Personal Best: Training Insights From Star Athletes

Of course elite athletes are naturally gifted. And of course they train hard and may have a phalanx of support staff — coaches, nutritionists, psychologists.

But they often have something else that gives them an edge: an insight, or even an epiphany, that vaults them from the middle of the pack to the podium.

I asked several star athletes about the single realization that made the difference for them. While every athlete’s tale is intensely personal, it turns out there are some common themes.

Stay Focused

Like many distance swimmers who spend endless hours in the pool, Natalie Coughlin, 30, used to daydream as she swam laps. She’d been a competitive swimmer for almost her entire life, and this was the way she — and many others — managed the boredom of practice.

But when she was in college, she realized that daydreaming was only a way to get in the miles; it was not allowing her to reach her potential. So she started to concentrate every moment of practice on what she was doing, staying focused and thinking about her technique.

“That’s when I really started improving,” she said. “The more I did it, the more success I had.”

In addition to her many victories, Ms. Coughlin won five medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, including a gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke.

Manage Your ‘Energy Pie’

In 1988, Steve Spence, then a 25-year-old self-coached distance runner, was admitted into the United States Long Distance Runner Olympic Development Program. It meant visiting David Martin, a physiologist at Georgia State University, several times a year for a battery of tests to measure Mr. Spence’s progress and to assess his diet.

During dinner at Dr. Martin’s favorite Chinese restaurant, he gave Mr. Spence some advice.

“There are always going to be runners who are faster than you,” he said. “There will always be runners more talented than you and runners who seem to be training harder than you. The key to beating them is to train harder and to learn how to most efficiently manage your energy pie.”

Energy pie? All the things that take time and energy — a job, hobbies, family, friends, and of course athletic training. “There is only so much room in the pie,” said Mr. Spence.

Dr. Martin’s advice was “a lecture on limiting distractions,” he added. “If I wanted to get to the next level, to be competitive on the world scene, I had to make running a priority.” So he quit graduate school and made running his profession. “I realized this is what I am doing for my job.”

It paid off. He came in third in the 1991 marathon world championships in Tokyo. He made the 1992 Olympic marathon team, coming in 12th in the race. Now he is head cross-country coach and assistant track coach at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. And he tells his teams to manage their energy pies.

Structure Your Training

Meredith Kessler was a natural athlete. In high school, she played field hockey and lacrosse. She was on the track team and the swimming team. She went to Syracuse University on a field hockey scholarship.

Then she began racing in Ironman triathlons, which require athletes to swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles and then run a marathon (26.2 miles). Ms. Kessler loved it, but she was not winning any races. The former sports star was now in the middle of the pack.

But she also was working 60 hours a week at a San Francisco investment bank and trying to spend time with her husband and friends. Finally, six years ago, she asked Matt Dixon, a coach, if he could make her a better triathlete.

One thing that turned out to be crucial was to understand the principles of training. When she was coaching herself, Ms. Kessler did whatever she felt like, with no particular plan in mind. Mr. Dixon taught her that every workout has a purpose. One might focus on endurance, another on speed. And others, just as important, are for recovery.

“I had not won an Ironman until he put me on that structure,” said Ms. Kessler, 34. “That’s when I started winning.”

Another crucial change was to quit her job so she could devote herself to training. It took several years — she left banking only in April 2011 — but it made a huge difference. Now a professional athlete, with sponsors, she has won four Ironman championships and three 70.3 kilometer championships.

Ms. Kessler’s parents were mystified when she quit her job. She reminded them that they had always told her that it did not matter if she won. What mattered was that she did her best. She left the bank, she said, “to do my best.”

Take Risks

Helen Goodroad began competing as a figure skater when she was in fourth grade. Her dream was to be in the Olympics. She was athletic and graceful, but she did not really look like a figure skater. Ms. Goodroad grew to be 5 feet 11 inches.

“I was probably twice the size of any competitor,” she said. “I had to have custom-made skates starting when I was 10 years old.”

One day, when Helen was 17, a coach asked her to try a workout on an ergometer, a rowing machine. She was a natural — her power was phenomenal.

“He told me, ‘You could get a rowing scholarship to any school. You could go to the Olympics,’ ” said Ms. Goodroad. But that would mean giving up her dream, abandoning the sport she had devoted her life to and plunging into the unknown.

She decided to take the chance.

It was hard and she was terrified, but she got a rowing scholarship to Brown. In 1993, Ms. Goodroad was invited to train with the junior national team. Three years later, she made the under-23 national team, which won a world championship. (She rowed under her maiden name, Betancourt.)

It is so easy to stay in your comfort zone, Ms. Goodroad said. “But then you can get stale. You don’t go anywhere.” Leaving skating, leaving what she knew and loved, “helped me see that, ‘Wow, I could do a whole lot more than I ever thought I could.’ ”

Until this academic year, when she had a baby, Ms. Goodroad, who is 37, was a rowing coach at Princeton. She still runs to stay fit and plans to return to coaching.

The Other Guy Is Hurting Too

In 2006, when Brian Sell was racing in the United States Half Marathon Championships in Houston, he had a realization.

“I was neck-and-neck with two or three other guys with two miles to go,” he said. He started to doubt himself. What was he doing, struggling to keep up with men whose race times were better than his?

Suddenly, it came to him: Those other guys must be hurting as much as he was, or else they would not be staying with him — they would be pulling away.

“I made up my mind then to hang on, no matter what happened or how I was feeling,” said Mr. Sell. “Sure enough, in about half a mile, one guy dropped out and then another. I went on to win by 15 seconds or so, and every race since then, if a withering surge was thrown in, I made every effort to hang on to the guy surging.”

Mr. Sell made the 2008 Olympic marathon team and competed in the Beijing Olympics, where he came in 22nd. Now 33 years old, he is working as a scientist at Lancaster Laboratories in Pennsylvania.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 15, 2013

An earlier version of this post misstated the year in which Steve Spence competed in the Olympic marathon, finishing 12th. It was 1992, not 2004. It also misidentified the institution at which he is a coach. It is Shippensburg University, not Shippensburg College.

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DealBook: The Banker Who Put His Faith in Armstrong

When Lance Armstrong’s interview with Oprah Winfrey about his suspected use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs is broadcast on Thursday, an investment banker will most likely be watching it very carefully (and nervously): Thomas Weisel.

Mr. Weisel is a legend in finance and Silicon Valley. He was the banker behind Yahoo’s public offering and some of the biggest deals during the dot-com bubble. He famously sold the firm he ran, Montgomery Securities, for $1.2 billion in 1997. And he sold his next firm, Thomas Weisel Partners, for $300 million to Stifel Financial in 2010.

But it is Mr. Weisel’s extracurricular activity that connects him to the news of the moment: he was Mr. Armstrong’s biggest financial backer and the single individual most responsible for the money machine that propelled Mr. Armstrong’s career.

Depending on what Mr. Armstrong says in the interview about his purported doping, Mr. Weisel, who was a co-owner of the United States Postal Service Pro Cycling Team through a cycling management firm that he helped found called Tailwind Sports, could be subject along with his partners to lawsuits from corporate sponsors seeking millions of dollars. Already, there is a False Claims Act case contending that Mr. Armstrong and the team defrauded the Postal Service.

Perhaps more anxiety-producing is what Mr. Weisel may have known, or should have known, about a team that for years ran “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen,” according to the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

Its report last year did not name Mr. Weisel, but did say that Mr. Armstrong was assisted by a “small army of enablers, including doping doctors, drug smugglers, and others within and outside the sport and on his team.”

Mr. Armstrong is expected to admit to doping in an effort to persuade officials to lift his lifetime ban from Olympic sports. To do so, however, he would probably need to lay out in explicit detail how the program worked and implicate those who were part of it.

Mr. Weisel is currently not talking. When I called Mr. Weisel seeking a comment, his assistant told me: “He’s not commenting. And he’s not returning any calls.”

For a glimpse of the way Mr. Weisel thinks about performance-enhancing drugs in cycling, here’s what he had to say about the matter four years ago: “Handle the problem below the surface and keep the image of the sport clean,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “In the U.S. sports — baseball, basketball, football — most fans couldn’t care less.”

For Mr. Weisel, the team and Mr. Armstrong were an all-consuming passion. He would go every year to the Tour de France and at times travel in the team’s pacer car, occasionally yelling instructions to Mr. Armstrong over the radio system. He rode the team’s bus, ate meals with them and ultimately celebrated each year’s victory. On the wall of his office in San Francisco, he displayed Mr. Armstrong’s yellow jerseys.

Always the consummate banker, Mr. Weisel even tried to help Mr. Armstrong raise funds to buy the Tour de France itself. (The effort never went anywhere.)

Mr. Weisel’s name has occasionally come up in connection with accusations of doping on the team.

The wife of the famed cyclist Greg LeMond, Kathy, reportedly testified under oath in a deposition in 2006 that she had been told by one of Mr. Armstrong’s mechanics that Mr. Weisel, along with Nike, paid $500,000 though a Swiss bank account to the honorary president of the International Cycling Union to silence a drug test Mr. Armstrong purportedly failed in 1999.

Nike has vehemently denied the contention. So far, Mr. Weisel has not commented publicly.

When Floyd Landis, one of Mr. Armstrong’s former teammates, tested positive in 2006, he denied using performance-enhancing drugs under pressure from Mr. Armstrong. Soon after, Mr. Weisel set up the Floyd Fairness Fund with some of Tailwind’s co-owners to help pay his legal bills. Mr. Landis later confessed to doping in 2010.

Mr. Weisel, a longtime athlete who was a champion speed skater as a teenager, became a cycling enthusiast in the 1980s and took up racing himself. Sports dominated his life: he often said that he liked to hire athletes to work for him at the bank because of their competitive instincts. He was also the chairman of the United States Ski Team Foundation. In 1987, while still working as a banker, he started Montgomery Sports, to begin his first cycling team. In the early 1990s the team was called Subaru-Montgomery; it later became Montgomery-Bell (Bell Sports was a client that he took public) and then was renamed for the Postal Service. (Yahoo, another client, was also a sponsor of the team.)

According to a biography of Mr. Weisel, “Capital Instincts: Life as an Entrepreneur, Financier and Athlete,” he invested more than $5 million in the early teams and lost money on the investment. Mr. Armstrong was one of Mr. Weisel’s early riders for the Subaru-Montgomery team. He later left the team to join the Motorola team. After his bout with cancer, Mr. Armstrong joined what was the Postal Service team in 1998.

Tyler Hamilton, another former teammate of Mr. Armstrong, told “60 Minutes” that the team was pushing performance-enhancing drugs on its cyclists long before Mr. Armstrong battled cancer and then in 1998 rejoined the team.

“I remember seeing some of the stronger guys in the team getting handed these white lunch bags,” Mr. Hamilton said on “60 minutes” about when he joined the team in 1995. “So finally I, you know, started puttin’ two and two together and you know, basically there were doping products in those white lunch bags.”

Given how widespread the doping now appears to have been on the Postal Service team based on testimony of 11 teammates, and charges against the team’s director and several of its doctors, you wonder how much due diligence its founding banker did on the most prominent deal of his career.

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Live updates: 'Argo,' 'Les Miserables' win big at Golden Globes; Jodie Foster talks it up

The musical “Les Miserables” picked up three Golden Globes on Sunday night, including for best musical or comedy, lead actor for Hugh Jackman and supporting actress for Anne Hathaway.

Jackman’s win for playing Jean Valjean in the epic musical based on Victor Hugo's novel was seen as something as an upset, because Bradley Cooper was seen as a favorite for his role as a bipolar young man in the quirky romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook.” 

Daniel Day-Lewis won lead actor for playing the nation’s 16th president in “Lincoln.” Steven Spielberg’s historical epic went into the ceremony leading with seven nominations. Until Day-Lewis, the historical epic has been shut out.

PHOTOS: Nominees & winners | Red carpet

Jessica Chastain won for her role as a CIA operative who helps track down Osama bin Laden in “Zero Dark Thirty.” Earlier in the evening, Ben Affleck won a standing ovation, and a Golden Globe, for directing “Argo” — a bit of vindication, perhaps, for being overlooked for an Oscar nomination for the film about a CIA plot to rescue Americans trapped in Iran in 1980.

Since he was snubbed by the movie academy last week, he has won the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for best director for the film as well.

Affleck followed Jodie Foster, who took to the stage to give a ... retirement speech? A coming-out speech? It was hard to tell. She was receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement when she ramped up to confess that she was single ...  and seemed to sidestep directly addressing any questions about her sexual orientation.

Her acceptance speech at the 70th annual awards was also a rant in favor of privacy that brought many people to its feet. Foster noted that she has lived virtually her entire life in the public eye yet wanted to keep some things private. “I have given everything up there from the time I was 3 years old,” she said. “That is reality enough.” (Memo to Foster: Nothing will destroy an attempt at privacy like telling the world you want to keep your life private.)

PHOTOS: Golden Globes 2013 red carpet

She did thank her ex-partner and co-parent, Cydney Bernard, and suggested that she was embarking on Act 2 of her career. In some ways in sounded like a retirement speech. She seemed to say that from now on, she will only take projects that tap into her creativity.

Earlier in the evening, maverick filmmaker Quentin Tarantino was a surprise screenplay winner for “Django Unchained,” his controversial spaghetti Western set during the slavery era, beating out such favorites as the writers of “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Lincoln,” “Argo,” and “Silver Linings Playbook.”
“Wow, I wasn’t expecting this,” said an effusive Tarantino. “I'm happy to be surprised.”

Tarantino’s win meant one more loss for Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” which had gone into the ceremony leading with seven nominations. So far, the historical epic has been shut out.

Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway sang her way to a Golden Globe for supporting actress in a movie as the tragic Fantine in the musical “Les Miserables.”

With her pixie haircut and tasteful white gown, Hathaway was reminiscent of a young Audrey Hepburn, charming viewers as she thanked her co-stars, family and friends — and had a special thanks for Sally Field, nominated in the same category for “Lincoln.” She noted that Field forged a career that resisted typecasting — something Hathaway has struggled with as well. Field had played the Flying Nun on TV but went on to play Norma Rae and, more recently, Mary Todd Lincoln.

PHOTOS: Moments from the show

"Thank you for this lovely blunt object," Hathaway told the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.  “I'll forever use it as a weapon against self-doubt.”

Earlier in the evening, the movers and shakers of Hollywood leaped to their feet Sunday night to welcome former U.S. President Bill Clinton on stage at the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards as he introduced the clip for the best dramatic picture nominee “Lincoln.”

Clinton, whose appearance was a well-kept secret, noted the challenges the 16th president faced as he toiled to end the Civil War and slavery. “We’re all here tonight because he did it,” Clinton said.

Golden Globes 2013: Live updates | List | Red Carpet | Winners | Ballot | Show moments | Quotes

“Wow,” exclaimed co-host Amy Poehler as Clinton left the stage. “That was Hillary Clinton’s husband! That was exciting!”

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Iowa man, sister reunite thanks to Facebook, boy

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man has been reunited with his sister 65 years after the siblings were separated in foster care thanks to a 7-year-old friend who searched Facebook.

Clifford Boyson of Davenport met his sister, Betty Billadeau, in person on Saturday. Billadeau drove up from her home in Florissant, Mo., with her daughter and granddaughter for the reunion at a hotel in Davenport.

Boyson, 66, and Billadeau, 70, both tried to find each other for years without success. They were placed in different foster homes in Chicago when they were children.

Then 7-year-old Eddie Hanzelin, who is the son of Boyson‘s landlord, got involved.

Eddie managed to find Billadeau by searching his mom’s Facebook account with Billadeau’s maiden name. He recognized the family resemblance when he saw her picture.

“Oh, my God,” Boyson said when he saw and hugged Billadeau.

“You do have a sister,” Billadeau said.

“You’re about the same height Mom was,” Boyson said.

Billadeau’s daughter, Sarah Billadeau, 42, and granddaughter, Megan Billadeau, 27, both wiped away tears and smiled during the reunion.

“He didn’t have any women in his life,” Sarah said. “We’re going to get that straightened out real fast.”

Boyson said he’s looking forward to visiting Billadeau near St. Louis and meeting more family.

“I’m hoping I can go and spend a week or two,” he said. “I want to meet the whole congregation. I never knew I had a big family.”

Eddie, who enjoys messing around with his family’s iPad, said he’s glad he was able to assist in making the reunion happen and that he learned about helping others at school.

“Clifford did not have any family, and family’s important,” the boy said.

Near the end of their tearful reunion Boyson and Billadeau presented Eddie with a $ 125 check in appreciation of his detective work.

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Christoph Waltz, Adele among early Golden Globe winners

BEVERLY HILLS (Reuters) – Austrian actor Christoph Waltz and Adele notched early wins at the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday, while “Lincoln” and Iran hostage thriller “Argo” were in a close race for the top honor, best movie drama.

Waltz carried off the Golden Globe for best supporting movie actor for his role as a dentist-turned-bounty hunter in Quentin Tarantino‘s quirky slavery Western “Django Unchained.”

“Let me gasp!” said Waltz. “It’s extraordinary … Quentin, my indebtedness and gratitude to you know no words.”

British Grammy-winning singer Adele, in her first major public appearance since giving birth in October, shared the trophy for performing and co-writing the best original song, “Skyfall,” for the James Bond movie of the same name.

Comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, hosting the Globes for the first time, got the ceremony off to a rollicking start with jokes about some of the top Hollywood stars in the audience, and impersonations of Johnny Depp and Julianne Moore.

Pointing out “Zero Dark Thirty” director Kathryn Bigelow at the glitzy dinner, Poehler said she had not been closely following the controversy over the torture scenes depicted in the thriller about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

But, she added, “when it comes to torture, I trust the lady who spent three years married to James Cameron,” Poehler quipped, to roars from the audience. Bigelow is the former wife of Cameron, director of blockbusters “Avatar” and “Titanic.”

“Meryl Streep is not here. I hear she has the flu, and I’m told she is amazing in it,” Poehler joked about the esteemed actress.

The Golden Globes, handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has become the entertainment industry’s second-biggest awards show after February’s Oscars, or Academy Awards.

But its influence on the Academy Awards has been somewhat sapped this year because Oscar nominations were announced three days ago, instead of a week after the Globes awards show.

TV HONORS FOR ‘HOMELAND’

Unlike the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes also honor television dramas and comedies.

On Sunday they chose Showtime terrorism thriller “Homeland” as best drama series, and the show’s Damian Lewis as best actor for his role as a Marine returning from Iraq who is turned by Muslim extremists.

HBO’s drama “Game Change” about Sarah Palin’s 2008 run for U.S. vice president won best TV film, while Moore won for her portrayal of the polarizing former Alaska governor.

In the movie category, “Lincoln,” Spielberg’s account of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s battle to end slavery, went into the evening with a leading seven nominations.

But it faces strong competition from “Argo,” and “Django Unchained,” which started the evening with five nominations.

“Zero Dark Thirty” and visually arresting shipwreck tale “Life of Pi” round out the best dramatic film contest.

The Golden Globes also hand out prizes for best comedy or musical, where the lavish screen version of hit stage musical “Les Miserables” is facing strong competition from comedy “Silver Linings Playbook.”

Jennifer Lawrence won the award for best actress in a comedy movie for her role as a young widow in “Silver Linings Playbook.”

“Les Miserables” stars Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway hoped to take home a Golden Globe later on Sunday.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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Pharmacies Pressed to Meet High Demand for Flu Vaccine

Pharmacies around the city struggled to meet the demand for flu vaccinations on Sunday, a day after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo declared a public health state of emergency in response to a drastic increase in the number of flu cases this year.

Andrew Kelly/Reuters

People lining up for influenza vaccines at a New York drugstore.

In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Harlem and places in between, pharmacists were turning away people looking for the last line of defense against a virus that appears to be stronger than ever.

“Just to let you know, I can only take one more on the line,” said Carlos Collazo, a pharmacy intern who was called in to work at a Rite Aid in Park Slope, Brooklyn, on his day off. Those who missed the cut, like Tamika Louissaint and her sister, Doris, had to look elsewhere in the neighborhood or put off the injection at least another day, while drugstores waited for more shipments.

“I was a little bit nervous because of the warning,” Doris Louissaint said, referring to Mr. Cuomo’s declaration. “I’ll go someplace else with her.” The sisters walked away.

The city Health Department said it could not provide data on the availability of vaccines. There were shortages in some areas but they were not pervasive, a spokesman for the department said. Yet an informal telephone survey of a dozen drugstores in neighborhoods across the city found that all but three had run out of the vaccine. Most that had exhausted their supplies said they expected to replenish them by Monday.

The governor’s emergency declaration on Saturday temporarily suspended a state law that prohibits pharmacists from vaccinating children.

There have been nearly 20,000 cases of influenza reported across the state so far this season, according to state health officials. That is four times the number of positive laboratory tests reported last season.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that the flu had reached epidemic levels nationwide, and local health officials said that was true for New York City as well.

At Mr. Collazo’s store, on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Fifth Street, more than 30 people had signed up for shots by early Sunday afternoon and nearly 60 had signed up on each of the two days before that. The number of vaccinations on a normal day is five.

People who get vaccinated every year joined newcomers prompted, or frightened, into action by the recent warnings.

“It has been insane,” Mr. Collazo said, adding that most people whom he turned away were polite and understanding.

Lucas Watkins missed his usual vaccination in the fall but decided to get the shot when his girlfriend’s boss came down with the flu. When he was turned away from the Rite Aid in Park Slope, his second failed attempt that day, he simply pivoted and left for another drugstore down the way, joining many others on the same parade.

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‘South Park’ Creators to Start Company, Important Studios

The creators of “South Park” are branching out beyond the underpants business.

Araya Diaz/Getty Images for Pantages Theater

From left, Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Casey Nicholaw and Robert Lopez at the Los Angeles opening of “The Book of Mormon.”

Taking after the Gnomes on the animated series who ardently practice American capitalism, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have wooed investors and raised money to form their own production studio, which they plan to announce on Monday.

The new company is to be called Important Studios and hopes to be just that. With an estimated value of $300 million built on revenue from “South Park,” now in its 16th season on Comedy Central, and the Broadway megahit “The Book of Mormon,” the studio will have the power and money to approve television, movie and theater projects, including a big-screen version of “The Book of Mormon.”

On Friday, Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone were putting together the final news release to announce their studio. They settled on this quip: “Having worked with several different studios over the years, we came to realize that our favorite people in the world are ourselves.”

The pair will join a short line of Hollywood players who have formed their own studios as a way to gain control over the creative, production and distribution process.

Merv Griffin created a television empire that he parlayed into real estate and other ventures. Dick Clark created Dick Clark Productions, which continued after his death last year. In 2006, the “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest created Ryan Seacrest Productions, which produces reality shows including “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and related spinoffs.

Lately, those independent studios have become ripe for acquisition as media conglomerates look to expand their library of intellectual property and consumer products. In October, Disney said it would pay $4.05 billion in cash and stock for Lucasfilm, the production studio created by George Lucas, and the company that produced “Star Wars” and its lineup of lucrative sequels and prequels.

Mr. Stone initially said he hoped Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks or Mr. Lucas’s Lucasfilm could serve as a model for Important Studios, then paused for a moment. “In some ways it’s a stupid comparison because they are gargantuan,” he said. “We want to be a smaller, more humble version of that.”

He continued: “If DreamWorks is Walmart, we are over here knitting sweaters.”

The “South Park” creators have made millions and attracted both fans and detractors in satirizing everything from Christmas (celebrating the holiday with singing fecal matter) to Islamist extremism (depicting Muhammad in a bear suit) and race relations (naming one of the only black characters on the series Token).

Important Studios will incorporate revenue from “South Park” and “The Book of Mormon,” as well as revenue from future projects. “The Book of Mormon,” one of the highest-grossing Broadway musicals in recent years, received nine Tony Awards in 2011 and has grossed more than $200 million.

That amount continues to grow because the New York production makes $1.6 million a week, according to the producers. A touring version of the show makes about $1.6 million a week, and another production in Chicago grosses $1.5 million a week. And the show is about to go into production in London.

Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker, who created the musical, are the largest shareholders in “The Book of Mormon,” followed by the film producer Scott Rudin and others. Among the first projects that Important Studios is likely to develop is a movie version of the musical.

Mr. Stone said he and his partner had been considering forming an independent studio for almost two years. “At first we thought we’d get some money from a hedge fund or a Russian oligarch or something,” Mr. Stone said, seemingly half-joking.

Instead, they teamed with a nascent Hollywood oligarch. Through their relationship with Ariel Z. Emanuel at the talent agency William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, they met Joseph Ravitch. Mr. Ravitch heads the Raine Group, a boutique merchant bank that focuses on entertainment, digital media and sports. (William Morris is an investor in Raine.)

Mr. Ravitch, a former Goldman Sachs banker who advised on the sale of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and helped the N.B.A. set up its business in China, hit it off with the two men. Raine invested about $60 million in Important Studios in exchange for a stake of just under 20 percent. Mr. Stone called Raine “big brains with big Rolodexes” and said “the money has some intellect with it.”

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Aaron Swartz dies at 26; Internet folk hero founded Reddit

Aaron Swartz, who co-founded Reddit and became an Internet folk hero for fighting to make online content free to the public, committed suicide Friday. He was 26.

Swartz hanged himself in his Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment, said a statement released by his family and his girlfriend.

"Aaron's commitment to social justice was profound, and defined his life," the statement said. "He used his prodigious skills as a programmer and technologist not to enrich himself but to make the Internet and the world a fairer, better place."

On his blog, Swartz had written of his history of depression.

He was a Harvard University fellow studying ethics when he was charged in 2011 with stealing nearly 5 million articles from a computer archive at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He faced 13 felony charges, including wire fraud, computer fraud and unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer. Prosecutors said he intended to distribute the articles on file-sharing websites.

Swartz pleaded not guilty, and his trial in federal court was scheduled to begin next month. If convicted, he could have faced decades in prison and steep fines.

On Saturday, his family and girlfriend called his death "the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach" and blamed decisions by the Massachusetts U.S. attorney's office and MIT for contributing to his death.

Some legal experts believe the charges are unfounded since Swartz had been a university fellow, which gave him the right to access the articles.

In 2011, Carmen M. Ortiz, the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, defended the charges, telling the New York Times: "Stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based digital rights group, called him "an extraordinary hacker and activist."

"Aaron did more than almost anyone to make the Internet a thriving ecosystem for open knowledge, and to keep it that way," the foundation said in a tribute on its website.

On Saturday, American historian Rick Perlstein, who was a friend, called Swartz a philosopher as well as an activist. Swartz had also co-founded the political action group Demand Progress, which campaigns against Internet censorship.

"He had this feeling for data and what it could do, how to master it instead of letting it master us," Perlstein told The Times. "He just insisted on and struggled to live a life of maximal authenticity and integrity."

Born in 1986 in Chicago, Swartz created his first Web application — an online encyclopedia that operated much like Wikipedia — when he was 13.

High school bored him, he later said. After his freshman year, he studied at home and took community college classes that included logic and number theory.

At 14, he helped develop the software behind RSS feeds, which distribute content over the Internet.

He was soon working on such major projects as creating universal ways to exchange information through a group founded by Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist considered the father of the World Wide Web.

As a freshman at Stanford University, he studied sociology but left after a year because "I didn't find it a very intellectual atmosphere," he later said.

Swartz moved to Cambridge, where he began to work on a project that in 2005 turned into the social news website Reddit, which taps "the wisdom of the crowds" by letting users submit and rank news and other online content.

Conde Nast purchased Reddit the next year for a figure insiders put at less than $5 million, Forbes reported in November.

In a 2007 speech called "How to Get a Job Like Mine," given at a computer conference, Swartz gave such advice as "be curious," "say yes to everything" and "assume nobody else has any idea what they're doing either."

Swartz is survived by his parents, Robert and Susan Swartz; his younger brothers, Noah and Ben; and his partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman.

Times staff writer Jessica Guynn contributed to this report.

valerie.nelson@latimes.com

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Milan Fashion Week starts on somber note

MILAN (AP) — Milan Fashion Week started off on a somber note Saturday, as the design world maintained a vigil for the missing CEO of the family-run Missoni fashion house.

The Italian National Fashion Chamber urged the fashion community to post messages on social networks to keep pressure on authorities not to abandon the search for Vittorio Missoni and five others who disappeared aboard a twin-engine plane near Venezuelan islands on Jan. 5.

Designers expressed their solidarity with the family on the first day of menswear previews Saturday.

“No one better than me can understand the pain and anguish that they are experiencing, the suffering of the sister Angela,” Donatella Versace told Italian reporters before her menswear preview. Versace’s brother, Gianni, the founder of the company, was killed by a gunman in Miami in July 1997.

Despite the uncertainty, the Missoni fashion house confirmed its menswear preview show for Sunday. In a message posted on Facebook, designer Angela Missoni, Vittorio’s sister, expressed gratitude for messages of support. Their brother, Luca, a trained pilot, was in Venezuela helping with the search.

“They did very well to confirm the appointment with the new collection. Vittorio would have done the same,” said Mario Boselli, head of the fashion chamber.

Thirty-seven brands were holding fashion shows to present their menswear collections for next winter over four days.

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DOLCE&GABBANA

Dolce and Gabbana’s menswear collection for next winter is pure masculinity, infused with southern romanticism.

With motifs of winter roses, illuminated Madonnas and baroque embossing, the 2014 winter menswear collection evokes the design house’s Sicilian roots. And to drive home the point, the designing duo chose ordinary Sicilians as their models, as they have done in the past, filling the runway with men who were more muscular, with more pronounced features and often shorter than those usually seen in fashion.

Cinched high-waist pleated pants strongly suggested a bygone era. Trouser lengths varied from calf to ankle, straight or cuffed, while jacket, coats and vests ranged from short waist cuts to long overcoats.

In its most basic iteration, the collection featured black pants paired with white blousons or dark ribbed sweaters — the clothes of a craftsman, a fisherman, a laborer. Detailing like an overlay of white lace on the blousons elevated the look far above mere utility.

And there were also garments fitting of the merchant class — rich brocade jackets and thick furry overcoats and velvet suits. These more formal clothes, including a dark suit jacket overlayed with white lace and finished with velvet trim, could be worn for business, a personal celebration or to Sunday Mass.

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BURBERRY PRORSUM

Tradition meets innovation in Burberry Prorsum‘s new winter looks for men.

The “I Love Classics” collection — or made more technology-friendly, I (heart) Classics — focuses heavily on outerwear, from the classic trench and duffel, to topcoats, Chesterfields and bombers.

While diving deep into Burberry’s archives, designer Christopher Bailey managed also to have fun, adding a touch of whimsy with repeating heart motifs and oversizing military-inspired accents.

“I liked the idea of celebrating things that are familiar, classic, the kind of classic Burberry, classic menswear,” Bailey said backstage. “But I wanted to be playful as well.”

Bailey married innovation and levity in traditional coats made of light-weight transparent rubber with a repeating heart lining. Bailey said Burberry developed the rubber to be silky to the touch. Cashmere also gets special treatment, with new finishes and bonding to alter the texture.

Colors followed the classic line — camel, bone, olive, navy and black — with deep reds and dark royal purple.

Maintaining a light mood, animal prints also accented classic bags, complementing the Burberry check pattern, and also adorned shoes and boots. Animal print sunglasses complete the look.

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JIL SANDER

Tall, almost Puritan collars gave gravitas to Jil Sander’s first winter menswear collection since returning to the label she founded.

The ample lapels made prominent in the collection for next fall/winter often contrasted in tone or texture with the jacket or sweater they accented, and were sometimes layered over more traditional notched lapels. Short-cropped hair kept the focus on neckline.

Suit jackets were kept mostly shorter and allowed to billow slightly in the back. This permitted whimsical layering with longer sweaters underneath — and most of the suits were finished with sweaters, crew necks or mock turtlenecks, rather than shirts. Pants were straight, and ankle-length, giving way to well-polished boots.

While the looks adhered to the line’s minimalist credo — simplicity and clean lines — there was nothing austere about it.

The colors and fabrics were both lush and luxurious. Crimson, cobalt and pine contrasted soothingly with more sober grays and black. Even strong shades were easy on the eyes. Materials included chunky corduroy, cashmere knit and leather.

For fun, Sander offered sleeveless pull-over vests, leaving arms and shoulders bare, and sometimes bi-colored in Harlequin fashion. For more serious moments, there were double-breasted pinstripes, distinguished with monochrome panels.

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ZEGNA

Cyber-kinetic patterns give energy to classic looks by Ermenegildo Zegna.

Zegna signals a push for innovation in the title of the collection: “Style for Change.”

Zegna zips up the double-breasted suit with graphic lines, while repeating patterns of dots fused into lines give motion to overcoats.

Gray dominates the collection, giving it an urban flair.

The basic look forms around suits, paired with slim, elegant ties or scoop-neck sweaters. Trousers are straight cut without being tight, and might include a cummerbund that elongate the look.

Much attention is flourished on collars, which when small might be decorated with a clip, or when oversized adorned with a clasp.

Textures operate in contrast. Soft alpaca coats are worn over tailored suits.

Shoes taper to a point, while bags span a range from travel backs to computer totes.

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City Room: Cuomo Declares Public Health Emergency Over Flu Outbreak

With the nation in the grip of a severe influenza outbreak that has seen deaths reach epidemic levels, New York State declared a public health emergency on Saturday, making access to vaccines more easily available.

There have been nearly 20,000 cases of flu reported across the state so far this season, officials said. Last season, 4,400 positive laboratory tests were reported.

“We are experiencing the worst flu season since at least 2009, and influenza activity in New York State is widespread, with cases reported in all 57 counties and all five boroughs of New York City,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement.

Under the order, pharmacists will be allowed to administer flu vaccinations to patients between 6 months and 18 years old, temporarily suspending a state law that prohibits pharmacists from administering immunizations to children.

While children and older people tend to be the most likely to become seriously ill from the flu, Mr. Cuomo urged all New Yorkers to get vaccinated.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that deaths from the flu had reached epidemic levels, with at least 20 children having died nationwide. Officials cautioned that deaths from pneumonia and the flu typically reach epidemic levels for a week or two every year. The severity of the outbreak will be determined by how long the death toll remains high or if it climbs higher.

There was some evidence that caseloads may be peaking, federal officials said on Friday.

In New York City, public health officials announced on Thursday that flu-related illnesses had reached epidemic levels, and they joined the chorus of authorities urging people to get vaccinated.

“It’s a bad year,” the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve got lots of flu, it’s mainly type AH3N2, which tends to be a little more severe. So we’re seeing plenty of cases of flu and plenty of people sick with flu. Our message for any people who are listening to this is it’s still not too late to get your flu shot.”

There has been a spike in the number of people going to emergency rooms over the past two weeks with flulike symptoms – including fever, fatigue and coughing – Dr. Farley said.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. Cuomo made a public display of getting shots this past week.

In a briefing with reporters on Friday, officials from the C.D.C. said that this year’s vaccine was effective in 62 percent of cases.

As officials have stepped up their efforts encouraging vaccinations, there have been scattered reports of shortages. But officials said plenty of the vaccine was available.

According to the C.D.C., makers of the flu vaccine produced about 135 million doses for this year. As of early this month, 128 million doses had been distributed. While that would not be enough for every American, only 37 percent of the population get a flu shot each year.

Federal health officials said they would be happy if that number rose to 50 percent, which would mean that there would be more than enough vaccine for anyone who wanted to be immunized.

Two other diseases – norovirus and whooping cough – are also widespread this winter and are contributing to the number of people getting sick.

The flu can resemble a cold, though the symptoms come on more rapidly and are more severe.

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