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tv news
Feb 10, 2006 17:31:19 GMT -5
Post by quettalee on Feb 10, 2006 17:31:19 GMT -5
Actor Who Played 'Jeffersons' Neighbor Dies
Franklin Cover, who became a familiar face as George and Louise Jefferson's white neighbor in the long-running TV sitcom "The Jeffersons," has died, his publicist said Thursday. He was 77.
Cover died of pneumonia Sunday at the Lillian Booth Actor's Fund of America home in Englewood, N.J., said publicist Dale Olson. He had been living at the home since December 2005 while recuperating from a heart condition.
In his nearly six decades in show business, Cover made numerous appearances on television shows, including "The Jackie Gleason Show," "All in the Family," "Who's the Boss?" "Will & Grace," "Living Single," "Mad About You" and "ER."
He began his career on the stage, appearing in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and "Henry IV," and later in numerous Broadway productions, including "Any Wednesday," "Wild Honey and "Born Yesterday."
But Cover was best known for his role as Tom Willis, who was in an interracial marriage with a black woman, in "The Jeffersons."
He and his wife lived in the same "deluxe apartment building" that Sherman Hemsley moved his family to after making money in the dry-cleaning business. There, Cover often played a comic foil to Hemsley's blustering, opinionated black businessman. The show ran from 1975 to 1985.
Cover also appeared in several films, including "The Great Gatsby," "The Stepford Wives" and "Wall Street."
He is survived by his widow, Mary, a son and a daughter.
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tv news
Feb 17, 2006 16:15:59 GMT -5
Post by quettalee on Feb 17, 2006 16:15:59 GMT -5
A "Cold Case" Kid
It's a bambino for Cold Case star Danny Pino.
The actor's wife, Lilly, gave birth to a son, Luca Daniel, Wednesday. He's the couple's first child.
Luca was born at 1:51 p.m. at an undisclosed Los Angeles hospital and tipped the scales at 8 pounds, 3 ounces.
"Everybody is doing great and they're very excited," said Pino's publicist, Carri McClure.
Pino plays Detective Scotty Valens on the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced CBS crime caper.
Before joining Cold Case in 2003, Pino had a recurring role as sociopathic drug dealer Armadillo Quintero in FX's cop drama The Shield. A veteran of the stage, Pino also holds the dubious honor of being personally selected to star opposite Madonna in her ill-received 2002 West End debut, Up for Grabs.
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tv news
Mar 7, 2006 17:18:14 GMT -5
Post by quettalee on Mar 7, 2006 17:18:14 GMT -5
Christopher Reeve's Widow Dies at Age 44 By JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 5 minutes ago WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - Dana Reeve, the singer-actress who married the strapping star of the "Superman" movies and then devoted herself to his care and his cause after he was paralyzed, has died of lung cancer, a year-and-a-half after her husband. She was 44.
Although Reeve had announced her cancer diagnosis in August — to an outpouring of sympathy and support from admirers around the world — her death seemed sudden. As recently as Jan. 12, she looked healthy and happy as she belted out Carole King's "Now and Forever" at a packed Madison Square Garden during a ceremony honoring hockey star Mark Messier, a friend.
"Unfortunately, that's what happens with this awful disease," said Maggie Goldberg of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, where Dana Reeve had succeeded her husband as chair. "You feel good, you're responding and then the downturn."
Reeve, who lived in Pound Ridge, died Monday night at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Medical Center in Manhattan, said foundation president Kathy Lewis.
Officials would not discuss Reeve's treatment or say when she entered the hospital. But Lewis said she visited her there on Friday, when Reeve was "tired but with her typical sense of humor and smile, always trying to make other people feel good, her characteristic personality."
"The brightest light has gone out," said comedian Robin Williams. "We will forever celebrate her loving spirit."
Former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton described Reeve as "a model of tenacity and grace."
"Despite the adversity that she faced, Dana bravely met these challenges and was always an extremely devoted wife, mother and advocate," they said.
Christopher and Dana Reeve married in 1992. Life changed drastically for the young show-business couple three years later when Christopher Reeve suffered near-total paralysis in a horse-riding accident and almost died.
In his autobiography, "Still Me," Reeve wrote that he suggested early on to his wife, "Maybe we should let me go." She responded, "I'll be with you for the long haul, no matter what. You're still you and I love you."
Those were "the words that saved my life," Christopher Reeve said.
For his remaining nine years, Dana Reeve was her husband's constant companion and supporter during the ordeal of his rehabilitation, winning worldwide acclaim and admiration. With him, she became an activist in the search for a cure for spinal-cord injuries.
"Something miraculous and wonderful happened amidst terrible tragedy, and a whole new dimension of life began to emerge," she wrote in a 1999 book, "Care Packages: Letters to Christopher Reeve from Strangers and Other Friends." "What we had yet to discover were all the gifts that come out of sharing hardship, the hidden pleasures behind the pain."
After her husband's death in October 2004, Reeve said she planned to return to acting. She had appeared on Broadway, off-Broadway and regional stages and on the TV shows "Law & Order," "Oz," and "All My Children," and she'd had to give up a Broadway role when she was widowed.
"I am an actress and I do have to make a living," she said.
However, her mother died of complications from ovarian cancer and her own diagnosis came the next summer.
"I thought that after everything that she had gone through with Chris that she would have time to smell the flowers and be in the sun," said Sen. Diane Feinstein of California. "But apparently that was not meant to be."
From the start, Reeve expressed confidence she would beat lung cancer. And four months ago, wearing a long formal gown at a fundraising gala for the foundation, Reeve provoked wolf whistles from Williams and said she was responding well to treatment.
"I'm beating the odds and defying every statistic the doctors can throw at me," Reeve said. "My prognosis looks better all the time."
At about the same time, Reeve taped a PBS show, "The New Medicine," about how doctors are paying more attention to a patient's cultural values and lifestyle as part of treatment. In her introduction to the program, Reeve said, "It has become clear to me that high-tech medicine, with all its wonders, often leaves out that all-important human touch."
PBS said Tuesday that the show will be broadcast as scheduled March 29.
Survivors include the Reeves' 13-year-old son, Will; two grown stepchildren, Matthew and Alexandra; her father, Charles Morosini; and two sisters.
Goldberg said Will was "in the loving care of family and friends" and that his mother had arranged for his future.
The foundation said no plans for a funeral have been announced.
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tv news
Apr 29, 2006 17:22:26 GMT -5
Post by ILB on Apr 29, 2006 17:22:26 GMT -5
Rosie Outlook for "The View" By Joal Ryan
Rosie O'Donnell is the latest aftershock in the Katie Couric earthquake.
With Couric leaving NBC's Today to anchor CBS' Evening News and Meredith Vieira leaving ABC's The View to replace Couric on Today, O'Donnell will leave her house to replace Vieira on The View.
"We were amazed when she said yes, and we were thrilled," said View maven Barbara Walters in formally introducing O'Donnell as her show's new cohost at the Daytime Emmys Friday, one day after word of the hire was first reported by Extra.
O'Donnell, who joined Walters on the Emmys stage, said she was honored to be asked.
"Thank God," O'Donnell quipped, "it was either that or Celebrity Fit Club."
In a posting on her blog early Saturday, O'Donnell wrote that Walters extended the View invite at a screening of "the hbo [sic] documentary," presumably, All Aboard! Rosie's Family Cruise, about her cruise-ship trips for gay and lesbian families.
O'Donnell wrote that she said yes immediately to Walters' offer. She said Walters, a "feminist super hero," the first woman to coanchor a network nightly news program, belonged to her "4 u anything--file."
Blogged O'Donnell: "this one soared/b4 women were allowed."
O'Donnell will start her new job in September, the same month Couric and Vieira are to start their new jobs.
In scoring the gig, O'Donnell trumps chief rumored Vieira replacement Patricia Heaton, late of Everybody Loves Raymond.
There was no mention of O'Donnell on Friday morning's edition of the The View as the episode was pre-taped in order to allow the New York-based cast to fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys.
Barring a cast overhaul, O'Donnell's View counterpoints will be longtime coffee-klatch members Walters, Joy Behar, Star Jones Reynolds, Elizabeth Hasselbeck. O'Donnell and Reynolds go way back: Reynolds has lost 150 pounds in the last two years; O'Donnell has taken jabs at Reynolds for attributing her weight loss to "pilates [sic] and will power."
In "Star View," a March 29 free-form entry on her blog, O'Donnell wrote, "any fatty will tell u/it is nearly impossible to go/from where she was/to where she is/without medical intervention."
Reynolds, who recently confirmed a breast lift, has denied having had gastric bypass surgery.
On the Emmy telecast, there were no shots of the incumbent The View cohosts reacting to the O'Donnell announcement.
As for O'Donnell, she is a "fat 43-year-old menopausal ex-talk show host," according to her somewhat-inaccurate blog bio. (She's actually 44.) She is better known as a stand-up comic turned character actress (Sleepless in Seattle, A League of Their Own) turned daytime TV queen.
From 1996 to 2002, as the Broadway-boosting, Tom Cruise-crushing star of The Rosie O'Donnell Show, O'Donnell won six Daytime Emmys as Outstanding Talk Host. In the late 1990s, Newsweek dubbed her the Queen of Nice for being a bright light in a murky sea of Sally Jessy Raphaels, Geraldos and Jerry Springers.
O'Donnell vacated her desk job for the same reason she originally sought it out: To spend more time with family. She and partner Kelli Carpenter are parents to four children, one of whom Carpenter gave birth to in 2002. (O'Donnell gave her version of Ellen DeGeneres' "Yup, I'm gay" interview to ABC News in 2002.)
After her show ended, O'Donnell developed a reputation for being not nice. Much of her image was fueled by a protracted legal battle over her defunct women's magazine, Rosie.
In recent years, O'Donnell has maintained a low profile, even while producing a Broadway flop, launching a cruise line for gay and lesbian families and venting about David Letterman's show and others on her blog.
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tv news
May 1, 2006 14:44:23 GMT -5
Post by freebird1 on May 1, 2006 14:44:23 GMT -5
I don't watch the View I find it boring.
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tv news
Jun 25, 2006 8:46:33 GMT -5
Post by Quettalee on Jun 25, 2006 8:46:33 GMT -5
Me too, Freebird--as with most all of those morning "talk" shows.
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tv news
Jun 25, 2006 8:47:18 GMT -5
Post by Quettalee on Jun 25, 2006 8:47:18 GMT -5
TV Producer Aaron Spelling Dies LOS ANGELES - One of the most prolific TV producers in history, Spelling chafed at the lowbrow label critics assigned his many hit series. He called his shows "mind candy" while critics referred to them as "mindless candy." Spelling died Friday at his Los Angeles mansion after suffering a stroke on June 18, according to publicist Kevin Sasaki. He was 83.
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tv news
Sept 4, 2006 11:39:25 GMT -5
Post by bardling on Sept 4, 2006 11:39:25 GMT -5
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tv news
Sept 21, 2006 15:39:10 GMT -5
Post by quettalee on Sept 21, 2006 15:39:10 GMT -5
(CBS) Comedians Chris Parnell, Horatio Sanz and Finesse Mitchell are not returning for the 32nd season of "Saturday Night Live," the network announced yesterday. A rep for the show confirmed to The ShowBuzz that the three were let go from the lineup.
According to The New York Times, the news comes as many institutions at NBC have been asked to cut budgets. Last season's cast of 16 not-ready-for-primetime-players was cut to 11 for season 32, the smallest cast since 1997 according to the Times.
NBC announced that Fred Armisen, Will Forte, Bill Hader, Darrell Hammond, Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, Kenan Thompson and Kristen Wiig will return as repertory cast members. No new cast members were added to the line-up.
"I have decided to not return to 'Saturday Night Live' this season. I wish the best to everyone at the show and expect them to have a great season," Sanz said in a message posted on his MySpace page. "It's been a wonderful eight years and I am grateful for all the friends I was able to make and all the great people I had the pleasure of working with … I look forward to making you laugh in the future, and hopefully not behind the counter at Burger King!"
Parnell has appeared on "SNL" since 1998, Mitchell since 2003.
Also absent from the line-up were Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch, who are busy working on their new NBC series "30 Rock." Fey confirmed during a "Tonight Show" appearance in July that she would not be returning to the late night show for its 2006-2007 season.
Sept. 30's season premiere will be hosted by comedian and "Employee of the Month" star Dane Cook, marking his second hosting gig. The Killers are the musical guest, and will perform songs from their sophomore album, "Sam's Town."
Amy Poehler will be back in the "Weekend Update" chair with a new partner who will be announced later. Head writer Seth Meyers will also return for his second season, along with head writers Andrew Steele and Paula Pell.
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