt’s, the Southern department store chain, acquired the company for $2.1 billion in 1998, changed its name to Saks and jettisoned some of its lower-end divisions to focus on luxury. During the recession, though, as shoppers spent less, Saks expanded its cheaper private-label offerings and pushed designers to offer lower-priced options.

Mr.Baker did not specify whether the new company would continue to employ Stephen I. Sadove, who has been chief executive of Saks since 2006. “We don’t have a closed deal,” Mr. Baker said, “so we haven’t had those conversations yet.”

As for Mr. Baker, the acquisition also offers a chance for him to upgrade his wardrobe — Saks’s men’s labels include Armani, Gucci and Ralph Lauren Black Label.

“I’m very fond of our Black Brown,” he said. “But I definitely have more shopping options going forward.”

Source: nytimes

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Osheaga : A field trip for the masses

MONTREAL - If you’re from out of town, good luck getting a hotel room in Montreal this weekend.

“We (just) got the numbers for occupancy, and it’s 98.6 per cent on Saturday night,” said Nick Farkas, director of the Osheaga Music and Arts Festival. “Almost every single room in the city is booked. Try finding a room now, and it’s impossible. There’s nothing left.”

You may have noticed it last year, if you were among the 40,000-per-day attendees as the festival sold out all its days for the first time in its seven-year history: this was major-league stuff. Throngs of people, everywhere, all day and all evening long. It was a far cry from Osheaga’s early editions, some of which made do with a modest 10,000 fans on slow days.

“Last year was just crazy,” Farkas said. “I think the big turning point was getting Eminem (in 2011). Last year it went exponential. Our sales quadrupled over the year before. … The first day that tickets went on sale, I was in Toronto for Canadian Music Week. I saw the ticket counts and I said, ‘This can’t be right. Somebody’s pulled a bunch of tickets for stores or something.’ It didn’t make sense compared to the previous year. Nobody expected it.”

Days away from Osheaga’s eighth edition, which runs Friday to Sunday, Farkas was still coming to terms with just how big his baby has become. Saturday and Sunday have been sold out for a couple of weeks already. As of last Tuesday, there were only about 500 tickets left for opening day. By Thursday, those too were gone.

The festival’s numbers are actually up this year, as the site has been expanded to accommodate 42,500 people each day.

So how did it happen? What put Osheaga over the top? It may well have been Eminem. But previous headliners included mainstream attractions Coldplay and Jack Johnson. Ultimately, it may have come down to what author Malcolm Gladwell calls the tipping point — the moment when something goes from being a thing to a phenomenon, carried by word of mouth, hype and an inexplicable surge of momentum that takes on a life of its own.

“Eminem put us on the map — we got a lot more international notice from Americans and Europeans,” Farkas said, trying to quantify the fest’s success. “That took us to another level in terms of people having heard of (Osheaga).

“Last year, we built on that. We got love right away from (highly influential music website) Pitchfork, which went a long way toward making word spread across the Internet and various social media platforms.

“(News of) the lineup spread really, really, really fast and wide, in terms of page views and hits. We were trending on Twitter across Canada. It had a big impact. I don’t know what exactly happened. The fest always had good credibility, in terms of the perception of the lineup. I think it just finally hit the point where … all of a sudden people were buying tickets. Before, people were talking about it but not coming.”

The biggest difference in attendance has been from tourism. More than 60 per cent of last year’s festivalgoers came from outside the province. Alongside North American rock festivals such as Coachella in California and Lollapalooza in Chicago, Osheaga has become a destination event, drawing music fans from near and far. But Farkas explained his fest’s success has been earned.

“From the start, when we embarked on this, we had five stages and spent a lot of money on production, to optimize the fan and band experience,” he said. “We knew it would never work as just a Montreal or Quebec festival. We had to get people to travel in order to make it viable.”

Last year, the formerly intimate Green Stage was moved to a near

y field, effectively creating a mid-size venue that could accommodate approximately 10,000 people, in contrast to the previous location, which held a fraction of that number. A victim of its own success, the change led to foot-traffic jams as fans migrated back and forth to catch different shows.

The problem was quickly fixed, however, as organizers reacted to feedback on the fly. This year, they have added an extra bridge (leading over a road on the way to the Green Stage area) to ensure a smooth commute, and again moved the stage, which can now accommodate 17,500 people.

“We’re (also) focusing our programming on scheduling acts, so as to avoid massive influxes of people in either direction,” Farkas said. “Adequate flow patterns are something we never thought of before. We were always focusing on the lineup, and making it better than the last year.”

This year’s roster is one of the heaviest-hitting yet, with an impressive depth of talent led by some nifty top draws.

“We’ve got Mumford & Sons (on Sunday), which is one of the biggest acts in the world right now,” Farkas said, “The Cure (Friday), and Beck (Saturday), who we’ve been trying to get for the past eight years. It all fell into place.”

Source: montrealgazette

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On “Blurred Lines” , Robin Thinke's vision is clear

NEW YORK — At 36, Robin Thicke has been with the same woman, happily, for 20 years. But he has spent his entire creative life looking for love.

"When I think of the artists that I respect the most — Stevie Wonder, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye — they're all people who found a way to sing about togetherness, about changing the world with love," says Thicke. "That's who I am. I'm a hippie at heart. And that's what most of my songs revolve around: figuring out love, or finding love, or spreading love."

Thicke has also sought affirmation in a more professional sense. "I always wanted legitimacy, or my peers' respect, or my parents' respect, more than I wanted a big radio hit."

Neither of those goals is evident, he admits, on his cheeky, chart-topping single Blurred Lines. And that's just fine with him.

"I started out with very lofty ambitions," Thicke admits, in between sips of double espresso. "The guys I admired got more serious as they got older. John Lennon went from Help! to Working Class Hero; Marvin went from Ain't No Mountain High Enough to What's Going On. I think I'm going the other way. When I watch my new video, I think, 'That's not the guy I set out to be — but you know, that guy may be cooler.' "

Thicke is sitting in the lobby of a chic downtown hotel where he's crashing with his 3-year-old son, Julian Fuego, while plugging his new album, also titled Blurred Lines, out Tuesday. Julian's mom, actress Paula Patton, is off promoting a new film, 2 Guns. "She had a few busy days, so I was like, 'Why don't you come with me, buddy?' He's my best friend."

Patton, whom Thicke met as a teenager and married in 2005, and Julian were a big source of inspiration for Thicke's new material, though not in the way you might expect. There are reflective songs on the album, such as 4 the Rest of My Life, which recalls Thicke's courtship of Patton, and Top of the World, informed by single female friends "who have accomplished amazing things in their careers, but still don't have the love they want."

But Lines' light heart lies in breezier, funkier fare such as the titular smash, modeled after Gaye's Got to Give It Up, and Thicke's follow-up single Give It 2 U, which features Kendrick Lamar. And Thicke isn't being ironic when he attributes that vibe to his experience as a family man.

"What it came down to is that at this point in my life, it's most important for me to be happy," Thicke says. "That means being with my wife and child. And when I'd play new songs for my wife at night, I'd play happy stuff and sadder, deeper stuff — and she'd always want to go back to the happy stuff. So this became a let's-have-fun-and-dance album."

Certainly, there has been a playful element to Thicke's eroticism in the past; his 2009 album Sex Therapy included a double-entendre-laden duet with Jay Z, Meiple. But Thicke insists he's had a tendency to brood that dates back to his childhood.

"The reason I started to write songs was to get rid of some of the loneliness I felt growing up in this big house with busy parents (Alan Thicke and his ex-wife, singer/actress Gloria Loring) and a big brother who had a do-not-disturb sign and skull and crossbones on his door. The piano became how I connected with the world."

Andre Harrell, who has served as an executive producer on all of Thicke's albums, feels that this sensitivity has been an asset for the singer, whose authenticity as a purveyor of romantic soul has made him that rare white artist more popular with urban audiences than on pop radio.

"If you close your eyes and listen to Robin sing, you can't tell that he's white," Harrell says. "I could always tell that Michael McDonald was white, that Justin Timberlake was white. (Thicke) used his vulnerability as a strength, to sing about the ups and downs of relationships, but people didn't know how to define him."

Working on Lines, Thicke was also influenced by newer collaborators, such as Pharrell Williams and will.i.am, both contributors to the album. "I noticed that they don't bring their issues to a song," Thicke says. "With will.i.am and Pharrell, it's all about moving it forward, having a good time, as opposed to me going, 'Sit down, let me tell you my problems.' I took out the melodrama."

Commercial prospects were a factor as well, Thicke admits. His last album, 2011'sLove After War, sold a disappointing 206,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. "After releasing five albums where I'm pouring everything into my music, and then the last one doesn't sell at all, I thought, am I crazy?"

For veteran music critic Alan Light, Thicke's resilience makes his current success all the more impressive. "The guy's been in the game, a young man's game, for 15 years now. When you hit a peak after that long, it's a testament to something, some vision or bigger idea that sustains you," Light says.

Thicke quips, "Now that I've had a taste of that success, I can see how other artists are like, 'Next one's going to be even bigger!' You think about world domination."

He might consult his son, whom Thicke jokes is "pretty much my A&R (artists and repertoire) director. He's always able to pick the hits, even with my old songs." Julian is already a budding tunesmith himself: "He's written five songs. The latest one is called I Forgot to Sing My Song. That's the new hit. He's very serious about it. I'll tell him my band is coming over to rehearse, and he'll be like, 'No, my guys are coming over, Daddy. We have to work on my new song.' "

The final track on Lines, The Good Life, was included with Julian and his mother in mind. Thicke originally wrote it "about eight years ago, when I was going through my darkest period," but now views its fundamental message — that "life takes you up and down," as he sings — in a brighter light.

"Some of our individual goals still haven't been realized," Thicke says of himself and Patton. "But we have a healthy child. We're madly, crazily in love. That's where I was at, and I wanted to celebrate it. Life is pretty good, you know?"

Source: usatoday

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Sammy Yatim’s family suffering through ‘anger, pain, sorrow’ after teen killed by in Toronto police

SammyYatim’s uncle was still reeling from his nephew’s recent death on Monday but he called on Torontonians to not seek revenge.

A NationalPost reporter spoke to Mejad “Jim” Yatim at his apartment in Mimico.

Mr.Yatim answered his door dressed in a blue, plaid bathrobe. The hallway of the apartment smelled like it had been freshly cleaned but the scent of cigarettes still hung in the air.

He appeared distressed and exhausted. His eyelids looked heavy.

“I can’t deal with this,” he said to the reporter with a slight accent. “It’s a very tough time.”

Mr.Yatim then raised his hands, waving the reporter away.

“Email would be best. Please,” he said.

The apartment was located near the waterfront in an older brick building with flowers planted by the front entrance. On a nearby path, joggers ran by, people walked their dogs and cyclists biked by. A grocery store, daycare and sushi restaurant were close by.

In an email to the National Post Monday afternoon, Mr. Yatim apologized for what he called the “rude” reception at his door.

“Please forgive me. I have been fighting to sort out my emotions,” he said. “Anger, pain, sorrow. All I can do is cry why not me? I probably deserved those bullets more than he did.”

In a second email sent to the National Post sent a few minutes later, Mr. Yatim took a calmer tone. He said he appreciated the concern of Torontonians and Canadians, but asked them not to seek revenge.

“No need for a [lynch mob party] for the officer involved, our family will manage to deal with this situation as we have dealt with other tragedies in our lives,” he said. “We do not need our [pound of flesh].”

He said he did not expect others to understand this call for non-violence.

“For others it might seem outrageous; however for my family the ultimate price has been paid,” he said. “Nothing said or done will bring our Sammy back.”

Mr.Yatim said his family has suffered many misfortunes before and Sammy’s death is yet another they will have to live with.

He added that this is a tragedy to be learned from. “It is up to the living to decide what the future should be,” he said.

In the meantime, while the public demands answers regarding how this incident could have occurred, the Yatim family strives to remember Sammy as he was in life.

“Whatever people might pontificate on this situation, Sammy will always be Sammy to us and we will always have him in our hearts,” he said.

Source: nationalpost

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DJ Kidd Kraddick Dead at 53

NEWORLEANS (CBSDFW.COM) - Local radio show host Kidd Kraddick of the popular radio show “Kidd Kraddick in theMorning,” has died. Kraddick, whose real name is David PeterCradick, 53, passed away Saturday in New Orleans at a golf tournament. The event was organized to raise money for his beloved Kidd’s Kids charity. More than a radio icon to many, Kraddick had a reputation for helping children selflessly through his non-profit work.

“When Kidd came to town Ronald Reagan was just being sworn into his second term, Danny White quarterbacked the Cowboys, and Doug Rader managed the Rangers. Nobody compared to Kidd Kraddick. Nobody,” according to KLUV/98.7 FM morning host Jody Dean.

Kraddick founded his charity The Kraddick Foundation, in ’91. It’s dedicated to helping impact the lives of children who have terminal or chronic illnesses or are accident victims.

Source: cbslocal

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The Royal Baby was born and it's a boy!

Get ready for a 62-gun salute, watch the water in the fountains turn blue, let the fireworks and street parties commence: The royal baby has arrived, and it's a boy.

PrinceWilliam and Duchess Kate's first baby, a future monarch, was born today at 4:24 pm local time in London's private wing of St. Mary'sHospital, the palace announced. The announcement said the baby weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces, and William was present for the birth.

In a statement, Prince William said: "We could not be happier."

Mother and baby were both doing well, the announcement added. The name was not immediately announced. There's a chance it could be announced as early as Tuesday, but it's also possible it may not be known for some days.

The news was supposed to be first announced in the traditional manner, on fancy paper with a Buckingham Palace letterhead on a gilded easel at the palace front gates. Instead, it went out by electronic press release first, to the royal Twitter feed and websites, and then proclaimed from every TV and computer screen in the country.

After that, the framed announcement went up on the easel at the gates, watched and cheered by a growing crowd despite what was being called the hottest day in London in years.

But the baby's great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, was the first to get the news from her grandson, by encrypted phone to the palace, and just in time, too. She's scheduled to leave on her annual vacation at her Balmoral estate in Scotland at the end of this week.

The palace announcement said the royal family, including the queen's husband, Prince Philip, the baby's grandfather, Prince Charles the Prince of Wales, his wife, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall, and William's brother, Prince Harry, and other family members have been notified and are "delighted."

Prince Charles issued a statement saying he and Camilla are "overjoyed" and "thrilled" for the couple. "Grandparenthood is a unique moment in anyone's life, as countless kind people have told me in recent months, so I am enormously proud and happy to be a grandfather for the first time and we are eagerly looking forward to seeing the baby in the near future," the first-in-line to the throne said.

Prime Minister David Cameron came out of Number 10 to hail the "wonderfulnews" and the "important moment in the life of the nation."

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama congratulated the couple on "the joyous occasion" of the birth.

"We wish them all the happiness and blessings parenthood brings," the Obamas said in a written statement. "The child enters the world at a time of promise and opportunity for our two nations. Given the special relationship between us, the American people are pleased to join with the people of the United Kingdom as they celebrate the birth of the young prince."

In a separate message posted on Twitter, Mrs. Obama said: "Being a parent is the best job of all."

Speaking of Twitter, the company announced late Monday that more than 2 million tweets about the royal baby were sent out starting when Duchess Kate checked into the hospital early in the morning, reaching a royal-baby buzz peak of about 25,300 tweets per minute.

There was no word yet on whether Kate's mother and younger sister, Carole and Pippa Middleton, 29, were at the hospital for the birth.

The duchess was expected to spend at least one night overnight at the hospital, but it's possible she and William and the baby will emerge from the hospital as soon as today for the customary pose before the media, after three weeks of waiting, outside the hospital.

The birth of the royal baby was a model of the careful blend of traditional and modern exemplified by this royal couple in the dozen years they've been a couple. Plans call for a multi-gun salute near Buckingham Palace, probably on Tuesday, blue water running in the fountains, blue lights at the top of iconic buildings, fireworks and street celebrations throughout the land.

The baby arrives just short of 27 months since William and Kate were married in a spectacular ceremony at Westminster Abbey on April 29,2011. The nine months of her pregnancy have been chronicled by the British and world media with excruciating detail and growing excitement about the first royal heir to be born in 31 years, since William himself was born to Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

(In fact, the last time the easel-and-note was used to announce a royal birth was for William.)

The baby moves immediately to third in line to the throne, behind fatherWilliam and grandfather Charles. The queen is 87 and celebrating her 61st year on the throne.

The past few weeks saw rising royal-baby fever in Britain, with hopes high that the birth would provide an estimated $360 million boost in the flat British economy. Meanwhile, royal-baby doodads, such as Will and Kate masks, poured into shops for use at the street parties soon to break out all over the country.

The baby arrived a little late , based on a mid-July due date. Unlike the majority of births in Britain, no one, not even the parents, knew the sex of the baby until the birth.

Source: usatoday

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Dennis Farina, Detective in Life and TV, Dies at 69

DennisFarina, who spent 20 years as a police officer in Chicago before he began patrolling Hollywood as a character actor, starring as a detective on the television shows “Law & Order” and “CrimeStory” and sometimes crossing into crime, as he did in the movie “Get Shorty,” died on Monday in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 69.

His publicist, Lori De Waal, announced the death. She said he had recently had a blood clot in his lung.

Mr.Farina eventually had a longer career as an actor than he did in law enforcement, infusing dozens of roles with world-weary credibility and a convincing nexus of nose and mustache.

He had been working as a detective in a special burglary unit in Chicago when a mutual friend introduced him to the director Michael Mann, who was making his first feature film, “Thief.” Mr. Farina was initially a consultant for the movie before being given a small role as a crime boss’s enforcer. The film, which starred James Caan, was released in 1981.

For several years afterward, Mr. Farina juggled his police job with local theater roles and appearances in movies and television shows. He was often cast by Mr. Mann, including in several episodes of his hit show “Miami Vice.”

Mr.Farina quit police work after Mr. Mann cast him in 1986 in the NBC series “Crime Story” as Lt. Mike Torello, a detective who pursues a Chicago mobster to Las Vegas. “Crime Story” was well regarded by critics but lasted just two seasons.

Mr. Farina’s work in “Crime Story” led to a role in the 1986 film “Manhunter,” which Mr. Mann also directed. In 1988 Mr. Farina appeared in the film “Midnight Run” and in 1998 in Steven Spielberg’s World War II epic, “Saving Private Ryan.”

One of his most notable characters was the mobster Ray (Bones) Barboni in the 1995 film “Get Shorty,” based on the novel by Elmore Leonard. The movie, which also starred John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo and Danny DeVito, was a critical and commercial success; Janet Maslin, writing in The New York Times, called Mr. Farina’s work “a funny deadpan performance.”

The quality of roles he accepted declined for a time after “Get Shorty” — he appeared in a short-lived sitcom on NBC, “ In-Laws,” and in several disappointing films, including “Stealing Harvard” — but his fortunes improved in 2004, when he was cast as the dapper detective Joe Fontana on “Law & Order.”

In a radio interview several years ago, Mr. Farina said his character on that show was “firm but fair” and “took advantage of every inch that he could, and if that didn’t work sometimes maybe he had to stretch things a little.”

Mr. Farina said he was honored to be on the show, one of the longest-running in television history, but was also amused, as a former detective, by the increasing number of programs that emphasized the roles of scientists in solving crimes.

“While forensics plays a huge part in law enforcement nowadays, you still need the foot soldiers,” he told The Times in 2004. “You still need the guy who can knock on the door, you still need the guy who can write down the license plate numbers.”

In 2012, Mr. Farina appeared on the short-lived HBO series “Luck” as a henchman to a horse-racing gambler played by Dustin Hoffman. The show, which had its premiere in 2012, ceased filming in March after three horses died during production.

He most recently appeared on the Fox comedy “New Girl” and was in two movies tentatively scheduled for release this year, “Authors Anonymous” and “Lucky Stiff.”

Mr. Farina was born on Feb. 29, 1944, in Chicago. His survivors include his longtime companion, Marianne Cahill; three sons, Dennis Jr., Michael and Joseph, and six grandchildren. His first marriage ended in divorce.

Even after Mr. Farina left the Chicago Police Department in the mid-1980s, he continued to live in his hometown, and the characters he played were often from Chicago even if a show or movie was set elsewhere. The Chicago police superintendent, Garry F. McCarthy, said in a statement on Monday that Mr. Farina was “a true-blue Chicago character” who “never forgot where he came from.”

Mr.Farina said as much himself.

“My personality was formed by Chicago,“ he told Cigar Aficionado magazine in 1999. “It’s very American, very straightforward. If you can’t find it, or make it there, you won’t make it anywhere. It’s a very honest place.”

Source: nytimes

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