Jimmy Kimmel, Barbara Walters and Tyra Banks headline a slate of celebs scheduled to present at the 35th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards (June 20, 8 pm/ET on ABC).Kimmel will present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Regis Philbin, who is marking more than 40 years in television.The schedule of performers also includes numerous soap stars, including All My Children power couple Darnell Williams and Debbie Morgan, Jack Wagner of Bold and the Beautiful, and Anthony Geary of General Hospital.Montel Williams — who is ending his talk show atfer 17 years — is also scheduled to appear. — J.R. WhalenRelated:•Cameron Mathison, Sherri Shepherd to Host Daytime Emmys
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Oh, it is so on!While promoting her memoir Audition on Oprah this week, Barbara Walters said she knowingly lied about former View cohost Star Jones' weight loss. Walters said she told the audience — at the request of Jones — that her fellow Viewer lost more than 150 pounds from 2002-03 through pilates and healthy eating, when in fact Babs knew gastric bypass surgery was to credit. "[Star] decided she would tell nobody, and we had to then lie on the set every day," she said. Jones responded via an interview with Us, knocking her former boss for, among other things, outing a philandering senator in the course of her book tour. "It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters in the sunset of her life is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer, humiliating an innocent family with accounts of her illicit affair and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book. It speaks to her true character." Meow! What's your take? Was Jones just in asking...
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My favorite TV moment this week (granted, I've been on the road and haven't watched a lot) occurred early Wednesday morning, as Matt Lauer defused the mawkish sentiment on the Today set in the wake of Katie Couric's long-awaited announcement that she would be leaving soon for CBS.
"Also coming up in this half hour..." Lauer quipped, as the Today crew (a great group, as I can attest to from the experience of being on the show a handful of times) broke into laughter.
What I loved about that gag was how it underscored the fact that life on Today would go on, no doubt quite robustly, after the Katie Couric era ends. (There have been so many: the Bryant Gumbel-Jane Pauley era; the Barbara Walters-Hugh Downs era; and so on).
This is a historic shift, no question, and shouldn't be underestimated even as it's overanaly
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Per the Hollywood Reporter, Everybody Loves Raymond's Patricia Heaton, who already has a pilot at ABC, is also in talks to develop a View-like talk show for Buena Vista Television. Hmm, just how hard a bitch-slap can Barbara Walters deliver?
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Barbara Walters and Co. will announce, live on The View on Feb. 8, which soaps and their stars — oh, and which talk-show hosts — are this year's Daytime Emmy nominees. In semirelated news, didn't Star Jones seem kinda craaazy in her recent 20/20 interview? Someday, Star said with a straight face, she wants to ride down the Nile dressed as Cleopatra. Seriously. Uh huh.
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