High School Musical starlet Ashley Tisdale celebrates her 25th birthday today. She'll next be seen in the family adventure Aliens in the Attic in theaters July 31, three days after she releases her sophomore album, Guilty Pleasure. A favorite of paparazzi everywhere, Lindsay Lohan turns 23. Her new movie Labor Pains premieres on ABC Family July 19, and although she might not have a significant other to hang with on her b-day (after breaking up with Samantha Ronson), maybe she's getting some hits from her entertaining eHarmony ad. Singer Michelle Branch, who will finally release a new album, Everything Comes and Goes, later this year, turns 26 (check out the video for her new song, This Way, below). NASCAR great Richard Petty is 72, and Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, turns 62.
Photo by Kirsty Griffin
Grammy winner and Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas released his second solo album, Cradlesong, this week as well as his first live performance DVD. He's also got plans for a two-month national tour beginning in September (click here for a list of dates). Our Reyhaneh Fathieh interviewed Thomas, who is such a Twitter junkie he even Tweeted about their talk. Click on read more and you'll get right to it, and check out a clip of Thomas performing the single Her Diamonds below.
Photos by Andrew Macpherson
Read more...
Lance Armstrong starts riding in the Tour de France Saturday, his first since announcing his retirement in 2005. Wait, if he’s retired doesn’t that mean no more cycling? Most people would think so, but most people don’t beat cancer and then win the Tour a record-breaking seven consecutive times. Allegations that Armstrong used EPO, a performance-enhancing drug, are still haunting him and in a new biography, Lance: The Making of the World’s Greatest Champion, coincidentally out this week, Armstrong talks about those allegations — made in the book L.A. Confidential: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong published in 2004 by two European sportswriters. “Extraordinary accusations must be followed up by extraordinary proof,” says Armstrong, who denies doping. “Mr. Walsh and Mr. Ballester worked four or five years and they have not come up with extraordinary proof.”
Lance also gives readers an intimate look into Armstrong’s relationships, including his friendship with Matthew McConaughey and his engagement to Sheryl Crow. Armstrong says, “The relationship was kind of a struggle for a while,” but also says Crow wanted to get married and have children, and he wasn’t ready to do that again. Armstrong has three children with first wife Kristin Armstrong and, although he has yet to remarry, girlfriend Anna Hansen gave birth to a son, Max, in June. (Oddly, all three women look remarkably similar). But Armstrong does seem to have something to prove in the 2009 Tour. “I’m doing this for my kids,” he says. “I don’t want them growing up and reading all of these things about me and doping.”
Niecy Nash (Reno 911) and her Clean House crew
have been searching for the messiest house in America and they'll
reveal the winner of the not-so-prestigious title tonight at 9 ET
on the Style Network. The Clean House: Messiest Home in the Country 3
two-hour special will un-clutter the home of Sharon Baglien (a
shopaholic for everything from holiday decorations to on-sale
jackets) and her daughter, Brigitte, who has inherited some of her
mother’s habits. Messy homes are always fascinating, because,
in most cases, the items piling up have significant emotional value to
their hoarding owners. Click on the video below to see the Messiest Home auditions that made intern (and self-proclaimed neat freak) Steve Thompson want to cry. Tell us what you think Who’s News
readers. Are you constantly wiping down the surfaces of your already
highly disinfected house? Or do you wear the stacks of 20-year-old
newspapers sitting in your bathtub like a badge of honor?
Blues Brother and original Saturday Night Live cast member Dan Aykroyd turns 57 today. The Ghostbusters star recently reprised his role as Ray Stantz for the recent Ghostbusters video game, and he's ready to go for the proposed third Ghostbusters film, which he hopes to start filming this winter. Pamela Anderson is 42. The Baywatch icon will play herself (again) in the upcoming Chris Kattan comedy, Hollywood & Wine. Liv Tyler, daughter of Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, celebrates turning 32. With starring roles in such recent blockbusters as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Incredible Hulk, Tyler has come a long way from her music-video beginnings opposite Alicia Silverstone. And Law & Order: Criminal Intent star Julianne Nicholson turns 38. She was probably one of many glad to hear that those Jeff Goldblum death rumors from last week were untrue, since she's paired up with the actor on the USA Network show.
Photo by Peter Freed/USA Today
It may feel like Brad Paisley week, because the hot country singer is all over the place. His latest album, American Saturday Night, hit stores today and already it is the No. 2 album on iTunes (The Essential Michael Jackson is keeping him from the top spot). He'll kick off the holiday weekend Friday performing in Central Park on Good Morning America’s Summer Concert Series, and then on Live! With Regis and Kelly. Paisley and his patriotic album will most likely be invading radios across the nation this Fourth of July (plus he is featured in People, Nashville's Tennessean and the Los Angeles Times this week), so click on the video below to get a little taste of his title song.
It's just been announced that legendary singer/songwriter Kris Kristofferson, 73, will get his due, to be honored as a BMI Icon at the U.S. music rights organization’s 57th annual Country Awards on Nov. 10. I'm totally with our Dennis McCafferty, who covers country music for the magazine, when he says it's about time. Says Dennis: "For the young folks today who mainly know him as 'the old guy in the Blade movies,' try Googling the life of the great Kris Kristofferson (that's Kris in May, with Ani DeFranco, right). He was a Rhodes scholar. He taught at West Point. At one time during the 70s, he was the biggest combination of actor, singer and songwriter anywhere. As for the latter, he's written so many songs that have stood the test of time — Me and Bobby McGee, Lovin’ Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again), Help Me Make It Through the Night. My personal favorite is Sunday Morning Coming Down, with the great line, "The beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad/So I had one more for dessert."
Photo courtesy of USA TODAY
Senior writer Dennis McCafferty checks in from Orlando, where he spent the day Monday with Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner at Disney's Magic Kingdom for an upcoming cover story. That's the two of them hamming it up at below like the celebs who do the 'I'm going to Disney World!' commercials. Dennis reports:
"Kurt was having a great time, hosting a large group of kids and their families there from across the country with his also-somewhat-famous wife, Brenda. I asked Kurt if he used to go to Disney World as a kid. 'I did," he told me. 'But I don't remember there being so many other theme parks here in Orlando. I think there was mainly just the Magic Kingdom back then.' Not that he's protesting. He loves heading out to the quite-lively Downtown Disney and getting into the arcades. 'They have all kinds of wild simulators now,' he said. 'They can make you feel like you're on a roller-coaster, or on a pirate ship. But they still have plenty of the classic arcades, too, that I loved as a kid.' "
Photo by Preston Mack
Over morning coffee I'm reading the stories following Michael Jackson's death. There are many, and some are of dubious accuracy, but I'm keeping up via TMZ.com, which broke the story last Thursday....
Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick show off their twins girls — Marion Loretta Elwell Broderick and Tabitha Hodge Broderick — in this People picture. They were born by surrogate last week. ...That was fast. The Bachelor dumpee Melissa Rycroft, who got Dancing With The Stars as a consolation prize, is now engaged. ...
Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni — that's them at left — signed their contracts for another season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit....
I'm confused about the fuss over Kendra Wilkinson's weekend wedding. Who cares?...
Our friend Kristin de Santos at E! reports that Drea de Matteo will join Desperate Housewives. So that's why they got rid of Nicollette Sheridan.
Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson celebrates his 43rd birthday today. He's had some ups and downs in his career (biting Evander Holyfield's ear would definitely be one of the latter), but "Iron Mike" has recently shown he's still got it. He was the subject of the James Toback documentary Tyson, and has a great cameo involving a tiger in the hit comedy The Hangover. Actor Vincent D’Onofrio, Detective Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, turns 50. He’s opposite Christopher Walken and Val Kilmer in his next flick, The Irishman. Former American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino is 25. She starred recently on Broadway in The Color People, and will reprise her role in the upcoming big-screen musical adaptation. Actress Lizzy Caplan, who appeared on True Blood last year and Party Down this year, is 27, superstar Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is 24, and funnyman and recent Dancing With The Stars contestant David Alan Grier turns 54.
Photo by Frank Masi
Lucky me. I'm interviewing Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal tomorrow and I'd reallly like to have your questions. They are getting ready for a six-week, coast-to-coast tour — 30 dates in all — and it's the first tour for the two of them together. That's the poster for it over there on the left. So if you have questions for either of them, post them below. I'd love to know what you want to know.
Happy 33rd birthday to Bret McKenzie, the goateed half of the musical comedy group Flight of the Conchords. He appeared in the first and third of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, but the New Zealand actor and musician has found cult success alongside Jemaine Clement with Flight of the Conchords, which recently finished its second season on HBO (and premieres on DVD Aug. 4). Nicole Scherzinger, the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls who also has a solo career, is 31. Comedian Richard Lewis, now a recurring guest on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, turns 62. NYPD Blue’s Sharon Lawrence, who guest-starred as Izzie’s mom on Grey’s Anatomy this past spring, is 48. And actor Gary Busey, recently seen on the VH1 reality series Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, celebrates turning 65 today.
Photo by Craig Blankenhorn
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen director Michael Bay was in his element Thursday night. He was the main attraction at a special IMAX screening of his new movie at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Northern Virginia, and not just because he was there to show the film to museum and military folks who had worked on it. (Several scenes involving the new Transformers character Jetfire, based on the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird plane, were filmed at the museum.) Our T.J. Walter reports Bay also cruised to the venue (near Dulles International Airport) in his own jet, parking it — loudly — right outside the hangar where the press was waiting.
Transformer 2: Revenge of the Fallen may have gotten mixed reviews, but with the sequel pulling $60 million in box office on opening day Wednesday (and another $28 million and change yesterday), Bay could gloat. “Second biggest opening day of all time, I guess the critics didn’t know what they were talking about.”
Bay talked about the multiple opportunities (Pearl Harbor, Armageddon) that he has had to work the U.S. military. “I have met so many amazing soldiers over the years and I try to portray them in the most realistic way,” Bay said. Also: "In no other job would I ever get to the meet the guy that loads fuel into the space shuttle.”
Photo by Jaimie Trueblood
Don't tell my husband, but I have a thing for Tim Daly. Tim is handsome, and aging well; he's done some seriously good TV work — even if my most favorite, Eyes, only made it for a few episodes. He's loyal to family and friends; he's smart; and now he's stepped up to co-chair The Creative Coalition, an arts advocacy group. I've talked to Tim a couple of times but most recently for this weekend's Who's News column, so read up on him there.
This week, I also have in the magazine a story about another of my favorite men on TV, Denis Leary (seen at right with his wife, Ann Leary). I appreciated Leary's early work but I saw him only as a comedian. Not until FX's Rescue Me did I see him for the writer that he is: talented, informed and serious. Don't get me wrong, he's still funny. (The evening we talked, he had to run out to do Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.) But he's a fearless and relevant social commentator. Leary and I both come from big Irish Catholic families and went to Catholic schools in the '60s, so we had some common ground, though his tales of his close loving clan are far more hilarious than any I could ever tell on mine. He shares many of them in his best-selling book Why We Suck: A Feel-Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid.
While I was writing about Denis, I got in touch with his wife, also a writer (check out her blog Wicked Good Life), because they've been married for 20 years and he always talks lovingly about her. I didn't have room to fit all of her comments into the story, but I loved what she had to say about them so I want to share it here. "We have had to work hard at marriage, as all couples do, but I think now we have a sort of pride in the stamina of ours — at least I do. We're not getting any younger, and neither is our marriage so we have to work to keep it in good, working shape. It's taken a while for us to figure that out. That there's maintenance involved. Well, I love him, I guess that's all you need to know."
My Sister's Keeper, the movie based on Jodi Picoult's bestseller, opens today and seeing it is definitely on my weekend agenda. At the urging of other women friends, I read the book a few years ago, so I am eager to see how it is played on screen. Cameron Diaz plays the mother and reporters who saw her at an L.A. press conference for the movie got a taste of what her real-life mothering skills might someday be like. On a panel with two of her young co-stars, Abigail Breslin and Sofia Vassilieva, Diaz joked with the girls but also kept them in line. Our Nancy Mills was there to see how it all played out. Click on read more for Nancy's full report.
Photos by Sidney Baldwin
Read more...
Aspiring singer Jordan Shelton, winner of the Star-Spangled Banner YouTube Singing Contest that USA WEEKEND co-sponsored with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, is feeling like a real celebrity these days. In fact, she got lots of practice giving autographs and posing for pictures after she sang the National Anthem live at the museum’s special naturalization ceremony for 25 children from 15 different countries on Flag Day, June 14. (Click read more below for pictures of Shelton from the ceremony.) Here she is singing the anthem at Baltimore Orioles game later that day. Shelton, a 24-year-old from Arvada, Colo., was one of more than 850 entrants who uploaded videos of themselves singing the National Anthem to YouTube between Feb. 15 and April 13.
Photos by Rich Strauss, courtesy of the National Museum of American History
Read more...
Rocker Chris Isaak, who sometimes acts but is best known for his sexy video for Wicked Game, celebrates his
53rd today. Earlier this year, Isaak released his first studio album in
seven years, Mr. Lucky. A one-time rock star with Phantom Planet, actor Jason Schwartzman is 29. He founded the solo music project Coconut Records, but is best known for his on-screen performances — he can next be seen opposite Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler in Judd Apatow's August comedy, Funny People (for which Schwartzman wrote the music). Derek Jeter, all-star Yankee shortstop, turns 35 today. Sean Hayes, the scene-stealing Jack on Will & Grace, and Chris O’Donnell, the one-time Robin to Val Kilmer and George Clooney's Batmen, are both 39. O'Donnell teams with LL Cool J this fall on the CBS spinoff, NCIS: Los Angeles.
Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Records
The animated family comedy Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs opens Wednesday, and in this weekend’s magazine, I have a feature on Denis Leary, who gives voice to the sabretooth tiger Diego. We also have an an exclusive clip from the movie, third in the Ice Age series, below. Director Carlos Saldanha says, it’s one of the funniest scenes, which is saying a lot given this movie. Diego and the married woolly mammoth couple Manny (voiced by Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) — who are expecting a baby — journey to rescue their sloth pal Sid (John Leguizamo) after he gets trapped in a world full of dangerous dinosaurs. They run into the dreaded Chasm of Death, where they have to zip-line across with the help of the swashbuckling, one-eyed weasel Buck (British actor Simon Pegg) and avoid the “poison gas” — which doesn’t hurt them as much as it cracks them up. “They’re talking about maybe dying going through this dangerous journey and about all the issues that they have, but in a funny way laughing uncontrollably,” says Saldanha. Watch the clip below, then click read more for Brian Truitt’s three questions with the director.
Photos courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox
Read more...
While you may think that’s Chris Isaak’s unmistakable voice crooning the rockabilly-tinged theme song for HBO’s hit vampire drama True Blood, it’s not. That would be Jace Everett, the bluesy singer-songwriter behind Bad Things. The song’s been such a hit since True Blood debuted last year that Everett, 37, has become the No. 1 indie Americana artist on MySpace, with more than 4 million total streams of his songs. Between True Blood’s second season starting earlier this month and Everett releasing his third album, Red Revelations, on Tuesday, it’s been a busy time for a man who counts Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Tom Waits, U2 and Roger Miller on his short list of heroes. Our Stephanie Ostroff interviewed Everett yesterday so click read more to find out about the up-and-coming singer, and check out this video of him performing Bad Things on The Tonight Show.
Photo by David McClister
Read more...
On the plane coming back from San Francisco, I finally saw Confessions of a Shopaholic, now out on DVD, and thus had the chance to admire once again the strange but creative fashion sense of costume designer Patricia Field. She is the woman behind Sex and the City, The Devil Wears Prada (that’s Field with Meryl Streep on the right), Ugly Betty and now Shopaholic. She also has a New York boutique and a website that make her print-heavy, leggings-obsessed line to all un-famous shopaholics at surprisingly affordable prices. But, as Field confesses here to our Reyhaneh Fathieh, some of her funky clothes only work on the Sarah Jessica Parkers and Isla Fishers of this world. Click read more for the self-described professional shopper’s take on fashion.
Photos courtesy of Fox, Touchstone Pictures
Read more... It didn’t take long for the giant robots of Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen to make their mark on the summer box office. Directed by action-film guru Michael Bay and featuring favorites such as the Autobot leader Optimus Prime, the sequel raked in $60.6 million in box office on opening day yesterday, shattering the previous record for a Wednesday release (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix grossed $44.2 in 2007). All this success is a boon for producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who recently returned home after a globetrotting promotional adventure that took Transformers all over the world. Our Brian Truitt spoke recently with di Bonaventura so click read more for that interview.
Photos courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Read more...Fox TV is trying out a new sci-fi series Friday night from the creators of Battlestar Galactica Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor. It's called Virtuality and it follows the crew of Phaeton through their outer-space journey as they try to save Earth. The crew uses virtual reality to ease the tension on board the ship, which is naturally high because it is all being filmed for a reality TV show back on Earth. Did you follow that? The two-hour pilot will air at 8 p.m. ET Friday but the show has yet to be picked up by Fox for a full season. Two stars of the show, Sienna Guillory (at right) and Clea DuVall, were on a conference call today trying to save Virtuality from falling into the black hole of TV movies. Click read more to see what our Steve Thompson found out about the two sexy actresses and their time filming the sci-fi flick.
Photos by Kharen Hill/Fox
Read more...
Ricky Gervais, the British comedian who co-created and starred in the original The Office in England, celebrates his 48th birthday today. He most recently had a returning role in Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian. Next on the big screen for Gervais is September's The Invention of Lying, which he stars in with Jennifer Garner and Rob Lowe, and then a reteaming with fellow Office creator Stephen Merchant for the 2010 UK comedy, Cemetary Junction. Angela Kinsey, one of the ensemble cast from the American Office, is 38. British singer George Michael, who's charted hits as a solo artist and with Wham!, turns 46. Lots of people are probably anxiously awaiting the tell-all autobiography he signed a deal to write last year. Legendary director Sidney Lumet (Network, Dog Day Afternoon) is 85, singer Carly Simon is 64 and ER alum Linda Cardellini is 34.
Photo by Robert Hanashiro/USA Today
