Jennifer Lopez
That big-screen version of Dallas is inching closer to reality. Variety reports that the cast is starting to fill out — particularly in the backside, one might say, with Jennifer Lopez being offered the role of Sue Ellen Ewing (played by Linda Gray on the long-running CBS serial). Luke Wilson is in talks to play Bobby, and Shirley MacLaine is being eyed for Miss Ellie, while the most plum part, J.R. himself, is still earmarked for John Travolta (production on Dallas would begin in October, after he's done filming Hairspray). You can practically hear Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson catfighting over the role of Lucy.
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Now Patrick Duffy fans don't have to settle for watching his daily Dallas reruns on SoapNet. The artist formerly known as Bobby Ewing reported to the Bold and the Beautiful set this week to start playing the contract role of Brooke's father, Stephen Logan. (The part was previously played by Robert Pine.) Duffy — who first airs on April 18 — isn't the first big Dallas alum to do B&B. Last year Linda Gray (aka Sue Ellen) played Priscilla, the meddling mother of Sydney Penny's Samantha.
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Rebecca Holden and David Hasselhoff, Knight Rider
Question: On the show Knight Rider, what did K.I.T.T. stand for?Answer: Why, he and partner/driver Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff) stood for truth, justice and single-handedly lowering the auto-industry fleet's miles-per-gallon average by 10 miles or so. Weren't you watching?
Actually, K.I.T.T. stood for Knight Industries Two Thousand, the model name for the superpowered, computer-sentient car built by dying rich guy Wilton Knight. The hit series ran on NBC from September 1982 to August 1986, and as fans will know, Knight rescued undercover cop Michael Young, who'd been shot in the face while on the job. He paid for his plastic surgery, giving Young a new mug and a new name (Knight, which smacked of some ego, I thought) in the process. Then he handed his creation the keys to K.I.T.T., a black Trans Am with a
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Patrick Duffy
He's lived the life aquatic, come back from the dead on Dallas and worked with Suzanne Somers without ever tripping over a ThighMaster. But can Patrick Duffy keep his TV-movie wife, Patty Duke, from throttling Shelley Long in Hallmark Channel's Falling in Love with the Girl Next Door (premiering Feb. 4 at 9 pm/ET)? TVGuide.com traded Qs and As with ol' Bobby Ewing. (Or was it all just a dream?)
TVGuide.com: I see that Patty Duke has been robbing the cradle a little bit....Patrick Duffy: With whom? [Laughs] With me? Nooooo.... we're sort of contemporaries.
TVGuide.com: Are you OK these days playing the father of the hot young chick instead of getting the hot young chick?Duffy: Well, it'd be ludicrous if I was getting the hot young chic
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Question: What did you think of the Knots Landing reunion? It had very much the same setup as the Dallas one, but I think this one was a lot more successful. Maybe it's because the cast seemed to genuinely like each other. Seeing the clips really made me miss it, and as much as I love Desperate Housewives, it can't compete with Knots. As crazy as the plots could sometimes get, the characters were always believable, and I think that is what put it above the rest.
Answer: The Knots reunion was indeed better than the Dallas debacle, but then, the show itself was better than Dallas through most of their concurrent runs. Knots was always my favorite of the classic '80s prime-time soaps, and even when I was alone on that critical limb, I was never ashamed to declare myself a fan. It was the most consistent, the most sustained, the best acted and written and (within reason) the most realistic of the evening soaps, yet also deliciously campy when it chose to be. There's little question that
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Knots Landing Reunion: Together AgainI'll say it right away: Knots Landing is my all-time favorite show. So you know I was totally looking forward to this two-hour reunion of the cast of the third-longest-running hourlong drama, which ran from '79 to '93. For the most part, I was not disappointed.
What I loved: - The quick recap of all 14 seasons using several of the actors narrating was hilarious and well written. - Speaking of hilarious — shut up that Joan Van Ark and Ted Shackelford did a Wonder Woman episode right before Knots began. Joan calling Ted's costume a big "silver co
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Stage and screen star Barbara Bel Geddes, best known for playing Dallas matriarch Miss Ellie, died at her home in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Monday. The cause of death was lung cancer. Bel Geddes was 82. For more on her illustrious career, see Wednesday's Entertainment News.... Matthew McGrory, a 7-foot-plus actor who appeared in such movies as Big Fish, Men in Black II and The Devil's Rejects, died Tuesday of natural causes. He was 32.
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Barbara Bel Geddes
Stage and screen star Barbara Bel Geddes, best known for playing Dallas matriarch Miss Ellie, died at her home in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Monday, the San Francisco Gate reports. The cause of death was lung cancer. Bel Geddes was 82. The daughter of famed theatrical set designer Norman Bel Geddes, the actress started her career on Broadway, then made her film debut in 1947's The Long Night. Not two years later, she garnered her first Oscar nod, for I Remember Mama. Her other noteworthy projects include Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets,
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Entourage
Laurence Hall Matheson: 1971-2005. Certainly one of the quickest opening death scenes ever. Less than 30 seconds in, a dude is mauled by a cougar and I'm the one scared to death. Nice fade into a close-up of Nate being taken away on a stretcher. I loved how David, being the smart brother, chose not to tell Brenda that Nate was with Maggie when he collapsed. Awkward moment No. 1: Brenda showing up at the hospital and seeing Maggie there. Claire to David: "Why is she here?" David (whispering): "Later." Such a perfect brother-sister scene. Meanwhile, back at the campfire, Ruth is about to have sex with Ed Begley Jr., I mean, Hiram. Awkward moment No. 2: Brenda's conversation with Maggie at the hospital after the neurosurgeon (played by Michele Greene from L.A. Law, don't ya know) gave the Nate update. But back to Ruth: The comic highlight of the episode was, of course, the dream sequence shootout , with Ruth taking down all her former amours with a rifle. Too funny
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Oil that glitters: Dynasty's Forsythe and Evans
Question: Linda Evans and John Forsythe were in a nighttime soap with the name Carrington. What was the name of that show?
Answer: I'm happy to answer that, but I demand an explanation — unless you spent the better part of the '80s living in a vacuum or, at least, manning a missile silo, I simply don't see how you could forget the over-the-top Dynasty. A fixture of a time when alluring TV women were rightly defined as those over 20, the series was a classic and the definition of the overused term "guilty pleasure."
A ratings powerhouse in the mid-'80s, Dynasty ran on ABC from January 1981 to May 1989, making Forsythe, Evans (The Big Valley) and costar Joan Collins household names while doling out paychecks to what seemed like half of Hollywood and upping the profiles of actor
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