Turn On:
Performers including Al Green, Elton John, B.B. King, Stevie Wonder, Norah Jones and Mary J. Blige pay tribute to the late, great Ray Charles Friday night with "Genius: A Night for Ray Charles" (9 p.m. ET, CBS)
Morning Briefing:
Martha makes prison lemonade: Not only is Martha Stewart reportedly passing the time in the clink by whipping up new recipes using limited ingredients from the prison commissary with a group of her fellow inmates -- and taking notes about her experiences on a prison-issue typewriter -- but she's also managed to close a major deal from the inside. Lloyd Grove's Lowdown reports that the plucky prisoner has closed her deal with Mark Burnett to create and star in her own reality show when she returns to the outside world. Burnett, however, is playing it close to the vest, commenting, "Out of respect for Martha and out of respect for the legal system, I can't and won't talk about business with Martha, because it's not appropriate." (Lloyd Grove's Lowdown)
Never too late? Even after all the headlines and massive page views, Andrea Mackris, the Fox associate producer who has accused Bill O'Reilly of sexually harassing her, is apparently still nursing hopes of settling her suit quietly. According to the New York Daily News, Mackris' lawyer, Benedict Morelli, has made an overture to the Fox camp to meet back at the table by asking Court TV anchor Lisa Bloom to suggest a settlement to Bo Dietl, a private eye who has been working for O'Reilly's side, when Dietl appeared on Bloom's show this week. A Court TV spokeswoman denied Bloom's involvement, but Morelli says, "We always wanted to settle this in private and it's always an option." (N.Y. Daily News)
Also: As if they haven't suffered enough, U.S. troops in Baghdad were entertained on Tuesday by Wayne Newton, singing "Danke Schoen" (Associated Press) ... Thousands of New Yorkers were recently awoken at 3 a.m. by a phone call of Fran Drescher's recorded voice reminding them to get regular cancer checkups; the PSAs were supposed to go out at 3 p.m., but someone messed up (Page Six) ... Liza Minnelli reportedly gave a drunken, incoherent, meandering speech in the middle of a party for OutKast's upcoming movie musical in Wilmington, N.C., and had to be bailed out midsentence by the members of Fishbone. A local paper commented that it was "not Miss Minnelli's finest moment" (Page Six) ... A Christian group, the Traditional Values Coalition, has labelled Wynonna Judd "disgraceful" for agreeing to perform on a lesbian cruise (Jeannette Walls via Page Six) ... Prince Harry has told Prince Charles that he's "extremely sorry" about his scuffle with a photographer outside a nightclub early Thursday morning (Mail and Guardian Online) ... Bono has announced that a briefcase full of notes and lyrics for U2's 1981 album "October," which have been missing since that year, have been returned intact (Associated Press) ... And a new poll by the Pere Partnership ad agency has determined that a candidate endorsed by Paris Hilton would actually lose votes: 31 percent of those polled said they would vote for the candidate Hilton did not endorse (Rush and Molloy)
Money Quotes:
Not particularly shocking disclosure from a new biography of Jack Nicholson, "Jack: The Great Seducer," in the words of one of his female conquests: "He could make love all night long. I stopped counting at seven." (Rush and Molloy)
Slightly more surprising disclosure from Tommy Lee in his new autobiography, "Tommyland," about the part of a woman's body he finds most attractive: "The very first thing I look at on a woman is her toes. I'm totally telling the truth." (ABC News)
-- Amy Reiter
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