Free Republic

Aug. 15 — Hollywood’s former golden girl, Gwyneth Paltrow, is set to shock audiences with steamy lesbian sex scenes. Paltrow is to star in a Miramax film called “Passion,” in which she plays a character who falls in love with a French countess. The flick hasn’t yet started filming, but according to sources, the script calls for explicit sex scenes between the two women. (snip)

While Tinseltown is known for its leading men and women, when it comes to good old-fashioned morality, Hollywood is devoid of leadership. In last week's issue of Parade Magazine, actress Bebe Neuwirth, 42, briefly discussed her new movie role in which she plays an adult woman who seduces a teen-age boy. To her credit, Ms. Neuwirth admitted it is morally improper for a "mature woman to bed a 15-year-old boy." But she went on to say that she took the role anyway because it gave her a chance to work with Sigourney Weaver, whom she has long admired. Translated, that...

While Tinseltown is known for its leading men and women, when it comes to good old-fashioned morality, Hollywood is devoid of leadership. In last week's issue of Parade Magazine, actress Bebe Neuwirth, 42, briefly discussed her new movie role in which she plays an adult woman who seduces a teen-age boy. To her credit, Ms. Neuwirth admitted it is morally improper for a "mature woman to bed a 15-year-old boy." But she went on to say that she took the role anyway because it gave her a chance to work with Sigourney Weaver, whom she has long admired. Translated, that...

Ever since ABC announced in June that This Week With Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts would become This Week With George Stephanopoulos, Sam Donaldson has ducked the press. It's ironic that the voluble newsman — infamous for chasing down elusive politicians — now has little to say about his own future. After a stellar 35 years at ABC News, why did the 68-year-old Donaldson go mute? Better to be silent than to lash out at the bosses who reduced have him to a marginal role. "I've been deliberately not returning calls," Donaldson admits. "People called when George Stephanopoulos was announced,...

Filed at 6:17 p.m. ET NEW YORK (AP) -- In probably the only time they will ever compete with one another, Rob Lowe can say he beat Peter Jennings. Lowe was host of NBC's Fourth of July coverage of fireworks from New York City, which drew 7.9 million viewers, making it 28th for the week in the Nielsen Media Research rankings. Meanwhile, ABC's ambitious Independence Day special with Jennings ranked a dismal 66th, with 4.6 million viewers. Jennings' music special was the one that created a small controversy with country music fans, when singer Toby Keith complained that he wasn't...

Filed at 1:41 p.m. ET NEW YORK (AP) -- Hey, Toby Keith, how about this: Peter Jennings owns one of your CDs. Jennings, preparing for his ``PJ the DJ'' debut as host of a three-hour ABC musical special on the Fourth of July, is a country fan who has Keith's 2001 album, ``Pull My Chain,'' in his collection. Keith lashed out at Jennings and ABC last month for not including his Sept. 11-themed song, ``Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American),'' in the special. ABC said Keith was considered but not invited because he insisted on opening...

LOS ANGELES, Jun 25, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Michael Eisner, chairman and chief executive of Walt Disney Co., and his wife have filed a federal negligence lawsuit against their accounting firm, claiming they had to cover $3 million in unpaid state taxes and interest. In a lawsuit filed Monday, the Eisners claim Executive Monetary Management Inc. failed to give the correct advice on preparing and filing California state income tax returns. Executive Monetary Management is a wholly owned subsidiary of New York-based Neuberger Berman Inc. A telephone message left after business hours Monday to Neuberger Berman was not...

Television news has had a pretty rough 2002 so far. The “Nightline” brush with death at the hands of Dave Letterman didn’t exactly make me want to slap a “Save Ted Koppel’s $8-Million-a-Year Job” bumper sticker on my car. Koppel can sometimes be very good, but so was the corner candy store of my youth, which the free market ripped up like Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of Oz. The truth is, Koppel is overrated. His ratings dipped not so much because Americans lost interest in hard news but because Mr. Koppel grew tired of working hard to provide it....

ABC World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings has complained bitterly about U.S. military efforts to control coverage of the war in Afghanistan. Appearing on Larry King's CNN interview show, Jennings remarked that the Pentagon saw it "as their role to get past us and deal as directly as they can with the American people, so that the American people ... hear only what they have to say." However, Jennings commented,"It is the role and the right and I would add the requirement ... [for] the press to be there to see what's really happening. ... But in this current campaign,...

Filed at 6:41 p.m. ET NEW YORK (AP) -- ABC's owners and ``Nightline'' host Ted Koppel have reached a detente of sorts, with the network agreeing to keep the late-night news show in its time slot for at least two more years. Robert Iger, president of ABC parent Walt Disney Co., issued a statement Monday promising to ``renew and reaffirm our support for `Nightline,' one of the network's signature programs.'' The two decade-old news program was threatened by ABC's strong bid to lure David Letterman. His talk show would have supplanted ``Nightline'' in the 11:35 p.m. time slot, but Letterman...

Making his first public statement about ABC's failed bid to lure David Letterman from CBS, the Walt Disney Company's chairman, Michael D. Eisner, suggested that his deputies had become overoptimistic on their chances of snaring Mr. Letterman. Though he had his own doubts, he said, the confidence of Disney and ABC executives persuaded him that the network had a real shot. Mr. Eisner made the comments yesterday on "American Morning," the CNN program with Paula Zahn as its host. When Ms. Zahn asked Mr. Eisner how close his network had come to hiring Mr. Letterman, Mr. Eisner said: "Well, it...

<p>Susan Lucci's Erica Kane has battled kidnappers, posed as a nun, been married nine times, and stared down a grizzly bear in her rise from beauty queen to evil executive on the long-running ABC soap opera "All My Children." Now she will face her biggest threat -- Revlon.</p>