Horror: “American Idol” was beaten in the demos on Thursday night by “Grey’s Anatomy.” This won’t be music to the ears of Fremantle or Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe. The show was way down from Wednesday– a 3.5–and really down from last Thursday’s 3.1 rating. Only 11.65 million people watched last night, which still won the night for numbers of heads. But still– ABC’s “Grey’s” did a 2.9 with over 9 million viewers, “Scandal” was right behind it with a 2.7 and 8.5 million. “Idol” ratings don’t help “Glee,” which is probably coming its end anyway. But the “Glee’ number was 2.0 following “Idol.” ABC really pulled off a good show against the formerly mighty Fox pair of shows. So even though Jimmy Iovine properly took everyone to task last night on “Idol,’ including the judges, the audience was more interested in real soap operas over on ABC.
Keith Carradine Brings the Robert Altman-Nashville Spirit to “Hands on a Hardbody”
The latest entry for Best Musical this season was last night’s “Hands on a Hardbody.” The late legendary director Robert Altman was planning to make a feature film of the documentary about this saga: in 1995 in Longview, Texas, there were contests to win a Nissan truck. People had to stand outside with one hand on the truck. It was like “Survivor: Truck.” Whoever made it to the end, would win the truck. The documentary, just reissued, was a big hit. Altman had it all drawn out and ready. But it wasn’t to be.
Now “Hands on a Hardbody” is a wonderful, quirky musical on Broadway. Amanda Green, daughter of Broadway star Phyllis Newman and another legend– songwriter Adolph, as in (Betty) Comden & Green– who wrote “Singing in the Rain” among other classics–wrote most the music and lyrics. (Doug Wright wrote the book.) Her collaborator is Trey Anastasio of the rock group Phish. These are some of the best songs ever on Broadway, just one hit after another, and real songs, too–not bland commercial fare.
Green and Anastasio use the songs to tell the stories of the contestants. And the performers are outstanding, surprising, and new. Only Keith Carradine is well known– the Tony winning star of “The Will Rogers Follies.” Carradine brings the Altman connection to “Hands on a Hardbody.” He of course starred as a singer in Altman’s amazing classic film “Nashville” back in 1975. Carradine’s Tony winning actress daughter Martha Plimpton was front and center last night, too, cheering her dad on.
Of all the other performers, you will be amazed by a couple: Keala Settle, making her Broadway “debut” (she had a small small part in “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”), steals the whole show with her gospel tinged “Joy of the Lord.” Hunter Foster, a Broadway regular who should be a bigger star already, is sensational as a local who already won one truck–but his wife took off with it. It was also great to see Mary Gordon Murray, another Broadway vet and soap star (“One Life to Live”). Jay Armstrong Johnson not only sings but uses the real red Nissan truck on stage as a jungle gym (I am assured the truck was reinforced especially).
Neil Pepe directed, and Serjio Trujillo choreographed–and you want to see how they move these people around the truck and how the truck moves around them. And the songs are worth the whole show anyway.
On, to the Tonys!
Clive Davis’s All Time Favorite Song? “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
Clive Davis finally admitted his all time favorite song last night. At a live interview at the famed Roxy on Sunset in West Hollywood, Davis — promoting his best selling autobiography “The Soundtrack of My Life”– gave in and conceded his top tune ever is Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” He also called Paul Simon “our greatest living songwriter.” Our LEAH SYNDEY was in the audience as music publisher Tom Sturges (also the youngest son of legendary filmmaker Preston Sturges) plied Clive with questions. The VIP crowd included Earth, Wind and Fire’s Verdine White, Producer Howard Rosenman, HBO”s Jeffrey Guthrie and Glenn Whitehead, Barbara Davis, Nikki Haskell and more. Clive spoke for two hours to a rapt crowd in awe of being in the presence of this legend. Here’s a sampling:
TS: How did you get into music?
CD: I got into music totally by love. I lost my parents when I was 18, both within a year of each other. I had no money. I was a freshman at NYU. In those days in Brooklyn you rose about your station by education. I never liked blood so clearly I ruled out being a doctor. So I became a lawyer. I worked for Columbia Records. Then, really overnight, I became the head of Columbia with no music background. I did not know how to read music.
TS: What is the most creative part for you?
CD: The most creative part is the discovery. You have to make a judgment of what the essence of an artist is. Seeing a number or artists or listening to so many songs that could be candidates for a hit. There are a lot of them that almost make it, but not quite. I call them the 7 1/2’s. As opposed to 8 and above. There are three goals in looking back or forward. One is all all the many artists that I’ve discovered that I’m so proud of; many are in the Hall Of Fame. The second is, will the song be a standard for years to come? And the third is the Icons that you never want their careers to end.
TS: One of the themes of your book is re-invention. What guides you as you guided them?
CD:Dionne Warwick, Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin, all of them reinvented themselves. We’re in a funny business. When an artist really gets the idea of believing that a career does not have to die, it can go on. For example, Rod Stewart’s ‘Great American Songbook,’ all of them. When I sign artists, I respond to the challenge.
Of course, Sturges asked about Whitney Houston.
CD: That was the most painful chapter to write. I first saw her in 1983. My belief in her was from the beginning. We bonded right away. Her first album sold 22 million, her second 23 million. With Whitney, picture a workhorse. Not the Whitney you read about it in the tabloids. She worked hard; she loved music and knew everything out there. I would often say to her, ‘are you pinching yourself?’ I knew that her success was so unpredictable and atypical. I saw her three days before her passing; she played for me the music she was doing for ‘Sparkle.’ She had no idea she was flirting with death. I did know about her drug problems. I told her the power of drugs is lethal and that you will never survive it, no one does. I feel like I am the keeper of her musical flame. I wrote about the great memorable periods as well as the pain of a very good woman who could not deal with the drug issue. We all knew that she was the best singer in the world. I am the preserver of her flame.
Tina Fey’s First Post- “30 Rock” Release an “Admission” She’s Not Perfect
Tina Fey’s first post “30 Rock” outing doesn’t hold much hope for a big opening weekend. Here’s our reviewer’s take. (Focus Features hasn’t invited us to a premiere or screening since 2003 at least, so we have to depend on the kindness of friends.) In another review, Joe Morgenstern writes in The Wall Street Journal that Admission “can be foolish, surreal, unpleasant…” He concedes, as do most reviewers, that Lily Tomlin steals the movie. “Admission” scores s 43% on Rottentomatoes.com.
Here’s our reviewer:
“Admission” is such a misfire on every level, especially in Karen Croner’s poor and unfunny script, that it’s hard to know where to begin in critiquing this mess of a movie directed by Paul Weitz. First let me say I love Tina Fey and Paul Rudd. Usually I feel they could no wrong. And then I wanted to like this movie because it’s so rare to find a movie where the central character is a woman. Too bad the story is so convoluted, and the woman so unlikeable.
Based on a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, this is a hackneyed story about a seriously screwed up Princeton admissions officer, Portia, (Fey), who is up for a promotion and competing with her manipulative, shrewish colleague (an under-utilized Gloria Reuben in an unappealing role). Portia spends her days sifting through thousands of applications and traveling around the country talking to desperate teens competing for the few available slots at the Ivy League school. She’s romantically challenged and career obsessive. Sound familiar? (Calling Liz Lemon.)
Portia, who leads a very regimented life, is caught off guard when a guidance counselor from a new non-traditional high school tries to sell her on taking a gamble with a “prodigy” from his school, who scores well but gets bad grades. It turns out the do-gooder counselor (Rudd) thinks the prodigy is the kid Portia gave away in a secret adoption when she was a college student. She freaks out when he tells her. Do you follow this so far? Portia breaks every rule in the book to get the “prodigy,” who she thinks is her son, into Princeton.
Oh, and there’s also Portia’s unappetizing live-in professor boyfriend (Michael Sheen) who claims to abhor the idea of having children but then runs off with a fellow professor, who is now expecting his twins. (This side plot is too tedious to even get into.)
The laughs are few and far between. I don’t know if the director meant for it to be more of a comedy or a drama but it doesn’t work as either. You can see Fey is really trying to do some real acting, but there’s nothing to work with. There are no shades or subtleties in the character or the script. There are lots of winch invoking moments, like Fey’s character’s awkward sex scenes with Rudd. And then there’s Lily Tomlin, a pioneer in female comedy, who plays Fey’s feminist, free-spirited, hippy mother trying to reconnect with her daughter and spouting feministic rants, who also provides more reasons to winch, especially in her own awkward sex scenes that don’t advance the plot.
I really wanted to like this movie because it deals with serious themes about feminism, education and parenting but it just does not work. I certainly hoped and expected for more from Fey in her first post 30 Rock-acting role. I hope for her next movie she writes the script herself.
If Jay Leno is Out: Lorne Michaels Would Have SNL, Tonight and Late Night with Seth Meyers
The real winner of this ugly mess at NBC over the late night talk shows would be Lorne Michaels. So says a keen NBC inside observer who prefers to remain nameless. I agree however. For a long time Michaels has been the only person who knew how to navigate the crazy alleys of NBC. True, he lost Conan O’Brien in the last skirmish. But this time, Michaels would win out. He’d have “Saturday Night Live,” as well as Jimmy Fallon as host of a New York based “Tonight” show.
What’s more, it’s likely that Michaels would install Seth Meyers as Fallon’s successor at “Late Night.” Meyers is so ready to bolt “SNL.” He came close to being Kelly Ripa’s cohost last September but he stayed with “SNL.” Meyers is over-ready for his own show.
Keeping the late night talk shows in New York–especially “Tonight” with Jimmy Fallon–would just shore up Michaels’s situation. Right now, Fallon benefits from having the “SNL” cast and alumna always at the ready as guests. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Andy Samberg have been frequent guests. Adding Meyers as a host to his rotation, Michaels creates a very “clubby” atmosphere, very collegial, and hip. The audience loves it.
Just wait for that Seth Meyers announcement. It’s coming. And even though I predicted Meyers would be sitting with Kelly Ripa this fall– and it didn’t happen–this one, my NBC insiders say, is far more certain.
Jay Leno Compares NBC to March Madness: “Who Will Be Eliminated?”
Jay Leno kicked off Thursday night’s monologue with his fourth jab in a row at his employer. “Are you all excited about March Madness? People talk about who’s in, who’s out, who’s going to be eliminated? And that’s just here at NBC!” Leno said as the show opened. Leno added, a little disingenuously: I’ve never been in the paper so much!” It’s not exactly true. In January 2010 he was in the paper just as much, when NBC forced him out for Conan O’Brien, then needed Leno to come back and ousted O’Brien to TBS. O’Brien took between $20 and $50 million with him as a consolation prize, but the damage was done.
All day Thursday there were tons of stories popping up in the press about Leno being ousted again from the “Tonight” show even though his ratings are higher than David Letterman’s or Jimmy Kimmel’s. Leno even beats Kimmel in the youth demo 18-49. But NBC is panicking about ratings, the future and young people. Meanwhile there were reports tonight that NBC chief Bob Greenblatt may have taken Leno to dinner after his taping tonight–it could be going on right now at 8:48pm Pacific–to mollify him.
I hope there’s taste tester in attendance.
Rolling Stones: AEGLive Grabs Tour Away from Branson and Australian, Already Had Hyde Park
I broke the story that AEG Live would promote two huge Rolling Stones concerts in July in Hyde Park. The rest of the tour — 18 dates in the US– were going to be handled by Paul Dainty of Australia working for Richard Branson’s Virgin Live. Dainty and Branson handled the dates in Brooklyn, New Jersey and London last winter. But now AEGLive, under Randy Phillips, has taken over the new tour completely. Very interesting since AEG Live was for sale until recently. But they’ve risen like a phoenix. More details to come shortly. But I’ve confirmed this part with my sources, adding to the original scoop. This is likely the Stones’ last tour so it will be a big deal and a big payday. Ticket prices will be astronomical. More to come…
Mad Men Exclusive: Matt Weiner Says Season 6 Is About “Alleviating Anxiety”
How to cover a screening and party where the whole cast and crew is tight lipped and the creator of the show asks 600 people to keep their mouths shut. “And they did it,” Matt Weiner, the genius behind “Mad Men” our LEAH SYDNEY last night.
The premiere of sixth season was at the DGA in West Hollywood with a party after at the Sunset Tower Hotel. The premiere episode, two hours long, was shown. The show is as brilliant as ever, with twists, turns and impeccable writing, acting and directing. Here are the spoilers: everyone lives through the episode, several main characters aren’t in the two hour premiere but turn up soon, and Roger Sterling’s (John Slattery) has a story line.
Charlie Collier, President and CEO of AMC introduced Weiner. “Certain things have remained perfect. The unparalleled caliber of writing, acting and production makes this an extraordinary series. Matt and his team have set the gold standard for TV, rich, layered, deeply rewarding. So pour yourself a drink, marry a co-worker and smoke them if you got them!”
Weiner told the audience: ” This is such a strange experience. I get asked about the end of the show a lot. I don’t like to think about it.”
At the party, Weiner talked about this season’s themes. “A character says that, ‘People will do anything to alleviate anxiety.’ That’s the theme of the season, and I feel that, that more than ever, and it’s luck too, that the vibe of the show seems very much on what is going right now as a country. I wasn’t even born in 1960-whatever, so I write about now, and that’s what I’m feeling right now.”
John Slattery did say: “I’ll probably direct one episode for the last season. I did two this season.”
Jon Hamm had laryngitis. But he and Jennifer Westfeldt were as sweet as ever. A guest told him that it was awful he hasn’t won an Emmy yet. Hamm replied: “Who knows? I’m a lucky guy no matter what.”
“Mad Men” premieres on AMC on April 7th.
NY Notes: Is Scarlett Dating Spike? Plus Lynn Redgrave, Ian Somerhalder, Chelsea Clinton, Patrick Stewart
Is Scarlett Johansson dating director Spike Jonze? I have no idea, but they arrived together after “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” the other night, and joined theater director Gregory Mosher for dinner up at Bar Centrale. Mosher previously directed Scarlett in “A View from the Bridge.” Scarlett and Spike brought a friend and they were all discussing theater when “Capote” and “Moneyball” director Bennett Miller rolled in with Fisher Stevens. Lots of hugging and mugging (male hugging). Scarlett suggested they all take a table together. What fun! Just beyond them, John Rothman was celebrating his “Breakfast at Tifffany’s” gig with a bunch of nice friends. Earlier, “Lincoln” screenwriter Tony Kushner had dinner with partner Mark Harris, my old friend from “Entertainment Weekly.” That’s entertainment!
At the “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” premiere, gossip legend Cindy Adams brought Barbara Walters as her date. Also in the audience; Sir Ian McKellen. who’s an old friend of director Sean Mathias. And Sir Patrick Stewart brought his charming fiancee Sunny Ozell. She’s a great singer, and I am embarrassed I didn’t know that before I met her. The couple will marry, they said, later in the year. And yes, Sir Ian will preside.
New York is busy, busy, busy: the late, wonderful Lynn Redgrave is getting a theater named for her. The Culture Project is renaming their theater at 45 Bleecker St. It’s going to be the Lynn Redgrave Theater. Lynn’s sister Vanessa, Liam Neeson (who was married to the late great Natasha Richardson), and Lynn’s three children will at the ceremony on June 3rd when the Culture Project has its annual fundraiser. Alan Buchman, who favors collarless silk jackets, is the mastermind behind this terrific New York gem…
None other than Chelsea Clinton spoke this past weekend at the TedX Teen 2013 talks sponsored by the We Are Family Foundation. Starting on Saturday we’ll be able to see her speech and others from the event at www.tedxteen.com
One of the speakers was Nelson Mandela‘s grandson…Chelsea said: “If you have the opportunity and the means to do something, you should do it. When there is something you want to accomplish, even if you don’t have the opportunity and means, you should make it for yourself. Engaging in the work of the world is hard but it’s the best kind of workAs we say in my family. it’s always better to get caught trying.”
“Vampire Diaries” star Ian Somerhalder is usually putting the bite on some beautiful girl. But he’s also involved with the National Resources Defense Council. Who knew? He was honored by the NRDC last week as a Game Changer along with Woody Johnson, who owns the NY Jets, Steve Tisch and John Mara, owners of the NY Giants, Peter Morton of Morton’s and Hard Rock Cafe fame, and super model Linda Evangelista, who’s also Morton’s significant other…BTW John Mara is the uncle of actresses Rooney Mara and Kate Mara...
“American Idol” Down 8 Percent from Last Week as “The Voice” Looms
“American Idol” was down 8 percent last night from last Wednesday in the overnight ratings. A 3.5 in the key demo was a marked departure from 3.8 last week. “Idol” still won the night. But the trend has been to win Wednesday and get steamrolled on Thursday. This is particularly vexing since “The Voice” returns on Monday–the only show on NBC that anyone watches. And now “The Voice” has planned at least one airing directly against “Idol” during sweeps on May 8th. It’s not like “Idol” doesn’t have good contestants. I am sold on Angela Miller. Her rendition of the Beatles’ “Yesterday” last night was sensational. But “Idol” has yet to light a fire with the TV audience. I still don’t know why Mariah Carey hasn’t sung “Almost Home” from “Oz the Great and Powerful.” We’ll see what happens tonight.