Eddie Cibrian, LeAnn Rimes to get VH1 series
Eddie Cibrian and LeAnn Rimes already get a lot of tabloid attention.
Now the 40-year-old actor and his singer-actress wife are parlaying their notoriety into a new VH1 series tentatively titled, “LeAnn & Eddie.”
The six-episode series is scheduled to debut later this year or in early 2014.
In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Rimes, 30, said she and Cibrian were interested in doing “a show based in reality. … A scripted show based around our lives.” She said they had been approached numerous times to do an actual reality series, but “that kind of typical model doesn’t work for us.”
The couple wed in 2011. They met while filming the Lifetime movie “Northern Lights.” Cibrian’s ex-wife, Brandi Glanville, is a cast member on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
Sondheim receives prestigious award
Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim is being awarded one of the top honors in the arts world: the Edward MacDowell Medal for lifetime achievement.
The award was presented Sunday at the MacDowell Colony, the prestigious retreat for artists, writers and composers in Peterborough, N.H. This is the first time the medal has been awarded for achievement in musical theater. Past recipients include Robert Frost and Georgia O’Keefe.
In a statement when the award was announced, Sondheim called the medal a “sort of homecoming,” noting that as a child he used to play compositions by Edward MacDowell, for whom the prize is named.
Sondheim has won more Tony Awards than any other composer. His hit musicals include “Follies,” “A Little Night Music” and “Sweeney Todd.”
Wynn gives millions for blindness cure
Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn will donate $25 million to the University of Iowa to accelerate the search for cures to rare eye diseases including the one that hampers his own vision, the school announced Thursday.
The donation, to be paid over five years, will support the Institute for Vision Research, will be renamed in honor of the billionaire chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts Ltd. The institute is a leader in genetic testing for eye disease and seeks to develop gene and stem cell therapies that could restore vision.
Wynn, 71, has retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that affects one in 4,000 people and causes night blindness and weakness in peripheral vision.
The birthday bunch
Actor George Hamilton is 74. Singer-guitarist Mark Knopfler is 64. Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny is 59. Rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot is 50. Actor Peter Krause is 48. Actress Imani Hakim (“Everybody Hates Chris”) is 20.