Ricki Lake, whose Lifetime telefilm Matters of Life and Dating premiered Oct. 22, is busy promoting her new documentary, The Business of Being Born."It’s about birth. It's about the politics of the medical system," Lake told TV Guide at Thursday (Oct. 25) night’s Choose Your Cause (CYC): Launch Party and Charity Benefit at Fred Segal Santa Monica."It raises a lot of questions about what is going on with birth today, with all the C-section rates and malpractice insurance and midwives. It looks at all of that from my own personal experience. It’s fascinating." Lake’s baby experience includes being mom to sons Milo, 10, and Owen, 6, (their father is Rob Sussman, Lake’s husband — the couple are currently separated).The documentary opens in New York on Jan. 9, 2008. Lake may return to regular TV work, too, and says, "I did a pilot and it might get picked up, but I did it for last season but now they held my options. I don’t know what’s happening at...
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Sharon Lawrence courtesy Lifetime Entertainment
Tom Cavanagh (Love Monkey, if you will) has been cast as Sheriff David Reichert, the lead investigator on the trail of the worst serial slayer America has seen, in Desperate: The Search for the Green River Killer, a Lifetime mini based on Reichert's true-crime book Chasing the Devil. Also on board are Amy Davidson (8 Simple Rules) and Sharon Lawrence.... Lifetime has also greenlit Matters of Life & Dating, a TV-movie starring Ricki Lake as a woman who resumes dating after surviving breast cancer. Holly Robinson Peete also stars. The pic bows Oct. 22, during Breast Cancer Awareness month.For truly Desperate (as in Housewives) casting news, see the Ausiello Report.
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Just as ABC extended its option on Football Wives, a few other initially passed-on fall pilots might see the airwaves after all. Per the Hollywood Reporter, ABC is also keeping a short leash on the comedies The Middle (Ricki Lake as blue-collar mom) and The Hill (set in D.C. and starring Michelle Trachtenberg and Wendie Malick).Fox, meanwhile, still may come calling for Nurses (a dramedy fronted by Eliza Dushku and Sara Rue) and/or The Cure (starring Oded Fehr and Anson Mount).
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Bye bye Rosie, hello Whoopi! TV Guide has learned from a source close to The View that Whoopi Goldberg is at the top of the wish list to fill one of the two empty seats on the chat show's depleted couch.The departing Rosie O'Donnell says she loves the Whoopster, as do current co-hosts Elisabeth "I hope I stay forever" Hasselbeck and Joy Behar. Whoopi would fit the bill quite nicely: She's outspoken, funny, a woman of color, and already lives in New York — and scored high on TV Guide.com’s recent poll of possible Rosie replacements. No word yet, though, on how her asking price compares to Rosie's $10 million. (Whoopi's rep had no comment.) Also on the chatfest’s dream team is Ricki Lake, but sources close to the actress/talk show host says she likes living in Los Angeles and has other projects in mind. — Reporting by Ileane Rudolph
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Geez, who had Stiffler pegged as the career feature-film star? But I get ahead of myself. The latest pilot-casting news from Variety and the Reporter:• CBS could soon be home to three American Pie stars. Jason Biggs is a Wall Street whiz who dies in a Blackberry-related car accident and, since Hades is full, is forced to endure "Hell on earth" (aka a life devoid of his fancy career, apartment and such) in I'm in Hell. Chris Klein, meanwhile, is the series lead's best buddy in The Captain, which has also added comic Al Madrigal as a janitor.• Ricki Lake is the mom in The Middle, ABC's comedy about a lower-middle-class family in the Midwest.• Michael McKean is a low-level congressman's chief of staff in ABC's The Thick of It.• Penn Badgley (John Tucker Must Die) has joined the CW's Gossip Girls.
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Question: I saw your comments last week about Gameshow Marathon, which seems to appall you. As a big fan of the classic '70s and '80s game shows, I have actually found Gameshow Marathon to be a guilty pleasure. It does have a couple of major flaws, but if tweaked a little, it could be very enjoyable summer fare. As for its faults, I think having C-list celebrities playing for charity takes any element of suspense out of it. Also, Ricki Lake is just not a good fit as the host of the games — she obviously knows her stuff, but her voice and style are just soooo annoying. But on the plus side, the faithful re-creations of the classic game-show sets are satisfying in a surreal kind of way. And I really like the concept of the tournament. This could be a fun summer show if it were played with real people (not celebrities) for their own cash and prizes, and if the games themselves had hosts who were more in the traditional host mold. Of course, most of the original hosts are no longer with ...
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Question: I would find those prime-time game shows on CBS far more watchable if Ricki Lake was not the M.C. It seems like she is yelling into the microphone, and the pitch of her voice just gives me a migraine. CBS should have, where possible, gotten the original emcees to do the shows.
Answer: Is this celebrity Gameshow Marathon not the most insipid thing you've ever seen? And I love game shows! Whose bright idea was it to revive these lovably cheesy shows and stick C-list (being generous here) celebs in the players' seats? It's shrill, annoying and, for me, betrays what made the originals so much fun: watching ordinary folks playing the game (though in some of the formats, playing alongside C-listers). Yes, Ricki Lake is way out of her element, but I'm not sure even the deans of the genre could bring dignity to this misbegotten enterprise. (By contrast, how wonderful was last week's prime time broadcast of the National Spelling Bee finals? Now that was great TV. ...
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Ricki Lake hosts Gameshow Marathon.
What's the only show on TV this summer that can beat the clock and turn back time? Survey says: Gameshow Marathon!
NBC's five-week tournament (the latest entry airs tonight at 8 pm/ET) features a gaggle of celebrities competing in faithful restagings of seven classic shows: Let's Make a Deal, Card Sharks, Beat the Clock,
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New Line Cinema is launching a nationwide casting call to fill the lead role of Tracy Turnblad in its film version of the Broadway adaptation of the 1988 film Hairspray, Variety reports. (Ricki Lake played the tempestuous teen on the big screen, while Stacked's Marissa Jaret Winokur originated the stage portrayal.) As for some of the other major characters, the studio is in talks with John Travolta, Billy Crystal and Queen Latifah to play Edna Turnblad, Wilbur Turnblad and Motormouth Maybelle, respectively. I'd love to see Travolta keep his Battlefield Earth dreadlocks.
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"It's ladies' night/And the feeling's right/Oh, yes, it's ladies' night/Oh, what a night...." With this song stuck in my head, play gets under way with an all-female cast of quasi-celebs who are ready for some cable-approved humor and good, old-fashioned gamblin'. And Dave Foley's goofy humor really seems to go over well with the gals, even when he references his own menstrual cycle. Tonight it was Ricki Lake, Sharon Lawrence, Kathryn Morris, Kathy Najimi and Caroline Rhea in a battle to see who could play her cards right. Now usually there are some overshares in the personal-information arena on this show, mostly in attempts at humor or to distract opponents. But tonight's odd comment comes from poker-pro Phil Gordon, who admitted — jokingly, I think — that he once dressed in drag to compete in a ladies-only tourney. I hope he was kidding, because he would make kind of a terrifying woman with his nearly 7-foot-tall s
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