George Carlin’s Mark of Distinction
There once were seven words that you couldn’t say on TV. Luckily for George Carlin, you could say them on stage.
The 71-year-old comedian, whose half-century in stand-up has been spent pointing out the funnier foibles mankind has to offer, will receive the 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
The honor will be presented to the bearded society-skewerer Nov. 10 at the JFK Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The ceremony will later be televised on PBS.
Richard Pryor was the first comic to receive the award in 1998. Past honorees include Steve Martin, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and Lily Tomlin.
More presenters announced for the Tonys
CBS has secured even more celebrities to grace the stage at Radio City Music Hall next Sunday. Gabriel Byrne (In Treatment), Julie Chen (Big Brother), Harry Connick, Jr. (Will & Grace), Laurence Fishburne, Mandy Patinkin (Criminal Minds), David Hyde Pierce, Lily Tomlin and John Waters (Til Death Do Us Part) have been added as presenters. These actors and actresses (and, er, Julie Chen) will join an already stellar list of presenters and host Whoopi Goldberg.
I have to admit it. I’m getting a little excited for The Tonys. I usually find them boring. The performances are fantastic but the awards in between are a bit of a snore. However, this cast of presenters is intriguing. I’ll at least be flipping back and forth hoping to catch the performances and my favorite stars.
The 62nd Annual Tony Awards will be held on Sunday June 15th from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. ET on CBS.
Gary Cole cast in ABC’s Good Behavior
Have you noticed that there are some actors who just work constantly? They go from TV show to TV show, take a film role, do some voice over work, pop up here and there and never struggle to get a gig. (Maybe this should be a new TV award category — The Don’t Worry About His Next Paycheck Award?)
Anyway, you can put Gary Cole in that category. After playing the lethal Wayne Davis, Dana Delaney’s ex, on Desperate Housewives last season, Gary Cole has signed to play the father in Good Behavior, an ABC pilot starring Catherine O’Hara. Rob Thomas is creating Good Behavior, which is based on a New Zealand TV show called Outrageous Fortune, about a family of criminals who decide to go straight when the patriarch, that would be Gary, is busted and sent to jail for five years.
It’s also been revealed that Jeffrey Tambor will star in the pilot, playing Hy, Jackie West’s partner in a down and out pawn shop. Hopefully, this will morph into a long term, recurring role, something good so Tambor can make fans forget Welcome the The Captain and evoke memories of Arrested Development.
Back to Gary, he’s got a feature coming up this summer, Pineapple Express with Seth Rogan and James Franco. But on TV, he was also in 12 Miles of Bad Road, that Lily Tomlin hour comedy by Linda Bloodworth Thomason that HBO dropped recently. It’s being shopped around now and will emerge somewhere on the dial — there’s just too many talented people involved for it to remain unbroadcast. Who are the talent? Tomlin and Cole, are two. Then there’s Mary Kay Place (Mary Hartman, Mart Hartman), Leslie Jordan (Will and Grace), Kim Dickens (Lost), David Andrews (JAG), among others.
No Laugh-In Matter: Dick Martin Passes
Funnyman Dick Martin, best known as the cohost of the 1960s television hit Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, died Saturday in Santa Monica from respiratory complications. He was 86.
“He had had some pretty severe respiratory problems for many years, and he had pretty much stopped breathing a week ago,” said Martin family spokesman Barry Greenberg.
On the pioneering sketch show Laugh-In, which mined humor out of hippie culture and other topical issues of the late 1960s, goofball Martin and his straight-man other half, Dan Rowan, helped launch the careers of, among others, Lily Tomlin and Goldie Hawn.
Martin also starred as Lucille Ball’s neighbor and love interest in her comeback sitcom The Lucy Show and, after Laugh-In’s run ended in 1973, went on to direct several television shows, including Newhart and Family Ties. He also appeared on The Love Boat and Diagnosis Murder.
He is survived by his wife, Dolly Read, and sons Cary and Richard. Rowan died in 1987.