'SNL' star writes 'Mean Girls' script
NEW YORK, April 23 (UPI) -- "Saturday Night Live" star Tina Fey says her script for the new movie "Mean Girls" is based in part on her own recollections of high school.
"It is sort of like little bits of stuff spread out all over the place," she told reporters in New York. "Conversations that I remember. People that I kind of knew in high school. I just shoved in all different stuff."
Asked if she was ever in a clique in school Fey said,
"I had a lot of friends and we were all sort of AP students."
"We were our own sad little clique," she said. "We thought we were super cool, but we weren't. Then there were like the girls who were just sort of like famous. They are really popular and everyone knows everything about them. And you are like: 'That one's not even cute. Like how did she get that job? Just because she has nice Benneton clothes?'"
Fey said the meanest thing a girl ever did to her personally was "threaten to kick my (butt) ... "
"Other than that, just the usual nonsense," she said.
"Mean Girls," inspired by Rosalind Wiseman's parenting guide "Queen Bees and Wannabes," opens April 30.
'Idol' fans outraged at voting results
LOS ANGELES, April 23 (UPI) -- Some "American Idol" fans are outraged, calling the U.S. reality show's voting unfair because a popular contestant was booted from the show.
Jennifer Hudson, lauded as one of the most talented contestants on the Fox talent series, was removed from Wednesday's episode, causing Fox, in a post-show statement, to call the outcome "a stunning turn of events," the Washington Post reported Friday.
The surprise ending was the hot topic Thursday on syndicated radio's "Tom Joyner Morning Show," with one caller angrily saying she had tried repeatedly to vote for Hudson and two other contestants, LaToya London and Fantasia Barrino, but never got through because the lines were always busy -- something she suspected was intentional.
"I don't plan on watching this show anymore," one fan wrote on Fox's Web site. "The fact that (contestant) John Stevens is still in is a real joke. Jennifer was probably the best performer of them all, so it's really not about talent after all. This 'call in voting' is really unfair. I think we're all being played for fools."
Loretta Lynn lauds Jack White as producer
NASHVILLE, April 23 (UPI) -- Music legend Loretta Lynn has said The White Stripes' Jack White reminds her of one of country music's most famous producers.
"I see a lot of (the late legendary country producer) Owen Bradley in this young feller," Lynn said of rocker White, who produced Lynn's new CD, "Van Lear Rose."
White escorted Lynn Thursday to the country singer's first record release party, a celebrity laden event held at the classy Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., The Tennessean reported Friday.
While Lynn compared White to Bradley, who produced most country hitmakers from the 1960s and 1970s, including Lynn, Conway Twitty, Kitty Wells, Ernest Tubb, Patsy Cline and Brenda Lee, White expressed his own admiration.
"I've recorded tons of bands, and she's the best voice I've ever heard in person," White said about Lynn. "She can sing the daisies out of the ground."
Lynn's manager, Nancy Russell, first put the unlikely friends together after Russell learned White had dedicated The White Stripes' first album to the country singer.
Playboy's top editor exits
NEW YORK, April 23 (UPI) -- Jim Kaminsky has stepped down from his role as editorial director at Playboy, a position the former Maxim editor took just two years ago.
Hugh Hefner, Playboy founder and editor-in-chief, said Thursday Kaminsky will now develop special projects for the Chicago-based company, which, in addition to its namesake magazine, also has interests in online, licensing and cable TV ventures, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday.
Hefner, in a statement, praised Kaminksky for increasing newsstand sales and attracting new advertisers for the men's magazine.
"That was Jim's mission when he accepted his position with Playboy, and he has accomplished it," Hefner said.
During his tenure, Kaminsky was responsible for giving the magazine's format a makeover, with shorter, edgier articles and expanded lifestyle and products sections, as well as attracting new advertisers such as Tommy Hilfiger.
Playboy's newsstand sales rose 4.2 percent last year, but paid subscriptions fell 6.4 percent, for a total circulation decrease of 5.2 percent to 3.04 million.
