Tag: Octavia Spencer

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News Round-Up: September 9, 2019

L-R Shannen Doherty, me, Ian Ziering, Jennie Garth, Michael Caprio
Some news items you might have missed: • Monday Memory: One of those “Can you believe this is happening?” moments – back when Beverly Hills 90210 star Ian Ziering was the celebrity guest host of Chippendales here in Las Vegas, and his two 90210 co-stars Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth came to see Ian in the show. This was snapped backstage before the show. #Goodtimes • Yahoo News: Four months before the wedding of a gay couple in the UK, the mother of one of the grooms received an anonymous note claiming it was the ‘consensus of the village’ that if the wedding was going to happen then “it should do so far, far away from the village.” The mother did not tell her son before the nuptials, but police are investigating the homophobic note. • OUT: Only five of the long list of Democratic presidential candidates have confirmed for both of the upcoming LGBTQ-centric events – the GLAAD-sponsored LGBTQ presidential forum in Iowa, and the HRC-sponsored LGBTQ CNN Town Hall. • TIME: Hollywood’s wonder gay Ryan Murphy has announced he is adapting the legendary Broadway musical A Chorus Line into a 10-episode miniseries for Netflix. #Hmmm • Hollywood Reporter: The cast and creators of the CW series Riverdale, as well as actress Octavia Spencer, will be honored at this year’s GLSEN Respect Awards on October 25 in Los Angeles. •  Out Music: Last month, I shared out singer/songwriter Kyle Motsinger’s groovy anthem for positivity, “Love On Each Other,” and today he drops the equally groovilicious music video. He’s paired his 70s disco beat bop with images of hippie love kids dancing and prancing in the park. Check it out below.

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Oscar winner Octavia Spencer to revive “Murder She Wrote” series

The original run of Murder She Wrote starred Angela Lansbury and ran for 12 seasons plus many TV movies thereafter.

Now it looks like Octavia Spencer’s turn to play “novelist/detective.” From Entertainment Weekly:

The network confirmed it has ordered a pilot based on the long-running CBS series starring Academy Award-winning The Help actress Octavia Spencer. The new version is described by Deadline, which first reported the news, as a “light, contemporary procedural in the vein of Bones or Fargo, it follows a hospital administrator and amateur sleuth (Spencer) who self-publishes her first mystery novel … [and her] avid fascination with true crime leads her to become an active participant in the investigations.”

The pilot is written by Desperate Housewives writer-producer Alexandra Cunningham.

The procedural crime series is genre that has succeeded for many years, a la Law & Order and currently Castle which bears a similarity to Murder She Wrote only with a male protagonist.

Reviving old ideas doesn’t always work though. This season the Raymond Burr series Ironside was brought back and cancelled in weeks. And of course, who can forget the unfortunate Charlie’s Angels rehash from a few years ago?

Wishing Octavia success though. Love her!