Lifestyle FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 Legendary ‘’ anchor Bob Simon dies ‘Kingsman’

ongtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Bob Simon, who covered riots, Academy Award-nominated movies and shakes up the genre Lwars and was held captive for more than a month in Iraq two decades ago, died in a car crash on Wednesday. He was 73. “CBS Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley, his eyes red, announced the death in a special report.”We have some sad news from within our CBS News family,” Pelley said. “Our colleague Bob Simon was killed this evening.” “Vietnam is where he first began covering warfare, and he gave his first- hand reporting from virtually every major battlefield around the world since,” Pelley said. A town car in which Simon was a passenger hit another car stopped at a traffic light and then slammed into metal barriers separating traffic lanes, police said. Simon and the town car’s driver were taken to a hospital, where Simon was pronounced dead. The town car driver suffered injuries to his legs and arms. The driver of the other car was unin- jured. No arrests were made, said police, who continued to investi- gate the deadly accident. Simon was among a handful of elite journalists to cover most major overseas conflicts and news sto- ries since the late 1960s, CBS said. He covered stories includ- ing the and the Oscar-nominated movie “Selma” in a career spanning five decades. He had been contributing to “60 Minutes” on a regular basis since 1996. He also was a correspondent for “60 Minutes II.”

Gulf war hostage He was preparing a report on the Ebola virus and the search for a cure for this Sunday’s “60 Minutes” broadcast. He had been working on the project with his daughter, Tanya Simon, a producer with whom he collaborated on several stories. Anderson Cooper, who does occasional sto- ries for “60 Minutes,” was near tears talking about Simon’s death. He said that when Simon presented a story “you In this image released by 20th Century Fox, Colin Firt hand Taron Egerton appear in a scene from “Kingsman: The Secret knew it was going to be something special.” Service.” — AP “I dreamed of being, and still hope to be, a quarter of the writer that Bob Simon is and has been,” the CNN anchor n his earlier ‘Kick-Ass,’ British writer- And you will, possibly, lose any remain- though he later, just before executing said. “... Bob Simon was a legend, in my opinion.” Simon director Matthew Vaughn famously ing faith by the time Firth’s agent someone, announces: “This ain’t that joined CBS News in 1967 as a reporter and assignment edi- Icast an 11-year-old Chloe Grace slaughters a congregation full of fren- kind of movie.” Vaughn, working from tor, covering campus unrest and inner-city riots, CBS said. Moretz as a young killing machine in the zied churchgoers to the tune of Lynyrd the script he co-wrote with his frequent He also worked in CBS’ bureau from 1977 to 1981 stylishly brutal superhero film. In his lat- Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” collaborator Jane Goldman, emphasizes and in Washington, DC, as its Department of State corre- est, “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” By the time the film settles on one of this again and again, with a look-at-me spondent. Simon’s career in war reporting began in Vaughn has again married innocence its final images - a woman’s naked rear, brashness meant to please snickering Vietnam, and he was on one of the last helicopters out of and mayhem, this time updating the offered to the hero she has just met - fanboys and perhaps nobody else. Saigon when the US withdrew in 1975. At the outset of the tame, traditional spy movie with his par- any spryness in “Kingsman” has emphat- “Kingsman,” based on the comic book in January 1991, Simon was captured by Iraqi ticular brand of contemporary ically left the building, leaving a sexist by “Kick-Ass” makers Mark Millar and forces near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. CBS said he and three moviemaking, which is to say, crassness. stink behind it. The Kingsmen are an John Romita Jr, is less about the con- other members of CBS News’ coverage team spent 40 days “Kingsman: The Secret Service” is a international spy agency based in frontation between Galahad (with Eggsy in Iraqi prisons, an experience Simon wrote about in his blithe James Bond rip-off that gleefully . With their headquarters hidden eventually roped in) and Valentine book “Forty Days.” Simon returned to Baghdad in January celebrates, parodies and self-conscious- behind a Savile Row tailor, they’re hand- (flanked by a henchwoman with Oscar 1993 to cover the American bombing of Iraq. ly modernizes the mossy spy thriller. somely dressed in bespoke suits, oxford Pistorius-like prosthetic legs, played by Simon won numerous awards, including his fourth And with Colin Firth in tow, as well as shoes with poisonous tips and umbrel- Sofia Boutella), than between new and Peabody and an Emmy for his story from Central Africa on the winning newcomer Taron Egerton, las that shoot bullets. Their names come old, seeking a blend between the two. the world’s only all-black symphony in 2012. Another story “Kingsman” occasionally manages to do from the Knights of the Round Table: In the corner of old, we get spy about an orchestra in all three of these things simultaneously Galahad (Firth), Lancelot (Jack movie standards, gentlemanly manners, , one whose poor members constructed their with a genuine zest for the genre trap- Davenport) and the head, Arthur aristocratic pomposity and Colin Firth. In instruments from trash, won him his 27th Emmy, perhaps pings: the gadgets, the megalomaniacal (Michael Caine). Galahad encourages the corner of new, there’s mean-spirited the most held by a journalist for field reporting, CBS said. He villains, the sardonic wit. But if ever the teen son of a fallen comrade, Eggsy smugness and brainless deployments of also captured electronic journalism’s highest honor, the there was a semi-entertaining movie (Egerton), to try out for the agency. A violence - the type “Kick-Ass 2” star Jim Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, for “Shame of that sabotages itself with tastelessness proudly working-class Londoner, he’s Carrey sensibly walked away from. It’s Srebrenica,” a “60 Minutes II” report on genocide during the and misogyny, this is it. quickly hazed by the more posh, well- not that the old was so much better (the Bosnian War. Where might “Kingsman” lose you? educated applicants. But under the old Bond movies ‘Kingsman’ is styled Former CBS News executive Paul Friedman, who teaches You may get twinges of doubt when watchful eye of their instructor (Mark after have their own issues), but the sup- broadcast writing at Quinnipiac University, said Simon was debris from a missile explosion (set Strong), he rises from their ranks in a posedly contemporary elements “one of the finest reporters and writers in the business.” “He, specifically in “the Middle East”) series of death-defying exercises. Vaughn’s movie puts forth are just as better than most, knew how to make pictures and words bounces off the ground to form the ‘Kingsman’ is a movie continually in out of touch. “Kingsman: The Secret work together to tell a story, which is television news at its opening credits. The concern may grow conversation with itself. “Give me a far- Service,” a 20th Century Fox release, is best,” Friedman said. Simon was born May 29, 1941, in the as bodies accumulate with the scantest fetched theatrical plot,” says Jackson’s rated R for “sequences of strong vio- Bronx. He graduated from Brandeis University in 1962 with a notice or reflection or when the African lisping super villain, a tech billionaire lence, language and some sexual con- degree in history. He is survived by his wife, his daughter American villain (Samuel L Jackson) who wants to radically depopulate the tent.” Running time: 129 minutes. One and his grandson. — AP serves McDonalds at an opulent dinner. world. He’s waxing about older movies, star out of four. — AP