The Real Housewives of New York City’s Sonja Morgan has been charged with drunk driving, People reports. The 46-year-old reality star was pulled over by authorities Monday morning in Southampton, N.Y after neglecting to stop at a stop sign and failing sobriety tests.
Her forthcoming court date has not been made public.
Friends and co-stars of Rue McClanahan have begun pouring out their tributes to the late actress. Read below to see what some of the actress’ best pals had to say about the Golden Girl.
Betty White, who co-starred with McClanahan on Golden Girls: “Rue was a close and dear friend. I treasured our relationship. It hurts more than I even thought it would, if that’s possible.”
Paul Junger Witt, executive producer of Golden Girls: “When a series is on as long as we were, with the same unit of people who have worked together for seven to eight years, you do become a family. A loss becomes very personal. It’s a very sad day. When shows come to an end, that’s a period of mourning. But to lose the ladies that we have — we still have Betty, thank God, who’s a treasure. But it’s a real loss. The afterlife of the show has been so extraordinary. Women are still visiting [the show] in their living rooms all over the world. Watching the four of those ladies work was certainly the highlight of those years. Every day to get to watch these four consummate performers, there’s nothing like it. She was an intuitively funny person. She was a force of joy for all of us. And we miss her already.”
Norman Lear, creator of All in the Family and Maude: “I saw her off-Broadway and I brought her out here for Maude. This was one of the loveliest, funniest, most grounded…I don’t have good enough words for her. There are wonderful actors who can do comedy, and there are wonderful actors who can do comedy who are also funny. Rue was funny walking into a room. Her earlobes were funny. Her knuckles were funny. She was just funny.”
Vicki Lawrence, who starred alongside McClanahan on Mama’s Family: “Rue was a consummate professional, an actors’ actor. It was my good fortune to get the chance to work with her during the first season-and-a-half of Mama’s Family. When she got stolen away from Mama’s Family to do The Golden Girls, I cried.”
Marc Cherry, Desperate Housewives creator and one-time writer for The Golden Girls: “When I worked on The Golden Girls, my favorite character to write for was Blanche Devereaux. In the hands of lesser actresses, Blanche’s vanity and sexual appetite would have been off-putting. But in Rue’s brilliant hands, that character became one of the most beloved in the history of TV. Rue’s kindness, generosity, and enormous talent will be sorely missed.”
Leslie Jordan, who co-starred with McClanahan on Logo’s Sordid Lives: The Series: “I got really close in the twilight of Rue’s life. She’s one of the true Southern ladies. She showed up in Shreveport, La. to play my mother on the series Sordid Lives with a portable sewing machine, and she wanted to make her own hats. She just said, ‘I just think that this lady would have made beautiful Sunday hats.’ We got so close, though, Rue and I. We did a tour of comedy from the show. She was in a wheelchair, I think after a hip replacement, and rather than stand-up comedy, she called it sit-down comedy. Honey, we wheeled her out [and] I thought we were going to have to get the hook! We said, ‘You have 20 minutes.’ Well, she had that audience on the palm of her hands. From the moment they wheeled her out. I thought, how are we going to get her off the stage? It was watching a master at her craft. She was Southern, and a storyteller, and she had a story for any occasion. Oh, she was something. One night, she came to me and said, ‘I just had a fight with my husband.’ I said, ‘About what, Rue?’ She was very upset, she said, ‘Well, we were watching Everyone Loves Raymond, and my husband said that he liked Patricia Heaton’s acting. And I said, yes, she’s a good actress, but her posture is terrible. And my husband said, “Oh, you always have something to say.” But I was just commenting that a lady should have good posture!’ So she’s fighting with her husband about Patricia Heaton’s posture. And I thought, that’s Rue right there. There are ways we handle ourselves. You can be a wonderful actress, but you have to have good posture as well. She was a lady, but she was a bawdy lady too. She could get down with the best of us. She was filthy. She will really be missed.” READ FULL STORY »
On June 2, Oscar winner Kevin Costner, 55, greeted baby girl Grace Avery, his third child with wife Christine Baumgartner Costner, reports People. The actor-director’s brood now totals seven kids, ranging up to 25 years old.
Joe Jackson, father of the late Michael Jackson, announced that he will renew efforts to build a $300 million museum and performing arts center in honor of his son in the family’s hometown of Gary, Ind., reports the Associated Press. According to Jackson, the project, dubbed the Jackson Family Museum and Hotel and the Michael Jackson Performing Arts and Cultural Center and Theaters, will be funded by the Jackson Family Foundation and the city of Gary. However, a lack of financial details has made some locals skeptical that the idea will ever get off the ground. Michael Jackson originally announced plans for the center in 2003 but made no real progress toward creating it before his death and left no provisions for it in his will. “The Estate of Michael Jackson was never consulted about, nor is it involved in, the Jackson Family museum being proposed in Gary, Indiana,” Jackson’s lawyer said in a statement to the AP. Neither Joe Jackson nor Gary Mayor Rudy Clay provided specifics on how much money the city of Gary and the Jackson Family Foundation would be able to put into the project.
John Mayer has cancelled shows in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Madrid and Manchester this week due to illness, the singer-songwriter announced on his website yesterday. The short statement goes on to say that Mayer is returning to the U.S., and “a full recovery is expected under a doctor’s supervision.”
Gary Coleman’s former lawyer claims the actor was divorced from Shannon Price at the time of his death on May 28, People reports. Randy Kester claims the pair’s marriage ended on Aug. 12, 2008, which raises questions about Price’s legal right to take Coleman off life support. “We’re definitely concerned about this and we’re looking into what exactly happened here,” Janet Frank, a spokesperson for the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center — the hospital in which Coleman passed away — told People. “Shannon certainly portrayed herself as his wife to our staff and doctors. We assumed she was telling the truth. We can’t comment on specific details in Mr. Coleman’s case, but in general, any patient on life support is thoroughly evaluated medically before life support is ended.”
Kester claims it is possible that Coleman gave Shannon permission in writing at the hospital to make medical decisions for him. As for Coleman’s family, the actor’s mother told People, “It’s too early for us to comment on this. Of course we’re concerned, but we need to find out more information.” Price could not be reached for comment.
In a 911 recording released today, Gary Coleman’s wife is heard telling a dispatcher that the actor was bleeding from the back of his head, and that he suffered the injury after falling down in their Utah home. Shannon Price, Coleman’s wife, rang the emergency number two days before Coleman’s May 28 death. Says Price during the call: “I just don’t want him to die…I’m freaking out, like, really bad.”
Price said during the call that she was not in the same room when Coleman apparently fell, and only heard a “big bang.” “Send someone quick because I don’t know if he’s, like, gonna be alive cause there’s a lot of blood on the floor,” she says in the tape. Read more in the AP‘s report.
People reports actress Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon filed for divorce from husband Michael Nilon one May 10. The filing, which cites irreconcilable differences, comes one month after the actress accused Nilon of cheating. The couple has two children, 2-year-old twins Jax and Jaid.
According to the AP, Val Kilmer is set to appear before a board of county commissioners in New Mexico on June 23 to explain derogatory comments he’d been quoted making about the state in a 2003 Rolling Stone profile. That story quoted Kilmer as saying he lives in the “homicide capital of the Southwest” and that 80 percent “of the people in my county are drunk.” Kilmer, who has denied the comments, is asking the county to approve a permit that would enable him to rent out three guest houses on his ranch. The request has been approved, but the county commission still asks that he explain those earlier statements.
Charlie Sheen has reached an agreement with Colorado authorities regarding charges of domestic violence against his wife, Brooke Mueller Sheen. According to the Associated Press, Chief Deputy District Attorney Arnold Mordkin confirmed an agreement, and Mueller Sheen’s attorney, Yale Galanter, told KMGH-Denver that “there has definitely been a deal reached…. Brooke is totally satisfied with the deal but if she had her druthers, the case would have been dismissed.” The details of the agreement, including whether Sheen will serve any jailtime, remain undisclosed, although The Hollywood Reporter indicates Sheen could serve 30 days in exchange for changing his plea from not guilty to no contest. Sheen had been accused of menacing, criminal mischief and assault related to a Christmas Day dispute with his wife in Aspen, Colo.
