Showbuzz
Web posted on:
Monday, September 07, 1998 4:18:39 PM
Today's buzz stories:
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Estrada and Wilcox
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LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Following the lead of "Fantasy Island" and "Love Boat," "CHiPs," the onetime hit show about two highway patrol officers, is also making a comeback. Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada have just finished work on "CHiPs '99," a cable television movie that has the pair reprising their roles as California Highway Patrol officers Jon Baker and "Ponch" Poncherella.
The original series ran from 1977 to 1982. Since then, the actors have tried their luck in different roles, but they both admit they're still recognized from their days on "CHiPs." Both "Fantasy Island" and "Love Boat" have returned to television airwaves as series after successful runs in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
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Carter
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Dixie Carter, who starred in the sitcom "Designing Women," says when it comes to work she's following her heart to the stage, and not worrying about making a lot of money. Carter said in Sunday's Washington Post that her work in plays like "Master Class" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" isn't as lucrative as her part as sassy Julia Sugarbaker on the CBS sitcom.
"You have to take a huge loss financially to do a play," Carter said in Sunday's Washington Post. "You have to put aside the commercials and the speeches and the other things that put money on the table, and really save up to do it. And that's what I've done here. But it's worth it to me to be in a really good
play." Carter currently stars in the Washington production of Oscar Wilde's "A Woman of No Importance."
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Ford (left) with former "Brown" co-star Candace Bergen
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NEW YORK (CNN) -- Faith Ford, who starred as perky newswoman Corkie
Sherwood in "Murphy Brown," says in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly that she's a creature of habit. That's why she has returned to the sitcom grind, taking up a new show no sooner than "Murphy Brown" went off the air. Ford plays a woman returning home to live with her mother after leaving an unfaithful husband in this fall's "Maggie Winters." "You'd think I was an eager beaver," Ford says of her penchant for playing in sitcoms. "I found a medium I love, and I didn't want to leave it behind."
LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- According to a report in Variety, NBC is taking measures to keep from having to dole out piles of cash in order to hold onto the rights for a hit series. The move apparently stems from the network being forced to pay Warner Bros. $13 million per episode in order to keep "ER" from going to another network, an unprecedented price that wiped out much of the profit NBC made on the show over the past four years.
Variety, citing several studio chiefs, reports that the network has sent out the word that it will only develop series with studios willing to grant the network partial ownership in new shows or perpetual license fee deals that extend through the life of a series.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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