Christina Applegate has started a foundation called the Right Action for Women which will assist those at a higher risk for breast cancer to cover high costs associated with breast screenings, especially if they do not have medical insurance or the financial means. The official launch of the foundation will take place this month.
In April 2008, Applegate was diagnosed with breast cancer. In July that year, she had to undergo a bilateral mastectomy. Her mother was also diagnosed with breast cancer, and is a survivor. Because of her mother, Applegate was always quite meticulous about regular mammograms. “Where I had my MRIs done, I learned that a lot of women opted not to do it because of the expense. A lot of insurance companies will not pay for it, and it is incredibly expensive without insurance. I had the idea of starting a foundation where we pay for different kinds of screenings — the MRIs, but also anything else that’s early detection,” said Applegate.
Once the launch is out of the way, Applegate also plans to work towards developing educational sections on the foundation’s website, and they will continue to seek the guidance of currently-existing foundations. Applegate said, “Millions are being raised every year for cancer research. Our ultimate goal is to not have to deal with cancer ever again; these are the things we all want.”
An Emmy winning and multiple Emmy/Golden Globe nomination film and television actress, Christina Applegate has also starred in several stage productions.
Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is to star in his own stop-motion animation series after striking a deal with Cuppa Coffee Studios, a Toronto-based animation house. Titled ‘Gordon Ramsay, at your service’, the half hour show will take “the essence of who he is and have a bit of fun with it,” said Adam Shaheen, Executive Producer of Cuppa Coffee.
The project was shipped to buyers at Mipcom International TV Sales Confab in Cannes. Nick at Nite’s primetime toon seris ‘Glenn Martin, DDS’ and MTV’s ‘Celebrity Deathmatch’ include Cuppa Coffee animations. Gordon Ramsey has a total of 16 Michelin stars and in 2001, became one of the only three chefs in the United Kingdom to hold three Michelin stars at a time. With regards to Michelin stars, Ramsay is currently ranked third in the world. He is well known for presenting TV programmes regarding competitive cookery and food. Some of the shows he stars in are: Hell’s Kitchen, The F Word and Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.
In July 2006, Ramsay won the Catey award for “Independent Restaurateur of the Year’ while having already won two Catey’s in 1995: Newcomer of the Year and Chef of the Year (2000). Caterersearch 100 list, an annual UK hospitality industry magazine published by the Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine in September 2006 named Ramsay the most influential person in the industry.
His flagship restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, was voted London’s top restaurant in food bible Harden’s for eight years, but last year, it was placed below Petrus, a restaurant run by former protégé Marcus Wareing.
Growing up in South Dakota, Actress January Jones was “fascinated by the ocean and everything in it.” Her pet fascination was Sharks. “I had shark books and every documentary I could get my hands on. I think they’re incredibly beautiful and prehistoric,” she says. But it wasn’t till she was 15 that Jones finally saw the ocean in real life which only served to deepen her interest.
“When I heard that shark populations were being depleted by staggering numbers, I realized (Oceana) would be a perfect play to put my time in to save our environment. Because without sharks, there is no ocean life”, the 31 year old actress said. Recently Jones signed on with Oceana to be a celebrity spokesperson for Shark populations which currently stand decimated. Dedicated to “the protection and restoration of the World’s Oceans”, Oceana is a group which is campaign driven and is aimed at protecting endangered species, stopping global contamination and protecting collapsing fish populations.
After shooting Public Service Announcements in the Bahamas for Nurse and Baby Lemon sharks recently, Jones announced that she plans to dive with Whale Sharks in April with Oceana. This month however, she heads to Washington, D. C., where she expects to fight against the controversial practice of Finning. Finning is the process where the fin of the Shark is removed for food and the fish is set free. This results in a slow death for the Shark. January Jones is well known for her movies “We Are Marshall”, “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada”, “Anger Management”, “Love, Actually” and the Emmy winning AMC TV series “Mad Men”.
Despite rave reviews for the pilot from fans and surprisingly, critics, the unofficial word on “V” is that it is in trouble. Although the network confirmed that the Sci-fi drama would launch as planned on Tuesday, November 3rd at 8 p.m, its decision to split this seasons episodes into 2 pods has everyone questioning the future of the series.
ABC announced plans to initially run 4 episodes, take a break, and return mid-season in March. This led to rumors that the number of episodes on the show had been reduced. However, ABC and producer Warner Bros. vehemently denied these rumors, stating that the show will run for 13 episodes as planned. The reason for the break is logical, as network insiders point out that “American Idol” launches in January followed by the Winter Olympics in February, making the return of the second half of “V” in March a smart decision. The show, a franchise initially written by American Writer, Producer and Director Kenneth Johnson, is about Aliens known as “The Visitors” trying to take over the Earth and a group of humans called The Resistance who fight them. It debuted in 1983 as “V” a two part miniseries, followed by a three-part miniseries in 1984 titled “V: The Final Battle”. A regular one hour weekly series aired during the 1984-1985 television season and was referred to as “V: The Series”.
In February 2008, Johnson released a novel disregarding the two series which followed the 1983 miniseries. The alternative sequel was titled “V: The Second Generation”. Negotiations with Warner Bros. for a TV adaptation of this novel failed later that year, followed quickly by the announcement that Warner Bros. TV would be producing a complete remake of “V”. The remake is now written by Scott Peters, the creator of the show “The 4400”.
The first cancellation this fall has been CW’s ‘The Beautiful Life: TBL’ following a number of fairly bad ratings. Details that the production had been halted were confirmed in late September 2009. Inside sources were quoted as saying that repeats of dramas to the likes of Melrose Place would fill the freed up timeslot from October.
After low ratings in September, the cancellation of the show was inevitable. The second and final episode averaged 1.1 million viewers, lower even than a repeat of ‘Magic’s Biggest Secrets Revealed’.
TBL was initiated by CBS TV Studios and Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst shingle, loosely based on Kutcher’s experiences as a young male model. Along with Kutcher, other executive producers were Jason Goldberg, Karey Burke and Mike Kelley.
Launching with a racy marketing campaign, the show starred Mischa Barton, Corbin Bleu, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Nico Tortorella, Ashley Madekwe, Elle Macpherson and Sara Paxton.
TBL was the favourite as a companion to ‘America’s Next Top Model’ – which CW had difficulty with finding over the years. CW hoped TBL would be the perfect scripted counterpart to its long-running reality hit. Still on the bench are reality sketch ‘Blonde Charity Mafia’ and the scripted entry ‘Life Unexpected’. Netlet had also ordered two new reality skeins in September, ‘Fly Girls’ and an untitled entry starring socialite Tinsley Mortimer. Other cancellation news includes ‘The Bill Engvall Show’ after three seasons. In a statement, the cabler said, “While the show didn’t attract the audience we need to renew it for another season, we’re proud of the work of everyone involved.”
Stephen King is to try out the small screen once again, signing up to take his book ‘The Colorado Kid’ into an hour long series for E1 Entertainment. The project, titled ‘Haven’, centres around a spooky little town in Maine inhabited by cursed folk who live normal lives, but in exile. FBI agent Audrey Parker is brought in when these curses start returning, trying to keep those supernatural forces at bay. Along with this, she also tries to unravel the mysteries of Haven.The same team who turned King’s ‘The Dead Zone’ into a series for USA Network are on this project as well. Scott Shepherd will be ‘show runner’ while the executive producers will be Lloyd Segan and Shawn Piller. All three were executive producers on ‘The Dead Zone’ which ran for six seasons, which went off air in 2008. Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn, also previous ‘Dead Zone’ team members are currently writing the pilot for Haven and will also be the show’s executive producers. Other executive producers include E1’s John Morayniss and Noreen Halpern.
The indie studio has already committed to produce thirteen episodes of Haven and is currently in talks with a number of European broadcast partners to sing on and help finance the show. They plan to bring the international co-production to October’s Mipcom confab. Once an international partner is secured, the company will next work on finding US and Canadian broadcasters.
Haven is set to commence ‘some time’ in the next six months, once partners are secured and the casting finalized.
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The CW has given a full season order for the much loved TV series One Tree Hill and has also ordered additional scripts for the Vampire Diaries and Melrose Place. Although One Tree Hill had an order for just 13 episodes the early pickup ensures the drama a full seventh season.
As for Vampire Diaries the network has picked up nine more scripts, a sign that a full new season is going to happen. It is no surprise that the CW wants to make a new season of this hit series since it was the CW’s most watched premier with 4.9 million viewers. As for Melrose place The CW states that the show is on track creatively and hopes to give it another six episodes and hopes the show will turnaround once Heather Locklear arrives this November.
The CW Television Network is home to some of the most popular TV shows watched. Some of them include Gossip Girl, Smallville, Supernatural, The Game, America’s Next Top Model and Station. The station also recently launched another drama series called The Beautiful Life: TBL and are hoping that it too will turn around. So far the shows are facing tough competition from other networks such as ABC with their lineup of 9pm comedies.
Pay TV Operator UKTV and BBC America have stepped in to save the dinosaur franchise Primeval from extinction. A few months ago British TV station ITV stated that it plans on axing the series after 3 seasons, mainly due to costs. However after a groundbreaking deal to share costs, the new partners have said that they along with Impossible Pictures will keep the series going for another two seasons, amounting to some 13 episodes.
The new funding arrangements will see BBC Worldwide, which licenses the show 45 countries will replace ITV as the biggest investor. BBC America, which airs the show in the US will join the Syfy Channel and Germany’s ProSieben will become the new co-production partners. Jonathan Drake, managing director of Impossible Pictures, said, “The dramatic changes in the business of broadcasting in the last 12 months have meant we have had to completely rethink how we put the funding together for a top-end series like Primeval” said Jonathan Drake, managing director of Impossible Pictures. He also went on to say that the fact that this particular series is much loved by the British public meant that everyone was willing to give them the backing they needed to make sure the show did not go off the air.