'madagascar,' 'prometheus' Triumph At B.o.

Less than two weeks after Angelina Jolie revealed she’d had a double mastectomy to avoid breast cancer, her aunt died from the disease Sunday. Debbie Martin died at age 61 at a hospital in Escondido, Calif. near San Diego, her husband, Ron Martin, told The Associated Press. Debbie Martin was the younger sister of Jolie’s mother, Marcheline Bertrand, whose own death from ovarian cancer in 2007 inspired the surgery that Jolie described in a May 14 op-ed in the New York Times. According to her husband, Debbie Martin had the same defective BRCA1 gene that Jolie does, but didn’t know it until after her 2004 cancer diagnosis. (COVER STORY: The Angelina Effect) “Had we known, we certainly would have done exactly what Angelina did,” Ron Martin said in a phone interview. Debbie Martin’s death was first reported by E! News. Ron Martin said after getting breast cancer, Debbie Martin had her ovaries removed preventively because she was also at very high genetic risk for ovarian cancer, which has killed several women in her family. The 37-year-old Jolie said in her op-ed that her doctors estimated that she had a 50 percent risk of getting ovarian cancer but an 87 percent risk of breast cancer so she had her breasts removed first, reducing her likelihood to a mere 5 percent. She described the three-step surgical process in detail in the op-ed “because I hope that other women can benefit from my experience.” The story, a surprise to most save those closest to Jolie, spurred a broad discussion of genetic testing and pre-emptive surgery.  MORE: Lessons from Angelina: The Tricky Calculus of Caner Testing

Academy Award-winning actor and director Ben Affleck has received one of six honorary doctorate degrees from Brown University.

The Great White Way is looking smaller than ever. The past season had an overall 6% drop in attendance from the previous year — the second straight year of diminished houses, according to the Broadway League.    

One of the keys to encouraging reading is to make it fun with exciting and funny books. Middle-grade readers who find an author they like, especially one who has books in a series or multiple series lines such as Lemony Snicket and Eoin Colfer, may have an entire summer of reading to dive into.

Less than two weeks after Angelina Jolie revealed she'd had a double mastectomy to avoid breast cancer, her aunt died from the disease.