First Law & Order got the axe, but now actors are defecting from L&O: SVU and it looks like the real life sexual victims unit, which counsels rape victims and collects evidence of sexual assault at the city's 11 hospitals, might get canceled as well.
Gawker.TV claims Your Work Can Wait. However, if one has no work to put off and is obsessed with entertainment, being an extra is a decent way to make cash. In this economic climate, a TV junkie could do worse.
Arpad "Arki" Busson sneaking out of ex-fiancée Uma Thurman's Village townhouse yesterday, shortly before Thurman made her exit as well ... Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie running errands in Midtown during the day and heading into Alto on Madison Avenue for dinner ... Catherine Zeta-Jones leaving her apartment building ... Kelly Ripa getting in a cab with her son ... Kathy Griffin shooting scenes for Law & Order: SVU with Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay ... Jessica Szohr walking to the set of Gossip Girl at Silvercup Studios in Queens ... Jessica and Ashlee Simpson going to dinner last night ... Katharine McPhee arriving at her hotel ... and Jersey Shore's Snooki and J-Woww posing for pics in the Flatiron District.
Julianne Moore standing on a subway platform waiting for a downtown train ... a spiffy-looking Kiefer Sutherland walking in SoHo ... Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni filming scenes for Law & Order: SVU in Murray Hill ... Sarah Jessica Parker arriving at her townhouse in the West Village ... Teri Hatcher posing for photographers outside the Late Show with David Letterman in Midtown ... Ashlee Simpson walking to her apartment downtown, and later clowning around with husband Pete Wentz by walking in Union Square wearing Halloween masks.
Olivia Palermo walking in the West Village ... Anna Wintour leaving Monkey Bar ... Hayden Panettiere leaving her hotel ... Chris Meloni eating at Pastis ... Pierce Brosnan carrying coffee on the set of Remember Me in Queens ... Kristin Cavallari arriving at MTV's studios ... Michelle Trachtenberg talking on her cell phone in the meatpacking district ... Wentworth Miller and Mariska Hargitay shooting scenes for Law and Order: SVU ... Columnist George F. Will having lunch with a young blonde woman at Extra Virgin in the West Village ... and Taylor Momsen sipping Diet Coke on the set of Gossip Girl.
• Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick took home their adopted twin daughters, Marion and Tabitha, last week. Now they've released a photo of the whole family. Cute! And a nice palate cleanser after all the sordid Michael Jackson news the past few days, no? [People]
• Speaking of grim details from the Jackson case, here's what you may have missed over the last day or so: The doctor at Jackson's house couldn't call 911 for more than half an hour because he couldn't find a working phone (Jackson disconnected them for "privacy reasons); drugs, insiders says, were most likely the cause of death (duh); and Jackson's last will, which dates back to 2002, provided for his kids and mom, but cut his father out completely. [TMZ]
The Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center hosted its second annual Spring Ball at the Plaza on Tuesday night. More than 350 people turned out for the NBC Universal-sponsored event, including NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker and his wife Caryn (left), Mort Zuckerman, Robert De Niro and Grace Hightower, Julia and David Koch, Tory Burch and Lyor Cohen, Hilary Geary and Wilbur Ross, Jonathan and Somers White Farkas, Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss, Peter and Jamee Gregory, Ginny and Tiki Barber, Sherman and Chris Meloni, Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford, Hoda Kotb, Peggy Siegal, Natalie Morales, Valesca Guerrand Hermes, Jennifer Creel, Renee Rockefeller, Alexandra Lebenthal and Jay Diamond, Danielle Ganek, Kimberly Kravis, Muffie Potter Aston, Hilary Gumbel, Dr. Harold Varmus, Dennis Basso, Heather Mnuchin, Anne Grauso, Sylvester and Gillian Miniter, Gigi Mortimer, Sara Ayres, Shafi Roepers, Leslie Jones, and LL Cool J. [PMc, Wireimage, NYSD]
• Is Billy Joel planning to split up with Katie Lee? That's what the Enquirer is claiming this week, suggesting that Katie's "cozy relationship" with "hunky designer" Yigal Azrouel has caused Billy to consider dumping her. But not until his tour ends in November, which doesn't make much sense. [National Enquirer]
• A New Jersey man says Bruce Springsteen caused the breakup of his marriage. In divorce papers, he alleges Bruce and his estranged wife have been having an affair since the two met up at a local gym more than a year ago. [Star]
• Michael Phelps "skeeved out onlookers" at Marquee on Tuesday by drinking straight from a bottle of vodka and "dancing like a loon," all while making out with his cocktail waitress girlfriend. [NYDN]
• Breaking! Brad Pitt took sons Maddox and Pax to a Dunkin Donuts in Oyster Bay yesterday morning just like a "regular guy." [Star]
Law & Order: SVU's Chris Meloni turns 48 today. CNN president Jonathan Klein is 51. Cardinal Edward Egan is turning 77. Femininst author Camille Paglia turns 62. Book editor Jonathan Karp is 45. Maroon 5's Jesse Carmichael turns 30. Emmylou Harris is turning 62. And Rodney King, victim of the LAPD and a member of the cast of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, is 44 today.
The Savannah College of Art and Design held its Style Etoile Awards at the James Cohan Gallery on Monday night. The evening's honorees included Russell Simmons, Amanda Burden, Cornelia Guest, Robin Givhan, and William Ivey Long (left), and attendees at the event included Cynthia Rowley, Agnes Gund, Michael Fink, Yigal Azrouël, Mario Buatta, Bobby Zarem, music exec Michael Mauldin and his wife Judy, producer Tom Fontana, SCAD president Paula Wallace, Ann Slater, designer Lars Nilsson, and Russell's brother and girlfriend—Danny Simmons and Julie Henderson. [PMc, Wireimage, WWD, NYSD]
Click through for more pics of some of the famous faces in the front row at Fashion Week over the weekend.
Julianne Moore carrying stuff in the West Village ... Hugh Jackman pushing his daughter on a swing at the park ... Uma Thurman leaving her townhouse in the Village ... Albert Hammond Jr. and Agyness Deyn walking on University Place ... Mariska Hargitay holding Chris Meloni's arm on the set of Law & Order ... Diane Kruger walking by herself in Tribeca ... Michael J. Fox sitting inside an SUV in Midtown ... and Jude Law walking with daughter Iris and son Rudy.
Strangers With Candy was a comedy about a damaged user, boozer, and loser who returns to high school in her late 40's to engage in a lesbian relationship with a teenage girl named Tamela. Law & Order: SVU is about heinous sex crimes and the dogged, perpetually too-close-to-the-case detective who investigates them. So it makes perfect sense then that the two stars of those shows, Amy Sedaris and Christopher Meloni, would team up with Candy creator Paul Dinello to make a TV movie for kiddie network Nickelodeon. The pair will star in Gym Teacher: The Movie, about a has-been gymnast (Meloni) who catches the fancy of Sedaris' principal when he takes a job at her school. Mollygood hails this as the return of adult-friendly Nick fare, like the late Pete & Pete. We just pray it's as darkly subversive as its cast suggests. (Though, we dejectedly doubt it will be.) Meloni can be funny, as was evidenced in Wet, Hot, American Summer, and Sedaris, well, she's a Sedaris. Here's hoping for some winky winky child abuse/murder jokes. The kids love those! Oh, and, um, David Alan Grier is in it.
Best known for his role as hotheaded detective Elliot Stabler on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Meloni has recently traded in his badge for a set of pointed teeth on True Blood.
· Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni sign on for two more years of Law & Order: Sexy Victims Unit (that's what it's called, right? We get so confused.), getting pay raises that catapult them into the rarefied territory of Charlie Sheen-level remuneration. [Variety]
· Fox files a subpoena trying to uncover the identity of the scofflaw who posted entire episodes of The Simpsons and 24 on the YouTubes; if successful, parent company News Corp. will petition to have the pirate punished by being locked in a MySpace chat window with a known sexual predator to teach him (or her) a lesson about abusing the power of the internet. [THR]
· Eddie Murphy is in talks to star in the Paramount comedy NowhereLand, though it's unclear from the project's brief description where the star's contractually mandated opportunity to disappear into a latex fat suit will come. [Variety]
· The American Idol Nielsen h-bomb flattens competing network Nagasakis and incinerates the minds of 36.9 million helpless TV victims. [THR]
· Condo-hopping dealmakers compete to make thrilling Sundance acquisitions into the wee hours. [Variety]
