- Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Cowboys, stetsons, bucking broncos and J.R. masks — it could only be the arrival of “Dallas” in London.

Stars Larry Hagman, Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy were at a Southfork Ranch outpost by the River Thames on Tuesday night to launch the rebooted soap with a big Texan party.

The younger generation of actors — Jesse Metcalfe, Josh Henderson, Jordana Brewster and Julie Gonzalo — also was there.

After success in the U.S., the first season of the new “Dallas” TV series will be shown in the U.K. beginning Sept. 5.

Mr. Duffy, who plays Bobby Ewing, says it was British audiences who helped the show become a hit the first time around when they adopted the nighttime soap and made it popular around the world.

He’s hoping they’ll do the same with the relaunched version.

Paltrow, Roberts, Damon set for cancer telethon

An A-list cast of celebrities is joining a telethon to raise money and awareness to fight cancer.

Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Samuel L. Jackson and Emma Stone are among the stars participating in the third Stand Up to Cancer telethon, the organization announced Wednesday.

Miss Paltrow also is an executive producer for the fundraiser that will be carried commercial-free from 8 to 9 p.m. Sept. 7 on the four major broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, and more than a dozen cable channels.

Musical performances by Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Alicia Keys and Tim McGraw are planned, and more than 25 movie, TV and sports stars will be on hand to take phone pledges, executive producer Joel Gallen said.

Laura Ziskin, founder of Stand Up to Cancer and producer of its first two telethons in 2008 and 2010, lost her seven-year fight against breast cancer last year. The “Spider-Man” movie producer was 61.

Ziskin represents “tremendous shoes to fill,” Mr. Gallen said. “I can’t really replace Laura, but I’m coming from a different point of view, from a respectful point of view, and continuing the mission she was on.”

Hope is the theme for this year’s telethon, Mr. Gallen said. It will include information on how to prevent cancer and on the treatment research funded by Stand Up to Cancer, also known as SU2C.

The experiences of several patients who are part of Stand Up to Cancer trials will be explored in minidocumentaries that show the progress made in just a few years of effort, Mr. Gallen said.

The organization said it has awarded about $120 million in grant commitments to multidisciplinary research “Dream Teams” and to scientists seeking innovative approaches to end cancer’s role as the world’s leading cause of death.

Of the $180 million-plus that has been pledged, some larger donations are being made over a period of several years, a spokeswoman said.

Katie Couric, who joined with Ziskin and other women in the entertainment industry to found Stand Up to Cancer, will appear in the telethon. Others taking part include Jessica Biel, Jeremy Renner, Seth Rogen, Masi Oka, Simon Baker and Rashida Jones.

Ms. Couric lost her husband to colon cancer, while Miss Paltrow’s late father, director Bruce Paltrow, had oral cancer. Some participants, such as Michael Douglas, have fought the disease themselves.

Cable channels carrying the telethon are BIO, Encore, HBO, Showtime, HBO Latino, ION Television, LMN, Logo, MLB Network, mun2, Palladia, Starz, TBS, Smithsonian and VH1.

International nominees for Emmys announced

Television productions that explored the children orphaned by Haiti’s devastating earthquake and took viewers aboard a boat smuggling refugees from North Africa to the Italian island of Lampedusa are among the nominees for International Emmy Awards in the current affairs and news categories.

The eight nominees from seven countries announced Tuesday include “Haiti’s Orphans: One Year After the Earthquake” on Canada’s CBC Television and “Extra: The RTL Magazine — The Merciless Traffic in the Flight From Africa” from Germany’s infoNetwork GmbH in the current affairs category.

Brazil’s TV Globo had two nominations for “Profession: Reporter — Children and Drugs: A Childhood Overtaken by Addiction” in current affairs and “Jornal Nacional — Rains in the Mountain Region of Rio” in news on the heavy rains and landslides in January 2011 that caused the worst natural disaster in Brazil’s history.

The other nominees in the news category were Japan’s NHK for its coverage of the March 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami; Qatar’s Al-Jazeera for its reporting on the Libyan uprising and fall of Tripoli; and Russia’s RT Channel for its reports on the global Occupy movement that began in New York’s financial district.

The other current affairs nominee was “China Dolls — Fragile Bodies, Strong Minds” from Hong Kong’s Phoenix Satellite Television Co. Ltd. about the struggles of two Chinese families afflicted by the rare brittle bone disease.

“The 2012 nominees present a powerful showcase of the human, political and socio-economic drama unfolding daily around the world,” said Bruce L. Paisner, president and CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, in a news release.

The winners will be announced at an Oct. 1 ceremony in New York.

LL Cool J detains burglary suspect in his home

LL Cool J plays a special agent on TV’s “NCIS: Los Angeles,” and now he’s caught an actual bad guy.

Los Angeles police say the rapper grabbed and held a burglary suspect at his Studio City home Wednesday morning.

Police got a 911 call shortly before 1 a.m. from someone who said her father had spotted an intruder in their home and was holding him downstairs.

“There was a prowler at his residence whom he confronted in the kitchen. There was a physical confrontation briefly between the two of them,” LAPD spokesman Richard French said.

A 58-year-old man was taken to the hospital and was expected to be arrested on suspicion of burglary. His identity wasn’t released but there was no indication that he knew LL Cool J or had a personal vendetta, Mr. French said.

“He appeared to be a homeless person,” Mr. French said.

A representative for LL Cool J said the 44-year-old and his family were not hurt and he is cooperating with police. Nothing was apparently stolen from his home.

• Compiled from Web reports.

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