HollywoodType
Ray Romano, Mariah Carey and more
By Jerry Dale
It’s been nearly 3 years since Ray Romano called it quits on his long-running and highly lucrative series, “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Now he has joined forces with one of that show’s writer-producers to create “Men of a Certain Age,” a comedic one-hour drama that will begin airing on TNT in 2009. “Men” will revolve around 3 men in their 40s, friends since college, who find themselves going through midlife crises of various sorts. Romano will play Joe, a neurotic divorced dad who hoped to become a pro golfer but now owns a party store. His two best friends are a stressed-out car salesman-dad and an aspiring actor. Those roles have yet to be cast.
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Mariah Carey’s latest single, “Touch My Body,” rocketed from #15 to #1 on last week’s pop single charts, helping the singer make a little music history in the process. She has now had 18 #1 hits, surpassing Elvis Presley as the solo artist with the most No. 1 singles in the modern pop era. Music sales purists are quick to point out, however, that Mariah enjoys an advantage that wasn’t available to “The King.” Her new album ("E=MC2") won’t be released until April 15th so, in the meantime, Island Records has been taking pre-orders on its website. Well, lo and behold, every time a pre-order is made the customer instantly receives a digital download of “Touch My Body.” That nifty marketing tool made it an almost foregone conclusion that the song would top the charts. By the way, the all-time record of #1 songs is held by the Beatles (with 20), the most for any pop group. Carey has an outside shot of tying that record with “E=MC2” but breaking it may have to wait until her 12th album, which isn’t even in the planning stage yet.
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Roger Ebert announced in a letter published in last Tuesday’s edition of the Chicago Sun-Times that he will resume writing reviews later this month but will not rejoin his syndicated TV show because he's still unable to speak. The Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic and co-host of TV’s Ebert & Roeper said surgery in January ended in complications and, as a result, the return of speech would require another surgery. Ebert, famous for creating the “thumbs up, thumbs down” scoring format, first had surgery in 2006 to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland. That was followed by emergency surgery after a blood vessel burst near the site of the operation. On the upside, Ebert said he remains cancer-free. “I should be content with the abundance I have,” he said. In the meantime, his co-host, Richard Roeper, will continue to share the show’s duties with a rotating group of film critics sitting in for Ebert.
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One of our local television news stations will soon be experiencing a change in its on-air personalities as well. Long-time anchors Harold Greene and Ann Martin have received their pink slips and, effective June 1st, they will no longer work at KCBS-TV (Channel 2) or its sister station KCAL-TV (Channel 9). The two anchors have been mainstays of TV news in Los Angeles for 3 decades and—along with KNBC-TV Channel 4’s Paul Moyer and Colleen Williams —are among the longest-serving local anchors. They were part of a generation of well-known, highly compensated news personalities that included John Beard, Kelly Lange and Tricia Toyota —all of whom are now off the air. Greene and Martin first reported the news together in the 1980s and ‘90s at KABC-TV (Channel 7). Martin moved over to KCBS as an anchor in 1994 and Greene followed suit in 2001. As a side note, I urge you to visit youtube to hear the actual recording of a dispute Ann Martin once had during a commercial break with Paul Moyer when they shared anchor duties at KABC. When Moyer lashes out at Martin with a level of venom that is shocking, you get a glimpse of the “real” man behind that news desk.
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TVGuide.com got a major scoop last week that is giving CSI fans something to cheer about. William Peterson, who plays Gil Grissom, the head of the show’s forensic team, has agreed to remain on the CSI beat for at least one more season. Peterson’s pact with the show was set to expire in May but he agreed to stick around through the 2008-09 TV season. His new deal includes a raise in his per episode salary, from $500,000 to $600,000, and CBS has agreed to give him time off to do stage work. In mid-November Peterson is scheduled to appear in Conor McPherson’s A Dublin Carol, which kicks off a 6-week run in his hometown of Chicago. In early 2007 Petersen missed 4 episodes of CSI so he could headline a Rhode Island production of Dublin Carol. (Stage actor Liev Schreiber did a fine job when he stepped in to fill the Grissom void on CSI, but, alas, he was shot to death in his final episode).
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And finally, actress Kathleen Turner has been ordered by London’s High Court to apologize to former co-star Nicolas Cage and pay damages for claiming in her autobiography that he had been arrested twice for drunk driving and had once stolen a Chihuahua. Cage filed the lawsuit in London where libel laws tend to favor the plaintiff. His lawyer told the court that the offending passages from Turner’s autobiography had appeared in the Daily Mail and on its website under the headline, “Why I detest Burt Reynolds and Nicolas Cage.” He went on to say that the allegations were false and had “caused damage to the claimant’s personal and professional reputation.” Turner and the two publishing groups have apologized and will also foot the bill for Cage’s legal costs and make a “substantial” donation to charity. Guess this pretty much kills the chance of there ever being a sequel to Peggy Sue Got Married.
