Music Video "Lance & Melissa"

This is a music video I've created some years ago. It features the story of Melissa and Lance with a great piece of music. The song is called "Let's go out tonight" by Craig Armstrong, feat. Paul Buchanan.

Season 5 Alternative Opening

Hi @ all,

here's a little Christmas surprise for you: I've created an alternative opening for season 5. Hope you like it ;-)

Have a great weekend.

Divas break out in a Pillow Fight

Donna Mills, Morgan Fairchild and Linda Gray are knocking each other down --and ET's got a close look at the mayhem!

The trio of '80s prime-time soap divas take part in a playful pillow fight for the January cover of Palm Springs Life magazine.

"We don't see each other that often, but when we do it's always really warm and lovely," Donna tells ET.

The magazine is honoring the Desert AIDS Project's 25th anniversary.

Former "Dallas" star Linda, "Knots Landing"'s Donna and "Falcon Crest""s Morgan are also set to co-host a February 21st gala.

Mariska Hargitay nominated for Golden Globe

Sorry, I've been very busy lately... But I'm back - with some great news:

Mariska Hargitay (Carly Fixx from FC's Season 7&8) is nominated for a Golden Globe in the category "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series" for her performance on "Law & Order".

She will be competing against January Jones of AMC’s “Mad Men”, Sally Field of ABC's "Brothers and Sisters," Anna Paquin of HBO's "True Blood," and Kyra Sedgwick of TNT's "The Closer."

This could be Mariska's second Golden Globe as she has already whon the trophy in 2005 for "Law & Order".

Alternative Season 8 Opening

This is an alternative variation of Falcon Crest's season 8 Opening Main Title.
I've used some pictures from Season 8 as the original opening used some pictures from the previous Season 7. If you listen carefully you can hear that I've altered the theme a bit ;-)) Have fun with this.

Lorenzo Lamas Commercial

Hi @ all,
a new week - a new video... This one is a video clip with Lorenzo Lamas. My friend Missy has found this one on MSN Video - a commercial from the 80s in Spanish Language. Thanks! :-)


Reig Martí

Final Scene: Behind the Scenes

Here's a new video: It's from the after show party while shooting the final scene of "Falcon Crest" in 1990. In a small interview Jane Wyman thanks all of the Falcon Crest Fans for their support and says goodbye.

Other Stars in this video are: David Selby, Lorenzo Lamas, Kristian Alfonso, Wendy Phillips, Gregory Harrison, Chao-Li Chi, Cesar Romero, Mel Ferrer, Gina Lollobrigida, Leslie Caron, Kim Novak and Cliff Robertson.

Have a great sunday! :-)

Jane Wyman Interview - Season 5

An interview with Jane Wyman while shooting some scenes from Falcon Crest's Season 5 in 1985. She talks about a new love interest for her character Angela.

Jane Wyman Interview - Entertainment Tonight

In this interview from 1986 (Entertainment Tonight) Jane Wyman talks about the upcoming season 6 and the new guest star Kim Novak (Kit Marlowe).

Ana-Alicia Interview on Arsenio Hall Show

and again: Ana-Alicia talks to Arsenio Hall. She was on the show later the same year... Have fun with this:

Ana-Alicia Interview on Arsenio Hall Show

Here's a great performance of Falcon Crest-Star Ana-Alicia as a guest on the Arsenio Hall Show in 1989. She talks about Falcon Crest and her movie "Romero".

Falcon Crest Alternative Season 1 Opening

Hi everyone,
hope you're enjoying the summer...

Thanks to a suggestion of my friend Angie I've created a new Falcon Crest video - an alternative version of the Season 1 Opening.
Have fun watching the video :-)

Jane Badler Interview

Jane Badler has had some great feedback on her album. Rockwired.com interviewed her about the album and her future plans:

A BIT OF TITILLATION
SCI-FI VIXEN AND AUSSIE SOCIETY WOMAN
JANE BADLER TALKS TO ROCKWIRED
ABOUT HER DEBUT CD 'THE DEVIL HAS MY DOUBLE'
FINDING HER VOICE AND DOING SOMETHING ORIGINAL

INTERVIEWED BY BRIAN LUSH

When I mentioned to people that I was going to be interviewing DIANA from the cult science fiction mini-series 'V', I got two different responses; one group said "What the hell is 'V'?" and the other gasped "You mean the one who ate the guinea pig?"

I would be lying if I said that the sight of actress JANE BADLER scarfing down a guinea pig in the 1983 sci-fi classic didn't stick with me to this day, but it was BADLER's wide brown eyes, dark hair, wide cheekbones, and pouty lips that made her protrayal, as the reptilian dominatrix comandante bent on harvesting the human populace for food, so memorable. In a show littered with recycled special effects footage and annoyingly over-the-top performances from the likes of B-actors MARC SINGER and FAYE GRANT, perhaps being devoured by an alien sexpot nemesis like DIANA wasn't such a losing proposition after all.

25 years later, the world has changed and the only thing that's changed on the lovely Ms. BADLER is her accent. Having lived in Melbourne Australia for the past nineteen years since her marriage to businessman STEPHEN HAINES, BADLER lives the life of a society woman. She has also returned to the world of music; a vocation she put on hold thirty years ago when she found herself singing standards in clapped out bars instead of doing something unique and original. This time, she's doing both with the release of her debut album 'THE DEVIL HAS MY DOUBLE' from UNSTABLE APE RECORDS with a little help from the Melbourne-based band SIR. According to BADLER, "It feels the most right of anything that I've done"

'THE DEVIL HAS MY DOUBLE' is a surprisingly dark and edgy listen in the vein of JULEE CRUISE or PORTISHEAD. The opening track 'WHEN WE GOT HIGH' brings to mind the urgency of MARIANNE FAITHFULL's 'TIMES SQUARE' and JANE teams up vocally with JESSE JACKSON SHEPHERD on the playful 'I LOVE EVERYTHING', where the results mirror the teaming of NANCY SINATRA and the late-LEE HAZELWOOD (had HAZELWOOD been a robot). With solid backing from the SHEPHERD fronted band SIR, 'THE DEVIL...' is a deliciously crafted concept album exploring themes such as fame ('EVERYBODY KNOWS MY SECRETS'), sex ('SINGLE TONIGHT') and loneliness ('THE DOLL THAT CRIES REAL TEARS'). The female psyche hasn't been put on display this artfully since EURYTHMIC's 1987 album 'SAVAGE'.

ROCKWIRED spoke with JANE BADLER over the phone. Here is how it went.

I guess I should preface things by saying you look great! It's as if time stood still for you and not for me or anyone else.
Well thank you! But I must say that I do spend a great deal of time on it. It doesn't come naturally. You've got to work at it.

And your CD 'THE DEVIL HAS MY DOUBLE' has come as quite a surprise to me.
Really?

Yes.
How great! I love surprising people! That is such a great response to hear that you were surprised!

And now that it's out there for everybody to hear, how do you feel about it?
I'm so proud of it. I really am. Looking back on it now, I think we've evolved the persona of it a bit more. When I'm in performance, I bring it to the next level and it all makes alot of sense when you see me peform live. We've gotten rid of some of the songs on the album that don't quite work with our concept, but things do evolve and change. At the monent we're writing new songs but I'm really proud of this CD that we've put out.

I guess there is this musical side to you that has taken me by surprise. All I ever knew of you was DIANA from V.
Well let me tell you that there are lots of sides to me that people don't know. I grew up playing flute, guitar and piano and I've been singing since I was about seven and I started singing professionally at age eighteen in clubs throughout New Hampshire and then I sang on weekends in Chicago when I was at University and then I sang in New York at the PLAYBOY CLUB and then I stopped for years. Then I started again about seven years ago. It was mostly jazz. I worked withthe greatest jazz pianists here in Melbourne, Australia and did lots of cabaret and then JESSE JACKSON SHEPHERD of SIR approached me about a year and a half ago and I have to say that THE DEVIL HAS MY DOUBLE feels the most right of anything that I've done.

It does feel right, and I'm saying that as a listener.
It's kind of magical how those weird things happen. I was singing these jazz covers and it really wasn't going anywhere and it really wasn't all that edgy and when you know that there is something out there for you that's a little more original and then, when it finds you, it's amazing. Around that time, JESSE approached me and I heard the music and I was like "Oh, this music is really strange! I'm not sure." JESSE and SIR had a very different approach than me. We sort of evolved together and created this character and it sort of makes so much sense now to the both of us. We're very excited.

Before meeting with JESSE, were you familiar with SIR at all?
Not at all and he really wasn't that familiar with me. He knew me as DIANA the icon, and he knew that I had been singing around town, but he really had no idea of the extent of what I could do and I didn't realize how much this music would tap into my own fantasy life and touch me very deeply in my own way. So it was just kind of this weird thing that has happened.

In the small press snippets that I have read, the album is described as being autobiographical. Is that really the case?
Well, lets put it this way. I am very fortunate that in my life, there is one aspect of me that would be a "society woman". I'm lucky that I live a beautiful life and I married a business man and I go to charity functions. In the creation of this character for this album, I have used that. I have used what appears to everyone as this woman who fits in so perfectly into society circles and I kind of exaggerate it with the couture and the glamor and hair and the CHANEL. And in the course of the music, you have the unravelling of this character with her very dark sexual obsessions. So it kind of came from me from where I'm at and where I've been.

The artwork and photography for the CD is amazing!
Isn't it unbelievable.

It is.
Let me tell you. JESSE SHEPHERD is the most unsung hero. He thinks out of the box. He's so brilliant! He's a beautiful artist and now he's a songwriter and he teaches art. He found this photographer and he created this scenario and the most strange locations we went to. He kind of knew what he wanted and we created this alter-ego of the character. It took about a year to do all of the photos because we did it on a very limited budget, which you would never know from looking at the art work. Because it's an independent release, we didn't have access to tremendous amounts of money but sometimes you are forced to become more creative and in a way it's more satisfying.

And I think you've got the perfect shade of blue on this album.
Isn't it great! I'm just so happy with the artwork and how much it mirrors the whole experience of the character in the songs. A part of what we are doing with this project is the visual aspect. We're now trying to get a show going where it's kind of cabaret/pop, where we would have a video installation and take it a step further in a way that DAVID BOWIE or IGGY POP did - that sort of thing where it's performance art .

Personally, I think some of the tracks lend themselves perfectly to music videos.
We're actually about to do one.

For which song.
We don't know yet actually. But we're thinking about the first song 'WHEN WE GOT HIGH'

I was thinking that one myself actually.
Yes. There was either that one or 'I LOVE EVERYTHING' - the song about screwing in the backseat of a car and touching you up in the cinema. We're just talking to a director right now about geting something up and onto youtube and getting it out there. It's all quiet arty and we want to start doing some visual things.

Well, the track 'WHEN WE GOT HIGH' was the track that sort of reeled me in. It's got this sort of MARIANNE FAITHFULL vibe to it that I really like.
Can I tell you that it's one of my favorite tracks too? It was one of the last things that JESSE wrote for me. When we started working together, he would write some things and some of the songs we'd throw out and some of them, we kept. As he started writing that one and 'EVERYONE KNOWS MY SECRETS', that was when we both felt that he was really starting to tap into my persona and what we were doing was really starting to click. So the next album that we are collaborating on will go in a much more moodier direction and certainly not as poppy.

So you were pretty much the muse in terms of the creative process or did JESSE have these songs already.
Some of the songs he had already like 'THE DEVIL HAS MY DOUBLE' which was great. He had alot of songs and most of them I wasn't happy with because some of the were quite poppy and poppy isn't my thing. Even some of the ones that we kept, I don't think are my strongest songs. One song that really worked, which was an exisiting song was 'THE DOLL THAT CRIES REAL TEARS', which was used in a feature film. I think that one works very well. Another existing song that I think really works is 'SINGLE TONIGHT' which he had sung years and years ago and had dragged out and I went crazy over it. So that song had already existed but later on, you can hear where he had written these more moodier songs for me. So when I heard 'WHEN WE GOT HIGH' I was like "Oh my God! JESSE! I'm so excited about this song! This is where I'm at!"

You've got a very interesting label behind you - UNSTABLE APE RECORDS. I interviewed another artist on that label earlier today.
Oh, GUY BLACKMAN?

Yes.
He's doing well. He's amazing! He's a reviewer, a writer, and performer and he's very well known in Melbourne and Australia as a writer as well as a musician. He's going on a tour right now and it's so much easier for him in away because he can fit into a genre a little more easily than I. We struggle a bit and people don't quite know what to do with us. We don't quite know what to do with us.

What are your thoughts on the label that your with? They seem kind of hands-on to me.
They're great. They're small and the label is really quirky and they're really excited about all of us. None of us are huge but you never know. I think it's great! I like what they're doing and I like the creativity. I like that everyone is really original. It's not generic. Everyone is really original. I'm excited to be a part of their quirky stable of artists.

What drew you to music initially?
In the beginning, it was more about an expressing myself. I didn't have the most ideal upbringing -not that I had a tragic one, but it wasn't blissfully happy either - and I was very much into the fantasy and was eager to express myself in a way that I wasn't able to in my personal life as a child. That was probably the initial reason why I got into performing and singing. I was kind of generic in that I was singing in cover bands and singing things like 'JEREMIAH WAS A BULLFROG' with these evening gowns and false eyelashes, you know?

A long way from having reptile skin and a laser gun.
Exactly. I was eighteen! I did attract a crowd because I was cute and busty, but I certainly wouldn't say that I was doing anything extraordinary and I guess there was a time when I had realized that my music wasn't going anywhere. I stopped because I didn't have an original voice and I didn't have anything original to say with it. Now I'm at an age where that's what I'm most interested in; saying something original in my music and my acting. In everything I do, I want express myself in an original way, if I can.

Maybe having an accent helps.
Yes it does actually. I'm a little bit of an oddity here in Melbourne. I'm very glamorous in my outlook on how I like to present myself and I don't think that people are much that way here in Australia. They're a bit more laid back. And I've never wavered from that. I've always been who I am which is pure glamor in my presentation. We did a big indie festival recently and I can tell you the people were quite aghast at us when I walked out like 'Miss Glamour Puss' and I think they all went "Good God! What is this?" There was all of this folky, weird indie stuff going on and I come out. There were very mixed reviews, needless to say, about me but that's okay. I've got to do what's right for me.

I've interviewed a couple of other women from Australia and they were kind of butch, so yeah, you are the glamor queen amongst the lot.
Well yeah, it's kind of what makes me feel good. It makes me feel good and empowered, to be glamorous.

In doing my research for a picture to use, I came across this one photos of you as a beauty queen.
Yes, I was in the MISS AMERICA pageant. There you go honey, it's all making sense now.

It does make sense.
And that's kind of what JESSE wants to do with this show that we're trying to do. He wants me to come out with this crown and the MISS NEW HAMPSHIRE sash and sort of play with that.

In looking at the liner notes, this project looks like it was recorded rather quickly.
You have no idea how quickly it was recorded. I think I had two days in the studio. I'm really proud of what I did. It wasn't 'stop' and 'start' and nothing was dropped. It was pretty much singing the songs from beginning to end and the band all played live. The album isn't spruced up with special effects or anything like that. It's got a real clean sound.

Are you acting still?
Yes. It's weird because my acting is starting to happen again too. I did a movie in November. There's going to be a screening for it pretty soon and I just finished doing a play for six weeks in Melbourne, which was an incredible experience for me and now I've got three projects that are all about to happen or may happen; a few films and one series. One is a horror film and the other is a thriller so it's kind of a good time for me where things seem to be happening. There was a lull for many years but it seems to be my time again honey.

How long have you lived in Australia? You've acquired an accent.
I've been here a long time. Nineteen years. I'd like to say half my life but it's not. It wonderful here, you'd love it.

I heard a rumor about a new 'V' project called 'V: THE SECOND GENERATION'. Would you be interested in doing it?
Oh yes. It's weird that you say that because I got an e-mail form KENNY ('V' creator KENNETH JOHNSON) yesterday. We've been e-mailing each other back and forth. I was telling him that it was weird that I'm doing a pilot for a new series. It's a sci-fi series and my character's name is DIANA. In a way, the series creators are playing on that even though I'm just playing the nice mom of a teenage son. Right now, KENNY says he's working really hard to make 'V' happen in the movies. For 'V', a series is not really in the works. What seems to be happening is more of a movie. I don't know how close he is right now. You hear rumors, but who knows. If it would happen, absolutely I'd do it. It's not anything really deep or profound, but if KENNY was doing it - who was involved in the original mini-series - it would be worth doing it and I think it would be very special.

What do you want a person to come away with after they've heard 'THE DEVIL HAS MY DOUBLE'?
That's a very good question. I'd like them to come away thinking a little about their own sort of sexuality, their own fantasy life, a bit of fun, a bit fo whimsy and a bit of titillation.

That's the best answer I've ever had to that question.
Really?

Yes. No one ever brings up sex. You'd think they would with something called ROCKWIRED.
I think that's all I talk about. It must be my age or something.

Susan Sullivan Interview

There's a great recent interview with Susan Sullivan on broadway.com. She talks about her new play Buffalo Gal, about Falcon Crest and about her relationship with Connel Cowan. Have fun reading this:

Susan Sullivan
by Kathy Henderson

An actress needs a strong ego to sign on for a play about aging, with a script that makes fun of her character's fading status as a TV star, inability to remember lines and diva-like backstage antics. "My phone doesn't ring much these days," laments Amanda, the leading lady who's come home to headline The Cherry Orchard in A.R. Gurney's Buffalo Gal, now at Primary Stages. Of course, it helps when the lady in question is played by Susan Sullivan, who makes 60-something look as chic and alluring as 40. Though she has spent most of her career in Los Angeles headlining TV shows ranging from Falcon Crest and The Monroes to It's a Living and Dharma and Greg, Sullivan got her start onstage 40 years ago when she appeared on Broadway alongside Dustin Hoffman in Jimmy Shine. Theater has remained a priority over the years, and Sullivan proudly touts the quality of the L.A. companies she's associated with, Antaeus and Matrix. (For the latter, she recently starred in Honour opposite her Falcon Crest husband, Robert Foxworth, who's back in New York this summer in August: Osage County.) In conversation, Sullivan is warm and reflective, speaking easily about her life and career, including her history of playing high-tone ladies when her own childhood on Long Island was anything but posh.

What drew you this play and this character?
My life! That's the shortest answer I can give you. It very much parallels on many levels my life—becoming involved with television as opposed to staying where I always thought I would be and should be, which was the theater. As Amanda says in the play, "You called and said, 'Come home and do a play about coming home…'" New York, of course, is my home, and [doing Buffalo Gal] also gives me the opportunity to be with my mother, who is 92 and has come up from Florida to spend this chunk of time with me. So it's personal journey as well as a theatrical journey. And [playwright] Pete Gurney, who I worked with on The Fourth Wall at Primary Stages five years ago, is such a gentleman, so gifted and so elegant as an artist and as a human being. How can you possibly say no to all of that?

Were you able to find humor in the idea of playing, and I'm quoting from the press release, "a once successful television personality whose star is now fading"?
[Laughs] Yes, I could identify with all of that. I mean, everybody's star fades in every business; that's just a natural part of life. You know, this is such a well-written play. The deeper you go into it, the more you find. It relates to my own life, it relates to the life of the theater and hopefully to the journey all of us take. I think we're all trying, particularly in this hectic and chaotic world, to find some sense of personal integrity. And that's the struggle Amanda faces.

Aren't you too glamorous for this part?

No. You are the only person who has told me that I look halfway decent [laughs]. Thank you!

You're wearing skinny jeans and orange patent-leather mules onstage!
When I'm working—and I've been doing a lot of theater this past year—I don't eat, so I've lost about 10 pounds, which is probably not so good. I'm hyped up when I'm working. Some people eat when they're hyped up and some people don't. I'm the "don't."

Like your character, you've done Chekhov, but I doubt you have Amanda's fear about learning lines.
I must say, I'm having a struggle, not with learning the lines but with saying the lines exactly as Pete Gurney has written them. He's very particular about that, and he has every right to be. There's a sweet little intern writing down notes every night, and I get four or five pages after each performance of exactly where I'm not saying "and," "but" or "it" or, even worse, where I'm adding words. The character says, "Ah, the curse of Hollywood," and that is part of my problem—all these years of learning lines, starting with the soaps, where you had to learn pages and pages. I would learn them, but they were always, as I would say, "free form." Well, they don't want it free form with Gurney or Chekhov [laughs]. I'm trying to be really diligent.

This play takes a rather dim view of television. Did you feel comfortable with that, given the number of series you've done?
Well, at this point in my life, when my character says, "It's so tiring, television," I couldn't agree more. I just did a pilot, interestingly enough, and all that sitting around, all that gearing up, it's just not as satisfying an experience [as theater] in terms of the time you take to create and develop a character. You're sort of thrown in. But having said that, I wouldn't have the life I have without television. I wouldn't be looking out my apartment window onto the East River; I wouldn't be able to afford to have my mother with me this summer. So television has been very good to me.

What's the TV pilot you just did?

It's called Castle [starring Nathan Fillion of Waitress and TV's Firefly]. I play an old Broadway diva, emphasis on the "old," who is running around in fancy outfits looking for love and excitement and singing "Hey look me over!" It's completely fun, and every actress in town wanted to do it, so I feel very fortunate. Who knows if it will be sold?

Can you imagine turning down a part in a TV series in order to do The Cherry Orchard in Buffalo?
That's a hard one. [Amanda] obviously has enormous guilt and conflict in terms of what her life's journey has been—and now she has the opportunity to come home, do a play and have it take her on another road in life, as opposed to going back [to Hollywood] and doing something she doesn't really feel has any substance or value other than money. I don't have the money issue, and I've found myself being offered things in television and thinking, "Why am I even considering this? There's no reason for me to do it other than [to demonstrate] I'm still in the game."

You mentioned New York being home. Where did you grow up?
Long Island. Freeport, Baldwin—I went to Hofstra University—I'm a Long Island girl.

So, you weren't part of the Upper East Side crowd, even though you've played so many parts like that over the years.
I really wasn't. I remember one of the first parties I went to on the Upper East Side. It was very glamorous; I met Cary Grant at this party. I had made my own dress because I didn't have an appropriate thing to wear. Anyway, someone said to me, "Are you English?" And I thought, "I must really be over-enunciating if they think I'm English!" There was always a feeling of working my way into a world that I didn't really feel authentic in. Somewhere along the line I sort of learned to be part of that, almost unconsciously. I haven't really thought about it, but I see how many characters like this I play.

Is it true you dated Cary Grant?
Yes. He was the age I am now when I met him, and I thought he was an old man [laughs]. He had just broken up with Dyan Cannon and had had a child. He said to me, "Why are you being an actress? They're all neurotic." I said, "Even Katharine Hepburn?" And he said, "Especially Katharine Hepburn!" I said, "Well, what do you think I should do with my life?" And he said, "I think you should become impregnated."

Ay-yi-yi!
I know. He made it sound so unglamorous and so unappealing, I didn't give it a thought. I'd rather be a neurotic actress than "become impregnated."

You made your Broadway debut in 1968 in Jimmy Shine opposite Dustin Hoffman. What are your memories of that?
My strongest memory was going out of town, and the extraordinary pressure. I remember being in my hotel room in one of those awake/asleep states, dreaming that there were rats in the room. That's the degree of terror I remember feeling. It was the first time I really understood that I was going to have to have courage to deal with the anxiety that comes with performing. A part of me wanted to stop. So whenever it comes back up, I think, "This is just part of what artists have to deal with, and you must have the grace and the courage to move through it."

How did you decide to go into the theater?
I always wanted it, since I was a little girl. I came from a chaotic family, and by doing little plays and constructing organized drama—as opposed to the disorganized drama of my family—things worked better. That's the psychological aspect of it, but it's also in my genes. My father's aunt, my great aunt, came over with the Abbey players and was a protégé of David Belasco, so it's part of my background on the Irish side of my family.

You're the ultimate example of an actor who mixes crowd-pleasing TV series and highbrow plays. Is it a fluke that the two sides of your career are so different?
No. If you're doing commercial television and you land on a hit series, it's good news and bad news. When I started Falcon Crest, I was in my late 30s, and by the time it finished, I was in my mid-40s. Those were really good years of my life that were spent making money and having a good time and playing a character that people connected to—but basically it was about entertainment. So if you're going to do theater at all, you want to do something that's deeper and of more value. You want to do Chekhov as opposed to Dharma and Greg.

Dharma and Greg was a clever show.
My mother watches all the reruns of Dharma and Greg. I hadn't seen that show or thought about it for five years, but since my mom watches, I peek in on it, and boy, is it timely. It's about people getting together from all different cross-sections of life, and if we don't do that, we're doomed.

Isn't it wild that Robert Foxworth, your Falcon Crest spouse, is on Broadway now in August: Osage County?
We just did a play together, Honour, in L.A. There are lots of wonderful theater companies in L.A., and I'm involved with two of them [Matrix and Antaeus]. When I saw "Antaeus" in one of the opening lines in [Buffalo Gal], I thought, "This is meant to be."

The other big reference in the play is to [Buffalo native] Katharine Cornell. My father once said to me, I think it was when I was doing Rich Man, Poor Man, "Well, Susan, it's not Katharine Cornell." Now I get to talk about Katharine Cornell and be her for a second and a half when I cross the stage.

Have you seen August?
Oh yes. Did you read the article in The New York Times about Estelle Parsons standing on her head? Oh my god! That's such a gift to actors to see that and think "Not only could I be doing a play at 80—to hell with that! I could be standing on my head!"

You could play Violet Weston in August.
I think so. When I saw it, I thought, "That would be an interesting part somewhere down the road," although it looked exhausting.

How do you stay so glam-looking and in such great shape?
It's good genes. My mother eats carbohydrates, she eats sugar, she does not exercise—I keep trying to give her "notes," and she says, "I'm 92! Everybody else is dead!" I am really blessed, and maybe that's one of the gifts of being a little neurotic. I have no desire to eat. Once this is over, I will put the 10 pounds I've lost back on.

Your bio mentions your 20-year relationship with psychologist Connell Cowan, author of famous books about relationships [Smart Women, Foolish Choices], including several about marriage. Yet you two never got married.
Isn't that interesting? He had been married a few times, and I have an inordinate fear of…I don't know what. God knows, he's a shrink and we've talked about it. My parents didn't have a great marriage; I saw some really awful marriages, and I so love the fact that we are deeply connected to each other without it having to be on a piece of paper. There's something about that that seems deeper to me. It's a commitment of the heart as opposed to of the head.

Would you like to do a major classical role in New York?

As opposed to in L.A.? I don't know that it makes too much of a difference where it's done. I think Los Angeles actors, and I suppose I have to consider myself more of a Los Angeles actor now, feel that New York is of more consequence in L.A. But you know what? I see wonderful theater in L.A., and if I wanted to do a part, it wouldn't make any difference whether it was in New York or L.A. or the Cleveland Play House. It's all about the community, that family you put together, because I think audiences are audiences wherever you go.

Are you happy with the level of fame you've achieved, and with how your career has gone?
Yes. I mean, I could say, "I didn't have the career of Meryl Streep" and be miserable about it, but I choose to be happy. I see people who were wonderful actors but didn't stay with it for one reason or another and choose to be bitter; they blame the business or say "I wasn't the right type." We all carry a critic in our head. But when you move into your fifties and sixties, things start to shift a little bit. The things that were important in your thirties and forties, like what people think of you, are not so important anymore. I'm happy with what I've done, and I'm delighted that I'm doing this play. I'm quite interested in where I'm going next.

See Susan Sullivan in Primary Stages' production of Buffalo Gal at 59E59 Theaters.

TV producer Andrew Ackerman dies

Andrew A. Ackerman, TV producer and former executive VP for Warner Brothers TV, died July 27 of cancer in Los Angeles. He was 55.

Most recently, Ackerman was co-executive producer for Berlanti Television, in charge of production on "Eli Stone," for ABC.Prior to that, he worked in the same capacity for Berlanti/Liddell Productions, helping to bring to the small screen both "Everwood" and "Jack & Bobby."

In 2001 Ackerman was executive VP of Production for Warner Bros. Television, where he was responsible for overseeing the production of all Warner Bros. Television series, including: "The West Wing," "ER," "The Drew Carey Show," "Friends," "Norm," "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" and "Third Watch."

He began his career in 1977 at Lorimar Television as a production assistant on mini-series "The Blue Knight."After joining the Directors Guild in 1978, he served in various capacities on such productions as "A Death in California," "Eight is Enough," "Falcon Crest," "Kaz" and "Berengers."In 1986, he was named director of production for Lorimar Television, and was subsequently promoted to VP, where he supervised production on series including "Max Headroom," "Homefront" and "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman."
For the 1990-91 season, he was producer on "Gabriel's Fire," returning to his post as VP, Lorimar Television, the next season.

In 1993, Lorimar Television and Warner Bros. Television merged and became Warner Bros. Television; Ackerman maintained his post as VP, production. He became executive VP of production in June 1998.

Ackerman is survived by his partner Jennifer Lence, a daughter, a son and a brother.

Donations may be made to the American Cancer Society.

Simon MacCorkindale joins "The Sound of Music"

Simon MacCorkindale (Greg Reardon from FC's seasons 4 & 5), is to join the cast of The Sound Of Music at the London Palladium from 25 August, taking over from Simon Burke as Captain Von Trapp.

MacCorkindale starred as hospital manager Harry Harper in long-running drama Casualty for six years, leaving earlier this year. He had previously enjoyed an extensive television and film career in the UK and US with credits including Poltergeist, Counterstrike, Falcon Crest, Manimal, Death On The Nile and Quatermass. Also a producer, director and stage actor, MacCorkindale has directed at the National and in the West End and last appeared on stage in a national tour of Agatha Christie whodunit The Unexpected Guest in 2007.

In The Sound Of Music, MacCorkindale plays widowed father Captain Von Trapp, who employs nun-turned-nanny Maria to be governess to his seven unruly children in his Austrian home. As well as taming the kids, tomboyish Maria melts the heart of the frosty Captain, but their domestic idyll is threatened by the rise of the Nazi party and the onset of war.

MacCorkindale joins a cast that includes Summer Strallen, who has been playing the part of Maria since March 2008, when she took over from Connie Fisher. While Fisher was cast through BBC reality television show How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, Strallen’s arrival in the musical was also influenced by television, as a storyline on C4 soap Hollyoaks saw her character, Summer Shaw, cast in the famous role before Strallen took to the Palladium stage in reality.

The cast also includes Margaret Preece as Mother Abbess, Fiona Sinnott as the Baroness and Paul Grunert as Max. Also on 25 August, Rebecca Luice takes over as the eldest Von Trapp child Liesl and Nadim Naaman joins the cast as Rolf.

This production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound Of Music, directed by Jeremy Sams, opened at the London Palladium in November 2006. The first show to use television casting, it paved the way for subsequent productions of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Grease and the forthcoming Oliver!, all of which have cast major roles through television programmes.

HBO Cancels Drama Series "Tell Me You Love Me" starring David Selby

HBO has no love for their drama series "Tell Me You Love Me" as they scrap the plans for its second season and cancel the show completely.

The show's creator Cynthia Mort said in a statement, "Given the considerable amount of time that has passed and despite the best efforts of everyone involved, we were unable to find the direction of the show for the second season."

"There are so many other stories to tell and many other ways to tell them. I look forward to doing that with HBO in the future."

The cable channel picked up the series for a second season last October, but the show had yet to resume production.

"Tell Me You Love Me" centered on the lives of three couples and their problems concerning intimacy. They seek the help of a therapist, who has issues with her own relationship.

The casts included Jane Alexander, David Selby, Michelle Borth, Luke Kirby, Tim DeKay, Ally Walker and Sonya Walger.

Shayne Lamas Calls Off Wedding

Shayne Lamas, the winner of "The Bachelor" reality show, has reportedly dumped "The Bachelor" Matt Grant, according to reports Friday.

Lamas and Grant were engaged, but Lamas has reportedly called off the engagement and wedding. On Wednesday, the New York Post reported that Lamas, the daughter of actor Lorenzo Lamas, had cheated on Grant with Las Vegas media mogul Justin Weneger.

Lamas and Grant were on the TV Guide Channel in May, expressing their love for one another and stressed the bond of their relationship.

Grant selected Lamas over Chelsea Wanstrath in the final episode of "The Bachelor: London Calling".

Jane Badler Album release

JANE BADLER launches her new album of original songwriting, THE DEVIL HAS MY DOUBLE, a compulsive mix of fame, sex and solitude, set to a sweeping soundtrack of cold soul and passionate synthetics. Melbourne album launch is on Saturday 14th June,
9pm at The Toff in Town, (Curtain House, 252 Swanston Street, Melbourne), where Jane will be performing the new tracks with Melbourne band SIR. Supported by Jessica Says.

Lauren Hutton's Bizarre Behavior

A very sleepy (or stoned?) Lauren Hutton has raised eyebrows after delivering a bizarre acceptance speech at Bravo’s 2008 A-List Awards (which aired on Thursday). The actress started her speech saying, “I’ve been up for 46 hours. It’s a long story, but a good one,” and continued to babble on from there. Check it out for yourself.

Shayne Lamas wins British Heart in Reality Show

Shayne Lamas, the eldest daughter of U.S. soap star LORENZO LAMAS is to wed British stockbroker MATT GRANT after a televised proposal on the season finale of U.S. TV show THE BACHELOR: LONDON CALLING.
Grant picked Shayne to be his bride after a six-week dating game.
The finale, which featured the beaming Brit's proposal, aired on May 12, 2008. Lamas, 22, won 27-year-old Grant's heart from fellow finalist Chelsea Wanstrath, a 24-year-old pharmaceutical sales representative.
Shayne Lamas has two films coming out this year - Deep In The Valley and The 13th Alley.

source: contactmusic

Mel Ferrer dead at 90

Actor-filmmaker Mel Ferrer (Philip Erikson from FC's season 1 - 3), the onetime husband of Audrey Hepburn who co-starred with the screen icon in "War and Peace," directed her in "Green Mansions" and produced her film "Wait Until Dark," has died at age 90, a family spokesman said on Tuesday.

Ferrer, who also appeared with Hepburn on Broadway for her Tony Award-winning turn in "Ondine," died in his sleep on Monday surrounded by relatives and friends at his family's ranch in Carpenteria, California, near Santa Barbara, the spokesman, Mike Mena said.

The lanky, gaunt Ferrer first appeared on Broadway as a chorus dancer in 1938. After suffering a bout of polio, he worked behind the scenes in radio, TV and film before making his big-screen acting debut in the 1949 drama "Lost Boundaries" playing a fair-skinned black doctor passing as white.

Delving as it did into the sensitive subject of post-war American race relations, it was a risky role that "had a huge impact on him and his commitment to civil rights," Ferrer's son, Mark, recalled of his father.

But he is best remembered for his role as the lame puppeteer in the 1953 musical "Lili" with Leslie Caron (Nicole Sauguet from FC's season 7), the same year Hepburn made her big-screen breakthrough opposite Ferrer's friend Gregory Peck in "Roman Holiday," which earned her a best actress Oscar.

Ferrer and Hepburn married in 1954 and appeared together that year in the Broadway production of "Ondine," for which she won a Tony as best actress for playing the water sprite just weeks after receiving her Academy Award.

They also co-starred in the 1956 movie adaptation of the Leo Tolstoy novel "War and Peace" -- she as Natasha Rostov and he as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky.

So intent was Hepburn on remaining near her husband that shooting of her Paris scenes in "Funny Face" were timed to coincide with Ferrer's filming of the French movie "Elena et les hommes," in which he co-starred with Ingrid Bergman.

Although he appeared in over 100 films and made-for-TV movies, Ferrer viewed himself less as a screen actor than as a creative talent behind the camera, his son told Reuters.

As a filmmaker, Ferrer directed Claudette Colbert in the 1950 mystery "The Secret Fury" and Hepburn in the 1959 romantic adventure "Green Mansions," set in the jungles of Venezuela.

But the couple enjoyed a more successful collaboration in the 1967 thriller "Wait Until Dark," which he produced starring Hepburn as a blind woman pursued by killers out to silence her as a potential witness. That role earned Hepburn her fifth and final Oscar nomination.

Their marriage -- the first of five for Ferrer (he was married twice to Frances Gunby Pilchard) -- ended the next year. Their only child, Sean Hepburn Ferrer, 47, is a filmmaker who directed the 2001 documentary "Racehoss."

Ferrer suffered a heart attack following their divorce, and Hepburn largely retired from Hollywood. She died of cancer in 1993.

Born in New Jersey, the son of a surgeon and a prominent New York socialite, Ferrer dropped out of Princeton University to work as an actor in summer stock, beginning a lifelong attachment to live theater.

With fellow actors Peck and Dorothy McGuire, he co-founded the La Jolla Playhouse in 1947, which is still running. His sister was the famed cardiologist Dr. M. Irene Ferrer, who helped refine the cardiac catheter and electrocardiogram.

source: Reuters

Alexander Courage dies at 88

Falcon Crest composer Alexander Courage died May 15 at the age of 88 after a long illness.

Courage’s most famous composition, the fanfare and theme for the original “Star Trek” series, was his most widely-recognized composition. He was nominated twice in the 1960s along with Lionel Newman for “The Pleasure Seekers” and “Doctor Dolittle”, and won an Emmy award in 1988 for his arranging work on “Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas.”

He also did extensive scoring work on Earl Hamner's “The Waltons,” scoring over 100 episodes, plus work on TV’s “Eight is Enough” and “Medical Center” plus orchestration work on films including “Jurassic Park,” “Basic Instinct” and “Air Force One”

Falcon Crest / German TV

After an absence of seven years, Falcon Crest will be broadcasted again in German TV!! According to "TV Digital", the Pay TV Channel "RTL Passion" is going to show all 227 episodes, starting on July 28, 2008.
All German fans will be thrilled to watch FC again after this long time!
Thanks to Melissa for this information!

Interview with Mark Snow

In this interview with Randall Larson, Falcon Crest composer Mark Snow (Season 6 & 7) talks about The X Files: I Want To Believe, Ghost Whisperer and his recent film Coeurs (Private Fears in Public Places)

(Interview taken from http://buysoundtrax.com/larsons_soundtrax.html)

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Interview: Mark Snow on X-Files: I Want To Believe
by Randall Larson, May 23, 2008

Mark Snow is best known for his many seasons of music scoring for TV's The X-Files and Millennium, although his work has encompassed many more series (including the popular shows Smallville and The Ghost Whisperer) and made-for-television movies as well as a handful of feature films (including the recent Award winning drama from legendary French director Alain Resnais, Private Fears in for Public Places, aka Coeurs (Hearts) – quite a significant coup for an American television composer, and one that earned him a César Award nomination [the main national film award in France] for best score. Snow's many musical scores for American television and films have also garnered him numerous Emmy nominations and ASCAP awards. In 2006, he became the first composer to receive ASCAP's prestigious Golden Note Award for lifetime achievement and impact on music culture. Mark Snow's iconic X-Files theme remains a worldwide phenomenon.

Snow is now poised to regain that recognition as the new X-Files movie, The X-Files: I Want To Believe, preps for release on July 25th. Snow scored the show's first feature film, The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998), with a massive orchestral score that took the show's central thematic material and expanded it to fit the sonic scope of the big screen, and his music for the new film promises to raise the bar even higher. Interviewed last week while in the midst of completing the new score, Mark Snow describes his music for the further adventures of agents Mulder and Scully, along with his other recent work.

Q: So how far along are you with the new X-Files movie?

Mark Snow: Half way done.

Q: What can you tell me about this score?

Mark Snow: We're using a gigantic orchestra with no trumpets or high woodwinds. It's tons of brass, big strings, and a few low bass clarinets, contrabassoon. Plus we have another orchestra doing effects stuff on top of it – no music, just musical effects like [imitates an orchestral effect] "haaiii-pnnnnnn…", that lay in at certain points. I've also got a genius sample percussion guy who's adding on to that, plus my own atmospheric stuff there, so the music is made up of these four elements. I've been lucky enough to get Alan Meyerson as the music mixer – he's the engineer who does Hans Zimmer's stuff and who is a technical genius. He is probably one of the few guys who can pull this off. We've got assistants among assistants – he's got his crew, I've got a couple of guys just helping me, sending MIDI files, getting these things out to the copyist.

Q: The first X-Files movie expanded the music you were doing the TV series and gave it a huge widescreen scope. It sounds like this new score will be doing that yet again, intensifying what you had in the first X-Files movie by yet another several degrees.

Mark Snow: But it's very different. This movie is not along the lines of the mythology story of The X-Files, with the government conspiracy and aliens and flying saucers. We're all sworn to secrecy and death if we talk about the story, but I can tell you that there aren't any aliens in this movie. It's much more of a standalone episode, and so the music is not like the last one. Actually there is one cue from the first movie that the music editor tracked in, and it worked great, but that's it.

Q: Will there be recognizable material such as The X-Files theme, beyond the opening title?

Mark Snow: Yeah. If you're a musician you'll hear that in the orchestra parts from time to time. Not blatant, but nice and subtle.

Q: What's central to the score, musically? Where does the score hang its hat on?

Mark Snow: It's just dark. Deep and pulsating. On the other hand there are two really beautiful melodic themes. One is sort of like the Gabriel Fauré Requiem, that kind of thing. I am using boy soprano live, and then a counter tenor, which is a male voice that sounds like a woman's.

Q: How much music is this score going to take?

Mark Snow: Tons! Maybe 70 minutes.

Q: What was it like revisiting, or returning to The X-Files after several years hiatus?

Mark Snow: Like fitting into a great pair of old shoes.

Q: Any plans yet for a soundtrack album?

Mark Snow: Yes, on the Decca label.

Q: Meanwhile, you're still doing Smallville and The Ghost Whisperer…?

Mark Snow: The seasons have both ended, so I'm not doing either of them right now. I won't be coming back on Smallville, it's just been way too much. I will come back next season to do Ghost Whisperer.

Q: You worked on Smallville for seven seasons. How has the music or its needs changed, evolved, or developed throughout that run?

Mark Snow: Not a bit! It was: 'Pilot: John Williams.' 'Yes sir. Done!' 'Thanks, bye!'

Q: So it was more maintaining the heroic concept and the mythology than progressing through specific changes…

Mark Snow: That's right, exactly.

Q: I've been enjoying your music for The Ghost Whisperer, a neat mixture of ghosts and character drama with very good writing, excellent performances, and of course a compelling musical underscore.

Mark Snow: The thing that they really want in the music is a real emotional quality. So that's been a combination of spooky, emotional, and mysterious.

Q: Even though it comes from a supernatural basis and certainly has moments that are spooky/scary but in essence it's more of an emotional drama.

Mark Snow: That's right. The idea of people crossing over – they try to do this in a hip way so it's, in a sense, like Highway To Heaven or Touched By An Angel but much more modern/contemporary/cooler.

Q: When you're scoring a weekly series like Ghost Whisperer, you've defined your musical approach in the pilot. Have there been opportunities in the individual stories of Ghost Whisperer to do something varied, or are you tied to a given musical concept from the start?

Mark Snow: Ninety percent of the music on Ghost Whisperer is under dialog. It's very rare that there's music without dialog, for whatever reason. But it's like setting up a sound and the pallet for it and just revisiting it in different variations. They love the piano, and they love pads and percussion pulsing along, but then all of a sudden if you do an orchestra sound with a real strong melody they just go nuts for that. It's the contrast, that what I think is successful about that.

Q: Are there's enough variation in the storylines to afford different instrumental pallets?

Mark Snow: Certainly, when the show calls for some ethnic music or we go to different locations. Sometimes these flashbacks have period piece connotations to them also, which calls for different kinds of music.

Q: Was there a specific way that they asked you to deal with the supernatural aspects, like the appearance of the ghosts, or emphasize when things are going a little bit strange?

Mark Snow: They rely heavily on sound effects for all those things, when the ghost pops in or pops out or moves across the room. I kind of lay low then, because the sound effects guys really go to town there. At first they wanted us both to go crazy at those moments and they'd pick out what they liked the best, but that turned out to be a mess, so then I knew to calm down and let the sound effects do those moments. But obviously sound effects can't do the nice melody stuff, so I get my turn.

Q: You recently composed the music for Alain Resnais' Coeurs (Private Fears in Public Places), which must have been quite a coup to get to work for the legendary French director. I understand that Resnais was attracted to your music due to the X-Files. How did he first get in contact with you for this?

Mark Snow: He just called. He found out who represented me and called. I never associated his name with all his marvelous past, which is classic, this guy is a giant in the French New Wave cinema. He just heard X-Files reruns on French TV, and he thought the music would be perfect, for whatever reason.

Q: He was drawn to the more melodic material which is laced throughout the X-Files scores, rather than the scary stuff?

Mark Snow: Actually, no! He was really talking about the more atmospheric music. He thought that would be fitting. They had tracked it with my music. There was some melodic stuff but nothing like what it turned out to be, that's for sure.

Q: Did you score it over here or did you go over to France?

Mark Snow: I met with him in Paris but I actually did it in Connecticut. I have a studio out there.

Q: What was the process, as far as determining what he wanted and how you should approach the music?

Mark Snow: He said, 'just do what you think is right, like the kind of thing we put in [the temp score].' I had actually written a theme before I got there, just from reading the script, and it turned out to be the main theme. I sent him music from Connecticut, and then it was waiting for that first phone call, that initial reaction, which is always nerve racking. But he called and said 'it's great,' and then as I kept sending him stuff, he would just say, 'oh, make this part a little this, or a little that.' 'Okay, fine.' 'Wonderful, thank you!' And done. Then what happens, in France, apparently, they take the music and they just put it wherever they want to! So there were places where they moved the starts and they fade it in early or used another cue, stuff like that. I mean, not that you'd really notice, and nothing that was like bad from my point of view. Then they called and said 'you've got a Cesar nomination along with a lot of other people in the group here.' It was a big hit at all these festivals, and it won the Special Award at one of them. And now there's a possibility of doing his next movie, which he's just finishing now.

Q: How did this feature film experience differ from writing for a television series?

MS: The marvelous thing about movies as opposed to TV, you can write these kinds of things. In TV the producers are always going, 'no, no! Pulse! Pulse! We need rhythm! We need to keep the audience awake!' And then if you write a minor chord, they go, 'no, no! That's sad! We can't have sad!' Even if it is sad! But with this, you get that mood going, you get your theme going, and that's it. That's what was so great.

Q: What was the element that you felt was the crux of the film – or "this is what I want to hang my score on?"

Mark Snow: That's a good question. I would say, toward the end, you start feeling, as corny as it sounds, the tragic element of these people not being able to connect. So it was toward the end when you knew it was like, oh shit, it was inevitable that this ain't going to work out for anyone. That's where the meat of the score lay.

Q: You recorded in Connecticut?

Mark Snow: I have a studio there. I played it and recorded it – it was all by me, there was not one live instrument. But we mixed it at the Sony Records studio in New York. I had my mixer fly in from L.A., and we did it, which was amazing. It was pretty great.

Q: So what's coming up for you after the new X-Files movie?

Mark Snow: I've got this other movie coming up, a kids' movie called The Knights Of Appletown. It was directed and written by Bobby Moresco, who co-wrote Crash with Paul Haggis, of all things. It's a sweet little movie and it's miles and miles away from X-Files!

Lauren Hutton Blasts Sex And The City

What a strange philosophy of life: LaurenHutton (Liz McDowell from FC's Season 7) has hit out at Sex And The City's portrayal of promiscuous women - blaming "gay writers" for creating the stereotype that single women are "sluts".

During a bizarre rant on U.S. breakfast programme The Today Show on Thursday, Hutton confessed she had never seen TV hit Sex and the City - but she claimed it promoted the untrue myth that it's natural for women to be sexually promiscuous.

She said, "It's written by guys, who happen to be gay, who are sluts. That's what I think.

"Let's face it most men are sluts. That's what testosterone is supposed to do. As a hunter, if you stayed alive after 30, nature wanted your genes out there. Women were just trying to get the best sperm to make a masterpiece.

"You have a bunch a guys who are sluts, writing for women and telling them they are supposed to act like this."

Thanks to Melissa for this information!

Lorenzo Lamas at Premiere in LA

Lorenzo Lamas attended the National Lampoon Premiere of 'One, Two, Many' at the Arclight Theatre, on April 10, 2008 in Los Angeles, California.

Falcon Crest Restaurant in Norway

Did you know that there's a restaurant in Oslo, Norway that uses the name "Falcon Crest Wine & Dine"?
Not only the name is used, also the logo looks very, very similar to the famous Falcon Crest logo.
Well, let's hope, the owners have as much good taste regarding the food as they had with the name ;-)

Check out their website to watch some of the restaurant's pictures: www.falconcrest.no

Leslie Caron Interview

Check out this interview with Leslie Caron (Nicole Sauguet on FC's season 7) on youtube.
It was done in 2007 after Leslie won an Emmy Award as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit".

For more information on her auberge (mentioned in the interview) in Burgundy check out her website: www.lesliecaron-auberge.com

Kristian Alfonso on Arsenio Hall Show

Here's a nice interview with Kristian Alfonso on the Arsenio Hall Show in 1990.
Kristian talks about her pregnancy, "Days of our Lives" and "Falcon Crest".

Shayne Lamas on "The Bachelor"

Shayne Lamas, the daughter of Lorenzo Lamas, is all set to woo the ‘Bachelor’! Shayne is one of twenty-five women competing for Matt Grant, who is prized bachelor on ABC’s The Bachelor: London Calling.
She is although a ‘B’ grade actress but is better known as the daughter of one of the hunkiest actors in Hollywood, Lorenzo Lamas.

Shayne Lamas, 22, who has appeared on “General Hospital” and three unheard-of movies - most recently as “red bikini girl” in something called “Endless Bummer” - hopes to be the winner of the dating show, which this season will feature the first British bachelor, Matt Grant. 27-year-old Matt Grant is a global financier from London, who is the first international Bachelor.

Gallery Season 1 ● EP #007 'The Extortionist'

Composer Leonard Rosenman died

Leonard Rosenman died on March 4, 2008 of a heart attack at his home at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.

Leonard Rosenman was the composer who created the score for the unaired Falcon Crest pilot "The Vintage Years".

He was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 7, 1924.
After service in the Pacific with the Army Air Forces in World War II, he earned a bachelor's degree in music from the University of California, Berkeley.
He also studied composition with Schoenburg, Roger Sessions and Luigi Dallapiccola.
Mr. Rosenman also has written incidental music for such series as "The Defenders", "The Twilight Zone", "Gibbsville" and "Marcus Welby M.D."

In his 70s Rosenman was diagnosed with Frontotemporal dementia, a degenerative brain condition with symptoms similar to Alzheimer's disease.

Leonard Rosenman enjoyed astronomy. For his observing he used a 14-inch computerized telescope which he had set up at his home in the Hollywood Hills. The telescope was a Celestron Compustar C-14 that was retrofited by LA Optical CO. in about 1990.

He earned two Academy Awards, Oscars for musical adaption: for Barry Lyndon (1975) which drew on music by Handel, Schubert and others and Bound for Glory (1976), based on Woody Guthrie songs.

• Barry Lyndon (1975) Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation

• Bound for Glory (1976) for Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score

He also received two Emmy Awards:

• Sybil (1976) for Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Special (Dramatic Underscore) with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman.


• Friendly Fire (1979) for Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited Series or a Special
  

Rosenman with James Dean on the Warner Bros. lot in 1955

Fairchild to be honored by Texas Film Hall of Fame

Mike Judge, creator of "King of the Hill," and actress Morgan Fairchild will be among those inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame on March 7, the Austin Film Society said Wednesday.

They will join previously announced inductees Thomas Haden Church, Jayne Mansfield and the film "Urban Cowboy." Mansfield's award will be accepted by her daughter, actress Mariska Hargitay. The award for the movie will be accepted by one of its stars, Debra Winger, the society said.

Judge, who lives in Austin, is the voice of the main character on "King of the Hill," Hank Hill. His other projects include "Beavis and Butt-Head" and "Office Space."

Fairchild, a Dallas native, is known for her numerous film and TV roles, including "Falcon Crest."

Dan Rather, born and raised in Houston, will be master of ceremonies for the event.

Previous inductees include Dennis Quaid, Marcia Gay Harden, Forest Whitaker, Sissy Spacek and Owen Wilson.

The Texas Film Hall of Fame, located at Austin Film Society's Austin Studios, recognizes actors, directors, screenwriters, musicians, filmmakers and films from, influenced or inspired by the Lone Star State.

source: www.chron.com