October 02, 2002 |
NOT SO ROSIE DEVELOPMENT
It's going to take more than a koosh ball to get Rosie O'Donnell out of this mess. The publisher behind Rosie magazine is filing a $100 million lawsuit against the former talk-show host for abruptly pulling out of their business partnership last month. In court papers, Gruner + Jahr says that O'Donnell's exit will cost them "in excess of $100 million dollars in damages." O'Donnell reportedly plans to counter-sue. |
NEXT STOP OSCAR?
Jennifer Aniston — fresh off her Emmy win for Friends — is now racking up film honors. The Good Girl leading lady was named actress of the year at the sixth annual Hollywood Film Festival. Road to Perdition's Tom Hanks was singled out as best actor and Minority Report was named best film. Trophies will be doled out on Monday. |
MIAMI NICE
CSI: Miami is shaping up to be the biggest hit of the new fall season. The second episode of CBS's forensics spinoff attracted nearly 20 million viewers on Monday — that's off only slightly from the show's blockbuster debut the previous week. CBS's new comedy Still Standing, meanwhile, stormed out of the gate. The blue-collar sitcom averaged 18.1 million viewers and held 82 percent of its Everybody Loves Raymond lead-in. |
EMERIL EXPECTING
His NBC sitcom may've fallen flatter than a cheap soufflé, but Emeril's essence still is potent. The 42-year-old Food Network chef and wife Alden Lagasse, 35, say they are expecting their first child. Their little bun's due to come outta the oven in March 2003. |
CUSTODY COMPROMISE
Word has it that Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson are thisclose to an agreement on custody of their two sons. Anderson filed a petition last year seeking full custody of sons Brandon, 6, and Dylan, 4. She claimed Lee was a bad role model and presented a danger to the kids "particularly when he is using alcohol." He insisted that he's been sober for two years. |
BARD BLOOPER
Barbra Streisand made a boo-boo — and she knows it. The diva admits that at Sunday's Democratic Party fundraiser, she mistakenly attributed a quote to William Shakespeare. The passage, which began, "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword," was intended as a slam against President Bush. So, where did it come from? Apparently, the Internet. "No record of this quote has been found prior to its appearance on the Internet in late 2001," report the urban legend investigators at Snopes.com. In a statement, Babs responded, "The authorship of this is important, but it doesn't detract from the fact that the words themselves are powerful and true and beautifully written." Still, it's all rather embarrassing. |
REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO ODD
Hey, remember Romy and Michele's High School Reunion? No? Well, read this anyway: ABC is mining the woefully underrated 1997 comedy — which co-starred Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow as '80s era party girls — for a two-hour TV movie. Romy and Michele: Behind the Velvet Rope will be a prequel of sorts, with Roswell's Katherine Heigl as Romy and unknown actress Alex Breckenridge as Michele. With casting underway for the other roles, we can't help but wonder: Who could possibly replace Janeane Garofalo? |
SHORT CUTS
Official album chart numbers aren't released until later today, but the buzz is that Elvis: 30 No. 1 Hits is expected to debut at No. 1 with sales of more than 500,000 copies... Danny Huston has backed out as the star of ABC's upcoming Dragnet revival. Producer Dick Wolf is searching for a replacement... CBS is adapting the John Grisham bestseller A Painted House into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie to air early next year... MTV is developing a TV movie about Napster founder Shawn Fanning... USA Network has greenlit a drama pilot loosely based on the 1996 Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner Eraser... US Weekly reports that Britney Spears and Backstreet Boy Nick Carter have gone on a few dates. |
SNOOP SNIPPED
A scene in NBC's upcoming A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie featuring rapper Snoop Dogg has been left on the cutting room floor, the New York Post reports. But producers insist it was time constraints — not Snoop's porn ties — that forced the edit. |
IT DIDN'T LAST
Low ratings have led E! to drop reruns of Last Call with Carson Daly. How low is low, you ask? According to the New York Post, barely more than 100,000 people were watching the repeats. Original Last Calls still run on NBC at 1:35 am/ET. |
|
|
|
