Party atmosphere to guide McCarthy
Jenny McCarthy says she’s looking to Hugh Hefner’s old “Playboy After Dark” as an inspiration for her new talk show.
The actress and former Playboy Playmate will host a late-night talk show Fridays on VH1 starting Feb. 8. After years of being tied up in unproductive development deals, McCarthy said Saturday she came to realize the best character she could play was herself.
She’s looking for a party atmosphere. One segment she plans with celebrity guests is the “groundbreaking interview,” which is talking to guests while both are lying on the ground. McCarthy also plans a game, “Drunk, Dumb or Both,” asking men outside a bar questions like, “What color is a red boat?”
Pacino wanted Spector role unsullied
Al Pacino said Friday that he decided not to meet famed record producer and convicted killer Phil Spector before portraying him in an HBO movie – only to find he already had. A friend showed Pacino a 20-year-old photo in which the actor was standing next to Spector. Pacino said he has no memory of the moment.
The movie, “Phil Spector,” debuts in March. It focuses on the client-attorney relationship between Spector and Linda Kenney Baden, who represented him in his first trial after he was charged with the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. That ended in a mistrial, but Spector was convicted in a second trial and is now serving 19 years to life in prison.
Pacino wore a dizzying array of wigs in his portrayal of the eccentric Spector, whose “Wall of Sound” style was an integral part of pop music in the early 1960s. The actor said he decided not to meet Spector in prison because he’d be a different man than the one Pacino is portraying, who had not yet been convicted of a crime. He watched video clips of Spector to help him with his portrayal.
All 19 chiefs of staff in documentary
Makers of a Discovery network documentary on presidential chiefs of staff have a perfect participation record. All 19 living men who had that job gave interviews for “The Presidents’ Gatekeepers.” The four-hour documentary is expected to air in two parts early this summer.
Filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet said Saturday that their well-regarded previous documentary on the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in New York was a calling card that probably helped them convince some former chiefs to participate.
Their longest interview was with former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was President Gerald Ford’s chief of staff in the 1970s. Cheney said a chief is more powerful than a vice president.
The birthday bunch
Actress Bonnie Franklin is 69. Rock singer-musician Kim Wilson (The Fabulous Thunderbirds) is 62. Rock musician Malcolm Young (AC-DC) is 60. Actor-comedian Rowan Atkinson is 58. Golfer Nancy Lopez is 56. TV personality Julie Chen is 43.