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Front Row: Broadway star Chita Rivera, Jeff Koons, Dan Mallory controversy

Broadway star Chita Rivera, Jeff Koons, Dan Mallory controversy

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Broadway star Chita Rivera, Jeff Koons, Dan Mallory controversy

Chita Rivera on creating the iconic roles of Anita in West Side Story and Velma in Chicago

Chita Rivera on creating the iconic roles of Anita in West Side Story and Velma in Chicago, and artist Jeff Koons walks us through his new career retrospective.

Broadway star Chita Rivera, who created the iconic roles of Anita in West Side Story and Velma in Chicago, talks to Samira about her seven decades on stage, as she prepares to perform again in London. 

The Woman in the Window is the bestselling psychological thriller that sparked a bidding war between publishers resulting in a two million dollar book deal and its publication in January 2018. Now its author Dan Mallory, who writes under the pen name AJ Finn, has been accused of lying and deception which helped secure his own senior position in the publishing industry as an editor. Books journalist Sarah Shaffi unpicks what this means for the man, his book and the publishing industry more broadly.

Until last November Jeff Koons was the most expensive living artist sold at auction, with his Balloon Dog (Orange) fetching over $58m in 2013. As he opens his new retrospective at the Ashmolean in Oxford, the controversial artist discusses the technical challenges of creating his complex works, and his love of the Old Masters.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed 
Producer: Hannah Robins

Main image: Samira Ahmed and Chita Rivera

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