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PROMISED: Heather Locklear, 41, will star in NBC's new drama series set in an airport, Hub, to premiere this fall, reports The Washington Post. The paper adds that it would have instead preferred to have the Melrose Place and Spin City vixen added to the cast of the series that Hub will precede: The West Wing. (The Post thinks she'd make a good Secretary of Defense.) Meanwhile, NBC has canceled Whoopi, the ratings-challenged sitcom starring Whoopi Goldberg.
FILED: Santa Barbara District Attorney Thomas Sneddon and Deputy District Attorney Gerald Franklin Prosecutors have filed a court order in the California Supreme Court barring anyone involved in the Michael Jackson child-molestation case from talking about the upcoming trial. Their legal papers state that media interest in the case had resulted in what is "reported as 'fact'" becoming "the nucleus of intense speculation." Jackson, 45, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include child molestation and a new count of conspiracy to abduct a child.
APPRECIATED: Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 – a savage new critique of President Bush and his handling of Iraq and the war on terror – received a warm reception Monday at the Cannes Film Festival, reports Reuters. The screening, for press and critics, offered the first look at the controversial film, which the Walt Disney Company has refused to release and whose producers, Miramax, are buying back in order to offer the film to another distributor.
SUED: Rocky creator and star Sylvester Stallone, 57, has sued MGM and other producers of the planned boxing reality TV show The Real Rocky for allegedly improperly associating the project with his character, says the Hollywood Reporter. MGM reps could not be reached for comment.
DIED: Anna Lee, 91, whose nearly 70-year acting career spanned from her breakthrough role in How Green Was My Valley to an extended run as Lila Quartermaine on TV's General Hospital (which she played in a wheelchair for two decades, since she was in a car accident shortly after she took the role), died Friday of pneumonia. Her son said she had been ailing for the past several months and died at her home near Beverly Hills. … Prolific New Yorker magazine cartoonist Syd Hoff, also 91, died Wednesday at his home in Miami Beach, said a publicist for his book publisher. One of Hoff's best-known works was his 1958 Danny and the Dinosaur.
BEGUN: Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts on Monday, despite the efforts of that state's Gov. Mitt Romney to overturn the November court decision permitting it. As such, his state becomes the first to legalize such unions, and reports Monday said that city halls and town halls in the state are crowded with gay and lesbian applicants seeking marriage licenses.
