Showing posts with label
Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel.
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Showing posts with label
Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel.
Show all posts
PASADENA, Calif. -- David Letterman trekked to the West Coast Saturday to speak with assembled TV critics at the Summer Press Tour, once again proving he can play a room like no one else in show business.
Over the course of his 45 minutes with the media, he artfully dodged the hot topics of his "Late Show" 's first-ever ratings loss to Jay Leno's "The Tonight Show" last week in favor of laughs. Lots of laughs.
Of his much-criticized hosting of the Academy Awards telecast earlier this year: "I was so traumatized by that Oscar experience that I couldn't watch 'The Odd Couple' for a month," Letterman said, making a borderline obscure Oscar Madison joke. "At first when it happened, I thought, 'I'm out here in Hollywood and I've screwed up the Academy Awards,' and I'm thinking, 'I'll be arrested.' Or, 'What if they stop making films altogether? Oh, no!'
By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff
PASADENA, Calif. -- "Chicago Hope," arguably CBS' finest new show last season, survived its bruising loss to NBC's "ER" on Thursdays last fall by moving to Mondays, where it finally found that elusive audience. As this season begins, "Chicago Hope" (tonight at 9 on KUTV Channel 2) takes another one on the chin with the departure of its nominal star, Mandy Patinkin (Dr. Jeffrey Geiger), who will exit the show after eight episodes.
Some creative teams might panic, and go hunting for an actor to pick up where Patinkin left off. Not executive producer David E. Kelley, who appears to be headed down an altogether different highway by hiring Christine Lahti to replace Patinkin.
"I heard Mandy was quitting," Lahti said, during a cocktail party on the lawn of the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel during the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour. "And a girlfriend called and said, 'Why don't you replace Mandy in "Chicago Hope"?' They were thinking of replacing him with a man. I called my agent, my agent made some calls and suddenly they took the ball and ran with it."
