Debi Mazar Dances With The Stars

Debi Mazar chatted with The Advocate about her reasons for rumba-ing it up on ABC's wildly successful Dancing With The Stars competition. Whether it's her Entourage fame, hot DWTS partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy, or her early days hanging around with New York queens, Mazar is candid about it all. The provocative former make up artist and longtime Madonna pal says she only wishes she could have shared a tango with the tantalizing Cheryl Burke...

Originally published on Advocate.com
By Brandon Voss
From her feature film debut as a coke-snorting mistress in 1990’s Goodfellas to her recurring role as publicist Shauna on HBO’s Entourage, Debi Mazar has made a career out of playing strong, sassy women with New York accents as thick as her eye makeup. Best known to TV audiences as tough-talking legal secretary Denise on both Civil Wars and L.A. Law, Mazar has memorably milked small roles in movies like The Doors, Malcolm X, and Empire Records, but it’s her enviable gig as gal pal Madonna’s makeup artist in the ’80s that first cultivated her gay following.

Gay TV on a Friday Night: 'Smallville' and John Waters

Hey, television fans, it's Friday! You know what that means: Ghost Whisperer and Medium -- tonight! -- for a superfemme, supernatural night of television on CBS. Oh, you didn't know? Well, your Gramps probably did. Ghost Whisperer, which is allegedly very popular among senior citizens (talk about morbid), is back tonight at 8 o’clock for a fifth season of Melinda (Jennifer Love Hewitt) talking to dead people. Fans should watch tonight's premiere to see a telling future flash of her baby's inherited gifts. If you stay tuned, at 9 o’clock season 6 of Medium kicks off on the show’s new network, CBS. Same old entrancing medium Patricia Arquette witnessing murders in her dreams.

Steven Spielberg Brings Broadway to TV

One of Hollywood's most successful filmmakers, Steven Spielberg, is bringing his talented eye to a project that concentrates on both the stage and the small screen. The prolific director and producer will chronicle a stage production from conception through script writing all the way until opening night. The program will air on Showtime and concentrate on a musical set to debut on Broadway, with a possible run in London's West End.

The Jurassic Park director has tapped Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who composed the score for Hairspray and also wrote the music and lyrics for a stage adaptation of the filmmaker's 2002 thriller Catch Me If You Can, to possibly develop a musical for the project.

Bill Condon and Laura Linney TV Show 'The C Word'

Fans of Kinsey should be very pleased. Director Bill Condon, who's been behind such award-winning films as Gods and Monsters and Dreamgirls, will be working with Laura Linney again.

Oscar-winner Condon has signed on to direct Linney, this time for the small screen, in a series called The C Word for Showtime. Linney will cowrite the series in addition to starring in it. The half-hour drama will follow a wife and mother who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. With two such high-caliber creative talents behind the show, it's a safe bet the result will be gripping television.

Image courtesy of Getty

by Lily

Gay TV on a Thursday Night: Vampire Diaries, Grey's and Real Housewives

First things first: Let's see the football team from Glee get down with “Single Ladies” one more time.

Fabulous. Equally well-executed was Kurt's (Chris Colfer) moment of truth -- he came out to his macho-man father, played to a tee by Mike O'Malley! Talk about #yayGay.

But Thursday is here. A new night brings a new DVR-desirable lineup, and there are plenty of funny ladies and sexy vamps cavorting on the small screen tonight.

Anderson Cooper Staying Put in Prime-time News

The silver fox of a newscaster Anderson Cooper has been known to fill in for Regis Philbin occasionally on the Live! With Regis and Kelly show. But Cooper told People magazine there's no plan for a permanent placement on the morning chat fest, The 360 host cleared up any misconceptions that he may be replacing Philbin. "Regis is the king," Cooper cooed. "He's not going anywhere!"
"It's completely made up. I have no idea where it came from," Cooper said of the rumor. "Regis is not retiring, and I'm very happy with what I'm doing. I occasionally fill in for Regis, which is maybe how this came about. I love filling in for him," Cooper added. "I love working with Kelly Ripa. … It's nice to exercise different muscles."

Linda Ronstadt's Gay Mission

By Jenny Stewart, PlanetOut

You’ve had the fantasyas a teen: You’re in a room with your favorite rock star -- someone whose every hit you know by heart, whose voice made you close your bedroom door and turn the music up as you hold a hairbrush up to your mouth as a microphone and sing along with them. In the dream they’ll share their most intimate thoughts with you.
 
For me, that singer was Linda Ronstadt, who cut me to the quick with her heartbreaking “Different Drum,” roused me with her sexy, soulful “You’re No Good,” and, at 14, made me dread the heartbreak I had yet to experience with “Blue Bayou.”
 
This isn’t a dream, though it’s utterly surreal – 25 years later, Ronstadt and I are actually sitting in beach chairs in the otherwise empty master bedroom of her newly-purchased, still-unfurnished San Francisco home. We’re surrounded only by her freshly painted swatch samples on the walls, as the rest of the house is being renovated. 

DVD Pick: Jim Breuer's "Let's Clear the Air"

A decade later, Breuer's married with kids, has his own Sirius Satellite radio show and continues to thrive as a hugely popular stand up comic. But "the simple life" hasn't calmed him at all, as proven by "Let's Clear the Air," his latest Comedy Central special.

Also available on DVD, the manic genius of Breuer is in full force in the new show.  His impressions of Sylvester Stallone, Tracy Morgan, Dave Chappelle and Norm MacDonald are absolutely killer, but equally funny are the stories he tells about his home life, including what it's like to take care of his elderly parents.

Celebs Playing Celebs

We all know Johnny Depp loves his outlandish roles -- the sympathetic scissor-handed humanoid, the antisocial chocolatier, the murderous barber, the eyeliner-loving pirate (just to name a few) -- but wouldn’t we all agree, considering his character choices over nearly two decades, that he might be getting just a tad bit, well, predictable? Look, put Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka, Sweeney Todd and Jack Sparrow in a lineup, and identifying one from another becomes almost as difficult as distinguishing between La Toya and Janet Jackson.

"Idol" Without Paula: Would You Watch?

Paula Abdul is forever our girl, but it looks like her run on American Idol could be over. "Very sadly, it does not appear that she's going to be back on Idol," her manager David Sonenberg tells The Los Angeles Times.

Idol, which begins its ninth season in January, will begin auditioning singers in a couple of weeks, but the producers of the show have yet to reach out to Paula to discuss extending her contract, according to Sonenberg.