Strike 2? Hollywood braces for actor walkout (AP)

LOS ANGELES - Hollywood loves a good sequel, but here's one it could do without: Another union strike just months after the town got up and running again from a devastating walkout by writers.

The contract between the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expires Monday, and negotiations have dragged on for weeks with no apparent headway.

SAG leaders have said they are willing to continue talking beyond the contract deadline. Yet their hard-line rhetoric and a squabble with another actors union could put performers on the sidelines, taking electricians, set-builders, caterers and other Hollywood working stiffs along with them.

"If you're a below-the-line worker, your blood is probably running cold, because they're the ones that took the biggest hit from the writers strike," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., which estimates the WGA walkout cost the town $2.5 billion in lost wages and other revenue.

A strike in July -- or a potential actors lockout if producers decided to play tough -- could delay the return of many fall TV shows, which normally would be going back into production then.

With a longer lead time, big-screen movies generally are in good shape through the early part of summer 2009, with studios rushing to finish production on most films before the actors' contract expired.

A few films such as "The Hannah Montana Movie" and Tom Hanks' "Angels & Demons" could be forced to shut down if a strike occurred. A long walkout could postpone movies scheduled to start shooting late this summer and fall, including Russell Crowe's "Nottingham."

"The possibility of another strike, especially in this economy, has the town on edge, including the thousands of guild and crew members who are still recovering from the last strike," said Jesse Hiestand, spokesman for the producers alliance.

Big action films could ride out a short strike by turning to other work while actors were off. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer of next summer's sequel "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," said the filmmakers factored in a hiatus where they can get by without actors, working on visual effects instead.

But it would be another blow to an industry that remains in a stall after the writers strike.

"It's not been a complete shutdown, but everybody's been working at pretty minimal capacity the last nine months," di Bonaventura said. "The pain everybody felt over the last nine months certainly makes the prospect of another strike even more foreboding."

While the Writers Guild of America went on strike in general solidarity among members, SAG is a house divided. Its 120,000 members include 44,000 who also belong to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and leaders of the two unions are at each other's throats.

AFTRA, with 70,000 total members, negotiated a contract similar to ones writers and directors accepted this year. SAG is holding out for a better deal that many in Hollywood say it cannot realistically achieve in a business stung first by losses from the 100-day writers strike and now by studio stinginess amid the weak economy.

"Militancy has its moments," said James Cromwell, a former SAG board member who is among members of both unions urging AFTRA to approve the deal.

"Under the circumstances, with this town having just gone through a writers strike, militancy is useless," Cromwell said by phone from Shreveport, La., where he is co-starring as George H.W. Bush in Oliver Stone's "W."

While the unions traditionally have negotiated side by side, they split this time, and SAG leaders are actively campaigning to defeat AFTRA's contract, whose results are due July 8.

SAG is pushing for more money on DVD residuals, a raise producers have refused to give other Hollywood unions. Leaders of SAG also say the AFTRA contract shortchanges actors on potential revenue from Internet programming.

"When unions compete with different contract terms, actors lose. It starts a race to the bottom that SAG doesn't want to win," SAG chief negotiator Doug Allen said in a June 23 message asking actors who belong to both unions to vote against AFTRA's deal.

Along with Cromwell, actors such as Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey and Morgan Fairchild are among hundreds who have signed an agreement encouraging AFTRA members to approve the deal.

SAG, which accounts for about 90 percent of TV production and all of the film industry, insists it can strike a better bargain. But if the AFTRA deal goes through by a wide margin, it could undermine SAG's leaders, who might not be able to drum up the votes should they decide to ask members to authorize a strike.

"The worst thing you can do is to try to get it and fail," AFTRA President Roberta Reardon said. "It's hard to imagine a performer voting yes for one contract then voting to put himself out on the street for the other one."

Alexandra Leighton, a 28-year-old actress who appears in two episodes of the new CBS drama "Swingtown," said she is voting for the AFTRA deal and would oppose a SAG strike.

Leighton backs SAG's demand for tougher consent rules over use of an actor's image in online clips, but she said it was not worth losing her job -- her first acting gig outside of commercials.

"Too many people would be put out of work," Leighton said. "It's just not worth it. The economy is already iffy, and it would just crush the local economy."

It also could ruin some TV series. Audiences did without new episodes on many shows for months while writers were on strike. If actors walk and new episodes vanish again, fans could lose interest for good.

When writers returned in February, the feeling in Hollywood was that cooler heads among actors and producers would avert another strike. Optimism gradually eroded as the two actors unions began beating up on each other.

While SAG has struck deals to allow work to continue with many independent producers, studio production that accounts for most of Hollywood employment has been hurled into limbo.

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Associated Press Business Writer Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

NBC offers wide online access for Beijing Olympics (AP)

NEW YORK - NBC is making more than 2,200 hours of live competition from Beijing available online, giving Olympic junkies more action than they could ever devour in a day.

After barely tipping its toe in the digital world during past Olympics, the network will dive into the deep end: live blogging, 3,000 hours of highlights on demand, daily recaps and analysis and even fantasy league gaming. That's in addition to the 1,400 hours of coverage planned on six television networks, more than the combined total of every previous Summer Olympics.

NBC's digital plans, however, have angered media outlets that worry the company is being heavy-handed in enforcing its rights to exclusive Olympic access.

The network launched NBCOlympics.com in 2000, but then it offered only still pictures and schedule information to drive viewers to its television coverage. A limited package of highlights from Athens was available in 2004, but those visiting the NBC site were required to enter a credit card number, even though they weren't charged, and that drove away traffic.

NBC quietly experimented by beaming live over the Internet the hockey gold-medal game from the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. The change in scope to what it is offering this year is staggering.

"We're excited about what we are putting into the fingertips of the Olympics fan," said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics. "We think it will generate a tremendous amount of engagement. We think it will generate more television viewership."

That's the danger for a TV network that offers so much online content: that people will turn off the TV in favor of the computer. Zenkel said there was worry in the past as NBC increased the level of events available on television that saturation would drive down viewership, but it turned out not to be the case.

The Associated Press has an agreement with NBC to distribute video links to the network's content online.

The computer coverage will also play a clear secondary role to TV. No events that are scheduled to be televised will be available online until after they are seen on TV, said Perkins Miller, senior vice president for digital media at NBC Sports.

The Web site will offer a full TV viewers' guide, track medal standings and give real-time results. It will have bios of more than 10,000 athletes, NBC said.

"It's not that we aren't nervous," Zenkel said. "It's not that we haven't taken an enormous amount on. But we're up to it and we're going to perform as we always have in the past."

There's been some brewing tension about the rights of other media organizations to cover the event; NBC paid $3.5 billion to the International Olympics Committee to televise the five Olympics through Beijing. Other TV networks have a limited window in which to show Olympics highlights, but no video of Olympic events is permitted to be shown on any Web site besides NBCOlympics.com.

NBC has allowed video of Olympic trials events to be shown on other Web sites, but each site is required to link to NBCOlympics.com. All of that video must come down Aug. 7, the day before the Beijing Games start.

That's going to limit the ability of Swimming World magazine, which has a heavy online component, to offer material to its users, said Brent Rutemiller, the magazine's publisher. He's also upset that limits have been placed on where other organizations can interview athletes, and that they were extended to coaches and officials.

Zenkel said NBC was being fair to other organizations.

"NBC is the organization that paid a very significant rights fee for the exclusive rights to the Olympics and for that, the exclusivity will be protected," he said. "But it's not to the detriment of the Olympics fan. In fact, it's to their benefit."

Award-winning pianist Leonard Pennario dies at 83 (AP)

LOS ANGELES - Leonard Pennario, a Grammy-winning pianist and best-selling classical recording artist, has died. He was 83.

Pennario died Friday at his home in San Diego of complications from Parkinson's disease, said his biographer, Mary Kunz Goldman.

Pennario won a Grammy in the 1960s for his work with violinist Jascha Heifetz and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.

He was a passionate performer who enjoyed playing in front of audiences, said Kunz Goldman.

"'You have to play for the people; you have to play for an audience,'" she recalled Pennario saying. "'You can't just go into the studio and make records, you know?'"

Born in Buffalo on July 9, 1924, Pennario was 10 when he and his family moved to Los Angeles. At age 12, he learned the Grieg Concerto in a week so he could perform it from memory with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Pennario never attended a music conservatory but at 19 made his debut at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic.

He made more than 40 recordings for the Capitol record label between 1950 and 1960. He went on to make more than 20 more for other labels.

Reports: Model dies in fall from NYC building (AP)

NEW YORK - A European Vogue cover model fell to her death from her Manhattan apartment building Saturday in an apparent suicide, published reports said.

Ruslana Korshunova, 20, died around 2:30 p.m. in a fall from a building on Water Street, in Manhattan's Financial District, The New York Post, the Daily News and Newsday reported. The newspapers cited unnamed officials and police.

Police said the fall was under investigation. Korushnova's New York agency and a spokeswoman for medical examiners did not immediately return telephone messages.

Originally from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, the almond-eyed, flowing-haired Korshunova appeared in advertisements and on runways for such designers as Marc Jacobs, Nina Ricci and DKNY. British Vogue hailed her as "a face to be excited about" in 2005.

Her break came when modeling booker Debbie Jones noticed her while perusing an in-flight magazine article about Korushnova's hometown of Almaty, according to the Vogue report.

"She looked like something out of a fairytale!" Jones told the magazine. "We had to find her and we searched high and low until we did!"

(This version CORRECTS date of British Vogue piece to 2005, instead of 2003)

'American Idol' winner Ruben Studdard weds in Ala. (AP)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Former "American Idol" Ruben Studdard has married Surata Zuri McCants at a church in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. But there was no singing during the 30-minute ceremony -- just an exchange of vows, prayers and music provided by a string ensemble. A reporter from The Birmingham News attended the ceremony.

The groom, nicknamed the "Velvet Teddy Bear" on "Idol" for his big frame and sonorous voice, wore a black tuxedo with white bow tie for Saturday's ceremony. His bride wore a white and ivory wedding gown.

Alabama will be their home as the 29-year-old-singer gets set to release a new album later this year.

Amy Winehouse gives a good performance at Mandela concert

It was assumed that Amy Winehouse wouldn't make it to the big charity concert in London last night in honor of Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday. She was hospitalized for a chest infection last week that even major news outlets were speculating was "crack lung." Her own dad said she needed to quit smoking drugs, and claimed she was in the beginning stages of emphysema, which her rep later denied. Amy failed to show up at a photocall in advance of the concert but was seen out that day buying booze, so it was thought she would skip the show and get drunk and high instead.

Whatever happened to Amy, she did show up to perform last night. She looked together, she can still belt out a tune and her voice doesn't seem to have been affected by her medical issues.

Amy fiddled with her skirt while she performed and she looked like she was stumbling once or twice in her big heels, but her voice was powerful and she seemed in control of her faculties. She walked right down to the crowd at one point and she sure brought it. Amy performed "Rehab" and "Valerie" for the estimated 40,000-strong crowd.

Other performers last night included Queen, Razorlight, Leona Lewis, Josh Groban, Sugababes, Johnny Clegg and Annie Lennox. Proceeds went to benefit Mandela's 46664 AIDS charity. The former South African president turns 90 on July 18 and gave a brief but moving speech to the crowd. He said:

"Where there is poverty and sickness including AIDS, where human beings are being oppressed, there is more work to be done.

"Our work is for freedom for all.

"We say tonight after nearly 90 years of life, it is time for new hands to lift the burdens. It is in your hands now." [From AP via Huffington Post]

Here are some more videos from the night:

Bono and The Edge sing happy birthday remotely:



Nelson Mandela's speech



And a concert-goers video of Will Smith rapping with Jada. He does "Fresh Prince of Bel Air." Man I can't hate on this guy.



Thanks to WENN for these photos from the show last night. Also shown are Leona Lewis, Emcee Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Nelson Mandela and Graca Machel Mandela, Sugababes, Geri Halliwell, Jamelia, Quincy Jones, Annie Lennox, and Prince William's girlfriend Kate Middleton.

Did Kabbalah end Madonna?s marriage?

It’s probably technically not fair – or at least accurate – to already be speculating about what ended Madonna’s marriage to Guy Ritchie. I mean they haven’t actually announced anything yet. But it seems about as close to a done deal as you can get without actually releasing a press release. Rumors about marriage tensions have dogged the couple for… well practically since the beginning of their marriage. Not because there necessarily were problems for the start; I think it’s just that most people couldn’t fathom the man that could be married to someone like Madonna.

Most of us gossip watchers learned long ago not to give too much credibility to rumors about marriage troubles. But things have really heated up in the past month, with Madonna bringing her family to New York – and no Guy in sight. Then word came out that she had consulted several prominent divorce attorneys – and he has too.

The Sun claims that Kabbalah is what put a big strain on the power couple’s marriage.

Guy Ritchie and Madonna’s marriage has been thrown deeper into meltdown after he told her he’s quitting Kabbalah. Madge has become increasingly involved with the mystical Jewish religion, but her film director husband is a step closer to hitting the road after losing his faith. Friends say his recent revelation has widened the gap between the pair, who are leading separate lives despite officially remaining man and wife.

Now a source close to the couple has revealed: “Guy has turned his back on Kabbalah once and for all. “He has gone hot and cold on the religion in the past, but now he’s given up on it altogether. It has always been her thing and is more a part of her life than ever. Guy threw himself into it at first and even filled his movie Revolver with obscure references to the faith.

“He was genuinely into it and it helped the bond between them. But then he backtracked a little with his gestures of public backing, like wearing the bracelet, because he didn’t like being such a high-profile follower. He also became suspicious of all the Kabbalah crowd living off her money. But he always told Madonna he had kept his faith — until now.

“A few weeks ago he told her he doesn’t want anything else to do with it. It didn’t go down well.”

[From The Sun]

Of all the people I’d be afraid to piss off; Madonna’s got to be at the top of the list. I would seriously, seriously consider lying about my religion before I’d consider making those muscles angry. Ethics be damned. Frankly I’m surprised she and guy haven’t gone ahead and released a statement about their inevitable parting and how they still love each other and will remain best friends. But I’ll bet we’ll have one to write about within the next two weeks. Or a fortnight, as Madge would say.

Here’s Madonna arriving for Kabbalah in New York City without a wedding ring on last night. Images thanks to Splash.