Kanakaredes leaving ‘CSI: NY’ after six years
Kanakaredes leaving ‘CSI: NY'
LOS ANGELES — Melina Kanakaredes is taking herself off the case for “CSI: NY.”
CBS said that the actress has decided to leave the crime drama after six seasons. The network expressed disappointment but said it respected her choice to “move on.”
The actress says she would treasure the “amazing” friendships she made on “CSI: NY.”
Kanakaredes’s departure was announced just weeks before the shows resumes production on July 28. “CSI: NY” will move from Wednesday to Friday night this fall.
There was no word from CBS on a possible replacement for Kanakaredes, who played police Detective Stella Bonasera.
Winfrey biopic based on book planned
NEW YORK — Oprah Winfrey’s quarter-century run on daytime TV may be accompanied by a TV film dramatizing her life.
Veteran producer Larry A. Thompson said Monday the planned two- or four-hour Winfrey film will be based on Kitty Kelley’s tell-all biography. Thompson says he has optioned it for six figures.
The TV project is expected to air in September 2011, which would coincide with the end of Winfrey’s weekday talk show.
Thompson has produced TV biopics about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and Sonny and Cher. He calls himself “a huge fan” of Winfrey and says he’s shopping the project to networks he declined to specify. An unknown will likely be cast to play Winfrey.
A spokesman for Winfrey’s Chicago-based Harpo Productions declined to comment.
The project was first reported by the E! News website.
Gyllenhaal to back ‘Cancer’ telethon
LOS ANGELES — A fourth major broadcast network and Jake Gyllenhaal are adding their support to the ambitious TV fundraiser “Stand Up to Cancer.” Fox will join previously announced ABC, CBS and NBC in donating a simultaneous commercial-free hour of prime-time for the September telethon airing from Los Angeles, it was announced Tuesday.
Gyllenhaal will appear in a “Stand Up to Cancer” public service announcement.
More cable networks also have agreed to carry the fundraiser, with VH1, HBO Latino, TV1 and G4 joining previously announced HBO, Discovery Health, MLB Network, E! and the Style Network.
“Stand Up to Cancer,” to be hosted by Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams, will air Sept. 10.
Film and TV producer Laura Ziskin, a cancer survivor who produced the first telecast in 2008, has taken on the job again. The original fundraiser, which included Lance Armstrong, Beyonce and other celebrities, helped deliver more than $100 million for research into the disease. “Cancer is a crisis and we want to convey that all Americans can play a role in helping the scientists who are working to end it,” Ziskin said in a statement.
More than $83 million so far has been committed to five “dream teams” of researchers from more than 50 institutions and to 13 innovative scientists working against cancer, according to the Stand Up to Cancer project.
The Associated Press