With the recent news about Jimmy Fallon, Lorne Michaels solidifies his position as King of NBC.  Still with “SNL,” now Michaels takes on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and “Late Night” with Seth Meyers. I’m told Michaels will visit NBC on the West Coast next week to put the finishing touches on all these arrangements. He will retain the title of Executive Producer on all the shows, but let secondary producers run “Tonight” and “Late Night” on a day to day basis.

That’s right. I told you this on March 22nd before anyone else: www.showbiz411.com/2013/03/22/if-jay-leno-is-out-lorne-michaels-would-have-snl-tonight-and-late-night-with-seth-meyers. Meyers is all but sewn up.

Michaels will now have three live shows running concurrently out of the same building, 30 Rock. I’m told  The guest booking alone will be overwhelming. Who does which show and when?

And then there’s the weekly grind of “SNL.” This season they lost Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg. Jason Sudeikis is kind of gone. Meyers’ exit will be a blow since he’s head writer and does the “Weekend Update” news cast. “SNL” is going to be getting a major retooling. But there are some winners among the up and comers, especially Kate McKinnon and Taran Killam. Then you still have Bobby Moynihan, Kenan Thompson, and Fred Armisen. And Bill Hader remains Michaels’s true star. Will he stay another year? And why haven’t a savvy manager and agent come along and organized Hader into a big career? He’s actually kind of brilliant.

And so this new world opens up with Lorne Michaels, some 38 years after “Saturday Night Live” launched with the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. The inmates have finally taken over the asylum.

PS Maybe they’ll give him the Today show. He could fix it!

UPDATE: Sam Moore on Soul Man, Justin Timberlake on Dock of the Bay, Mavis Staples I’ll Take You There all very good. I love Queen Latifah, but Ann Peebles would have happily come in from Memphis to sing I Can’t Stand the Rain. Oh well. And Justin does not need to add BeeGees falsettos to everything.

Keep refreshing…Beginning at 6:55pm, watch the PBS taping of a salute to Memphis Soul live from the White House right here. The actual edited show airs on Aprul 16th. The show will use Justin Timberlake as bait for the contemporary audience. But the real reasons to watch are the Stax Records stars who made it onto the lineup including Mavis Staples, Sam Moore, Booker T. Jones– who will sing, which is rare–William Bell, as well as Cyndi Lauper and Queen Latifah. Al Green was supposed to be on the show, but no one could find him. Or they found him and couldn’t get him to do it. Who’s in the room? It only holds 220 people, most of whom are rich PBS donors. I almost went to DC for this, but Michelle Obama’s press office acted so unprofessionally that I decided to stay in New York and have a toast to Rufus Thomas ( his family wasn’t invited) the late great star of Memphis soul music. Personal plug: for more info on Memphis soul, do check my 2003 documentary with DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus called “Only the Strong Survive.” It’s available on amazon.com and Amazon Instant Video.

Barbra Streisand‘s European tour is still taking shape, with dates being adjusted. Live Nation tells me they’ve cancelled Barbra’s show in Paris at the Bercy which was scheduled for June 10th. Tickets were already on sale, so those who bought them must get a refund. Instead of Paris, Streisand will now play a second date in Amsterdam on June 10th. It’s hard to imagine Paris ticket sales lagging while the folks in the Netherlands are sold out that they need a second night. But we leave these machinations to the professionals. Justin Bieber recently went through his own mishegos with dates being moved around depending on venues and promotion. Anyway, the French can always hop on over to Amsterdam, London, Berlin or Tel Aviv or Cologne to see Babs. C’est la vie!

Remember Oksana Grigorieva? Mel Gibson’s infamous ex and baby mama has a new album coming out on June 4th. The first single is called “Party.” I know that personally I cannot wait for this release. I would include a link to her website but it doesn’t appear to be functional. Even so it doesn’t look like Oksana is going to go away. The press release doesn’t say if she’s on a label. You may recall that Mel started Icon Records for her in 2009, intending to make Oksana the next big thing.

Here’s an excerpt from her press release:

A child prodigy in Russia, Oksana was instilled with a passion for music and started playing classical piano at age 4 and by the time she was 7 she was writing her own music and performing Bach, Mozart and Tchaikovsky in concerts.  The evolution of Oksana’s artistic talents continued after she graduated from university at the early age of 19.  Though music was her singular passion, her beauty attracted the attention of modeling agencies in London.  Despite the fact that her modeling career flourished Oksana always kept her focus on music.  She continued working on her instrumental compositions and song writing skills. She composed the music for a few independent films, and also for stage productions with Gregory Peck and Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave.

To continue her musical evolution, Oksana moved to New York and then LA where she made inroads as a song-writer. Several demo sessions led to her first major break. In 2006, Josh Groban recorded her song “Un Dia Llegara” for his album ”Awake” and Oksana has had many influences from the top ranks of pop music including Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Chrissie Hyde, Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush.  Oksana has often returned to her native Russia to perform concerts for the children who are victims of Chernobyl. She is a spokesperson for the Chernobyl Children’s Project International.

This is sad news: “Hands on a Hardbody,” a really fine musical that just opened, is closing on Saturday. Starring Keith Carradine, “Hardbody” is truly ingenious show with terrific songs and a brilliant staging concept. It’s the story of a truck giveaway in Texas and how a group of people stuck it out to the end in order to win the truck. “Hardbody” was based on a documentary, and at the Broadway premiere many of the real people who’d been in the contest back in 1995 came to New York for the show.

Alas, “Hardbody” did not have a strong advance sale, or a good commercial hook akin to “Motown” or “Kinky Boots” or “Matilda.” I do hope all of its elements make it into Tony nominations, from the fresh score and songs to the performers– Carradine and Keala Settle, who should be a shoo in for Best Featured Actress.

It’s always easy to figure these things out in hindsight, but “Hardbody” might have worked better at the Roundabout with a subscriber base. Last week, it played to just 58% of its capacity, which is just too low to hang on. And obviously, the producers didn’t have the money to keep it going. A fine effort. My hat is off to the people who worked on it.

PS An even bigger shame when you realize real junk like “Jekyll and Hyde” is coming back– just wasted money. Oy.

EXCLUSIVE I told you ten months ago that Barbra Streisand would direct her first film in 16 years. It was called “Skinny and Cat.” Colin Firth and Cate Blanchett were all set to star in it. Alas, I am now told that “Skinny and Cat,” a love story about famed photographer Margaret Bourke White and novelist Erskine Caldwell, will proceed without Streisand. Blanchett is also gone, succeeded by Oscar winner Rachel Weisz (who actually resembles Bourke White). The financing is completely in place, and the producers are looking for a new director.

But the back story here is quite amazing, and a real Hollywood saga. This project has been kicking around since 1982, when producer Linda Yellen wrote her first script and spoke to Streisand about acting in the film. For years, sources say, like thirty, no one said a word about it. Then last year Streisand expressed interest in it as a director. Unfortunately, a new draft of “Skinny and Cat” was quite different than the one Streisand had last read.  Still, she was adamant about directing it.

In Hollywood, it’s all about scheduling. Even as Streisand felt committed to the cause, she had other projects like a world tour. (Not many directors are also international superstar performers.) Insiders say Streisand was unable to make meetings about the project last fall. In the meantime, Yellen set the movie up with producers Holly Wiersma and Logan Levy under their Lagniappe Films banner. That trio, not Streisand, owns the rights.

During the fall of 2012, when they were unable to secure Streisand in writing–couldn’t make a deal–the trio of Wiersma, Levy and Yellen brought on indie director Drake Doremus (“Like Crazy”). The producers, I’m told, offered Streisand a chance to be a producer on the film without the hassle of directing. Streisand’s reps said she would only do it if her contract read “producer for life.” She was still smarting, they say, from losing out on directing and producing “The Normal Heart” after being involved with it for 30 years.

The “Skinny” trio declined. I’m told what happened next was the threat of legal action against them from a litigator representing Streisand.

Last week, an item appeared on the blog deadline.com that Streisand would direct a movie about Bourke White and Caldwell, financed by Russian backed Aldemisa Films. There was a lot of confusion. It turns out, that movie, whatever it is, is not “Skinny and Cat.” Streisand, they say, has found a new script about this historical literary couple, and is developing it herself.

Only one problem there: the new script for the other movie cannot in any way use material from 30 years of drafts of “Skinny and Cat.” There are voluminous files of letters, snail mail, email, and drafts of the script as it changed. Bourke-White and Caldwell, names probably completely unknown to anyone under 50, are probably getting a kick out of all this attention wherever they are.

“Skinny and Cat,” meantime, is only absent a director, since Doremus is gone too. Otherwise it’s ready to be filmed. Firth and Weisz would be a sensational combination. Someone on imdb.com should change the info, including the budget, which was “never” $50 million. “Skinny and Cat” is an indie film with a $12 million budget at best.

And Streisand? She’s about to start a sold out tour with dates in Europe and Israel this June. She also has a monumental project coming up with the musical “Gypsy” for film. She’s also receiving the prestigious Chaplin Award from the Film Society of Lincoln Center on April 22nd.