March 2011 | American

Thursday, March 31, 2011

{alltv} Genie Francis joins 'Young and the Restless'

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/110331/Genie-Francis_240.jpg

General Hospital fans, you may want to consider changing loyalties: EW has learned exclusively that Genie Francis, aka Laura Vining Webber Baldwin Spencer Spencer from the ABC sudser, will join The Young and the Restless as a series regular at the end of May.

Francis will play the mother of Ethan Cane Ashby (Daniel Goddard), who was declared dead outside his dad's wedding last month and is now appearing as a ghost on the show. His sudden "passing" lathered up the fans, so the addition of Francis should reignite speculation that Cane will remain an integral part of Genoa City. (His ghost is expected to continue appearing throughout the spring).

Francis will begin taping at the end of the month.

The actress' decision to abandon the ABC world and join Y&R shouldn't come as a huge surprise to Hospital fans, who no doubt heard what Francis said while appearing on Oprah's "Legendary Soap Star Spectacular" last month. Oprah Winfrey asked Francis is she'd ever return to Hospital and she said, "If there is a way to go forward with Laura and make her into what I'd like her to be now, then perhaps I would do it.

"I would like her to be funny and have a little bit of an agenda that might look a little bit vengeful, but it really isn't. I think she'd have a plan," she continued. "There is nothing in me that is willing to play a victim anymore. I'm sort of done with the wounded dove in my life."

Francis worked for ABC's Hospital from 1977 to 2008.

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{alltv} Cable's top programs for March 21-27

Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by the Nielsen Co. for the week of March 21-27. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:

1. "Jersey Shore" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), MTV, 5.52 million homes, 7.6 million viewers.

2. "Pawn Stars" (Monday, 10 p.m.), History, 4.44 million homes, 6.44 million viewers.

3. "Pawn Stars" (Monday, 10:30 p.m.), History, 4.43 million homes, 6.26 million viewers.

4. "American Pickers" (Monday, 9 p.m.), History, 3.9 million homes, 5.6 million viewers.

5. NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: Florida vs Brigham Young (Thursday, 7:16 p.m.), TBS, 3.79 million homes, 5.26 million viewers.

6. "Army Wives" (Sunday, 9 p.m.), Lifetime, 3.57 million homes, 4.79 million viewers.

7. "NCAA Basketball Post Game" (Friday, 12:30 a.m.), TBS, 3.54 million homes, 4.98 million viewers.

8. Movie: "The Suite Life Movie" (Friday, 8 p.m.), Disney, 3.45 million homes, 5.22 million viewers.

9. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.42 million homes, 5.26 million viewers.

10. "Teen Mom II" (Tuesday, 10 p.m.), MTV, 3.29 million homes, 4.39 million viewers.

11. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.28 million homes, 4.97 million viewers.

12. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.27 million homes, 4.54 million viewers.

13. "Fairly Legal" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.14 million homes, 4.07 million viewers.

14. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.04 million homes, 4.03 million viewers.

15. NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: Butler vs Wisconsin (Thursday, 9:44 p.m.), TBS, 3.01 million homes, 4.21 million viewers.

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{alltv} Parker Posey signs on for 'The Big C'

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Parker Posey has joined the guest lineup of Showtime's cancer comedy, "The Big C," which begins its second season on June 27.

The indie film mainstay will appear in four episodes as Poppy, an older woman who develops an unlikely relationship with the teenaged son of the show's stricken protagonist, played by Laura Linney. (The son is played by Gabriel Basso.)

She joins recently announced guest stars Alan Alda, on board as an oncologist, and Hugh Dancy, as a charming cancer patient.

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{alltv} Hacker erased a season's worth of "Zodiac Island"

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – The producer of the syndicated children's TV series "Zodiac Island" claims that an entire season of the show has been wiped out thanks to a fired employee at its data-hosting company who hacked into networked computers and destroyed its work.

"Zodiac Island" has run on more than 100 U.S. TV stations around the country, including ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS affiliates. The show is produced by Hawaii-based WER1 World Network, which signed up with Wisconsin-based ISP and data-hosting company, CyberLynk.

According to a lawsuit that was filed last week in Hawaii District Court, a man named Michael Scott Jewson was terminated from CyberLynk. From his parents' residence, he allegedly accessed CyberLynk's data and intentionally wiped it out. Jewson is alleged to have been charged in February with a federal computer crime violation and admitted his guilt in a plea agreement.

The data breach allegedly knocked out 6,480 WER1 electronic files, or 300 gigabytes of data, comprising two years of work from hundreds of contributors globally, including animation artwork and live action video production.

The lost data is said to include fragments from 14 episodes of Zodiac Island, which WER1 says is impossible to reassemble or reproduce.

WER1 says it got some restitution as a result of Jewson's plea agreement, but is now suing CyberLynk and Jewson for breach of contract, negligence, conversion, and computer fraud, saying that the company violated its contractual promises to provide secure data hosting.

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{alltv} Charlie Sheen tour could be a bust for scalpers

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) – "Winning" or "Not Winning"?

That's the latest question surrounding Charlie Sheen's "My Violent Torpedo of Truth" 22-date North American tour, which begins April 2 at the Fox Theater in Detroit.

Over the past several weeks, numerous media outlets have reported that a handful of dates on Sheen's forthcoming trek sold out within minutes. But it turns out that some of those reported sellouts -- including the opening date at the approximately 5,000-capacity Fox Theater -- still have tickets available on Ticketmaster.

CNBC reported on its Web site that so-called "secondary ticketing" companies like StubHub, NoFeesTickets.com and Bargainseatsonline.com snatched up "a lot" of tickets to many of Sheen's forthcoming shows and are now selling them for less than face value, which could suggest that fan demand for the tour is being overestimated by the media reports. (It should be noted that some secondary tickets are on sale across multiple reselling sites, which makes it appear that there are more tickets in the market than there actually are.)

As of Thursday afternoon, StubHub appeared to have about 300 tickets available for the Detroit show alone. But this isn't all that shocking. In today's ticket-buying market, it's typical for secondary sellers to buy tickets in bulk for what they think will be hot-selling shows, whether it's Lady Gaga or U2. In the case of Sheen's tour, however, it seems that resellers may have misjudged the demand.

Nevertheless, this won't impact the money Sheen grosses from the performances -- and that's not to mention merchandise and other ancillary revenue the actor will earn during the tour. Even though fans didn't technically purchase some of the tickets through Ticketmaster, the tickets were still bought by another source, in this case secondary ticketers.

"A ticket sold is a ticket sold, whether it's from Ticketmaster, CharlieSheen.com or the box office," Sheen spokesman Larry Solters tells Billboard. "Where they go after that, frankly we don't know. We all know a re-seller will often post their tickets to multiple sites to promote their product. It might be on multiple sites for the same ticket."

Solters notes that Sheen's tour has sold close to 100,000 tickets with no paid advertising.

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{alltv} Coulter brings conservative rebuttal to Wyoming

LARAMIE, Wyo. – Ann Coulter was bringing her edgy brand of conservatism to the University of Wyoming Thursday, a year after the school drew widespread criticism for its handling of an appearance by Bill Ayers, a Vietnam-era radical who is now a professor.

Coulter is known for her biting criticism of liberals through her television appearances. Her speech topic Thursday night: "Why the liberals are wrong about everything!"

An anonymous donor upset with Ayers' April 2010 appearance in Laramie paid for half of Coulter's $20,000 speaking fee. UW's College Republicans and the Young America's Foundation, a Virginia-based group that promotes conservative ideas on college campuses, were paying the remainder and other expenses.

The university's handling of the visit by Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, generated criticism from all sides. The university invited him, then canceled his speech because many residents and UW alumni threatened to withhold contributions to the school.

Ayers co-founded the Weather Underground, an anti-war group that claimed responsibility for a series of bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.

He was a fugitive for years but surrendered in 1980. Charges were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct.

In Casper, U.S. District Chief Judge William Downes ordered the university to let Ayers speak. As a Vietnam veteran, Downes said he could "scarcely swallow the bile" of his contempt for the Weather Underground, but added a free society must guarantee free speech.

Ayers ultimately dealt mostly with education issues in his speech.

His past briefly became an issue during the 2008 presidential race because he once served with Barack Obama on the board of a Chicago charity. Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists."

UW students opposed to Coulter's views were holding a fundraiser Thursday for gays, lesbians and advocates of people with alternative lifestyles. Pledge amounts were being taken on a per-minute basis based on the length of Coulter's talk.

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{alltv} John Mellencamp, Stephen King work on a musical

ATLANTA – A new musical dreamed up by rocker John Mellencamp and horror writer Stephen King will make its world debut in Atlanta next year.

The Alliance Theater has announced that it will produce "Ghost Brothers of Darkland County," what it calls "a riveting Southern gothic musical."

King's story is based on the real 1957 deaths of two brothers and a young girl. Mellencamp is in charge of the "roots and blues-tinged score."

The Alliance's artistic director Susan V. Booth will direct and legendary producer T. Bone Burnett will provide musical direction.

It is scheduled to run from April 4 to May 13, 2012.

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{alltv} Brooke Shields in 'The Addams Family' on Broadway

NEW YORK – Bye, bye Bebe. Hello there, Brooke.

Producers of "The Addams Family" on Broadway said Thursday that Bebe Neuwirth will give her final performance as Morticia on June 26 and her role will be taken over by Brooke Shields.

Based on the cartoons that appeared for years in The New Yorker, the musical is in its second year at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. The role of Gomez has already been handed over by Nathan Lane to Roger Rees.

Shields has extensive Broadway credits, including playing Ruth in "Wonderful Town," Roxie Hart in "Chicago" and Sally Bowles in "Cabaret."

Last year she starred with Raul Esparza in Alan Menken's "Leap Of Faith" in Los Angeles. She will start in "The Addams Family" on June 28.