Culture Lane

Trump’s personal call to Roseanne

Donald Trump phoned Roseanne Barr to congratulate her after the relaunch of her self-titled sitcom drew an estimated 18.4 million viewers. The US President also wanted to thank the TV star for her support — both the actor and the character she portrays are Trump backers. Speaking to ABC’s Good Morning America, Barr said the call on Wednesday night was pretty exciting. Barr said Trump congratulated her and talked about television and ratings. She said he was happy for her. “I’ve known him for many years and he’s done a lot of nice things for me over the years,” she said.

Speaking at an official White House event to tout his infrastructure plan on Thursday, Trump touted Barr’s ratings. “Even look at Roseanne,” said Trump. “I called her yesterday. Look at her ratings. Look at her ratings.” Trump told the audience that the show “was about us”. “The fake news hasn’t figured it out yet,” he added.

The updated sitcom starring Roseanne Barr returned more than two decades after the original ended its hit run. The hour-long debut episode was watched by 10 per cent more viewers than saw the May 1997 finale of ABC’s original Roseanne.

Given the explosion of platforms and series since then and compared with other successful sitcom reboots, that figure is impressive. NBC’s Will & Grace, for example, returned with its original 1998-2006 cast to a debut audience of 10.1 million viewers.

Arnold undergoes heart surgery

Arnold Schwarzenegger had heart surgery in Los Angeles on Thursday, his representative has confirmed. The former California governor and Terminator actor underwent surgery to replace a pulmonic valve, a spokesman, Daniel Ketchell, said in a statement. Schwarzenegger originally had the valve replaced in 1997 to counter a congenital heart defect. Ketchell said Thursday’s operation was a planned procedure to replace that same valve.

“That 1997 replacement valve was never meant to be permanent and has outlived its life expectancy, so he chose to replace it yesterday through a less-invasive catheter valve replacement,” Ketchell said. The spokesman claimed Schwarzenegger’s first words upon waking from the operation were “I’m back”.

The celebrity news website TMZ had reported early on Friday that Schwarzenegger had undergone “emergency open-heart surgery”, sparking a wave of news coverage, but Ketchell said that although an open-heart surgery team had attended the operation, they were only there as a precaution. “They frequently are in these circumstances, in case the catheter procedure was unable to be performed,” Ketchell said. “Schwarzenegger’s pulmonic valve was successfully replaced.” Schwarzenegger, 70, was 49 when he had his first heart surgery. “Choosing to undergo open-heart surgery when I never felt sick was the hardest decision I’ve ever made,” Schwarzenegger said at the time.

Van Gogh painting under hammer

The first Van Gogh painting to go under the hammer in France in more than two decades has been unveiled. Women Mending Nets in the Dunes, which the Dutch artist painted early in his career at Scheveningen near The Hague, is expected to go for around €5m (£4.4m/US$6m) when it is auctioned in June.

But with the art market booming and prices for artists such as Vincent Van Gogh rocketing, experts said it was hard to predict exactly when the bidding would stop. The scene dates from the same period in 1882 when Van Gogh painted View of the Sea at Scheveningen, which was stolen by the Italian Camorra organised crime syndicate from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam in 2002 and .

The oil on paper, which belongs to a European collector, also graced the walls of the Van Gogh museum for several years after being previously on show in Montreal.

Bruno Jaubert, of auction house Artcurial, said the work comes from very early in Van Gogh’s career, when he was painting working-class people in his homeland. “He had only started painting two years before,” he said.