News from a different source

NEW YORK - Cosmetics giant L’Oreal says it didn’t lighten Beyonce’s skin tone in an ad.
“We highly value our relationship with Ms. Knowles. It is categorically untrue that L’Oreal Paris altered Ms. Knowles’ features or skin tone in the campaign for Feria hair color,” the Paris-based company said in a statement sent to the Associated Press Thursday.

The ad is in the September issues of Elle, Allure and Essence on stands now.

L’Oreal, the maker of Garnier hair care and Lancome cosmetics, is the world’s largest cosmetics maker.

A representative for Beyonce said the singer would have no comment beyond L’Oreal’s statement.

In the two-page L’Oreal ad, Beyonce’s wind-swept hair is a reddish blond shade with highlights. A box of Feria in the ad features a white woman with a similar hair color.

The ad created a stir after it was pointed out Wednesday by celebrity gossip Web site TMZ, which is owned by Time Warner Inc.’s AOL unit.

TMZ’s post showed side-by-side photos comparing the ad with a photo of Beyonce with noticeably darker skin and hair. It was the site’s most commented on post Thursday afternoon.
Beyonce’s lighter appearance in the L’Oreal ad may just be the result of creative touchups or lighting to balance her highlighted hair, said Cynthia Park, president of K&L Advertising, a multicultural advertising firm based in New York City.

Still, she said companies need to be particularly careful when playing with the images of ethnic minorities in ads.

“Or you end up falling victim to these types of situations,” Park said.

Beyonce has been a spokeswoman for L’Oreal since 2001. Other spokeswomen for L’Oreal include Scarlett Johansson, Milla Jovovich, Eva Longoria Parker and Kerry Washington.

A representative for Elle said magazine ads are reviewed before they are printed, but wasn’t sure of the exact procedure for checking content. Representatives for Essence and Allure magazines were not immediately available for comment.

Music legend Isaac Hayes, 65, dies

Isaac Hayes, the bald headed, baritone-voiced soul crooner who laid the groundwork for disco and whose “Theme From Shaft” won both Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon after he collapsed near a treadmill, authorities said. He was 65.

Hayes was pronounced dead at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis an hour after he was found by a family member, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office said. The cause of death was not immediately known.

With his muscular build, shiny head and sunglasses, Hayes cut a striking figure at a time when most of his contemporaries were sporting Afros. His music, which came to be known as urban-contemporary, paved the way for disco as well as romantic crooners like Barry White.

And in his spoken-word introductions and interludes, Hayes was essentially rapping before there was rap. His career hit another high in 1997 when he became the voice of Chef, the sensible school cook and devoted ladies man on the animated TV show “South Park.”

Hayes was about to begin work on a new album for Stax, the soul record label he helped build to legendary status. And he had recently finished work on a movie called “Soul Men” in which he played himself, starring Samuel Jackson and Bernie Mac, who died on Saturday.

Actor, Comedian Bernie Mac, 50, dies

Actor and comedian Bernard Jeffrey McCullough, known as Bernie Mac, died Saturday. He was 50.

Mac died of complications from pneumonia in a Chicago-area hospital, his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement from Los Angeles.

Mac's talent delivered him from a poor childhood to stardom as a standup comedian, in films including the casino heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and his acclaimed sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show."

Though his comedy drew on tough experiences as a black man, he had mainstream appeal — befitting inspiration he found in a wide range of humorists: Harpo Marx as well as Moms Mabley; squeaky-clean Red Skelton, but also the raw Redd Foxx.

Mac suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body's organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

Surviving are his wife, Rhonda; his daughter, Je'Niece; and his granddaughter, Jasmine.

Services are Saturday, Aug. 16 at noon at House of Hope, 752 E. 114th St., Chicago. Donations in Mac's honor may be sent to the Bernie Mac Foundation for Sarcoidosis, 40 E. 9th St., Suite 601, Chicago, IL 60605.