It has been more than three years since the last Comic Relief telethon hosted by Robin Williams, Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg aired on HBO. I hear the next Comic Relief may be a movie. Since 1986, the eight telethons have raised more than $50 million for the homeless, but it's tough to find a time when the trio and their supporting cast can get together. So Comic Relief's founder, producer Bob Zmuda, is putting together a deal to do a feature film for which he wrote a murder mystery set backstage during the telethon. The logistical advantage is that the performers, who would only get scale, could film their segments separately as schedules permit. All the box office profits would go to charity.
With the 2002 Winter Olympics starting, production on Touched by an Angel, which shoots in Salt Lake City, has shut down for three weeks, and most of the cast and crew have scattered except for star Roma Downey. She remained behind to be one of the last torchbearers in the Olympic Torch Relay. The actress got ready for her role by jokingly running around the Angel sound-stage with a raised water bottle. Downey, who will attend some ice-skating events, plans to purchase the torch, which is available to the bearers at cost for $335 from the Olympic Committee. Other celebs who bought their torches include Martin Sheen and Goldie Hawn.
R&B singer Alicia Keys turned 21 on Jan. 25—a milestone she celebrated in Philadelphia during a tour stop. After her dancers rolled a birthday cake onstage at her sold-out show, her record company, J Records, threw her a surprise party at a waterfront jazz club. While songs from her Grammy-nominated album, Songs in A Minor, blared from the sound system, Keys and some 40 friends feasted on an enormous strawberry shortcake birthday cake with a baby picture of the singer glazed on top. Ever the professional, Keys limited herself to one glass of champagne.
Denis Leary can curse with the best of 'em. Throw in five similarly scatological male costars on ABC's The Job and the show's only female lead, Diane Farr, is bound to start talking like them. Actually, Farr tells me she could hold her own before she got the part, but the guys helped expand her repertoire—much to the dismay of her mom, who gave Farr a wrapped box to give to Leary. Inside was a bar of Irish Spring soap and a note: "Please wash your mouth out with soap. You have turned my daughter into a truck driver!"
- Contributors:
- Hugh McCarten,
- Marisa Laudadio.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
