Friday, December 19, 2025
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Saturday Night: The Champ Takes It Easy; Cissy Houston Turns Out for A Friend

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Saturday in Scottsdale, Arizona: Muhammad Ali, the Champ, took it easy all weekend for his annual Fight Night celebrity fundraiser. Ali, who’s 71 and still in there fighting, skipped the Friday night private dinner and was very low key on Saturday night. There were tons of celebrities, though: Steve Martin, Billy Crystal, “Soul Man” Sam Moore, basketball legend Nancy Lieberman, Jennifer Lopez with her young man, and so on including Billy Ray Cyrus, Bo Derek, producer David Foster, and emcee Reba McEntire. Italian singing star Andrea Bocelli flew in from Italy just to appear at Fight Night….

Saturday in Harlem: Cissy Houston and Dionne Warwick turned out for their great friends Vy Higgensen and Ken Wydro. It’s the 30th anniversary of Vy’s much loved show “Mama I Want to Sing.” At the gala at the Dempsey Theater on West 127th St: Valerie Simpson, 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl, Damon Dash, Angie Stone, and Nate Berkus.

“Mama” is based on the story of Vy’s late sister, the great Doris Troy– “Just One Look (That’s All it Took)”– who defied her family and left the church to sing pop music. Doris was a singer’s singer– she recorded solo album for the Beatles’ Apple Records, and is the voice you hear all though Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”

“Mama I Want to Sing” also begat The Mama Foundation in Harlem– a school for young people getting into music, learning gospel. You can always send money their way at www.mamafoundation.org.

PS the whole “Mama” was underwritten by Freddie Gershon and his wife Myrna, who are great philanthropists. If you don’t know, Freddie was a music lawyer in the early 70s with big stars. Then he joined Robert Stigwood Organization, and was the man behind “Saturday Night Fever” and “Grease.” Freddie and Myrna are top notch do-gooders.

“NCIS” Star Pauley Perrette Awaits Sentencing of Convicted Ex Husband

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“NCIS” star Pauley Perrette is almost at the end of a long, harrowing journey with her ex husband. Scheduled for sentencing this week in a Los Angeles court room is Francis “Coyote” Shivers, whom Perrette managed to divorce after a short marriage. This was just at the beginning of her long run on “NCIS.” Shivers was recently convicted of violating a restraining order Perrette had in place against him. Shivers was also convicted on a second count of “prohibited electronic communication.”

Shivers — a Canadian national– knows very well from “electronic communication.” He spends most of his time on Twitter, inventing websites, and using the internet to cause trouble.

The charges carry potential prison time of two and a half years. Shivers–well known to the Los Angeles Police Department after years of complaints by Perrette and Shivers’s first wife, writer and rocker Bebe Buell–could get the maximum sentence.

Shivers, who is unemployed. has one only drawing card:   for a third time he’s managed to marry well– this time to a Brazilian heiress named Mayra Dias Gomes. Sources say her late father, Brazilian author Dias Gomes, an Oscar winner from the 1950s, left her millions. Gomes, much younger than Shivers, has spent a fortune defending him, using controversial Los Angeles mob lawyer Tony Brooklier, himself the son of a late Mafia legend, Dominic Brooklier.

I first wrote about Perrette’s situation back in 2006 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,216205,00.html.

The story was called “Pauley Perrette’s Endless Divorce Nightmare.” Shivers, who is infamously litigious, sued Fox over the artlcle and lost. At the time, Perrette said to me — referring to herself, Buell, and another woman, Angela Garber: “I’m the only thing standing between him and his next victim,” she says. “The three of us,” she adds, “fear for our lives 24 hours a day. We’re always looking over both shoulders.”

But come the sentencing of convicted Shivers, the ordeal may finally be over for the trio. Judges have recently become much harsher in their rulings against stalkers and harassers of celebrities, recognizing the dangers therein.

PS Michael Musto also wrote about this case recently in the Village Voice. http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/2013/02/coyote_shivers.php

Friday Night Box Office: James Franco Has 2 Movies in the Top 5, Beats Tina Fey

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Friday night box office: “Spring Breakers,” the witty  Harmony Korine sex fest starring James Franco, beat “Admissions,” the panned comedy about getting into college — and the former was in 1,000 fewer theaters. “Spring Breakers” is turning fast into a cult comedy of sorts and deservedly so.

You don’t think it works, but it does. And Franco is memorable– in a very good way. “Admissions” was panned by critics even though it stars TV darling Tina Fey and the always likeable Paul Rudd. Only Lily Tomlin was praised for her efforts. “Admissions” made just over $2.062 million last night, and will be lucky to score three times that over the weekend. It’s playing on 2,104 screens. “Spring Breakers” made $2.1 million on 1,104 screens.

Franco now has 2 movies in the top 5– the indie “SB” and the major major “Oz, the Great and Powerful.” And he did all those extra things while filming them–all those things everyone gossips about like teach and attend schools.

Each of these films, by the way, beat “Incredible Burt Wonderstone,” which took in just over a million dollars and looks to be a total write off. The Steve Carell-Jim Carrey feature has reaped $14 million. It cost the usual $100 million to make, at least, although many of the players have agreed to back end participation since the studio is only owning up to $30 million. Whatever happens, none of those people did the movie for free, and someone’s going to have to pay them.

Jay Leno Jabs At NBC Twice Friday Night: About a “Knife in His Back” and Being Sent on a Carnival Cruise

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Jay Leno made it a fifth night in a row on Friday telling jokes about and jabbing at NBC. Leno is in a tug of war for the third time in his career with NBC over who should host the Tonight show even though he remains at the top of the ratings. Adding to the jokes of the last four days, Leno gave it to the network twice on Friday. The first joke was the best:

“Doctors in Canada were shocked after pulling a three-inch knife blade from the back of a 32-year old man. The knife had been in there for three years! Imagine that, the guy had a knife in his back for three years. He must’ve worked at NBC too. I was stunned by that.”

And the second at least referenced his dinner last night with NBC brass even though it didn’t seem to have done much good: “Have you heard about this alleged feud that I’m having with NBC? I think it’s going to be OK. This is real: I had dinner last night with a bunch of NBC executives. To make it up to me, what they did, they are sending my wife and I on an all expenses paid Carnival cruise. How about that? So it looks like it’s going to be OK. How about that? Fantastic!”

And now, a weekend break. When the Dowager Countess asks on Downton Abbey: “What is a week- end?” the new answer will be: two days in which Jay Leno and NBC lay off each other. We’ll miss them until Monday!

Justin Timberlake’s Faux Soul Has Real Sales: At Least 900K Copies in First Week

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Well, well. A week on Jimmy Fallon, plus “Saturday Night Live,” not to mention the Grammy Awards and the after parties and the constant barrage of media–it’s all worked. Hitsdailydouble.com says “The 20/20 Experience” should come a cropper on Monday with between 800,000 and 900,000 copies sold. But I am told that the number could be higher. Two versions of “20/20” are occupying the numbers 1 and 2 slots on iTunes. The album is number 1 everywhere else. “Suit & Tie” — based on a song called “Sho Nuff” by 70s R&B group Sly Slick and Wicked (Cleveland edition) has turned into a huge hit. Timberlake and Jay Z will head off on arena tour this spring. Everyone else sampled or interpolated on “20/20” will get paid handsomely (at some point). All that’s left is for JT to sing for President Obama to complete this marketing plan. I like Justin Timberlake doing comedy more than doing soul, and Robin Thicke may be knocking soon, asking for his act back, but if the success of “20/20” gets people to investigate the underlying real thing, I’m all for it.

Here’s Justin in an eight minute version of “Black Swan” and a rewrite of his 2006 hit “What Goes Round Comes Around”:

“American Idol” Thursday Rating Horror: 2.8, Huge Drop from Wednesday

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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”

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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”

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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

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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

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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.