Lifetime Archives - Page 38 of 49

“Dance Moms” breast cancer PSA [video]

October 16, 2012 Lori Acken

In support of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Lifetime — long a leader in the fight against breast cancer with its Stop Breast Cancer for Life initiative — has released a public service announcement featuring the stars of its popular series Dance Moms. The 30-second spot, which features past and current footage of Nia, Chloe, Maddie, Mackenzie and Kendall and their mothers, Holly Frazier, Christi Lukasiak, Melissa Gisoni and Jill Vertes, encourages viewers to do their part in helping to find the causes and cure for the disease, with which more than 200,000 women a year are diagnosed. • RELATED: Say Yes […]

Lifetime Renews “Dance Moms” for Season 3

October 10, 2012 Channel Guide Contributor

Press release regarding Dance Moms season 3 issued today by Lifetime: LOS ANGELES, CA (October 10, 2012) – Lifetime has renewed its hit docu-series Dance Moms, featuring renowned dance instructor Abby Lee Miller, for a third season, it was announced today by Rob Sharenow, Executive Vice President, Programming, of Lifetime Networks. Lifetime has ordered 26 all-new hour-long episodes of the series, which will return next year. Dance Moms’ second season, which wrapped last month, was the number one unscripted cable series in its Tuesday 9:00pm time period among Women 18-49 and Women 2+. Additionally, season two over-delivered season one by […]

“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 […]

Lifetime’s “Steel Magnolias” puts a new twist on the classic film

October 4, 2012 Channel Guide Contributor

By John Crook The jury may be out as to whether the world really needed a remake of Steel Magnolias, the hit Robert Harling stage comedy that became an all-star 1989 film with Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine and Dolly Parton, among others. We now have one, however, thanks to Lifetime. And it’s a beauty. With Harling’s blessing, Sally Robinson has discreetly updated his play and screenplay for this remake, in which all of the principal characters are played by black actresses, led by Queen Latifah in Field’s former role of M’Lynn. Steel Magnolias on Lifetime premieres Sunday, Oct. 7, […]

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 […]

“Dance Moms” recap reunion Part 2: All The Last Words

September 27, 2012 Lori Acken

Forgive me for being late to our last date of the season. If you got your extra-curricular Dance Moms email for this week, you know that I’ve been a little, er, otherwise occupied. In dazzlingly uncomfortable fashion. But I couldn’t ditch out on my DM responsibilities, so let’s look back on the last 44 minutes of Dance Moms Season 2. Somewhere between this half and last half, Abby ditched the skull bracelet, which makes me sad. I’m a big fan of visual metaphor. And matchy accessories. The discussion begins with the long-ago Mom Dance, which Abby laughs at heartily, but […]

Abby Lee Miller fights back: Christi Lukasiak exploits daughter Chloe

September 24, 2012 Lori Acken

Dance Moms’ Abby Lee Miller has a few choice words for her most outspoken client and costar, Christi Lukasiak — and they came through my inbox this afternoon. • Related: Channel Guide’s exclusive interview with Abby Lee Miller In a tersely worded e-mail that my Dance Moms-watching partner in crime Hubby Rik officially decreed “the most awesome email in the history of email” — Abby, when I spoke with you recently and told you he would happily leave me to be your manservant, I meant it — Miller presents her side of the ongoing battle with which DM fans are all […]

“Liz & Dick” EP Larry Thompson: story was in screenwriter Christopher Monger’s DNA

September 21, 2012 Lori Acken

When I spoke with Larry Thompson, executive producer of Lifetime’s upcoming Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton biopic Liz & Dick, this afternoon for our November cover story on the opulent and much-debated film, he revealed just how deeply connected his screenwriter Christopher Monger is to the project. Seated next to Monger at the 2010 Humanitis Prize awards ceremony, where the Monger-penned HBO film Temple Grandin and Thompson’s Lifetime-produced Amish Grace were both nominated in the 90-minute category, Thompson told him that he was about to embark on a project about Taylor and Burton and asked if Monger would like to be involved. “He looked at me […]