August 2008

If you’ve been a longtime viewer of his 24-year-old network, A&E president and general manager Bob DeBitetto knows what you may be thinking: “Where’d the ‘Art’ go in what was once known as the Arts and Entertainment network?” Thing is, he’s also betting most viewers might just be too entertained to care. Brought onboard as head of programming in 2003 to address the network’s uniquely puzzling quagmire — an audience that was fiercely devoted but, at a median age of 61, far north of the most profitable demographics in an increasingly competitive market – DeBitetto knew the road to success […]

Sometimes in Hollywood, a single surprising cameo or a small and unusual part is all it takes to get the public to see you in a new light, and a whole new career is born. Since Jane Seymour played the boldly exposed and ravenous cougar in Wedding Crashers, the parts in the scripts coming over her transom have taken an entirely different tone. This month, the onetime Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman staple and Dancing With the Stars contestant debuts a new persona in Hallmark Channel‘s original film, Dear Prudence. When overworked TV household hint expert Prudence McCoy (Seymour) is forced […]

In the final moments of the Season 1 finale of Showtime’s sexy adult series Californication, Hank Moody (David Duchovny) did not stop the wedding ceremony of his ex-girlfriend Karen, though he clearly wanted to. Even so, the final moments had Karen rethinking the vows she had just taken, scrambling into the back seat of Hank’s battered Porsche and fleeing the wedding with her ex and their daughter. But since the main story of the first season of the adult comedy had Hank trying his best — which was hardly very good, given the abundance of loose Hollywood babes who crossed […]

When the new season of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency bows Aug. 26 on Oxygen, expect to see our favorite supermodel turned superagent up to her ears in some supersized changes. For one, she’s helming the agency by herself, with a boost from a brand new partner. For two, she’s sold the agency at Hollywood and Highland to take up residence in a surprising spot. But the, uh, biggest adjustment of all, says Dickinson, comes at the hands of her own 21-year-old son, Nathan Fields, who runs the agency’s commercial division. The lad decides it’s time for his old-school mama […]

This summer, America will get an insider’s view of “America’s Team.” Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, never one to shy away from a chance to put himself or his team in the spotlight, is giving NFL Films camera crews total access to Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, Calif., for the fourth installment of the critically acclaimed HBO reality series Hard Knocks. “This is an opportunity for the Cowboys to bring millions of our fans closer to our team and the training camp experience,” Jones says. Hard Knocks: Training Camp With the Dallas Cowboys airs in five one-hour episodes Wednesdays beginning […]

You might think it’s no accident that Valerie Bertinelli’s first film appearance after a talk-show-filled spring spent touting her jaw-dropper of an autobiography is called True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet. Turns out, her role in the Lifetime original, which premieres Aug. 9, had little to do with her return to the spotlight and everything to do with a fledgling rock star named Wolfgang who’s just itching to fly the coop. “My son was up in Toronto doing a show with his dad [legendary Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen],” Bertinelli chuckles, “so I thought, ‘Well! Here’s a great way […]

Children starving in East Timor, record floods in America’s Midwest, melting glaciers and permafrost — sometimes you just want to ignore the issue of climate change because it all seems so hopeless. “I bet you in five years, forget the Euro, forget the dollar, the carbon unit is going to be the new currency.” Or is it? Beginning Aug. 22, Discovery Channel‘s eco-series Project Earth looks at huge, often mind-boggling, ideas to save the planet. Each episode looks at one grand idea — such as wind turbines that ride on cables 1,000 feet above sea level; a means of making […]