Spears has previous TV sitcom experience playing a character on a 2006 episode of Will & Grace. She was also the host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live in May 2000.
Madonna, John Mellencamp, Philly soul producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, literate songwriter Leonard Cohen, British rockers the Dave Clark Five, and surf instrumentalists the Ventures were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Monday night in New York.
Among all the recollections and praise, it was Justin Timberlake’s induction speech for Madonna that had tongues wagging.
He recalled feeling ill one day while working on Madonna’s new album and she asked whether he wanted a vitamin B-12 shot. He said sure, expecting a doctor to show up, but Madonna pulled out a syringe and said, “drop ‘em.”
After he pulled his pants back up, “she looked at me and said, ‘That’s top shelf,’ and that was one of the greatest days of my life,” he said.
Ten actors from the HBO series The Wire watched the series finale with one of its biggest fans – Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.
The mayor hosted a screening of the final episode at City Hall on Sunday that was attended by about 100 people.
The story told in the Baltimore-based drama is much the same in Philadelphia.
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Nutter praised the series for showing big-city problems realistically.
“I’ve learned a great deal,” Nutter said. “It gives a lot of insight into a lot of different people.”
HBO has picked up a television series based on Alexander McCall Smith’s book The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and its popular sequels, which relate the adventures of Precious Ramotswe, a no-nonsense investigator who runs a detective agency in Botswana.
A two-hour pilot, starring Jill Scott (Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?), recently was filmed on location in Botswana, directed by Anthony Minghella, who co-wrote the script with Richard Curtis. HBO, in partnership with the Weinstein Co. and the BBC, ordered 13 additional one-hour episodes of the series, which will begin filming this summer.
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