Broadway casting call with a drawl
NEW YORK, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Before "Steel Magnolias" was a popular movie it was an off-Broadway play, and beginning in the fall it will be a Broadway revival.
The casting call went out Monday from producers Roy Gabay and Robyn Goodman for actresses capable of southern accents to fill the six main female parts in the play set in a Southern beauty parlor. They said they already have drawn up a list of 50 potential actresses for the roles and it does not include the stars of the 1989 film version -- Julia Roberts, Daryl Hannah, and Dolly Parton.
"There's no exercise more fun than casting this play with new faces," said Gabay. "We want to introduce it to an audience who knows it only from the movie."
Robert Haring's original play had its premiere at the WPA Theater in 1987 and moved on to the larger Lucille Lortel Theater when it became an instant hit.
The Broadway revival will be directed by Jason Moore, who currently is represented on Broadway by the hit musical "Avenue Q."
Cusack inspired by Hackman, Hoffman
NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- John Cusack said in New Orleans he wanted to co-star in the thriller "Runaway Jury" because it meant working with Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman.
"I don't know if there are better film actors in history than these two guys," Cusack said during a recent news conference before the Tuesday release of the movie's DVD and home video format.
The Chicago native said the screen icons inspired him and reinforced some lessons he had learned during his own two decades as an actor.
"I haven't really met people that I've really respected (and been) disappointed in them as a people," he said. "They are always very interesting people, very curious, very intelligent."
"Dustin is so tenacious and so passionate and so hungry to try to make it good. He never wants to rest on his laurels; so you're around that and you realize why he's great," he continued. "Gene's more of an enigma because he's so stoic and he kind of just comes in, knocks it out of the park and knows what he wants to do."
Paul McCartney defends wife against rumors
LONDON, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Paul McCartney has called a national newspaper to squash rumors that his wife and daughter do not get along, the BBC News reported Monday.
"I'm sick of people saying Heather and Stella don't get on," McCartney told London's Sun. "The truth is they do."
Rumors of a strained relationship between McCartney's wife, Heather Mills McCartney, and his fashion designer daughter, Stella McCartney, have circulated since McCartney and Mills, a campaigner against land mines, married in June 2002.
"My wife is a really good woman, but people don't like to accept that," McCartney said. "The truth is, Heather never seeks publicity for all the work she does with her land mines charity. And yet all that people do is knock her. They don't see all of the things that she does without asking for any thanks or recognition."
The couple has one child, Beatrice Milly, who was born in October 2003. McCartney has four other children from his marriage to Linda, who died in 1998 from cancer.
Diana Ross does time in Connecticut jail
GREENWICH, Conn., Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Diana Ross has served her sentence for an Arizona drunken driving conviction in a jail near her home in upscale Greenwich, Conn.
Ross, who was convicted Feb. 9 in Tucson, Ariz., of driving under the influence of alcohol, was sentenced to spend two days in jail, Billboard reported.
"That obligation was fulfilled here," said James Walters, Greenwich police chief, of Ross' jail time. "That's about all I can add."
Ross served her time at the Greenwich Police Department, but details about her accommodations and when and for how long she stayed at the department were not available.
The former lead singer for the Supremes was arrested Dec. 30, 2002, after a driver called to report a car traveling south in the northbound lanes outside Tucson. Tests showed Ross had a blood-alcohol level of 0.20 percent. Arizona's legal limit for drivers is 0.08.
