Lori Acken, Author at StayTuned Magazine

TLC star Lori Allen chronicles her breast cancer battle in “Say Yes to the Cure: Lori’s Fight”

October 15, 2012 Lori Acken

As the owner of Atlanta’s Bridals By Lori, Lori Allen — the sunny, spunky and beloved star of TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta and Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaids — has helped many brides whose lives and families have been affected by breast cancer. On April 13 of this year, Allen, 53, learned she, too, would battle the disease. “I got the phone call at 7:05am and it felt like somebody had hit me on the side of the head,” Allen recalls of the early-stage cancer caught by a routine 3D mammogram and follow-up MRI. “For days, […]

Dr. Ramani talks “My Shopping Addiction” premiering tonight on Oxygen

October 15, 2012 Lori Acken

Oxygen network’s fun-loving slogan may be “Live Out Loud!” — but its newest reality offering, My Shopping Addiction centers on men and women whose lives, finances and relationships are imploding because of uncontrolled spending. Over the course of the series, 16 individuals — whose spending habits range from $30,000 binges born of a enviable inheritance to a woman who can’t stop frequenting thrift stores — will avail themselves to psychologists Dr. Ramani Durvasula (“Dr. Ramani” for short) and Dr. David Tolin, who help them face the true root of their shopping addiction and find the tools to break it. Dr. Ramani, […]

Semi-Homemade star Sandra Lee hits the road for two new shows

October 12, 2012 Lori Acken

Longtime Food Network favorite Sandra Lee is leaving her semi-homemade masterpieces behind and hitting the road for a pair of new series, Sandra’s Restaurant Remakes and Sandra’s Taverns, Lounges & Clubs. On Sandra’s Restaurant Remakes, which premieres Sunday, Oct. 14 at 10am ET on Food Network, Lee visits famous restaurants and food spots across the nation in search of the secrets to their most famous dishes, then takes recreates them in simpler fashion for harried home cooks. In the premiere episode, “On Top of the World Tastes,” Lee makes a chicken variation of a memorable duck dish she had at ultra-chic Alizé […]

“Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition” recap: You Gotta Risk It For The Biscuit

October 10, 2012 Lori Acken

Yes, I swore I wasn’t going to do this. I swore it. I suh-wore I was done with Dance Moms and all things related to it. And yet I sat down and watched the premiere of Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition. Since I did that, here is what I saw on “Let the Dancing Begin.” First we meet Kelly, an exuberant blond from Studio City, CA, who could be Christi Lukasiak’s more salt-of-the-earth sister. Kelly says Abby Lee is her God. Which is how you know she and Christi are not the least bit related. Her equally blond daughter Jordyn is […]

“Dance Moms” casting announcement: Lifetime, producers seeking studio for spin-off

October 9, 2012 Lori Acken

Bryan Stinson, executive producer of Dance Moms, announced today via Twitter that he, his co-producers at Collins Avenue and Lifetime are seeking a brand new dance studio to add to the Dance Moms franchise. According to the announcement, the chosen studio — which will get its own series — must be accomplished in the national competition world and have a dynamic, well-respected dance instructor. • RELATED: Channel Guide’s exclusive interview with Abby Lee Miller Interested parties can nominate a studio by e-mailing Lindsay Liles at LindsayLilesCasting@gmail.com with the following information in the body of the e-mail: • Studio name • City and […]

Thelma Madine is back in “Little Shop of Gypsies” Thursdays on TLC

October 9, 2012 Lori Acken

Good news My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding fans — British dressmaker Thelma Madine and her loyal clientele of gypsy and traveller women are back in the four-episode TLC series Little Shop of Gypsies, once again narrated by Ellen K. And this time, Madine is teaching the ladies to make the dresses themselves. Having built her business from scratch following the collapse of her first marriage, Madine is an ardent supporter of a woman’s right to manage her own life. With that in mind, she decides to expand the Nico staff by adding ten new employees with no resumes or employment […]

Lifetime’s “Abducted: The Carlina White Story” based on true events

October 4, 2012 Lori Acken

On Saturday, Oct. 6, Lifetime will present the world premiere of Abducted: The Carlina White Story. The original film, starring Keke Palmer (True Jackson, VP), Aunjanue Ellis (The Help), Sherri Shepherd (The View) and Roger Cross (24) tells the stunning true story of White, who was abducted from a New York hospital in 1987 when she was just 19 days old, then solved her own kidnapping more than two decades later. Shepherd and Cross portray Carlina’s parents, Joy White and Carl Tyson, who took their infant daughter to Harlem Hospital seeking treatment for her fever. Shortly after the baby was admitted, she […]

Abby Lee Miller interview: Abby talks “Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition” “Dance Moms” and more

October 4, 2012 Lori Acken

She’s the oft-authoritarian, second generation dance teacher who a handful of Pittsburgh mothers and millions of happily scandalized viewers love and loathe — and sometimes both at once — on Lifetime’s reality smash Dance Moms. But this summer Abby Lee Miller decamped to Los Angeles to join Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin and star choreographer Richard Jackson at the judging table of Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition, the new Lifetime reality contest that she executive produces with her pal, Dance Moms co-creator John Corella. “We had the idea of a competition show way before Dance Moms was ever created,” Miller explains. “This […]

Tippi Hedren and a stellar cast talk HBO’s “The Girl”

September 28, 2012 Lori Acken

Tippi Hedren sits on a sofa in a Beverly Hills hotel suite on a warm August day. Still exquisitely beautiful at age 82, she wears a dress of the same soft gray-green as her eyes. On her right lapel is an intricate gold and diamond brooch in the shape of three birds in flight. Behind her left shoulder is a lamp, on which is perched a faux raven. If you’re familiar with the promotional stills from Hedren’s legendary 1963 acting debut, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, the effect is stunning. That she is here to promote the absorbing new HBO film […]

Shooter Jennings and Grace Potter talk Ovation’s “Johnny Cash: Song By Song”

September 28, 2012 Lori Acken

Shooter Jennings could barely see over a church pew when his father, country music legend Waylon Jennings, had a falling out with Shooter’s godfather — Waylon’s manager — and asked the little boy to pick himself a new one. Shooter chose a guy who always made him feel important — his dad’s friend and sometime bandmate Johnny Cash. Meanwhile, a Vermont schoolgirl named Grace Potter who got the giggles over Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” would rediscover the artist as a young aspiring rock star when she heard Cash’s 2003 Rick-Rubin-produced remake of the Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt,” that […]